Simone Quentin de Manson

Its labour day in New Zealand. I am sitting on my sofa cuddled up in a knitted hooded jacket I found in a second hand shop, (made in Nepal and it is the warmest pinkest thing I own) with a cute cat on my lap.

Just about to put the laptop aside and start on the chores I have avoided this weekend so far. But I wanted to share what was found whilst surfing the net reading my usual blogs. They are called Spoonflower, you can print your own fabric through them (not yet.. soon, they are in beta). I have to say right now.. I LOVE the internet. People can print their own books, fabric, tea shirts and who knows what else.. Its all rather wonderful really.

And just cause, here is another autumn shot. Such beautiful views around Christchurch at the moment, the colours are making up for the colder temperatures.

Find artists work on lovely notebooks at Modofly

The Beautiful: http://www.jumnakao.com.br/ci_colecao.htm

The Funny (really only for web geeks): http://www.webpronews.com/blogtalk/2008/04/01/chuck-lewis-seo-rapp

I want to do that too!: http://www.ponoko.com

In the computer geek world Google is said to be the coolest place to work and the best company to work for. The link has been circulated around our office of the latest album of images of their offices in Zurich.

This image here has gotta be my favourite space, alothough the slide down to the cafe and the pods were coming in as a close second. Work space is so important to me and this image is like a wee dream… If it was somewhere I worked, every time I walked into it, I would smile.

The latest plot or project might just be some wee curtains and pot plants in my studio….

I love to think of what the office would be like if Google had some open in Christchurch. I like to think it would have a cool New Zealand style. Showing not only the native/unique design stuff, but the wonderful mixture of Asian and European cultures aswell. I mean really, how could you NOT be creative working in a place like this?

As some of you already know I am addicted to online communities. I have always been a bit of “lurker” and not contributed much. However, lately I have felt the need to offer my opinions and/or help. This community approach is popping up all over the place in my design research, the lean towards collaboration and communities, what I have heard called the “online village”.

As the world becomes that much smaller, I get to know and have conversations with wonderful people from countries like Alaska, India, UK, Australia, America and Ireland to name a few. This creates a sort of online village of people supporting and inspiring each other with words, images and voice. To be subtle and quiet about it, I LOVE IT!! Really.

I have been recently listening to Ted Talks (as you may of guessed) I go through phases. I am working through a section themed collaboration. The last two talks were very interesting, worth a listen if you interested.

• Ted Talks : Richard Baraniuk: Goodbye, textbooks; hello, open-source learning
• AND Steven Pinker: A brief history of violence

I have been sitting on an idea for awhile now, but have hesitated saying anything about it because I am far from being a techy expert. BUT I am online all the time, it comes with my profession (Web Designer) . This idea is to write about tools and cool stuff I find out in the world wide web. Be it a useful website, a tool to help you browse the internet or anything thats just got that, “thing” about it. This will be aimed at everyone, not just the techy geeks that find computers absorbing enough to voluntarily spend hours behind them. Ideas on posts is TOTALLY welcome.

Google Pages

I want to start with google pages. If you have gmail, you might have stumbled across this. Its a way of putting up a webpage for nothing, thats not a blog. You can put text and images in there, use it to advertise what you do or sell, have a CV for people to access, advertise your new litter of puppies you will be selling etc without having to commit to blogging. It doesnt have to stay up forever either. Keep it “published” while you are looking for a job for example. The only kicker is the URL has to end with “googlepages” eg. http://simoneqdm.googlepages.com and the designs are templates, you also need to sign up. Here is a link to an example site I set up in 20 minutes

Preview of Website Pages Editor and the Individual Page Editor

A few things to make sure your new site navigates well

• Keep your pages using the same template to avoid confusion.
• Keep your links to other pages on your website in the same place and looking the same.
• Name your pages to reflect the content.
• Keep it simple! Stay focused on its purpose and stick to it.
• Have fun!