About 95% of the work I do tends fall into the “logos and websites” category, but every now and again I’m given the opportunity to work on something a little different. One of my favourite “little different something” is the resume. I’ve designed a number of them, and I always enjoy them. They’re challenging from an information hierarchy point of view, and people really notice them. I’ve heard all kinds of comments, in part I think because people are so used to seeing the same boring MS Word templates. Julie Smith is a Toronto lawyer whose resume I recently designed. She sent her resume out to two different companies one day, and was given an interview on the second. Later, she passed along this comment from a headhunter:
Your resume looks fantastic! One of the best I’ve ever seen!
So, if you find yourself facing unemployment (I’m not going to use the “R” word, or even the “D” word, but do feel free to ruminate on the current economic climate in whatever manner you’d prefer), you should invest in a custom-designed resume! It’s cheap, it’s fun, and it may even get you a job. And I get that warm-and-fuzzy feeling that comes from helping someone out.
Tags: design, information, interview, logos, websites
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I seem to go through phases of rapid development, followed by periods of stasis. I just realized, after having worked 35 hours in the past 3 days, that I’m in a “rapid development” phase. Or I’m just working so much that I can’t help but pick up things faster.
Anyway, new projects!
Tags: business, design, projects
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I don’t believe in showing up early for a party (after all, it’s important to make an entrance). In a business context, this probably isn’t the best thing in the world, and in an internet context, it’s even less so. For instance, I just recently started making use of Twitter. I honestly didn’t get what the big idea was. Then I started using it.
It’s amazing. News stories break on Twitter before the newspapers even have an idea what’s going on. You can see real-time photos of Stephen Fry stuck in an elevator. If you complain about a product, its manufacturers will help you out. But most fascinating are the conversations: it’s like what I imagine The Crysalids was like. Someone makes a comment about the colour of the sky, and people respond; threads of conversation begin spidering off in different tangents. Anyone can jump in at any point and drop out just as easily, and nobody dominates because every response is limited to 140 characters. It’s the digital representation of the collective unconsciousness. And it’s searchable!
Social media, I’m sure you’ve heard, is changing our world. If you’re late to the party, like me, it’s time to get involved! Rather than give you a bunch of information that may or may not be true, I’m going to point the way to some resources from more credible experts than I.
(continue »)
Tags: business, how-to, information, resources, SEO, social media
Posted in resources | 4 Comments »
I’ve had the craziest last-little-while: personally, professionally, otherwise. I took my first vacation in years and disappeared into the Mayan jungle for a week, and I’ve just recently returned from just shy of a full month spent on-the-road, living out of suitcases and backpacks and the trunk of my car. It’s been utterly fabulous–exhausting and refreshing simultaneously, and just what I needed to return to my life & business with a clean brain & slate.
I have many stories and photographs, which are forthcoming. For now, two new projects: the holiday cards I mean to do every year, and a redesign and rearchitecturing of Fernwood Publishing.
Tags: books, design, life, projects, websites
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The Good: Digsby is gorgeous. I love the gigantic fluorescent “download” bar that gets OS-specific after you click on it. I love their coming soon page, too, although I might have preferred to find an actual download.
The Bad: No more Digby. I’m trying hard not to think about it because it makes me sad. Why aren’t there more beautiful & clever, highly saturated things around? (I am happiest in technicolour). I don’t understand why “reality” is so interesting. There’s enough reality right outside my door; I’d rather the fantasy when I’m looking to get out of my head.
and the Ridiculous: Minggl thinks “b3k 4w5″ isn’t a valid postal code. It took me three tries to figure out they wanted me to capitalize it. Seriously? Canada Post will deliver my mail if I forget the majority of the address and scrawl it upside down with a six-inch-wide marker, but some web app that isn’t ever going to send me mail can’t validate a lowercase postal code?
Also, why are all web apps named by dyslexic five year olds now? I miss real words.
Tags: colour, life, pretty website, style, trends, websites
Posted in diatribes, misc | 1 Comment »
…but apparently I’m not. I’ve actually had “update website” on my to-do list for the last three or four weeks. In the past week it’s actually been upgraded to “update website PLEASE” and “for the love of EVERYTHING, UPDATE WEBSITE ALREADY”. I’m starting to suspect it might be easier to switch over from my custom-built Ruby on Rails powered site to a customized Wordpress site, which could easily handle everything my RoR is doing with a much easier-to-use backend (not that manually editing database fields isn’t easy).
