Past Layouts
Welcome! Here you can find a list and description of all of the past layouts featured on Ballads and Bows. All thumbnails will lead you to a larger, high resolution, 1024 x 768 image of what the layout looked like while it was featured on the website. Good luck trying to steal the past layouts =) Enjoy!
Version 1: Sailor Moon + Prince Endymion
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The very first layout to be featured on Ballads and Bows, Sailor Moon + Endymion was extremely popular. With over 80 hours spent in design alone, and 3 more spent in coding, this was the hardest layout I have developed to date. Images were taken from Three-Lights.Net with permission from Lisa Lam. Editting the image used took hours alone, so you won't be able to find it as it is on her website. Sorry about that! ^ ^; The layout uses div layers, iframes, and TONS of css script to run properly. Please enjoy!
Version 2: A Marriage to Remember
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My second layout made for Ballads and Bows, A Marriage to Remember was not quite as popular with the ladies as Sailor Moon + Endymion was. The guys liked it, ladies didn't. Ah well. This layout came across some major clitches after the navigation section was filled. The inline frame decided to break about 200 pixels down, which was a pain in the ass for the visitors. It's also the reason this layout was retired, and a new one was created. This layout was pretty while it lasted, though. Still am sad to see it go...
Version 3: Chisaki no Haru
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The third layout featured on Ballads and Bows, Chisaki no Haru (Chisaki's Spring) lasted less than a month. There were some serious flaws with the gradient around Chisaki's head, and I *hated* the gradient job I did on the right hand side of the page into Chisaki's head. I'm a perfectionist usually, so seeing these stupid mistakes over and over again drove me insane and inspired me to create a new layout. While this layout had the potential to be very pretty, I was disappointed with the way it came out. There were tons of problems with the way the css scripting was coming out, to the point where I had to create two separate css files, one for the index and another for the main pages, because the color contrasts were so severe that if you could read it on one section, you couldn't on the other. It wasn't a big deal creating the extra file, it was just irritating to no end. For what I wanted to be a "spring" themed layout, this came off as more of a wintery kind of style. Bah. Oh well, at least it's gone now. Sorry Chisaki fans! I'll make a better Chisaki layout next time xD
Version 4: Nihonjin no Gakusei no Onna no Ko - Japanese school girls
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The fourth layout featured on Ballads and Bows, Nihonjin no Gakusei no Onna no Ko (Japanese school girls) lasted less than a month. The image came from Three-Lights.Net from some Sawai Miyuu photoshoot. Very pretty pictures, but it just didn't stick around for long. The layout was okay, but a few days after mine was released, darling Lisa made a much, much prettier layout that I was super jealous of xD So, I got around to making a new layout that I thought was much more impressive, and this layout kind of got...retired. Poor layout-chan u_u;; This layout didn't really have any flaws, except that it was a bit bland with the shade of green I choose for the base background. Oh well. I'll do better next time! The only really nice thing about this layout was that it featured all of the senshi, so most of the visitors got a pretty picture of their favorite girl on the front page!
Version 5: Tokyo Nights
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The fifth layout featured on Ballads and Bows, Tokyo Nights (Utada Hikaru much? xD) lasted about a month and a half. The image came from Three-Lights.Net from a scan of a Seventeen magazine. I had originally gotten the inspiration for the layout from Bright Light: The Three-lights.net Fanlisting because I really liked the set up. I had attempted to mimick the way their layout was set up: large image as the background, with an iframe and tables floating over it. However, after trying to get the dimensions right to make Azama's foot align to the bottom of the page in a browser several hundred times, I just gave up. The image was messed with so many times that it became disproportionate, and the image quality shrunk. That's how many times I screwed with it. The layout was very bright and colorful, and was a great beginning for spring. Hopefully I'll make something Mew again soon xD
Version 6: Bubble Gum Pop
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The sixth layout featured on Ballads and Bows, Bubble Gum Pop lasted a little over a month. The image came from Three-Lights.Net from a scan of a LoveBerry magazine. This was more of a follow-up of the design of Tokyo Nights, the previous layout. I wanted something a little more pleasing to the eye, something with cooler colors. However, the navigation section was designed to incorporate little pop-up boxes, which to my dismay many users found ridiculously annoying. I can't blame them; having to kill all of those little windows became tedious after surfing the site for a while. The layout was scrapped in hopes to create a more user-friendly layout, which is why this was archived. I'll make something Chisaki focused again eventually =)
Version 7: Sakura Fubuki
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The seventh layout featured on Ballads and Bows, Sakura Fubuki was the longest lasting layout Ballads and Bows has ever featured. Images came from Three-Lights.Net. This layout was mainly an experimentation with image blending and layer masking. I think that it came out pretty well. The CSS is where I messed up. The text was hard to read on the dark background, and I think it made navigation of the site a little confusing for the user. No worries, it's all over now. The use of image maps was intensive in this layout. This layout also was the most user-friendly as far as I know insofar as browser compatibility. Three separate versions of the site were created so that the user could select their browser and connection settings and view the site that way. Enough to make anyone happy, I should think. For now, Sakura Fubuki has been retired. Don't fret, Kitagawa Keiko fans! Another layout featuring her will be made eventually.
