I think it all started when, at my first job as an in-house designer, I inherited all the files from the previous designer. I had to click through so many layers to find what I needed, re-labeling, re-grouping and deleting empty layers. A half hour at least for every file I had to open. Multiply that by even just 10 files and looks how much time is wasted. Right then and there, every file I created was labeled, grouped and clearly named. This became a blessing when the company hired two more designers and I already had a workflow in place.

The Offending File

Another more recent example – I downloaded a template file that a client purchased. I open the file, ready to get to work and what a letdown. None of the layers have names or they are weird names that make no sense to me. It took me an unnecessary 20 minutes just to nail down the layers and where things were.

Sure, it might seem tedious to name every layer. How about folders? You can group layers into folders named Header, Footer, Right Sidebar, etc. and, even if you don’t name the layers, at least you can drill down right to the specific area you need to edit and instead of going through 50 layers you only need to go through 10. I do both.

Neat & Organized

I name every layer and then group things into named folders. I’m a freelancer and, at this point, I’m the only one who works on my files but my workflow is so much easier because I can just open a file, zero right in to where I need to be. But who knows – maybe I’ll have an assistant someday. I wouldn’t want nightmare files slowing down the person who is supposed to be helping me. Besides being a bit anal and knowing that I have to practice what I preach, I just think it’s courteous and although I’m usually only being courteous to myself  – if I’m not courteous to myself, who will be?

Side Note: I recently worked with another designer who sent me the psd files that I would be using to develop the website. Of course, I was thinking the files were going to be a mess when I got them but I was wrong! Much to my surprise, this fellow designer created her files like I do. Naming every layer and grouping the areas in folders. The project was a breeze to develop.

Original Client Sketch

It sounded simple enough – Vet clinic name, cat, dog, heart shape. The client had a rough sketch done of what she had in mind. Some designers might mind this. My illustration abilities are fairly raw so I like a jumping off point especially when there is drawing or illustration involved. I can draw but am not a natural. Illustrations and lines don’t just flow out of me. I have to pencil sketch, erase, sketch, erase, and grumble, erase again. I also used to really wrestle the pen tool in Illustrator (I don’t think I’ll ever bother with it in Photoshop). I just didn’t get it but, like most things, after using it enough times it finally clicked and while still not my favorite tool, at least I’m not hiding from it anymore.

Once I got the sketch scanned in and got the initial outlines done, the original position of the cat and dog ended up being too awkward to create. The animals just didn’t look… comfortable. I looked at so many images of animals in different positions, blending sketches of my own, until I finally came up with a position that created the heart the client wanted and liked. Hard part number one down. Now to actually fill the little guys out and make them look like pets you’d want, not flat, little rat-looking things. The ears on the dog and both tails were the hardest (they definitely had a rat-looking thing phase).

My Sketched Version

I created the animals as outlines for more control but when I chose ‘Create Compound Path’ the paths didn’t fill in solidly; you could see the odd twists and turns they took. There was an option in the menu that I had never tried – ‘Join’ – so I took my chances. You can always ctrl+z, right! I was pleasantly surprised (and relieved!) when my outlines joined and then filled the way I wanted to. After some tweaking of the font and placement the Upper East Veterinary Clinic logo emerged. Warm and fuzzies all around!

Final Logo

What colour is my parachute? by rednivaram

As a fairly recent member of the unemployed I’m coming up against questions that surely plague many who have been out there for a while. I am fortunate – my chosen careen path of web design very easily translates into the freelance lifestyle so while I am unemployed – meaning no full time job – I am working.

I was having a particularly off or down day. I found jobs to apply for but I’ll be damned if there was a cover letter to be found in my brain. I decided to go to the library (YES, the library. The internet was just bringin’ me down) to get out of the house and see if I couldn’t jog some give-me-the-job juices from somewhere. While leafing through various books on cover letters (once again, the Dummies series came through! I really should return that…) I bumped into “What Color is Your Parachute?” It’s been around for a while and, apparently, it’s updated every year. Not very far in, a question is posed: “Is this a good time to try to figure out your purpose in life, your calling, your vocation, your passion, your “dream job”? Indeed, I have thought about this. I probably shouldn’t be too picky, right? I mean, I’m not that picky by any stretch. I don’t have to work for the #1 ad agency in the world (some would ask well, why not?) but I have read some job descriptions that, while I could do it, it didn’t inspire me. That or the company left something to be desired. Did I apply? Yes, to a couple of them but since there are only so many jobs available on any given day and after I have taken care of any freelance work, there is inevitably down time. So, as my grandfather used to say, might as well do something even if it’s wrong. Meaning, doing something is better than nothing because it gets the ball rolling.

