From the moment I saw Jon Tan’s personal site I got smitten by its ravishing though perhaps somewhat esoteric simplicity. Right away I clicked on my FireBug icon and started the investigation. The more time I was spending with jontangerine under my “microscope” the more amazed I was getting with all those hidden gems that were so brilliantly put together to form an enjoyable user experience on this site.

Previously I featured jontangerine’s footer in my 16 bits of amazing footers. But it’s just one of the inspiring bits that Jon’s site has to offer.

The Hound of the Baskervilles

One of the first details that caught my eye on this meticulously designed site was the elegant ampersand that’s joining “pith & pulp” next to the logo. The interesting part was that it’s not an image, but a plain text. A quick trip to CSS section in the FireBug revealed that it’s been achieved with the use of the Baskerville font in italic:

font-family:baskerville,palatino,'palatino linotype', georgia,serif;
font-style:italic;

It was the first time I’ve learned that Baskerville and Palatino belong to the web-safe fonts list. And then to my surprise I’ve discovered that even the funky jontangerine logo itself is not an image but a “type folly” — a clever manipulation of type and CSS.

Textured Tangerine

Despite sticking largely to a monochromatic scheme Jon enhances the black & white colour scheme with various shades of grey and a delicious pinch of orange on link hovers.

Another thing that jumps at you is the use of small-caps for the links, menu titles, first lines and in the preface. An interesting detail about the links is that they’re underlined not with the usual text-decoration but the border-bottom property that allows extra customization like the thickness of the border, the style and colour:

{
border-bottom:0.071em solid #A9A9A0;
color:#000000;
font-variant:small-caps;
text-decoration:none;
}


While the base font and most of the site’s content is displayed in Georgia, the headlines are set in Baskerville and the section headings in each article are beautifully accentuated in Baskverille Italic.

It’s the little details that count

Once you click on an article link you’ll get to a few more pleasant discoveries in titles, drop caps and first lines. You see, post titles on jontangerine are displayed not above the post as most of us are accustomed to see and use but on the top left part of the article’s content. Constrained by width:6.5em and floated to the left those headlines look like they came down from a magazine pages. The drop caps and the first line’s styling in all caps reinforce once again that same association.

Elastic beauty

Last, but certainly not least, if you want to see an example of an elastic site made right, look no further – Jon Tan’s site is the perfect case study for that. Everything on jontangerine is set in em, from the text to padding and margins, to border sizes and images. This allows to increase/decrease the size of all elements on the site. To see it in action, go to jontangerine and simply toggle between Ctrl+(Command+) and Ctrl- (Command-) to change the size of the text and images.

The default font size here is set to 1em and all other elements are accordingly proportioned. Here’s the code for the main image that usually comes before the post’s content:

{
margin:1.571em 0pt 0pt;
width:29.857em;
}

Fortunately, Jon has written an excellent tutorial on how to build elastic sites and convert pixels to ems, so hopefully we’ll see more user-friendly elastic sites on the Web.

Here’s an example of some styles used on the home page:

And here are the styles for the article on the single page:

There’s much more precious things lurking behind the scenes of Jon’s site, but I rather leave them up to you to discover. I think I’ve covered the major elements, let me know if I missed anything important.

Hope you find this web typography series useful. Would you like me to continue the “investigation” of sites with beautiful typography, or have you had enough for now? ;-)

Is it true that it’s only when we’re inspired we outperform ourselves: write an outstanding article or the most beautiful song, take the best photo or design a stunning ad or a web site? How does inspiration change us, how does it make us feel?
Whenever I see a magnificent work of art, read an exquisite piece of literature or hear a magnificent musical composition, I’m not only greatly influenced by it, but also curiously trying to find out what has inspired the creator to produce such a gem.

Music is one of the most essential sources of inspiration. We often like working with the headphones on or the music blasting from the speakers. For quite some time I wanted to put together a list of songs inspired by real people. I’m sure there are many of such songs, but here are my 8 sound bits. I’ve linked all of them to the video clips on YouTube so you can watch and listen to some of the most beautiful songs inspired by and dedicated to real people.

