McFly, MSN, and Myspace

I saw recently on Sarah-Elizabeth's blog, The Spanish Bluebell, that she did this little remembering post with a random coin she pulled out her wallet. Pretty much the gist is you pull it out at random and reminisce about things you did in that year. Problem was I pulled out a couple of coins first that were 1990 and 1991 so yeah I wasn't born but next was 2008, coincidently the same as Sarah-Elizabeth! So what was happening in 2008? 

Well I turned 14 and was in year 9 for a start, oh year 9 that was truly an awful year for me... that and year 10. Unfortunately my school was a year 7-13 school so everyone was already in friend groups and it wasn't like everyone was in a new school together. I'd only been in New Zealand for just over 3 months of 2007 so 2008 was my first proper year in NZ and my first proper go at school with electives and everything. I was currently ahead of most of my year as the UK is quite far ahead in teaching so I was in all of the top classes and knew everything my beginner French teacher was teaching the class. 

I met the only two people I really speak to properly now from high school in this year. Conveniently the girl I sat next to in Maths was the daughter of my mums work colleagues so we ended up getting to be pretty good friends. The other we didn't really get to know each other until the following year but we met and knew each other so that counts right? I spent most of my time with my best friend at the time who had around 8 dogs at that current moment in time I think, I could never keep up, but that amazed me. I also got my first pair of rats this year, Milo and Slinky, they were my buddies and detested by many but they were the cutest things. 

I didn't join Facebook until 2009 so it was all Myspace and a bit of Bebo for me in 2008 oh how those were the days. Gosh I think I was still on MSN back then, there was only so many ways you could keep in contact with friends on the other side of the world. I mean I had to have someone to talk to about McFly and other British bands seen as no one in NZ knew who they were! I'm pretty sure I was still snooping around things like Runescape and Neopets as well when my friends weren't looking and was my Gaia Online phase in 2008 I cant remember.

I think that's about it, or about as much as I can remember and am willing to share. Pretty much I was a bit lame haha hopefully I've improved since then, at least I can kinda apply make-up now and don't think bright red jeans are the key to fashion... If you have a go at this let me know! 

Let's do the time warp again!

What are these ugly banners I hear you say! Well if we track back a few years to April 2013 we get to the birth of Sofilly - created on a bit of a whim to flush more creativity into my veins after starting design school just over a month ago. Hopefully we can see through this post that my schooling has been great and my design skills have improved. After coming across this first banner in my files I thought I would have a look at what Sofilly has looked like over the years, and you can join too! I only have the banners although I'm pretty sure theres a website that lets you see your website years ago but I don't want to see the monstrosity it once was!

Anyways these first two came pretty early into the blog; I had a thing for bunting as you can see. I'm glad that ugly ass font in the first banner left the blog as quickly as it entered it, I can't even believe I even liked that! I do remember the second font, Lane Narrow, being my love for almost all of 2013 which you can see in the banner below also. I still like it personally but with that drop shadow no way! 

Awh my first attempt at drawing my banner, I was so proud of this design seriously I instagrammed it and shoved it all over the internet. I don't actually mind it right now although the shading (what shading?!?!) is atrocious like what is that mouth? Here you can see the Lane Narrow continues to stick around in hand drawn form. Also had a fabulous cream tint going to the blog, glad that's gone! 

Aaaaaaand another drawn one, personally worse than the previous. What is that green thing, seriously? Plus my shading got worse, why did I even think this was good enough to place on the internet let alone make it my blog banner. No wonder I didn't have any readers that I knew of back then... That font though.

Oh I had a revelation! We returned to type banners, 2014 Sofi you had some brains in you after all. Not enough to realise that you probably shouldn't have brought back the drop shadow as well as the text but we can deal with that here more than the second one. Not sure what the x is doing all the way over there, thought I'd gotten rid of it in all but my url by now but hey.  

Oh hello you pretty banner you, I remember you from a whole month ago. This was the only banner I had going for about a year, the rest were a few months before I grew tired. I'm hating on Moonflower font now after so many people used it in their final projects last year so it's now gone but I did like this banner. 

Last but not least, my current banner! Pretty much an updated one of the previous one but I love it so much. I drew the type myself with watercolour and then scanned it in to create this. It got so much love at a past #nzbloggers chat that I think I'm going to keep it forever - try and actually keep a brand going. 

This probably isn't the best post to write this on seen as you can see some of the disgusting banners I've had in the past but I promise my skills have gotten much much better. I am a third year graphic design student so if you're wanting banners or sidebar images made for your blog I'm totally up for the job!