I have finished reading the book so now I think I’m going to go back and do the exercises to see if I can’t unearth “my passion”. These exercises are recommended whether you are changing careers or just trying to find the right place to do what you love. I’ve never really gotten into exercises like the ones in the book – I’m an eye-roller, a nay-sayer, a wow-this-is-lame, PUH-leeze kind of gal sometimes. Maybe I’m older, maybe I care more, who knows. Maybe after these exercises, I will have to work for the #1 ad agency in the world!

The other thing I’ve been doing in my spare time (note: this is a fallacy in my life. I’m not working full time but I have less time than I did before) anyway – I am learning Javascript. I’ve been meaning to buckle down and learn it for quite a while but now, in my job search, I notice it’s expected in the ‘toolbox’ of a front-end developer/designer, which would be me. I can work with pre-written code – make edits and tweak settings – but not my own stuff and now it’s holding me back.

So, you’ve got your variables and your functions. Functions are really fancy ways of telling a variable what to do. I’m thinking I should write a function for my job search, like var parachute & var jobs. IF jobs < 0, THEN parachute should be huge, ELSE, IF jobs > 0, THEN parachute should still be big. Just in case. I may not mind doing something wrong to get the ball rolling but I still like an escape route.

And then, the other building, in another part of Brooklyn. As you walk up to it with your camera you are quick to avert your eyes from the man who just pulled up his pants from taking a quick pee on a fire hydrant.

All in a day’s work I guess!

HTML5 for Web Designers by Jeremy Keith

The first book of abookapart, HTML5 for Web Designers, whose goal was to be “clear, brief and specific with a touch of humor” were quite successful in their endeavor!

The book is 89 pages including the index, foreword, table of contents, about abookapart, about the author and a note on the font. Even the copyright and ISBN information are brief! Cleary brevity was achieved but can you be specific and clear in that amount of space? Yes and we’re not talking a 4 point font with no whitespace either. No sir! This is a great little book that manages to provide a history of mark-up, the new features of HTML and nifty little workable Javascript tricks to gracefully degrade in browsers without full HTML5 support thereby providing an almost seamless user experience.

It is a great little book with lots of good examples of how to use these new HTML5 elements throughout. I highly recommend! And a note to author Jeremy Keith: if you ever need back-up in your hunt for the users of autoplay and loop – I’ve got your back!

A Corner of
My Future Site

I am currently in the process of redesigning my own website, which showcases a portfolio of my web design work along with my photography. It is long overdue and certainly could benefit from more copy and a more coherent design and flow. Looking at the site from a potential client or employer’s perspective one would wonder who this designer is. What does this designer have to offer? On the surface, it doesn’t look like much.

The design aspect of my site is definitely farther along than the copy which is unfortunate because it is really better to design with content than without. Designing without the copy can lead to a whole host of issues including continually redesigning and, were it for a client, extra charges. While I may not be charging myself, I don’t want to waste my own time either.

Writing copy for the web is a little different, as many articles will tell you. The copy needs to be succinct but as detailed as possible because it needs to be found by search engines and users otherwise it’s just a pretty element of cyberspace. The thing that gets in the way is the search engine optimization (SEO) aspect of the writing. While there are key phrases and words you want to find you in a search, you also don’t want to sound like you’re writing just for the search, which is part of what was holding me back writing copy for my site. I could blame it on writer’s block but I can eke out a few blog posts and a lot of poetry in a given time span so clearly it isn’t writer’s block. Part of it of course, is determining who I am as a designer and then making that work with ‘key phrases’ and part of it is my perfection confinement: it has to be right the first time.

An article I read the other day at Website Magazine really helped. And the thing that got me was that as a writer, the advice was so obvious. “Start by writing 2 or 3 bulleted points that you want to make….” Wow. Brilliant, eh? That’s the basis for essay writing in high school: the outline. (Incidentally, I don’t think I ever wrote an outline that was worth anything. I went right into the writing part – I guess its coming back to haunt me now!) Using this paramount piece of advice for the ‘elevator pitch’ at the beginning of my resume, which was also eluding me, I broke through these barriers and I feel that I’m ready to move on to tackle the copy on my website.

Another good point at the Web Designer Depot was to “Think about the story you want to tell at each point in the design process.” This is something that was definitely missing from my approach. Looking at how I was proceeding in my own site design, I was seeing each page as its own entity, separate from any other page but this shouldn’t be the case. A website, in this instance mine, should have a solid idea as a whole and each page should support that. I am my worst client. I was doing all the things that frustrate me in dealing with clients. Not provide copy, not having a clear vision of flow, not thinking about the audience. No wonder I have been stumbling all over the place.

I now have a much more clear vision of what I want the site to do and I see my little cyber niche becoming a much more enjoyable place to land.

Becoming a Peony

Small green globes that shroud
the delicate within -
angelic white kissed with sunset pink.

Without, they scramble silently
pulling, pulling -
for release of the tender heart.

Green yields, and yields
slowly it seems -
from its beginning orb.