Vincent

Lyrics | Video

This song by Don McLean has always been at the top of my all time favourite songs list. I’ve already written a bit about having a soft spot for Vincent Van Gogh, and this song like no other biographical book about the artist deeply touches my heart.
Don McLean’s admiration for Van Gogh is expressed with every word in the lyrics. He masterfully describes the artist’s famous paintings: Starry Night’s “swirling clouds in violet haze”, Sunflowers are the “flaming flowers that brightly blaze”, self-portraits are the “weathered faces lined in pain”.

You took your life as lovers often do
But I could have told you, Vincent,
this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you…

Shine on You Crazy Diamond

Lyrics | Video

This epic composition from Pink Floyd’s album Wish You Were Here was written by Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Richard Wright as a tribute to their former founding band member Syd Barrett. There are many stories about the reasons behind Syd Barrett’s leave from Pink Floyd, I won’t be talking about neither of them. There is however a consensus in Barrett’s creative genius mind: he wrote most of Pink Floyd’s early material and his innovative guitar playing techniques created those mysterious sounds that became associated with the group.
A puzzling story is linked with the actual song Shine on You Crazy Diamond, it is said that during the band’s rehearsal a strange man walked into the studio, and it took some time for Pink Floyd members to recognize Syd Barrett. “At that time, Barrett had gained a lot of weight and had shaved off all of his hair, including his eyebrows, and the seven-year gap meant that it took some time for his ex-band mates to identify him.”

Come on you target for faraway laughter,
come on you stranger, you legend,
You martyr, and shine!

Englishman In New York

Lyrics | Video

Sting dedicated this song to Quentin Crisp, an English writer, model, actor, who became a gay icon in the 1970s after the TV adaptation of his autobiography, The Naked Civil Servant. Sting has worked with Crisp in the 1985 movie “The Bride”. In 1986 Sting visited Crisp in New York and was astounded by his stories of “what life had been like for a homosexual man in the homophobic Great Britain of the 1920s to the 1960s”. That meeting has inspired Sting to write a song about Crisp who recently moved to New York from London. You can even see Quentin Crisp appearing in Sting’s video at the beginning and in the end.

It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say

Killing Me Softly with His Song

Lyrics | Video

It happened to all of us – we hear a song that we feel is about us, about our life, our pain, and we wonder how is that possible that a stranger knows so much about us, we feel that unsettling closeness with the performer, and we became his/her fan.
That’s what happened to Lori Lieberman: after seeing a young Don McLean performing his song Empty Chairs, she wrote a poem “Killing Me Softly with His Blues”. Later on it was reworked by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel, and became a hit performed by Roberta Flack in 1973. It was once again propelled to success in 1996 with the song’s remix by The Fugees.

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

Hurricane

Lyrics | Video
This protest song by Bob Dylan was inspired by the real life story of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, an African-American former middleweight boxer from the early sixties. Carter was falsely accused of a triple murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1967. In 1974 Carter published an autobiographical book The Sixteenth Round where he claimed his innocence. He sent his book to Bob Dylan “because of his prior commitment to the civil rights struggle”. Inspired by his story Bob Dylan met with Rubin Carter at the Rahway State Prison and later wrote the song “Hurricane”.

Even though the song didn’t lead to the boxer’s release it attracted a lot of attention to Carter’s case from the public and media, and played a significant role in helping Hurricane with his fight for freedom. Of course, Lesra Martin and the three Canadians played a big part in helping free Rubin Carter.
Carter’s story inspired Norman Jewison to direct the feature film The Hurricane, starring Denzel Washington.
Rubin now lives in Canada, and was executive director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted from 1993 until 2005.

That’s the story of the Hurricane,
But it won’t be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he’s done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

Man On The Moon

Lyrics | Video

This song is REM’s tribute to the late comedian and actor Andy Kaufman, who was famous for his outrageous pranks performed on TV and the stage. Andy Kaufman left a lasting impression on REM’s lead singer Michael Stipe.
“What I was doing with the lyric for Man on the Moon”, said Stipe, “was pulling in various crackpot conspiracy theories of our time, like Elvis Presley was still alive somewhere. And, even more absurd and outrageous, that when they sent a man to walk on the moon that he actually went to a stage set up somewhere in Arizona and the moonwalk never really occurred. And these were the comparisons I was drawing to the people who were not able to believe that Kaufman was dead, that, to the end, he was pulling a prank. That that idea is just as outrageous as those other theories. That he, for me, as a fan of his, puts himself on that level by being such a prankster that people actually thought that.”
The song’s title was used for Miloš Forman’s film “Man on the Moon”, with Jim Carrey superbly playing Andy Caufman.