I’ve been using Wordpress for everything lately, and have totally fallen in love with it. I seem to always be a little behind the curve on web trends (as a side note, I’m now on Twitter, though I still don’t really understand the point entirely) due to my general distaste for trends (if everyone likes it, it can’t possibly be any good, right?). But I really wish I’d discovered the power and flexibility of Wordpress earlier on—it’s brilliant and I’m beginning to use it for more and more of my client projects.
(continue »)
Tags: business, design, logos, projects, trends, websites
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I’ve been doing some work with email newsletters of late. It is, of course, a bit of a challenge, given how email is even less reliable at properly interpreting standards-compliant CSS code and the like. (Seriously, one of these days, all these companies will get together and start implementing code consistently, across the board, and web designers across the world will suddenly find that what used to take ten hours now only takes one. Companies like the fabulous BrowserCam will go out of business. Why is so much of our economy built on busy-work? Screw the unemployment rate, I want efficiency!)
Anyway. Two things I’ve learned:
- Gmail doesn’t care about your CSS text-formatting. That’s right, that means you’ll need to use <FONT> tags. Gross. I haven’t used those in at least five years!
- Outlook 2007 will make things look ugliest. Apparently, this is because it uses the MS Word rendering engine. Now, seriously? Why? If you’ve ever tried to design anything in Word, well, you know how impossible it is. They do, however, provide this handy little “validator” to check to see how/if your code is going to work, which is nice for those of us who get the shakes just opening Outlook. And it’ll plug into Dreamweaver!
On a vaguely related, but mostly unrelated, note: remember to vote, kids! This is the first year in a while I haven’t been directly involved in doing design work for a campaign, and as a result I’m less jazzed about the election than I usually am, but it’s starting to get to me as the day goes on. Go! Vote! (Or at least spoil your ballot (though it’s illegal to do so). Or vote Libertarian, if you can! Efficiency 2008! Down with Busy-Work! Alright, now I’m excited.)
Tags: business, css, design, email, politics, resources, typography, websites
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I usually use Scriptalicious for my AJAX needs, but I’m working on a set of AJAX-ified forms on a website that’s already using jQuery, so I figure hey, it can’t be that hard to change over! Twenty minutes later, cue the loud cursing and growling. I mean, the whole thing seems far more powerful, but every time I’ve wanted to start implementing it, I’ve been turned off by how complex it seems to do simple things. (Like slide down a div window, which I hope to have accomplished before I turn 30. On a side note, I’ve been feeling old because I turned 25 today, until my little sister sent me a message saying that I’m “plenty young, for a president!” Which I suppose is technically true, so I don’t feel quite so washed up anymore.)
Anyway, back to my jQuery-induced headache: this very helpful thing to the rescue! If I can stop being distracted by the gorgeous site design, I might be able to figure this stuff out, after all, without having to spend all day teaching my brain new methods of programming. I do so love programming tutorials written for designers. Thank you, pretty colourful website!
Tags: design, pretty, process, resources, tutorial, websites
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Have I mentioned how much I love my clients? I checked the mailbox yesterday and found a box full of delicious chocolate muffins (thank goodness customs didn’t open the box!), accompanied by this note:
Hi Sarah,
So sorry to hear that you lost a considerable amount of work when water spilled on your computer. While chocolate zucchini muffins (no nuts–in case you’re allergic) won’t bring the material back (wouldn’t that be great), perhaps they can fuel the recreation process. Just want to let you know that we can be patient for an ultimately high-quality product.
Cheers!
ACT
How utterly sweet & lovely is that? I am an incredibly lucky girl to get to work with such fabulous clients.
Tags: business, chocolate, design, process
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Well, it’s been a long, long, long time in the making, but I’ve finally updated my portfolio a teeny little bit (not too much to be overwhelming, of course!) There’s this portrait of my gorgeous little sister:
and a “new” website (that was completed months ago). I really don’t like updating my own website!
But I’m determined that it’s about time to do it, especially given that I’m about to move again, and that means that my address as listed on the website will be even more wrong than it is currently. (Sure, in theory it only takes two minutes to change it, but that’s not how I work…if I’m going to spend two minutes, I’m going to be there three hours trying to fix all the little things.) At any rate, all the little things have really added up, and it’s time for some major-ish rearranging. (continue »)
Tags: chocolate, design, process, productivity, projects, resources, typography, websites
Posted in diatribes, site updates | No Comments »
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