xoxo

my latest work at:

www.hollyjean.sg

http://benvoda.blogspot.com

Here’s the end result of the blogskin (click image to go to the site to see full skin):

Initially, when the client told me rilakkuma, I was like “rilak-what?”. I thought the name sounded really funny! I did a google on it and this cute little bear came out. I was like thinking, “oh this job should be easy-peasy, how difficult is it to piece and patch pictures of this bear into a lifestyle blog right? NOT! Because my first draft came out looking like “blah” (ok, at least according to my standard).

This is the first draft:

I just feel that there is something missing in this draft. There is no cuteness of the bear that I saw when i image-googled this bear. Been trying to shift around the items, change some parts of the skin, but it was futile.

Exhausted and out of idea, I took a coffee break at 4am. The name ‘rilakkuma’ keep ringing in my head. I was thinking, why that name? Curious about the origin of the name, I went to do a search and found the following information from Wiki:

Rilakkuma (リラックマ Rirakkuma^?, a combination of the Japanese pronunciation of relax and the Japanese word for bear) is a Japanese character produced by the San-X company who debuted in 2003.

The San-X company puts staff members under obligation to create one cute character per month. Aki Kondo (also the creater of Okutan to Dannachan) saw a TV show about dogs. She wished to own a pet because at that time she was very busy working and hoped for a more relaxing life. Rilakkuma is an embodiment of her wish.^[2]

Ahhhhh…. that’s why it is call rilak! I would also like “rilak” once in a while in my busy life!

Also, found this information about this bear (read out more here):

His favorite foods are dango, pancakes, omurice and custard pudding. True to his name, he enjoys relaxing and his favorite things include sleeping, lying around, watching television, listening to music and soaking in hot springs.

After reading about the bear’s origin and character, I began to redo the skin from scratch and started with a new background colour. This is the second draft:

AH finally we are getting somewhere!

I sent this to the client and she said she love the top ribbon title, and I had an idea of what she really wanted. So I added more stuff to this draft and here’s the third draft:

And we are almost done! Just missing a sliding banner. So i created 3 slides for the banner:

slide one

slide two

slide three

and here’s the final skin!

Like it?

How does it look?

wanted it to have a dreamy and glamourous effect.

This design is available for customization and purchase.

I wanted it to have a edgy high fashion feel, thus the use of bold pink for the background. To give it a little texture I layered the background with diagonal lines.

The website has quite a comprehensive range of plugins. Emoracle contains:

1. Pages for the various categories
2. Registration form for visitors
3.  Google analytics (owner can view website statistics straight from admin page, there is no need to go to google to view)
4. Top read posts (by week, months and years)
5. User friendly segmentation and shortcodes
6. Instant polling
7. pretty calendar (with ability that allows visitors to subscribe and add to their google gmail calendar)
8. Embedded forum
9. Chatroom (visible on all pages)
10. Ability for occasional selling or donation button via paypal
11. Frontpage slider
12. Social media sharing and integration

I'm in my final phrase of completing the site. Comments are welcome =)