Hey, Andy did you hear about this one? Tell me, are you locked in the punch?
Hey, Andy are you goofing on Elvis? Hey, baby, are we losing touch?

Black Velvet

Lyrics | Video
This song about Elvis Presley was written by Canadian musicians David Tyson and Christopher Ward, and first performed by singer-songwriter from Toronto Alannah Myles. Some argue that the words “black velvet” refer to the black velvet shirt that Elvis often wore, others say that they describe his velvety voice, others claim that’s his black hair. I guess it will remain as yet another secret bit about Elvis, unless the song writers decide to unveil it.

Black velvet and that little boy’s smile
Black velvet with that slow southern style
A new religion that’ll bring ya to your knees
Black velvet if you please

Piano Man

Lyrics | Video

There are many songs that pay a tribute to some well known celebrities. But what about regular people, who remained unknown to the general public? “Piano Man” by Billy Joel is one of such songs dedicated to real people whom Joel met during his days as a lounge performer in LA. It’s the song about people who could’ve become contenders, gone fulfilling their dreams, but they didn’t. There’s one very poignant line at the end of the song, where all those people ask the piano man: “And say, man, what are you doin here?”. It’s true that Billy Joel turned out to be a millionaire, but what about all those other talented night bar performers, who never got a chance to cross that line from obscurity to fame?

Sing us a song, you’re the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we’re all in the mood for a melody
And youve got us feelin alright

I wonder if you have heard all these songs I mentioned above? If you were a poet who would you dedicate a poem or a song to? What is the most inspiring song for you? Who is your inspiration?

Later I talked with the guy, he told me: “I know it looks like I’m crazy, but I’m not. It actually makes a good conversation piece to start on the bus”. Turned out that it’s his hobby he started a year or so ago, that this sphere-play is actually a discipline practiced by many, and called Contact Juggling. I found this short movie below on YouTube, the guy on the bus was performing very similar tricks.

There are three forms of contact juggling, and the one I saw yesterday is actually called isolationism, characterized by manipulation of a sphere that appears to be suspended in time and place while the performer dances around it. Even in the 1986 fantasy film Labyrinth (directed by Jim Henson, produced by George Lucas), David Bowie’s character is performing contact juggle throughout the film.

What I was most impressed with yesterday was not the sphere playing but the fact that this guy wasn’t afraid to share his hobby, no matter how crazy it looked, with the rest of us. It made me question once again what “crazy” means, and how crazy I am, how crazy we all are? Who are we to label someone crazy? What if we’re crazy in the eyes of those whose sanity we question? How thin is the line separating a truly passionate person from a crazy one?

These lines from Don McLean’s song “Vincent” came to my mind:

Now I think I know
What you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free
They would not listen they’re not listening still
Perhaps they never will…

Perhaps what the world is lacking is the truly impassioned people whose enthusiasm is contagious and zealousness is inspiring. There are millions of blogs in the blogiverse, but unfortunately only a small number of those sites leave us in awe and amazement from all the knowledge and passion that’s graciously and generously given to us by the blog’s author(s).

Have you ever been called crazy? How did it make you feel? Are you exposing or willing to show your crazy side to others? How hard is it for you to stay true to yourself? Do you have favourite crazy bloggers, authors whom you love to read? What does the word “crazy” mean to you? Whom would you call “crazy”? How crazy are you?

August 6, 2007: John Boardley launches new blog iLoveTypography.com and starts a “Type Revolution”. In one month his RSS feed count gained 2160 subscribers, with each day that number grows by another hundred. That’s an amazing achievement, especially taking into consideration that John didn’t promote his new blog anywhere but his other site Redsil, a blog dedicated to Graphic Design. However the clean and meticulously designed RedsilWP theme for the blog has been featured on various CSS galleries and Smashing Magazine.

