In the last year, I have moved three times: one in October, when I moved out of my apartment in Lunenburg to share an apartment with my boyfriend; once in March, when I moved all my things from my studio in Lunenburg into aforementioned apartment (which started to look really, really full), and then just last week, when I moved the majority of my things into storage and the “essentials” (bed, clothing, stereo, printer) into the basement of my good friend Melissa’s house.
Moving is great, in a sense. It gives you a chance to take stock of your life and throw out the things that aren’t important anymore (many of which never were in the first place). It gives you a clean slate, an opportunity to redefine your life according to your own whims. (continue »)
Tags: balance, business, life, stress
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Dear God, I wish I’d made this website: Butter London. It’s pretty much my holy grail of website design. I love the typography, I love the way they actually found a “butter” colour that’d work in the background, I love the varied textures and the scrollwork and the slightly old-wallpaper feel of the whole thing. The subtle animation effects are great (that’s how Flash ought to be used, if you ask me, and I love that there’s a little skull and crossbones used to offset the foliage. (continue »)
Tags: design, pretty
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I feel like I’m somehow failing as a self-professed typophile when I admit that I only managed to net a 30 score on this test. Note to self: time to start studying up on my fonts.
Tags: design, fonts, typography
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I gave a presentation to my BBC group last week, giving some tips and guidelines for how to make a website more effective. It’s aimed towards the non-technical person, though implementation of much of the advice would likely require a designer or developer’s help. However, I thought it might be a useful resource, especially if you’re in the process of creating a new website, or revamping an old one.
Do note that I’ve not been ferociously good at following all of these guidelines myself—but it’s certainly given me some better ideas about where I ought to be taking my website! (continue »)
Tags: how-to, SEO, websites
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…for a girl goes on and on about how “you should make sure to update your website on a regular basis, or else!”, I’m pretty terrible at doing it myself. I’ve been trying to get into the blogging thing, but I’m having trouble motivating myself to post at least once a week! For shame.
(continue »)
Tags: design, projects, websites
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I think I really like Instapaper, when I actually remember to use it. I have a tendency to look at something long and tedious, then either bookmark it and forget about it, or print it and have my cat turn it into long-winded confetti. Instapaper is a really neat way of storing these “things I mean to read”, not like I need yet another form of to-do list. (My current system involves a primary handwritten list, in my notebook, which then references my “email to-do list”, or sometimes my “rss to-do list”. Sometimes one day’s list will reference another day’s list, or a list specific to a project, as in, do one item from said list, or do entirety of list.) (continue »)
Tags: SEO, zen
Posted in misc, zen | 2 Comments »
Damn, you look fine.
Where’ve you been all my life? Or, more accurately, where’ve you been the last four years of my life, during which I never once worried about properly citing an essay penned by three authors quoting a stage play by an unknown playwright? I mean, the Virgo-perfectionist in me really loves style manuals. And I really need to work on my typographic correctness. I’m a little ashamed to say that I’ve only VERY recently come to learn about using my proper em-dashes (I’m still a little unclear on en-dashes). Clients who didn’t automatically smart-quote their own HTML (read: all of them) for a while were the bane of my existence, until I cajoled a programmer friend into writing me a block of regular expressions that does it automatically. I’m making progress.
Anyway, I know it’s been a while, but boy, have you ever kept yourself in shape. What a typographically pretty website.
Tags: pretty, style, typography
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My job is not stress-free!
I am pretty much a constant bundle of stress. And while I realize your article is more of an advertorial than anything, I still have to disagree. (continue »)
Tags: business, design, stress
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Point taken.
I have hated the blog thing for so long, despite having spent a good deal of my formative years keeping online journals. But if I buckled to Facebook for the pursuit of fame and fortune, I can buckle to the weblog world.
That is, if I can actually do it consistently.
Tags: business, consistency
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I have a total love-hate relationship with Valentine’s Day. (Yes, I know this comes a little late, but I’m about a week behind on everything else right now, so it seems somehow fitting.) Yes, it’s trite and silly and you should be nice to the people you love all year long, and not just when you’re obligated to. Honestly though, I know I sometimes need a little extra push. And the girly side of me is always disappointed when I don’t get flowers (I’ve had a lengthy string of boyfriends who’ve committed this sin, thinking that I’d dislike being given them. Seriously, who dislikes being given flowers?)
At any rate, every year, I have the best intentions to lovingly handcraft gorgeous cards for everyone, and every year, I never get around to doing it. (I guess at least I have my traditions, even if they involve disappointing myself!) This year heralded a near-success, as I threw together a card at the eleventh hour (literally, it was eleven o’clock):
Aren’t I adorable?
It’s amazing how good it felt to spend just ten minutes drawing for fun again. Ten minutes! You’d think I could get into this habit, no?
On a side note, I’ve been insanely busy. Added two new projects: a logo and a website.
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