Walking along the cool sunny wintry streets of Christchurch I saw a poster with some names I knew all about, this poster was for an upcoming conference for designers up in Auckland – Semi Permanent. One of those names had me going straight to the website and buying myself a ticket.

Jessica Hische is a lovely, motivated and super talented designer/illustrator/typographer. Ever since she showed up on the interweb I have been admiring from afar for her attention to detail and gorgeous colour palettes. Here is a video! Make sure you head to her shop if you like her style and would like something for your walls.

SP 2010 Speaker – Jessica Hische from Semi Permanent on Vimeo.

Whats inspiring without a little music? I’m gonna show my age here, I listened alot to Lamb on those all night stints working on that assignment due the next day, way back in the uni days. I now have no idea how I managed those all nighters. I remember large amounts of spicy chips, chocolate and coffee being involved. Lamb still helps me focus on work. If I need to get some stuff done quick (usually some HTML and CSS!), this is my sound track. Play the vid for a sample:

Memories and nostalgia! The last design conference I went to was Semi Permanent in Sydney, just after graduating from uni. Add in listening Lamb and no time has passed. I’m that poor silly student all over again. So fun.

It all starts with paper and ink. A good read – on ‘handcrafting’ websites. (for non-webbers – i have a music video at the bottom!)

Handcrafted CSS

by Dan Cedarholme with Ethan Marcotte

This book started going over about a bunch of stuff I knew in ‘bits’. For myself the value came from overall CSS concepts being  explained with some pretty sexy examples.  An added bonus, just like Dan’s Bulletproof web design book, you can build a website if you follow through copying the examples (The finished website is also available for download.)

I learnt a fair amount in the end and found myself getting excited about CODE. I know.. weird. My favorite chapter is the one on fluid grids. I have already started using grid based layout (after reading about it online) besides keeping the design tight, i didn’t really know why it had taken the web design world by storm. Now its explained in a funny way and I have more (and better) examples to play with. If you’re a web designer this book is perfect for linking all the new practices together to get your foundation CSS and HTML knowledge back into shape.

For each post on “what feeds me”  I plan on giving you a wee sample of my music collection. This week is the awesome guitarist/musician Kaki King. The album I own is “Dreaming of Revenge”  brought on itunes… i love itunes for music downloading ease!

What inspires you to stay on top and happy most days? Is there any special albums, places, websites or books? Perhaps daily rituals that help you roll out of bed… I love hearing about new music, art, books – feel free to share…

The little goats on the farm are soon to be given a boy goat too… Who’s to say how happy they will be with this concept.

They are very happy when treats are brought though. 
****

Thats the latest update from the farm.

On our lazy Sunday out visiting Kylie and I spotted UFO’s from the mall where I finally brought myself some jeans… on closer inspection they were some kites on steroids.

Since you can see why I am not up to writing the ‘why’s’ and reasons behind my latest work (brain power is being preserved for some work I MUST get done before the week ends.) I thought I might just give a sneak peak and perhaps talk some more about them next week.

Hope you all have a great weekend. Mine will probably be spent on the couch!

Well Christmas has been and gone….. so we decided to do it again. This time in the middle of our winter. Some Christmas fare just tastes better when its cold. Its also so much more fun to have the decorations out twice a year rather than once!

Great times were had by many (i hope… at least they said so). I grew worried that there was so much food not being touched when people first started to arrive. But there came a moment the hunger must have started because all of a sudden the food was gone and we were being showered with praises over the gingerbread men!

I had fears we made too much gingerbread men and we would end up eating them all week and growing little bellies as a result. But alas there was none left at the end of the evening. They make great party food. There was almost a society formed to teach the most humane way to eat them and shocked glances and were seen as a person ate the little men from the feet up, rather than head down (apparently its a quicker less painful death from the head down).

Today you will get the gingerbread men recipe. I will post the Christmas mince pies and egg nog later in the week.

Gingerbread Men
(from joy of baking recipe)

3 cups of Flour
1/4 tsp Salt
3/4 tsp Baking Soda
2 tsp Ground Ginger
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1/4 tsp Ground Cloves
113g Unsalted Butter at room temp (we still use salted if thats all we have)
1/2 cup White Sugar
1 Large Egg
2/3 Cups of Molasses (we used Red Seal Blackstrap Molasses this time)

First sift and mix the dry ingredients together. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy, add egg and molasses until well combined. Then slowly add the dry mixture. Divide the dough into two and wrap each with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 2 hours minimum. (This time we made our dough 3 days in advance and just kept refrigerated until we were ready to roll out and bake.)