Another incredible thing about iLT (iLoveTypography) is the quality and content of the readers’ comments. It’s obvious that John managed to fill the void in the world of Typography and feeds the hungry readers with his outstanding articles about “all things type”, sprinkled with that rare kind of humour that makes you to crave for MORE stories like “Who Shot the Serif? Typography Terms”, “The Return of the Serif. Type Terminology” and “Typenuts, The Funny Side of Typography”

Well, before John Boardley becomes too famous to talk to I’ve decided to grab his attention and steal a couple hours of his super busy schedule, and arranged an interview with Mr. Typography himself.

Vivien: How did you end up working as a graphic designer? Where and how did you learn all that design craft?

John: After senior school (high school), I went to college to study design and technical illustration. I then worked as an architectural illustrator and found myself being asked to do non-architectural stuff.

V. When did you get into drawing? Did you take any lessons?

J. I drew as soon as I could hold a pencil – anything and everything. No, not really, a few life drawing classes in college and copying Rembrandt’s etchings hundreds of times to learn technique. The architectural illustration has been very useful to me.

V. So after high school you worked, then studied architecture for 2 years and worked again?

J. Yes, I worked again for a number of years – a mix of architectural illustration and graphic design. Then I suddenly thought, “Oops, I almost forgot university”, so I got saving. I signed up for a degree in Chinese. Just thought it would be a challenge and something completely different. However, on the first day of university they said, “You didn’t receive the letter?” I replied, “What letter?” To cut a long story short: the course had been canceled and they’d sent a letter notifying me of this to the wrong address. So there I was on the first day of university… courseless. They apologized and said that I could choose any degree. I thought Philosophy or Economics, but couldn’t decide. So I flipped a coin, and the coin chose Economics (with econometrics) and I loved it.

V. Why didn’t you chose Architecture or Design?

J. I needed some more intellectual stimulation (hope that doesn’t sound pompous) and I’ve always loved philosophy. I chose economics because I knew nothing about the subject and was terrible at math.
My dissertation was published in a journal, so they asked me to stay on and do some research, preferably a PhD. Sadly, I couldn’t afford it at the time, so I went to work in London (for lots of money). However, I did co-author one more paper (“An Econometric Study of the Behaviour of Real Wages”)
In London I worked as a Junior Economist, analysing markets.

V. How long did you work as a Junior Economist, and what did you do after that?

J. I worked there less than a year. After that I worked as a Media Planner for an advertising agency and it’s at that company that I got into web design accidentally. But then later I had a huge bust up with the boss and left. After the bust up, I thought oops, I’m unemployed, I should have thought that quitting job = unemployment. However, I soon found another job: I saw a web development manager job in the newspaper. All this time throughout the other jobs, I was doing Graphic Design too. So, I applied for the job, and somehow they gave it to me.

V. So you’ve worked there for three years and then you decided to freelance?

J. Well, freelance, then setup a company. However, company sounds odd because it was just me, so although I officially have a company, I still prefer to think of myself as freelance. Although I’m thinking of starting another company in Japan. I freelance from home, but most of my clients are in Europe and I’d like more Japanese clients.

V. Why did you move to Japan?

J. That’s a difficult one… To be honest, I have almost no idea. I came here on holiday and I just thought, “This is home”, no idea why, just felt right. So I sold my apartment and moved… 5 years ago.

V. Wow. Ok, can you please, describe your typical day?

J. My typical day… first thing is make some fresh coffee, before anything else, then check my mail, then I look at my list of things to do and think, “oh dear”, then I get to work.

V. When do you write that list of things to do?

J. Well, I always carry a notepad with me – always. So ideas and things to do go in there, then the things to do are transferred to my computer prioritised. I will often work on 4 or 5 projects on any given day. That way of working is not out of choice, really – my ideal way of working would be to work on a single project. But of course every client thinks s/he’s the only one, though I have one big client that always comes before any other work, even if it means having to turn down other projects, it’s a very loyal client.

V. When did you get into blogging?

J. Relatively recently, in fact – I guess about a year ago, just before starting Redsil launched personal blog Mykagawa. It’s amazing really, as I’ve been developing web sites for ages. David Airey’s was one of the first blogs I read.

V. How long did it take you to design the theme for iLT?

J. One night. But always tweaking it. I made a sketch in the cafe in the evening. I took ages designing Redsil, and that was with an existing theme! iLT just came naturally, must have been a good day.

