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A bit of an experiment I am running at the moment – is having two blogs. I know that its well documented that you should have only one. I think these people assume we all have one main passion and interest and they most certainly overlap. Sometimes my interests MIGHT overlap, but really, sewing, fibre and art don’t really mix with geeky old web design. When it comes to getting good visitors to my business blog – ones that have been searching for banana cake really are not the people I am after.

In the interest of keeping my life simple – all of my old posts will stay on this blog, but from now on my physical world the latest crafty project or sharing links and photos – these will be done on the other blog – called “Made Happy”. I chose the name after alot of thought and brainstorming and it felt pretty accurate.  The design is super simple. I have lots of design in my life – infact I am still trying to redesign this site! I thought I would like it all pared back to basics so that photos and content took center stage. Enjoy having a look around I have written a few posts to start on. You will still get web design related information here and whatever is happening in my business’s world.

Today while I write up some little posts on the latest sites to come out of the QDM web design studio I wanted to share with you where I pickup my tid bits to help myself and my clients along when it comes to marketing.

Newsletters
Join up and unsubscribe if you don’t like them!

• Campaign Monitor – Newsletters on email marketing.
• Etsy – Joining up as a “seller” will get you the emails aimed at marketing your business.

Blogs

• SeoMoz – Search engine stuff
• Google webmaster Central – Search engine news and important info.
• Seth Godin’s blog Awesome author who writes about marketing and business anthropological style and is funny too.
• One Woman Marketing – One woman who does it all and talks about it. Great place to get ideas on workflow and general marketing.

Books and Online Guides

• Mail Chimps - Resources on email marketing
• Google Guide – Search engine optimising guide
• SeoMoz Guide – Search engine optimising guide

Podcast to listen too

• Internet Marketing

Right thats it, I don’t want to bombard you too much. Flick around have a look and subscribe to the ones that appeal. Off to eat some chocolate.

By Laurent Nivalle

By Laurent Nivalle

Go the website here: http://www.laurentnivalle.fr/
and blog: http://laurentnivalle.blogspot.com/

As for my music of choice I have another old school album for you from my student days. An album by a christchurch musician Bic Runga.  I am currently listening alot to her first album “drive” and the more recent one “birds”

Would you like a video? Here ya go.

Have a great week!

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.

I went to the documentary Handmade Nation last night. Organised by Miss Millie and sponsored by Felt. Credits over heres what i thought…

SO lovely to see many wonderful women and a few brave men in the theatre. The theatre seemed quite full. Quite the success! I caught up with a few delightful ladies I have not seen in ages, which was awesome. The doco itself is very inspiring and left me feeling capable of anything! I also really liked and appreciated the honest portrayal of crafters. Some make things to sell because they like it, not because it makes them lots of money. Infact alot of them sounded like they held down familes, jobs and their crafting lives, including making enough to sell their work at craft fairs. Its funny I always got this idea we are all supposed to strive to craft and make money crafting full time. For some, they make a product that works and it becomes a sort of fad and takes over, all of a sudden they are making enough money to live off. But for others it doesn’t, no reflection on the quality or coolness of the product, almost luck. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is friends and creative outlets and sometimes funding your craft. One resounded clang I got was a guilt lifted, the guilt I felt for not making it ‘big’ in my hobbies or having my hobbies make me enough money to live off. So what right? I like my hobbies, just because i dont make money off them doesn’t mean I stop doing them. I get to share it with a few, my photos get used on walls and in designs, thats enough right?

OK so about the money thing. My actual JOB is web design. Life in freelance has been slooow. Since Christmas I have been only just making ends meet and thats thanks to the support of my amazing loyal customers and fabulous partner. Due to slowness I have been REALLY looking into what I am doing and how I can re-think it, re-market them and get this show on the road again. I have made no secret of it though, the talking it out really helps me get perspective and removes the stress of it all somewhat. I also have had many great ideas come my way thanks to my business-y techy friends, esp Ben from Diversity.

The changes are inspired by the new ways of communicating to customers via the internet, things I can do to really help business’s in their online marketing strategies. The need to start pushing my passion for usability and logical layout has also become apparent. I really don’t make a big enough deal of that side of my web design experience. I am still working on the best way to explain these new services and how best to reflect it on my online presence and then follow that up with real life stuff. So many ways to do this these days, its so easy to get bogged down by them all! Along with it, will be a new website design AGAIN. Yeah what can i say, its what i do… So watch out soon to be a new website, new marketing approach and new bunch of services. Any colour requests?

The creatives will love this, quite wise I think. Any excuse to investigate the theory and motivation behind design. Love to know what you think….

I also liked the point on hiring people who are better than you and leaving them to it. So many owners of business’s let their ego dictate their decisions. Seen many a business with amazing people and never really succeed because they wouldn’t give the right freedom to their staff.

The use of Helvetica, the prints, the colours, the illustrations, the photography, the LAYOUTS… Sigh, such a happy consumer right now.