CSS Responsive menu with h1 title (logo) centered

Question

So I want to center a h1 without an image at the center of my navigation which has 2 more elements and it has to be responsive. I tried almost everything I can find but...works mostly with background images, and with inline-block I can't center it perfectly.

Below I have the best I could do, but hover doesn't work, probably cause of h1 width which 100%;

* {
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
}
a {
  text-decoration: none;
  color: white;
  text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px black;
}
li {
  list-style: none;
}
header {
  margin: 0 auto;
  text-align: center;
}
ul li {
  float: left;
  display: block;
  background-color: #232323;
  width: 50%;
  padding: 10px 0 10px 0;
}
ul li:hover {
  background-color: black;
}
.logo {
  position: relative;
  top: -38px;
}

<header>
  <nav>
    <ul>
      <li><a href='#blog'>Blog</a>
      </li>
      <li><a href='#portofolio'>Portofolio</a>
      </li>
    </ul>
  </nav>
  <a href='#/' class='logo'><h1>Tao SandBox</h1></a>
</header>

It has to be a better way!!!

http://codepen.io/taosx/pen/vNWojo?editors=110

Answer 1

http://codepen.io/anon/pen/OyOKrN

Make the h1 use the .logo class. Then set absolute position and center it.

 .logo {
    position:absolute;
    top:0;
    left:0;
   right:0;
   text-align:center;
 }

I'd also recommend adding the h1 markup prior to the nav, to maintain a better semantic flow.

    <header>

    <nav>
      <h1 class='logo'><a href='#/' >Tao SandBox</a></h1>
      <ul>
            <li><a href='#blog'>Blog</a></li>
            <li><a href='#portofolio'>Portofolio</a></li>
        </ul>
    </nav>

</header>