V. Wow! I guess then we can say that iLT was born under a lucky star?

J. I guess it was. Conceived in a night.

V. Any idea how did you get all those RSS subscribers overnight?

J. Good question. I’d love to tell you I cleverly did x,y and z… however, to be honest, I have no idea. I’m baffled by it actually. I think it just got picked up by a couple of bigger sites.

V. How did you come up with the domain name?

J. I came up with the domain name (and others) in the cafe that same night. Most of the names had already been registered, even some quite obscure ones.

V. What have you been drinking that night in your cafe, some elixir of inspiration?

J. My cafe is my thinking place. I can fill 20 pages an evening with ideas in that place. It’s wonderful – Umie is the best. Must have something to do with the owner be a Graphic Designer.

V. What did you use to design iLT header – Illustrator or Photoshop?

J. Photoshop. I’m a huge fan of Photoshop, and often use it when I should be using Illustrator.

V. In your freelance work, what do you do more – web design or graphic design? What would be your preference?

J. These days, web design, but that will change next year. I prefer graphic design – it’s more creative. Web sites are about design (sometimes versus) code. With graphic design there’s no backend to think about. I don’t need to worry about making a magazine ad safe from hackers.

V. What do you find most challenging in Web design, and what in Graphic design?

J. In web design, the biggest challenge is keeping up: all the new JavaScript libraries, AJAX, PHP4 to PHP5, browsers, IE6 ahhhhhh…. In Graphic design the biggest challenge is… the white paper. What I mean is with the web, we build within quite a restrictive framework, dictated by pixels and by landscape oriented monitors, there are fewer choices. Graphic design has fewer imposed “rules”, more freedom and with freedom comes… well, not so much responsibility but more room for disaster. There’s really not that much variation on the web. Look around and what do we see? 3 columns, header, footer. So in web design, we never truly begin with a blank canvas.

V. What do you love the most about blogging and blogiverse and what do you hate the most about them?

J. I love most the comments and the community. I am overawed by some of the comments. I just read some of the comments on iLT recently; some of the comments are mini-articles. It’s amazing that someone would take the time to write it. If I were the teary type it would bring tears to my eyes. And when someone says they’ve learned something, that’s wonderful.
I hate… well, there’s not much in life that I hate, but I think it’s just not having as much time to blog as I’d like. If I had a choice, I’d spend half my week on iLT, but that won’t pay the bills. I’m not a great fan of things like Digg: they’re too big to be of any use, and people become obsessed with it and page rank, huge, pointless ranking system. I can understand it’s value when one is monetizing a blog.

V. You said that Emigre is your most favourite design magazine, what is your most favourite design book?

J. Actually, it’s a very recent one: Design is Attitude, by Helmut Schmid.

V. What was the very first Typography book you read that made you fall in love with Type?

J. Typographie, by the god of type, Emil Ruder (Schmid’s mentor).

V. What are your 8 all time favourite Types?

J. Oh, boy. Can I choose best 100?

1. Template Gothic
2. Helvetica ( it’s almost a cliche, but it’s popularity is deserved)
3. Univers
4. Le Monde
5. Sabon
6. Frutiger
7. Caslon
8. one of Zuzana Licko’s typefaces, maybe… Matrix

I could’ve talked more to John and asked him a couple hundred other questions, but it was getting too late for even John The Night Owl, who goes to sleep around 5am and gets up before 9am.
If you haven’t discovered his blog yet, I highly recommend to check it out. I can’t promise that you will become as obsessed with Typography as John, but I can guarantee that you will find Typography more attractive (even charming) and less intimidating, especially after reading John’s interview with the Serif family.

