Henrik Blomgren

Freelancing Web & Print Designer

Henrik Blomgren

My Words For 2019

My Words For 2019

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So, there is this thing where people write about their three chosen words for the coming year. Before I haven´t done this and such but this year I wanted to give it a go so here we go. My three words for 2019.

Light

In any other way this would have been “find the light” but those are more words than I have to work with.

I have chosen “light” as one of my words because I am down in darkness and have been deep and low into this place for the last three years. I want 2019 to finally be the year I leave the darkness behind and go into the light of being out of depressions and sadness from the previous year. 2018 was not a good year for me since I lost my best friend and I still have flashbacks about the last six months and those were not enjoyable the least.

This has hurt me both physically and with my mind and during the last months I´ve had too many days to count where I basically just lie in bed with a blanket over my head sleeping. This mixed with fighting the flu or the last remnant of a flu is not helping.

So back into the light during 2019 in any way possible.

Work

My second word for 2019 is “Work”. Currently I am unemployed/freelancing as a web & print designer while writing these posts and even tutorials for Genesis and WordPress.

This is not working out for me so in one way or another I am going to get a jobb during 2019. If I finally get my breaktrough so I start earning money as a freelancer designing or with a 8-4 jobb. Either way I need to start earning some money for myself and for the times when those close to me need money. It would also mean I have some spending money for when I want to buy something instead of having to save for years.

Design

My final word for 2019 is “Design”. I like designing. It´s fun making something new and being creative with fonts, colors, shapes and what not. I have idea for designs. I just need to put them to the paper.

This means I get more to show as a freelancer, it also gives me time and opportunity to work on ideas and see how they would end up looking and all in all it´s going to be fun hopefully.

Colors and fonts are my hardest choices so these areas are what I intend to improve on during the year for designs. But not lowering the quality of my other areas is going to be a challenge, a fun one but still a bit challenging.

So, those were my three words for 2019. “Light”, “Work” and “Design”. What are your three words for 2019?

Adding content below the site header in Genesis

Adding content below the site header in Genesis

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Adding content to your site in specific areas has never been as easy as it is with Genesis and it´s hooks. In this tutorial I will show you how to add a widget area below the site header.

Do remember this is a basic tutorial and has no deeper customizations available and is more meant to be two things. A basic start for me to see reactions from visitors in how I write tutorials and to give my visitors a light insight into how one can customize Genesis pretty easily.

What you decide to do with this afterwards is completely up to you.

In short this is what we will do

  • Add a widget area below the site header
  • Style the widget area with base styling

Step 1

Add these lines of code to your functions.php file.

This will create a new widget in your widget area in the dashboard called “Below Site-Header”. Anything you place into this widget will only appear on the front page of your site. It will not display on pages or posts.

Step 2

We want our new widget area to look shiny and pretty so let´s add some padding to it. Let´s change the background-color as well.

Add this to your style.css file.

And your done with this basic tutorial.

Adding widgets to this area depends on how the code for said widgets are written and as such very hard for me to cover. This is just a basic tutorial.

I hope this tutorial has helped you a bit to get a good start.

Design Class: Web Typography, a Review

Design Class: Web Typography, a Review

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Typography is one of the most overlooked aspects of modern web design. I myself have real issues when I design to make the fypeface look just right. Simply switching from the theme demo font to the font I myself want to use makes things look so different and are in need of adjustments.

Enter the Web Typography Class by Rafal Tomal to solve all your issues.

[Read more…] about Design Class: Web Typography, a Review
Having a Font Blackout? Check out Typespiration

Having a Font Blackout? Check out Typespiration

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In designwork a often overlooked part of the design is the type of font. Sans serif, serif, going with old font or if you really want to give a designer a heartattack, suggest comic sans or papyrus as a font for a project.

If your like me and you have a couple “go to fonts” like Open Sans and Museo Sans but have grown tired of reusing the same fonts over and over again?

And instead of going trough Adobe Fonts or Google Fonts for a suitable font combination you want examples of how different font combinations look?

Enter Typespiration, a project by Rafal Tomal doing just what I talked about above. It showcases different font combination from Google Fonts (to be honest, for being such a large library of free to use fonts? Google Fonts does a really good job) and tells you the css code for every little bit.

Why is this a good thing? For people looking for a good font combination this place is a godsend as it takes away some of your time looking into new fonts and combinations of fonts.

Since it gets updated decently often new combinations might appear when you at least expect it. I myself found out Merriweather had a Sans version and it is looking pretty decent.

So, any font combination you found thanks to Typespiration? Some combination which blew your mind in how excellent it looks? Leave a comment and let me know!

