The wait was worth every stitch.
Here are my new Black Star panniers by Dave Stoops of Black Star Bags.
Coming up with the color combination was the fun part. Dave also makes great messenger bags and wallets too! Visit him on NE Alberta.
Our visit to DC (two weeks ago now) was long overdue and it was too short to be able to catch up with all of our friends and former colleagues. (We made the trek after a super weekend at LOOK3.)
One of those visits presented us with an opportunity to score a 44 hat. A good friend of ours wore one during LOOK3 and well, we just had to get a few!
This is a hat and a number we can be proud to wear.
(I know this could be completely cheesy but I even like the white house rubber band.)
Finally! Blurb has released their PDF to Book feature!
This means we can design using either their pre-made Indesign templates or their guidelines to create our own and then upload our PDFs!
Say bye-bye to that whole export to pdf-import to photoshop-export to png-import to BookSmart process. Thank goodness.
For a designer I can immediately see two great things:
1. Greater control of a book cover’s design including the spine; before you were limited to the typefaces and layouts of BookSmart.
2. Typographic treatment will be more flexible and I hope reproduce with higher quality.
I love it when workflow is streamlined and technology works to make a designer’s job easier.
Things are a bit messy around here since some super annoying (that would be the tamest words) person hacked my site and put in some script that sent spam to everyone I know or don’t know.
Hello Tuesday morning.
After being out of town for nearly 2 weeks I’ve been wading through a pile of stuff and then this has to happen. Not surprisingly, I broke down, tears and all especially when my host sends out a “Your website has been suspended due to violating terms of service”.
On top of that the poor customer service support guy starts to speak to me like I understand what he is talking about. Error logs? Finding a script? Nailing down which script has a hole?
HUH? Ok, maybe not complete “huh” but I knew enough this was over my head and if I tried to tackle it myself it would take days… I had a total of 15 days to resolve this or the site would be permanently removed (crikey) so with everything else going on I knew I had to make some 911 calls.
I’m lucky to have someone to call. And he (John Hooley) helped fix everything until we figure out what on my site was causing the breakdown. So this blog is in a raw form until I know we are A-OK.
I like Wordpress but I have to say maintaining it is tiring. So I’m looking to move from Wordpress to perhaps ExpressionEngine or Squarespace. Moving to Squarespace would be the easiest path but there is something about ExpressionEngine that keeps me from making a commitment to Squarespace.
I don’t know yet. I’m trying not to make a hasty, emotional decision…
So apologies that my blog is not quite as pretty as it used to be. It’s time for a redesign anyway so please bear with me.
I’ve been working from home for just over four years and I’ve been having a major itch lately to split with the home office.
There are some obvious benefits to working from home and I think I’ve just reached a point of exhausting those benefits. My accountant may have something else to say about the financial aspects of a decision to rent an office space but my emotional and physical well-being are saying, “Hey, what about us?!”
I’ve turned into a workaholic — morning, noon, night… I wake up and immediately go to the computer to check email. Then the vortex sucks me in and next thing I know I’m in full-on work mode. The same happens at night: Go check email and then the back hole comes again. Hello midnight!
“I’ll just do this one more thing…” – yeah right.
So I’m thinking if I get a space outside of my home I can be smarter about my work and my time. It will also force me to get outside every day and I can even commute by bike.
Commuting by bike = exercise = healthy body = healthy mind. Whoa. I’ll be honest: My metabolism has slowed way down since becoming a designer and being just that much closer to 40 doesn’t help.
Plus, if I can find the right space I’ll get to have some face time with real human beings! Twitter has helped with my “home-alone-itis” but seriously, it just isn’t the same! (no offense to my twitter pals – I love you!)
I’m OK with staying late hours or coming in early. But I’m tired of doing it nearly every day. It’s just too convenient…
Living in Portland makes this decision easier. If I was still living in DC and running my business from home, choosing to commute would be mad.
So my dear home office space… It’s been great but it is time to move on.
Waking up on a Tuesday morning after a nice holiday weekend to an email that tells you your credit card account will be shutdown is, to-put-it-mildly, not fun.
I received this email from Advanta (my business credit card bank) at 6:30AM, Tuesday, May 26, 2009:
Dear Customer,
Your Advanta Business Card account is funded by an independent trust which owns the balances you owe on your account and provides funding for new transactions. We expect the trust to stop funding activity on our accounts. The trust also restricts our flexibility to fund activity on your account. Unfortunately, as a result, effective May 30th all Advanta Business Credit Card accounts, including your account, will be closed.
This means that you will not be able to use your card or account for new transactions, including purchases, checks and balance transfers beginning on May 30th. We understand that you may have written checks on your account before May 30th and we will make every effort to honor those checks that are presented to us for payment by June 3rd. If you use your Advanta card to make automatic recurring bill payments, you will need to make alternative arrangements for those payments promptly.
It is important to understand that you are not required to pay your entire balance at this time. You may continue to pay down your account balance over time, as allowed under your Advanta Business Card Agreement.