Sometimes in order to transform our homes all we need is a fresh different paint on the walls or a re-arranged furniture. When designing blogs you can achieve a similar metamorphosis by concentrating your attention on a few often unnoticeable elements such as:

1. Post’s Title/Author’s name
2. Date
3. Icons for bulleted lists
4. Comments area
5. Notification messages (e.g. number of comments in the post)

The extra time and efforts spent on exercising your imagination when designing your blogs/websites pays of handsomely in the form of the following benefits:

1. Your memorable design stands out among the millions of other blogs
2. Your blog gets featured in many galleries and articles like this one
3. Your originality brings you more admiration from the blog’s visitors
4. You are perceived as a professional who pays attention to details not only in design but also in the quality of the blog’s content

I’ve scoured the web looking for inventive and creative solutions to give a quick makeover to a blog. I feel like I was showered with inspirational waters of imaginative designs. I’ve categorized my finds under captivating post titles/dates, bulleted list icons, stylization of the comment area. Each of the thumbnails below is linked to the original site. I strongly encourage you to visit the actual blogs to see these details in full glory.

Distinctive Icons for unmatched bulleted lists

Striking Dates for busy people

Creative Titles that stimulate

Fascinating Comments

Now, all I need is time to revamp my own blog’s design. What about you, are you famous for paying attention to details?

hmm.. is that what they call a “wishful thinking”? Frankly, I can only hope that one day my writing could be appropriately characterized as “exceptional”. Presently, I feel very honoured when someone considers some of my posts outstanding. But then there’s a nagging question in mind: which posts people consider to be remarkable – the same posts that I personally find noteworthy or the posts that I would label as bestsellers?

You see, the truth is that I don’t consider bestsellers to have an outstanding quality to them, although they do sell well (hence the name) and are very popular with the general public. Most of the articles that end up on Digg’s front page are bestsellers, just like many of the posts published by Smashing Magazine. There’s nothing superb or exceptional in them other than that they managed to cater to a wider audience and were lucky enough to get the right promotion and advertising.

An obvious question comes to mind: Can an outstanding post become a bestseller? I believe it depends on the answer to another related question: What made this posts to stand out – is it the writing or the topic, or the popularity and credibility of its author, or the public who reads it and comes to a combined conclusion that this particular piece of writing also has a “selling” quality to it and deserves to be promoted as a bestseller?

So which of my posts do I personally find noteworthy (or should I just forget about my humble upbringing and call them “outstanding”)? Here are the 8 efforts I’m trying to apply to my writing to make it stand out, my 8 attempts to take it closer to captivating works of those who do know how to write an outstanding post:

1. Let the thoughts brew in your head.

   I noticed that it’s best to let my ideas and thoughts for the post to evolve in my mind before even writing them down. That’s when I resort to the sleeping kingdom, or play with my daughter, or go for a walk – all those things help me to re-charge my creative juices and shape up my thoughts into a post.

2. Be creative with words

   There is a reason why practically every word in English (and other languages) has synonyms, so why not integrate them in your writing? Next time instead of praising something or someone as being “great” ten times in one article why not use it only once and replace all other nine instances of this word with its synonyms: magnificent, powerful, distinguished, immense, awe-inspiring, brilliant, devoted, grand, fantastic (and the list goes on).

3. Sprinkle your posts with bits of humour

   If you’re blessed with a terrific sense of humour use it as your finest tool, get it working to your advantage, turn your posts into a unique mixture of wittiness and intelligence at work. There are too many overly serious boring blogs and bloggers over there, don’t fall into the same trap.

4. Add a personal touch

   Which post would make a bigger impact on you: the one that’s simply listing Top 10 Most Popular Wordpress Plugins or the one that talks about the Handy Wordpress Plugins installed on the author’s blog with an explanation of why the blogger finds them useful? There are gazillions of articles in the blogiverse that constantly teach us something: from how to make money with blogging or increase the traffic to which are the best tools or sites for designers or photographers. If the authors don’t back up their choices with some personal thoughts and experience why should I take their word for it and waste time trying out their tips myself?

5. Be original and find your niche

   Make your blog’s topic/theme/tagline memorable, write the articles with an instantly recognizable style. Don’t try pretending to be someone else. Write about things you know something about. And if you don’t know much but you are eager to learn and share with your readers, then make sure you research that topic really well. Don’t try pleasing everyone, find the niche and audience you’re comfortable with and always give them your best, never take their praise for granted.

6. Be engaging

   Capture your readers attention by writing on engrossing topics. Engage them to participate in the discussion, hold their attention from the beginning of the post till the end. If you managed to get the readers to look at things with a fresh perspective, if you stimulated them to think, if you made them realize that what you wrote about is actually beneficial to them, then you can relax for a bit, pamper yourself or toast your achievement with a glass of a delicate wine, and concentrate on working on the next “masterpiece”.

