NQ Designs - Your Graphic Resource

Creator: Nika
Title: A little Touch-up
Date: 01/26/08 -
Hosted by: x-tenshi.com

Description: Gosh I love this layout. The colors, the art, the simplicity, everything! Especially the colors. I've never really experienced with such bright yellow and green colors like this. Very different from my usual monotone, emo style. This was actually meant to be a premade design but I loved it so much that I made it the official layout for NQD. I like how the navigation doesn't stretch for eternity down the left of the layout like my previous layouts. Instead the navigation is nicely nestled below the header image, highly visible. The CG was extracted from the art of Maggie. This design highlights my personal maturity and growth. I've had enough of cutesy anime layouts.

Creator: Nika
Title: Listen to the Heart
Date: 01/01/08 - 01/26/08
Hosted by: x-tenshi.com

Description: This layout didn't come out as I expected. I rushed through this one, that's for sure. I was in a hurry to get it done by New Years therefore it came out looking rushed. I had a good idea going for it but I just wished I spent more time on the layout rather than the CG. The CG was hand-vectored in Paint Shop Pro I might add. The couple was based off of me and my ex-boyfriend's image, that's why this layout it still kinda special to me. The art took about four months to vector. But that was due to school more than anything else. The art was beautiful, the colors were beautiful, but the actual layout needed more work. That's probably why it was only up for 3 weeks.

Creator: Nika
Title: Crimson Wings
Date: 01/01/07 - 01/01/08
Hosted by: soundless-words.net

Description: This layout was breathtaking. I can't believe how perfect this layout came out. It turned out better than what I expected. The coding took forever but it was worth it. I wanted to go far and beyond what I had ever done before. Virtually everything was vectored except the CG which I extracted from boyis.com. This is also one of those layouts that was inspired from an awesome CG. I took that CG and just worked around it. The ironic thing about this layout is that every booboo I made while designing it ended up making the layout look better. I'm especially proud of the rosey color scheme. Very vivid and in your face yet calming at the same time.

Creator: Nika
Title: Digital Eclipse
Date: 08/16/06 - 01/01/07
Hosted by: soundless-words.net

Description: I really wanted to go in a different direction with this layout. I was kind of testing my skills with this layout. I wanted to see if I could create a light layout completely from scratch, using original images made by me. The girl in the layout listening to the mp3 player is actually an original CG that I had drawn on paper and then vectored in Paint Shop Pro. This layout is not one of my favorites since it has a lighter theme and I'm not very fond of light layouts but nonetheless, it was up for a relatively long time because it was simple and school was starting so I didn't want to have to deal with a high maintenance layout.

Creator: Nika
Title: Saturn's Rings
Date: 07/02/06 - 08/16/06
Hosted by: soundless-words.net

Description: I was going for a golden effect with this one. It ended up turning out more orange than gold, but oh well. I recieved so much good feedback for this layout. This layout, by far, took the longest to create. But I had a lot of time on my hands since I had no internet connection for 2 weeks, so for those 2 weeks I just kept on adding onto this layout. Everything in this layout was vectored from scratch except for the Yukirin PNG. I think this layout is the one that really catapaulted my site into the webdesign stratosphere. This is when I first started using the flash mp3 player for NQ Tunes, which was a big success. Although this was the "favorite" layout, it was up for a shorter period of time than the previous ones because I felt it was too flashy, and I think my tastes were changing.

Creator: Nika
Title: Looking Beyond
Date: 04/11/06 - 07/02/06
Hosted by: soundless-words.net

Description: I really, really, really wanted to use a male figure in this layout but when I saw this picture from A3, I just knew I had to use it. When I created it, I was in the process of reconstructing NQdesigns from scratch due to a sever crash. Therefore, I knew I had to make it good, and I'm quite happy with how it came out. I drew alot of inspiration from other sites that I love. This layout signifies the beginning of NQTUNES. Green is one of my least favorite colors, but when I was fooling around with different colorizing effects, green just stood out to me the most. I don't think any other color scheme would do it justice. I especially like the quote. You can't see in this preview but after this layout I decided to try to embed a quote in all my layouts from now on.

