How minimalistic can a blog layout get?

Posted on May 25, 2013 by justdaveyb

It is time to change the layout of my blog. This must be the fourth or fifth style template I have used, normally I settle on a paid premium one but after reading Matt Gammell’s post of Designing blogs for readers I went in search of one that would meet the minimalistic criteria. After a bit of a search I found this free one very aptly named Truly Minimal and this dear readers is what you have gotten from me.

I have moved a lot of the widget stuff to the menu and deleted the rest. It is very clean and hopefully readable on all monitor sizes. I feel that it is not quite right yet so some more tinkering to be done.

Two more inks bought for the collection

Posted on May 23, 2013 by justdaveyb

Once a month I walk down to my local pen shop to check out their range of inks. Beforehand I had made a list of six Noodler’s inks that I wanted to see if they had in stock. Top of this list was the legendary yellow-orange shader Apache Sunset and the very pretty Ottoman’s Rose, much to my disappointment they didn’t have either and could not tell me when any new Noodler’s inks were due in. I ended up getting the shop assistant to go through all her stock by name to see if they had anything that took my fancy. I ended up buying two inks – Shah’s Rose and Summer Tanager.

Fast forward to tonight – I got out my trusty glass dip pen, a couple of iroshizuku inks for comparison and did some scribbling. Summer Tanager feathers slightly on the Rhodia paper when it is laid on thick. These seem pretty nice colours – not really suitable for the office but I might give them a run to markup some documents. I think Shah’s Rose might get a run next Christmas for the cards.

Pelikan M800 Black inked with Diamine Damson

Posted on May 21, 2013 by justdaveyb

Plenty of writing today at the office emptied my Pelikan M620 New York so after 12 days it is out and in is my M800 in black with gold trim. I actually like my black with silver trim better but the gold trim is almost as good. This is serious pen, pretty as conservative as you can get. The nib this time around is the second of the medium nibs I own in this size. This nib is not perfect being a sometimes hard starter but when it gets good it is quite good.

A M800 and a M300 together. A bit of a size difference.

This pen has a ink rating that excludes almost all of my Noodler’s inks so the next available one is the Damson shade from Diamine. Damson is a dark plummy colour that looks very classy.

Diamine make a boring ink bottle label, what is it with the sticker on the lid.

Pelikan M300 Black inked with Noodler’s The Blue Nose Bear

Posted on May 21, 2013 by justdaveyb

Well enough of showing off my mind mapping skills it is time to get back to the pens. Next into use is my little Pelikan M300 in black with gold trim – the M300 size is so cute. They are perfect scale models of the large M800 & M1000 pens but they are not toys by any means. If anything I think their 14K nibs perform better than most of my M400 & M600 nibs. On this occasion I have inked up a Fine nib in this pen.

I have run out of first time inks to use so I am back to those that are getting their second or third time in use. I seem to have quite a few Noodler’s on the horizon and it is one of these that gets a run in this pen. Noodler’s The Blue Nose Bear is an ink that was made more for artwork use than for plain journal writing. Given the right nib and paper this ink will produce lines that are lighter in the middle and have a darker outline. I don’t do art so this ink will just have to be used for general writing. This ink does shade and will feather on Rhodia if it is laid on thick enough. It’s feathering is far more noticeable on cheaper paper-stock. I quite like the colour of this ink, it is a change from the normal.

The Blue Nose Bear has great label art. This three-sided label has quite an array of images. I like how the colour of the label reflects the colour of the ink.