Genesis 2.7 Released

Genesis 2.7 Released

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Yesterday StudioPress released an update to their Genesis framework. Upgrading it to 2.7 as a step to get Genesis to work even more nicely with Gutenberg when it releases later this month as well as rewriting some of the old code used (Genesis is old!) php as a language is still developing and getting better and more secure as time passes on.

In reflection to this Genesis now require a php version of atleast 5.3 or greater to work. This is quite a nice step as the latest stable version of php I believe is 7.2. And with the lower grade versions slowly but surely getting their security support dropped? If your using old php? please upgrade your web hosts and servers to a newer version since they are far more secure. And security is important.

As if that isn´t enough StudioPress are also having a two part sale until the end of November.

Get 20% of your next theme purchase (all themes on SP available for this offer)

OR (I highly recommend grabbing this offer) you can grab the All-Pro Plus Package for 20% of as well.

For more information or if you want to read the original information post you can read it here.

I am hype for the future with StudioPress and Gutenberg as well as for WordPress and Gutenberg.

Hello World, again!

Hello World, again!

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Welcome welcome all, to the lovely site of Henrik Blomgren, freelancer extraordinare with a focus on web & print design.

Not that this is my first rodeo and web & print design isn´t all I am interested in but it made for a catchy introduction.

I am a freelance web & print designer residing in Kalmar County, Sweden. Trying to find my own “voice” while writing. You could call this a trial, you could also call it a starting point.

Finding your own voice online is not easy. It changes freely depending on the category of writing you want to do. For me, as I have made the choice to start writing again it is a double experience as I reside in Sweden so English isn´t my first language. This means every post I write is training and after being away for over a year, training is what I need.

Welcome to my starting point. The first step has been taken.

A blog, about what?

My interests are videogames, design and writing. With such a wide range of interests I have chosen a few parts of the large area. It will make more sense as you read on. This place is going to focus on a couple things:

1. WordPress

WordPress is one of the largest CMS in the world. A couple years ago it powered 25% of the internets websites. Which is quite a large amount and it is reaching for new heights with the introduction of Gutenberg, “blocks” for creating the most amazing content.

This mean I will be covering new updates to WordPress and write about the CMS itself, my thoughts about it, how I use it and what I would like to see change for the future.

2. Design

I am planning on making this place into my own online theme shop. As such it is a interesting idea to write about design aspects of my own themes or how I chose to solve various “issues” in design.

This also includes mobile. You cannot design a website today without thinking about the mobile version. As so many people browse the internet today on a mobile. A stunning website on Desktop might lose some impact on mobile.

3. Genesis

My framework of choice while working with WordPress is Genesis. Every website I design relies on Genesis to work and as such it is quite a good idea to write about the framework itself.

Espacially now with Gutenberg coming and as a framework there is a lot of work for StudioPress to figure out how to make it all work together. Which they are working diligently and splendidly on already!

4. Technical stuff

I have gathered and experienced a lot of different computer cases, phone cases, different laptops and so on and on. As this is part of me being me I intend to at least at the beginning write about a bit tech stuff as well. All to find my own voice and see what I enjoy writing about the most. So expect me to review cases and laptops or compare Mac and PC stuff or whatever I feel like.

Large subjects, why?

Yes, these are quite large and wide subjects. This is because I have not gotten a speciality yet. I´m like a jack of all trades, knowledgeable in a large wide area of subjects but I am a master of none. Which brings both pros and cons. Pro in the sense you as the visitor get a wide range of subjects(hoping to find a good level) and they are not going to go extremely deep so you need ot be a master of said subject to understand what the crap I´m talking about.

In the future, obviously these subjects might change. I may find my speciality and choose to focus on it. If that time comes then I will let you all know as responsible as I am for this it is kinda a must do.

On the subject of posting. Yes I have a lot I want to write about. I am not sure about how to write a lot of these things down as my choice of descriptions or language might make it hard for people to understand so I am not placing myself under a schedule. I want quality over quantity for this place and thus it might take some time between when the posts are published.

Missing areas for now

As you most likely noticed right now (November 2018) I do not have any themes not do I have a portfolio up. Why is that you ask? Because this is the starting point. What I intend to start building an audience with and during 2019 I intend to finish a design incorporating themes, my portfolio and be something I can proudly show of to anyone interested. This starting point is for me writing about the large subjects above, there might even be a post or two out of that subject range. Just because I really like writing.

Finishing up

So to finish things of. I hope we are going to enjoy this journey together, creating something both useful and awesome for both me, the creator and you, the visitor. Hello World, again!