The white flesh appears, peeled out
revealing its final flourish -
the beauty of spring.

Axe Scrubber

Lately in the pharmacy I’ve noticed the shelves containing more skin and hair care products designed to attract the male consumer. Darker toned packaging, like the Dove or Vaseline Intensive Care bottles, and the edges aren’t as soft as products are that are geared toward females. Take the body scrubber thing that Axe has created for men to use in the shower, while using the sexy, masculine scented line of body washes, of course. It is not just a soft little ball of mesh attached to a soft colored string. No, the scrubber thing for men is contained. It has two sides, one to clean and one to buff. When I look at it I think, you could wax a car with that.  I also think that it would be easier to hold and guide to where you’d want it unlike the unstructured mesh poufs that litter the skincare aisle.

Vaseline's Male Packaging

Dove's Scrubber Thing

Dove's Male Packaging

I have always thought that I have a masculine ‘streak’, I guess you would say. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the typical shoe indulgence (in fact I have overindulged a time or two. or three.) or jewelry (I have cut myself off) but just an edge. I like suits styled like men’s suits, vests, pick-up trucks and have a marginal fascination with guns. So when I see these skin care products aimed at the male consumer dressed in navy blue, black and dark red packaging,  I always pause in front of them, longing to dress my shower shelves in more masculine colors. After smelling them, however, I sigh and walk away. I do not care to smell like “Active Sport” which, in reality, probably smells nothing like that sharp, fresh, tingly, smell. Someone active in sports probably smells more like a gym locker. I have yet to find a product in the male body care section that is unscented so, until that future time, I shall leave the ‘Fresh Sport’ scent with its lovely dark packaging for the male consumer and continue to buy pastel colored bottles with soft curves to adorn my shower. I will not, however, use products that are scented like Spring Rain (nope, smells nothing like fresh earth) or Rose (nope, wild roses don’t smell that way either).

My Alter Ego

I guess it could be considered a new year’s resolution though I never officially decided that it would be. It developed out of a moment of self-awareness: my relationship issues were actually more my fault than anything else. I was handling things very poorly and decided to fix that. I went on a self-help book quest on Amazon (that wasn’t overwhelming at all *insert crossed eyes here*). I settled on The Dance of Connection and Make the Leap and promptly requested them from the library (being frugal was on my list of habit changes). They were very helpful – I implemented suggestions and saw happy results almost immediately. I remember joking with Mom about 2010 being the year for my personal transformation. What I didn’t know was that it would happen in such a big way because of things out of my control.

As I went about my daily routine of showering, commuting, prepping & sending emails, an embolism was blooming in my pulmonary artery. My breathing had been difficult for awhile but I just attributed that to being out of shape and toting around a few extra pounds. I woke up on a Tuesday morning, preparing to travel to Vermont for business and a familiar pain presented itself on my right side. I say familiar because I have had the pleasure of having a lung infection called pleurisy.  Assuming that this is what I had, I went up to Vermont anyway but did schedule an appointment with the pulmonologist for the following Tuesday. The whole time I was away, I was short of breath, tired, kind of weak and had pain on deep breaths.

The doctor and I, when I do see him, both agree – it would be weird to develop pleurisy with no prior illness like bronchitis or the flu because, when it happens, it’s usually after an illness. He decided, after hearing about my being on Yaz birth control, to run a test for blood clots. When this came back positive I was sent for a CT scan. This was at 11AM March 11th. At 3PM, the pulmonologist called and told me to go to the hospital and admit myself to the ER. This floors me. I have to go to the hospital? Why? This never crossed my mind, that it was something this serious.

It turns out, even though my doctor assured me it would all be fine, pulmonary embolisms are nothing to mess with. Quite recently in fact, our infomercial maven, Billy Mays, died from one. At any time during that week, I could have as well. And younger people are actually more likely to die from one because they dismiss pain, thinking it will go away. I am in the hospital for 6 days during which time you have a lot of time to think. And you are surrounded by age and sickness and helplessness. And you are helpless. You are at the mercy of the hospital – when they take your blood (530AM, bright lights coming on and a needle stick are a very rude awakening), when they feed you.  At least I could go to the bathroom and shower without help. Most people there weren’t so lucky.

Always a good sign

While it was scary and there is still some residual pain, I am alive. I am here to experience that pain. But I am also alive to continue my friendships, be a daughter, a partner, a web designer, a writer and a poet. If I say I’m going to do something, I do it. If I want to see someone, I make the plans. I’m having more fun, more peace, and more enjoyment. When I see how much of my own enjoyment of life I was keeping away from myself, it makes me shake my head. Why didn’t I see that before? As my friend Sarah said, you got a tap on the shoulder.

Thanks. I needed that.

Hopefully, there will be more pretty days like this to make the lunchtime escape that much more enjoyable!