7. Accept and invite criticism

   If you get unfavorable comments, don’t get defensive nor let them put you down, but learn from them and if possible ask the commenter for a fair but much needed criticism. If you don’t get any comments on the post you thought was an absolute marvel, then it means that perhaps you forgot to follow one or more of the 6 suggestions above. Try re-evaluating the article and pinpointing out what you might’ve done differently this time to improve its quality.

8. Be your own best critic

   Be truthful with yourself about your work. Ignore the fact that you just spent hours on writing, thinking, structuring your post. Before publishing it try reading it as you would read someone’s else article. Do you feel bored with the post, does it appeal to you, what would you comment on it? If you personally feel satisfied with your work, if you can exclaim: “How did I come up with those words, that phrase, this topic? DId I actually write this post myself?” then you can be sure that what you wrote can be labeled as outstanding.

Now, it’s tagging time. Once again I’d like to tag two people who tagged me in past – Ronald from RA Project and Bes – The Reasoner, and also I’m curious to see what Brian from Epic Edits has to say about How Do You Write An Outstanding Post? (check out the rules that go along with this tagging)

I have similar questions to my readers: How do you know when you wrote a brilliant post, and which posts do you consider being absolutely exceptional?

It took me three days and three nights (yes, I was even going through some potential name ideas in my dreams) to finally decide on the name that was still available for the domain registration. I’ve even got my husband involved in thinking with me and helping out with the names. Here’s what I was going through:

1. Decide on the blog’s theme and main purpose

Fortunately I had my husband quizzing me what do I want to blog about? So I had to give it a really good thought and decide for myself what my blog would be all about. But all I could think of were the hundreds of ideas like little birds flying in my head: sharing tips and tricks of trade, talking about the design, my numerous interests in art, science, photogrpahy, books. I had to summarize it all. A place to come for an inspiration, get the creative juices flowing, learn and share the knowledge, how does this sound?

2. Identify your desired audience.

My summary was approved. Now, who is my target audience? Well, that’s easy – people like me, with an inquisitive mind, yearning for knowledge, craving inspiration, passionate about all things new. They may be web designers, artists or programmers, but that’s not necessary – anyone could be interested in the same things I am.

3. Brainstorm possible key phrases, words

From the very beginning I had two major keywords in mind: creative and inspiration. So I was writing down all the possible keyword combinations: CreativeDesign, CreativeThoughts, CreativeSource, BeCreative; InspirationalDesign, InspirationSource, BeInspired.

4. Check the availability of the coveted domains

Now let’s hope nobody else came up with the same names. The next step was to either type out these names in the URLs or check their availability with the domain registrars. What a disappointment – all, absolutely all of those domain names were already registered.

5. Don’t despair, more brainstorming

Now my husband started throwing at me his ideas: CreativeLounge, InspirationLounge, CreativePad – they’re all taken. I tried some more: CreativeBits, CreativeBit. Already registered. My husband offered another one – InspirationPad. Hurrah, it is available, but hmmm… I wanted to try some other ideas.

6. What is your site’s motto?

I knew my blog would have a fair amount of technical information, so I had to make sure that the name reflects the digital nature of the site. I thought about getting inspired to learn, and very quickly this phrase stood up in my mind: Knowledge comes from Inspiration - one bit at a time. Eureka! What better describes the digital world than its smallest measure – BIT. The blog was born – Inspiration Bit. I quickly checked the availability and was thrilled to find out that this time nobody had outsmarted me.

7. There’s no way out

I realized that I should be very happy with the name, because once I start my blog and call it InspirationBit, I can’t go back and rename it later. Once I decide on the theme, I should stick to it, nurture it and be in control. My husband liked the chosen name and the slogan as well.

8. The Monumental Decision

After analyzing the name for another couple of hours, I’ve finally registered my domain and proceeded to my blogging venture. Now, if I could only find a perfect theme for my blog, a temporary one, and later on I’ll design my own interface from scratch. It took me another few days to find this theme and set up the blog.
Now, I’m working on a new design for this blog, but that’s another story.