You will not lose the rewards that you have earned. If you participate in a Cash Back program, you will receive a check for the amount of any accrued rewards more than $1.00 as long as you make the required minimum payments and your account remains in good standing. If you participate in a Business Rewards program, you will have at least 60 days to redeem your points as long as you make the required minimum payments and your account remains in good standing.
We deeply regret the impact this action will have on your business and very much wish it was not necessary.
We are committed to assist you through this process. Additional information will be available at www.advanta.com/notice. If you have any other questions or concerns, or if we can assist you in any other way, please feel free to contact our Customer Service Center. You can email us your questions 24 hours a day at www.advanta.com/secure or call us toll free at (800) 705-7255, Monday – Friday 8:00 am to 8:00 pm and Saturday 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Eastern Time.
Sincerely,
John F. Moore
President, Advanta Corp.
It flat out bites. May 30th!???
I spent all day yesterday visiting with banks (Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank) for another credit card. From the research I’ve done so far, those banks still have a good credit rating.
Then I spent more time re-configuring accounts that have automatic recurring deductions. I think I fixed them all but hard to tell.
I may have to go to Umpqua Bank to see what they can do for me and in the mean time I am forced to use my personal card to make purchases for my business. Not ideal. But what is a girl to do?
Now, I know this could have been a lot worse and I feel for every small business owner who had a lot more at stake than I… Crikey! I can only imagine how bad it can be.
I mean I just didn’t see it coming. I feel like a total fool because after I received that email I did a google search for news about Advanta and there it was: warnings galore about Advanta’s situation. How could I have not known?!
And, I went to get my mail Tuesday am and there was a letter dated May 22nd with the exact same words. As if I would have been able to do anything over a holiday weekend!
This is just flat out scary. My bookkeeper told me to expect it to get worse. Gawd.
I know it takes time and I hope President Obama’s promise to help small businesses comes to the street level where we can finally feel it.
Right now, this hurts.
Just sharing a lovely video for the budding entrepreneurs and the seasoned entrepreneurs out there needing a reminder or perhaps a cheerleader…
(via Lindsay Berger of Inkwell Marketing and the Biznik Blog)
I’ve been an entrepreneur for nearly three years now and it’s been a wild ride so far. This video just reminds me to keep my eye on the ball and my spirit positive.
The business cards I designed for Karin Anderson of Elisabet: Artisan Jewelry were just featured on Pinball Publishing’s Graphic Culture catalog, CoinOp!
For her cards we used three PMS colors: PMS 5503 U, PMS 410 U and PMS 5493 U. Initially I had thought about going with only two colors but we needed to add the third deeper blue for readability and it gave the card some depth and variety.
It’s nice to be featured in great company (I love Tumbleweed!) and can’t wait to hold them in my hands and see for myself!
This week’s Weekend Find is all photo related. I went with my pal Nickie to the Alberta Arts walk this weekend and stumbled upon my first treasure: Elizabeth Soule Photography!
I’ve been an admirer of her work for a while and it was great to meet her in person. She is incredibly sweet and of course talented. If you haven’t seen her work, check out Elizabeth’s website and her blog.
What I love most about her work are the small, lovely things she sees every day and then a lot of the humor she brings to her work in Sea Life and The Little Zoo.
The fact that she uses Polaroid and Holgas just makes the quality of her images all the more fun for me.
Here are the two images I bought from her during the Arts Walk:
Ostrich and the Egg, Copyright ©Elizabeth Soule Photography
Owl on Page, Copyright ©Elizabeth Soule Photography
(I love owls!)
The next Weekend Find is Ampersand Vintage.
The shop is owned by Myles Haselhorst. I just met him and he is a super nice guy who clearly has an eye for what’s cool given the selection in his store. I love it because he carries everything I’m interested in: photography, design, and ephemera.
I had been on the lookout for Ampersand Vintage because my husband Mike, had been looking and looking each time we drove down NE Alberta with no luck. It helps that Ampersand is located next to a shoe store 
The connection he has to Ampersand is cycling and our Dirty Pictures book. (I’m learning in Portland there are maybe 2 to 3 degrees of separation rather than 6!)
Ampersand Vintage is also a gallery and on the walls are photographs by photographer Daniel Wakefield Pasley and artist Thelma Johnson Streat.
Ampersand Vintage is one of my favorite places in Portland. If they had tea or coffee, it would be a lot like Photo Eye in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
So Ampersand Vintage brings me to the third Weekend Find: The Blackbird Fly camera.
Myles pointed it out to me during our chat yesterday and I have to have one!
It uses 35mm film that you can shoot square, normal 35mm rectangle or the full frame (including sprocket holes)! So while it doesn’t create those juicy medium format size images you can shoot 36 frames rather than just 10 or 12 frames. It makes things more affordable and that’s a plus these days, yes?
If you’re curious about the quality, overall look, and different formats of the images created by this stylish camera, check out the Black Bird Fly Flickr group.
And, if you get one, let me know. Let’s compare notes!
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