When ready to roll out, lightly flour a surface and roll out dough until about 1/4 inch thick. Use a ginger bread cutter to cut out the cookies, using a spatula transfer from bench to a tray covered in baking paper.

Bake for around 8-12 minutes (they seems to cook really quick – so be vigilant!) Leave on tray for a short amount of time then once holding together well enough transfer to a cooling rack until they are room temperature.

I am no decorating wizz yet, but I did find the frosting from the original recipe too soft. Mine was not right either, would not stick to the little man as I was piping it. You can press decorations into the men when they are hot. But wait for them to cool completely before icing.

Ben Kepes editor for US based technology blog CloudAve needed a new theme for his WordPress blog that represented his growing analysis business. His boutique analysis firm conducts research and publishes whitepapers of a ‘technical nature’ namely, cloud computing and related themes for businesses such as Rackspace, Box.net and MYOB.

So here’s the homepage before the re-design:

Here is the ‘after’ (homepage)

I wanted to explain my thought process behind this re-design,  I got to start from scratch on this job which meant designing page layouts and even structure adjustment. As I have mentioned before… favorite part!

Home page:
I wanted a homepage that immediately conveyed what Diversity Analysis has to offer and it also needed to be clear that the analysts were not just writers, but writers that specialized in technical topics.

So the top content area had to have a written description of what they did with some visual cues…

The logos are to add credibility and be recognizable helping the potential client see that other companies had trusted these guys and they had done a good job.

It was also important that the context was correct. The preview of ‘who they are’ is essential for giving not only that ‘face’ that marketers go on about, but also to let people know they are not dealing with a big corporation, just two guys who know what they do that they can talk to directly. An added bonus would be recognition. Ben is regularly writing up articles on the big conferences so no doubt some of these people would have seen him around.

The rest of the items on the homepage are to draw people into the other parts of the site by providing previews of everything they need before they get in contact to get their own whitepaper written.

Rest of site:
I wanted to keep the site uncomplicated and simple to get around in ways that suited whoever was reading. To do this for Diversity I focused on the following:

1. A good search function
2. Obvious navigation
3. Links within the content
4. Additional content added within the page that relates to that pages topic.

The last one is so other questions like “How do I contact this person?” are answered straight away.

For Diversity whose main clientèle are already very technically literate I also used the footer. Because so many technical sites now frequently use this area they will be used to seeing something in there of interest, although I did limit the amount of things appearing so not to overload with information.

Here is another favorite bit; getting the feedback from MY client Ben Kepes on how it all went.

Are there any parts of the website that you feel (and perhaps seen evidence of) work really well in representing what you do?

The site was formerly blog-centric with add on pages articulating the other services. With this redesign we’ve managed to combine the blogging aspects, along with showcasing the high value work we do and gaining the credibility from showing some of our corporate clients.

Is there anything you would perhaps add or change now looking back?

Not really – we’re happy with the site as it stands, while it’s always an iterative process – this is a great starting point.

What methods of marketing have you found have worked well for you in promoting yourself as a writer?

I’m lucky in that I live in paradise but regularly travel to the US and Australia. I use social media (Twitter, LinkedIn etc) heavily and this has enabled me to build a brand that is well respected for its independence and thought leadership. There’s no replacement for “beating the streets” and I spend a lot of time talking to all the players in my industry.

Thanks Ben!

Really fun to knit up. Made it slightly longer than the pattern in body and sleeves (cause I’m an ape). Yarn was Cascade 220, colour# 8229.

As for the next project, here is a preview:

This winters fibre theme is spinning and socks!

And who feels like playing with paint this weekend? Clicked on this painting effects tutorial from somewhere and thought OOoooo if i wasn’t so busy right now….

Have a great weekend everyone!

Clouds rolling in over Christchurch. 15th May 2010

Things to do this week, update Ravelry! I have so many crafty projects of late that need logging in somewhere. I’m also very excited, i signed up for the vintage purls winter sock club! Bit of a treat, but I need something to knit while I spin up all my yarns for my next knitting garment craze I feel coming on. I have a bunch of great websites to design this week that had to get pushed out to allow for copious amounts of napping and  cups of tea, while i did work – rested – did more worked – rested… I felt intensely guilty for not being a busy working person but sometimes your body just says . NO. Sleep now. Mmmm sleep, might have another nap this afternoon.