How did you chose the name for your blog & domain? Did you go through several options, did you get frustrated that your desired domain name is already taken? Or are you the lucky one who knew what you wanted and got it right away?

1. Blogging is addictive

   Blogging is more addictive than web surfing, than game playing, than anything I’ve personally experienced so far. First thing in the morning I check my blog site’s statistics, RSS numbers, approve comments held for moderation (and post replies), visiting my readers sites, checking the referral links, etc. In fact, I’m keeping an eye on my blog statistics all day round. I post one article and I already think what would I be writing next, collecting my thoughts and resources together.

2. Blogging requires lots of time

   Blogging successfully takes more than just 20 minutes, or even 2 hours a day (as many bloggers claim) unless it’s a personal blogging. Well, I guess once your blog gains the success and popularity comparable to the one the A-listers enjoy, then you can relax and post something just for the sake of posting: it can be anything – one line question to your readers, a link to someone’s else article with a brief summary, or a funny video/images. But until then you must sweat a bit and write quality posts to gain your reader’s respect and attention. This particular post, for example, I’ve started yesterday and still working on it today. Of course, I had other duties and responsibilities in between: a job that pays and the family that needs me.

3. Blog Anxiety

   There’s a new disease, called Blogging Anxiety, and I apparently suffer from it as well. Some of the symptoms: will my today’s post be interesting and helpful enough to get some comments; will my blog get more traffic today than yesterday, will my RSS subscribers number increase or decrease, will my comment on someone’s else blog be noticed and replied to. For more blog anxiety symptoms be sure to check Ronalfly.com.

4. 60% of Blogging is Marketing

   Now, this is the most important piece of successfully completing the blog puzzle. As I found out later, blog’s popularity, high traffic and a large number of RSS subscribers don’t directly correlate with the blog’s high quality posts that readers would really benefit from. Most often achieving the blogging success is the result of an effective manipulative cut-throat marketing. Some people are just not made for that. I know, I’m not. So I’m finding my own ways to market my blog. It’ll probably take a longer time but at least, I’ll stay true to myself without taking advantage of others.

5. An eye and mind for blogging

   Everything you read, you hear, you see will have to be absorbed differently now – from a blogger’s perspective. I see many bloggers collect a bunch of content from other sites, from media, from the daily conversations with their friends, colleagues, etc. and simply add their own twist to the stories and present as originals. I’m not saying that’s unacceptable, I’m just asserting that it’s one of the things I’m still learning about. However, in my personal opinion, high quality blogging should be more genuine than that.

6. Blog talk

   This goes hand in hand with my previous point. Some successful bloggers are amazing with the blog talk – they manage to write about some obvious facts and present them as ingenious tips everyone applauding to, pondering how come they didn’t think about that. I myself commend their quick wit, and try to learn from them that not everything that’s obvious to me is evident to others. How many times did I read in “blogging tips” that bloggers should always reply to their readers comments. Well, of course I knew that – to me it’s indisputable, it’s like someone is talking to you and you’re ignoring his/her comments? But add to that recommendation: “replying to your reader’s comments will increase your blog’s traffic”, and you get a great tip that’s worth a standing ovation.

7. Blog elite

   Oh, how naive was I thinking that at least in the blogosphere everyone is equal. Well, guess what, it is as corrupted as the real world – Blog Mafia rules. Or if you prefer to call them Blog Elite? To me it’s the same thing. All they care about is Money, Prestige, High Traffic and High Technorati ranking, they link to each other and look down on others, and their tips and recommendations are just that – tips – here, take these 2 cents, my poor blogger, and good luck with trying to follow my path to the top.

8. Blogger’s block

   Blogging involves lots of writing, so no wonder that bloggers suffer from the writer’s block as well. That’s where other bloggers and readers come to the rescue – read their posts, visit their sites and get inspired, unlock your block.

Had I known about all these things before I started blogging, would I turn it down? No, I would not. Just like I never want to go back in time when I didn’t have my daughter with us. But I would’ve probably done some things differently.

So those of you who are just contemplating about starting your own blog, think about all those challenges and obstacles and play wisely, move in the right direction. And those of you who are already blogging, what are the things you wish you knew before taking part in this modern day craziness called blogging?