Creator: Nika
Title: Violet Goodies
Date: 01/04/05 - 04/11/06
Hosted by: cjb.cc

Description: I was really expecting this layout to stay up forever. When I started making it, I wasn't intent on using it as a layout. I felt it was too soon to change the previous layout, but as it slowly started developing into what it is now, the more I fell in love with it. It is named "Violet Goodies" because Aria (from Sister Princess) is extending sweets out to um well...you. I really was aiming for the 3-dimensional look on this one. The main reason why I ended up changing this one was not because of my move to a new host, but because it had alot of coding errors (which I was too lazy and frustated to fix in the beginning) which, in turn, made it uncompatible in mozilla. Also I realized it took long to load for some users. Yeah so this one had to go, although I was sad to see it go.

Creator: Nika
Title: Autumn Shine
Date: 11/25/05 - 01/04/05
Hosted by: cjb.cc

Description: I had alot of time to perfect this layout the way I wanted it because of Hurricane Wilma which knocked out cable for 3 weeks. I was able to access paint shop pro but not the internet. Frankly, I loved how it came out. I'm just sorry that I looked at it too much before coding it onto my site because if I have to look at a layout too long, I get bored of it quick. This layout signifies a gaint leap forward on my part because this is when I changed the name of the site to nqdesigns.net.tc, this is when I started using php scripts, and this is when I started really getting attention for my site. So I owe alot of nqdesigns's success to this layout. Also with this one, I tried to go with the 3-dimensional look. I knew there wasn't any other site that looked like this so I was happy.

Creator: Nika
Title: Midnight Flight
Date: 10/02/05 - 11/25/05
Hosted by: freewebs.com

Description: This layout was meant to be the first of a series of season themed layouts, however having to pertain all my future layouts to a certain theme really constricted my artistic range so I decided against that idea. I really love the header in this one. This is when I decided to stop using wallpapers for my layouts and started making my own layouts from scratch. That's why this layout took 12 hours to create. Darker colors are most attractive to me. The only problem that I had with this layout is that I had orginally created it in a way so that it could use a drop-down menu, but I couldn't get the code to work to save my life, so I had to use an uglier navigation and I was sore about it.

Creator: Nika
Title: Fighter
Date: 08/27/05 - 10/02/05
Hosted by: freewebs.com

Description: I had alot of good feedback about this layout. The girl on the right is from Magna Carta, and the girl holding the gun is from Gunslinger Girls. Beleive it or not, I didn't really like this layout at first when I created it. I had a vision when I started making it, and it didn't quite come out as my vision but I grew to love it. This is one of the rare layouts that I actually began to like more after I keep on seeing it. I would've kept it up longer but I made a solemn vow to change my site's layout every month, and this one was way over due. Nonetheless, this is currently my favorite layout of all time.

Creator: Nika
Title: Tender Kisses
Date: 07/29/05 - 08/27/05
Hosted by: freewebs.com

Description: I really loved this one. It will always hold a special place in my heart. This layout signifies my leap from an amateaur webdesigner to an accomplished webmaster, at least I thought so at the time. It is called tender kisses because there is alot of kissing in this layout. lol. I'm such a cornball. This is the first layout I actually used real brushes on. I got a lot of good feedback on it. It was so cute, but of course, all good things must end sooner or later.

Creator: Nika
Title: Purple Heaven
Date: 07/04/05 - 07/29/05
Hosted by: cjb.cc

Description: I remember loving this layout, but looking back on it now, it wasn't all that. lol. Don't get me wrong it was still great, I mean c'mon, I created it. LOL J/P. But back then I wasn't really focused on originality as I am now, and I had just learned how to properly use brushes. Not bad for my first website layout. My biggest problem with this one was that the wallpaper in it was overused. Everyone, at one time or another, had used this same wallpaper for their layout therefore I was in desperate need of a change.