Archive for January, 2009
Win a safetygoat!
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009
Hello all you safetygoat fans. Some of you out there have told me that you would like one of my handmade creations. I’ve sent some out already to my favourite people, but I thought I’d give people a fairer chance at getting their little paws on one. SOOOO, I’m holding a little mini contest…
If you add a safetygoat haiku to my site, and I judge it as one of the top 3, I will send you your very own safetygoat.
Hell, the top person, you can even specify the colour! (traditional white is popular, but black goat is quickly becoming a favourite, and the bright pink and lime green are both awesome as well!).
How to win:
1. Add your haiku as a comment to this post, or by using the form on my homepage
2. Entries should be in before midnight friday (January 23) (I’m very impatient and want to send you your goats!)
3. Looking for inspiration? Check out my homepage. You can scroll through a few of the safetygoat haikus I’ve already got there on the left hand side.
For all of you haiku newbies, a haiku is a short 3 line poem. The only rules are that the first line should be 5 syllables, the second 7 syllables, and the final line 5 syllables.
Good luck kiddies!
L’Oreal versus Webdesigner
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
hehehehe My sad attempt at cartooning on the tube this morning. Post it? Sure, because I’m worth it!
P.S. I haven’t actually bought a new MBP, I am just making fun of everyone who has because I’m jealous.
“Because I’m WORTH it!”
Monday, January 19th, 2009
L’Oreal have been trying to convince me that I’m worthy of… well, I’m never quite sure what… but worth, has definitely been a question on the mind of webdesigners and graphic designers recently. I’ve been listening to lots of podcasts and reading lots of articles on how much to charge (it depends, but probably more than you think), how to charge (by project apparently), when to charge (upfront 30-50% seems to be the recommended) and what not to (never unless it’s for a charity, but try and convince my friends and family on this one!).
How good do you have to be to be ‘worth it’, is the thing I’m wondering. After recently looking into the daily rate for a webdesigner, (and finding out that, of course, I am again severely undercharging), I’m getting to the point where I’m not sure I even LIKE the idea of client work anymore. (That’s a whole new can of beans that I think has been caused by hanging out with too many developers and seeing all the cool things I can help build WITHOUT someone else calling the shots.)
I think this chronic mis-calculation by some webdesigners to undercharge is terrible. Not to name names, but I know an EXTREMELY talented webdesigner who got featured on smashing magazine as well as every other major gallery, and still charges peanuts. If you’re getting fan mail, you probably should be making more than £20 an hour to do design. Why? Because you’re good, and you’re definitely worth it. There are so many designers out there charging an absolute fortune for rubbish, that it’s time the humbly talented to buck up and take over.
So stop bending under cheapskates that want to pay you peanuts! Charge to make a profit, because they really are getting a good deal (a friend in Canada says she’s more than tripled her rate in the past two years, and said that she still finds out other contractors and agencies are charging 4 times as much as her for work she has to re-do).
So throw off your insecurities, you talented designers! Rant over.
New safetygoat!
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
Well, well, well! I said I was going to fix up safetygoat, and it’s taken me a lot longer than I thought….but it is here! It has been a time consuming endeavor. For example, adding in a simple plug-in often took three hours of frustration (followed by 2 minutes of knowing bliss!), sometimes two days, but it was never as simple as people said (which leads me to believe that I’m a wordpress retard). I will post code snippets that I figured out in the coming weeks so hopefully others will learn from all my pains (and hopefully the codies out there will tell me if I’ve done a really big ‘faux pas’ or two!).
Some of the things I really wanted were easy-ish… getting flash and jpgs into the same gallery for my portfolio, for example, but my main goal was to make the front page more interactive. This meant having haikus that people could scroll through and add to, a sneak peak into my portfolio (I’ve grown quite fond of that frame and don’t feel bad for one second about how much of your bandwidth I’m taking up!), somewhere where I can pull in photos of safetygoat that other people have taken (add yours to my flickr group!), as well as feeds for my last.fm, brightkite and twitter. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be tweaking it and testing it in different browsers, but I would appreciate all of you lovely people to take a look through. If you could let me know if you spot any bugs, or if you have any tweaks I can make to just tidy it up, I will put on my tough girl skin and take your advice lovingly into my arms.
Safetygoat’s 2009 hopes and dreams
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
Everyone is writing new year’s resolutions, making predictions, and looking back, and at first I wasn’t going to join in the party, because most of these dreams fade come February 1st. But let’s face it– I’m an annoyingly cheerful individual and I can’t help but be excited about 2009. So, in no particular order, here’s my 2009 resolutions.
1. Rework, rework, rework safetygoat
This is actually a cheating one– I’ve been working on this for the past few months (speeding it up in the past few weeks), and my grasp of wordpress is slightly above dunce level now. Sure, putting a plug-in (that’s not a widget) seems to take me 3 hours to configure, something that would take someone even remotely proficient a few minutes, but I’ve depended on other people too much to get this site up, so now it’s time for me to do it myself, with all the optimistic bells and whistles.
2. Launch apps I’ve been working on for ages
Let’s face it. It’s sad having to go edit your portfolio page to change the launch date, which you set to November, thinking you were leaving lots of room for contingencies, way back until march. BUT I WILL ACTUALLY FINISH THEM! (I hope, soon).
3. Get a vinyl toy designed and made
I’ve made my own plastic safetygoats this past year (if you want one, email me and I might just send you one) and it’s been fun hand painting them and giving them out to people, but I think it’s time to do this properly. This means a) doing the sketch/3-d model b) finding someone who will do a short run. No problem!
4. Make more custom things
I’ve made some dresses, but they haven’t been perfect. BUT I got a dressmaking mannequin for Christmas from olliekav, and have already made my first dress, which I wore to new years. 2009 should see more dresses, but I also want to make some custom shoes, maybe some bags… you know, stuff with drawing on them!
5. Learn learn learn
I’m amazed how far I’ve come in the past 2 years. I mean, I made my first real website with css then (I don’t think html tables in high school really count, do they?). I’m thinking I’m very good at css now, and have gotten great working in the java environment, but I would like to master styling in ruby and flex as well as getting the hang of some of the more advanced jquery stuff. As I get better, I will be able to try out more experimentative webdesign, and use a lot of the css3 selectors well and properly.
6. Write more
I used to keep a diary in high school and uni and used to write in it every night. Of course, it was just hormonal teenage rage, but it’s so interesting to reflect on things and then have a paper trail to actually see where and, more importantly, who you’ve been. So, writing, yes, but maybe writing more blog posts too. I’ve learned a lot while redoing safetygoat this past while, so I will definitely be sharing some of the stuff I’ve learned.
7. Talk to my best friends more
I live in the UK. My best friends are in Canada. We will always love each other, but I’m rubbish at keeping in touch. This is unacceptable!
8. Get into shape
I know, I know, this is everyone’s resolution, but lord I’ve packed it on over the holidays. It would be nice to at least get back to where I started.
9. Spraypaint
I did a bit of work practicing this past year, but I’m frankly rubbish. It’s fun, so I will be doing more. This is definitely not a chore!
10. Have an adventure
Pretty sure I know what this will be, but I’m going to keep it on the down-low for now. Stay tuned for my crazy times!
