the pure interest

I would like to take a break from my regularly scheduled fitness update to talk about design and websites. Huh, remember when I used to do that? Talk about my profession instead of my personal life? Oh well.

Kristin informed me about the iheart revolution months ago and I downloaded half the songs, but I had, for some unknown reason, never actually visited and explored the site. I did it today and I was struck by how unique it was, and I really liked it. All of the main content is on the first page, and instead of switching pages when you click main navs (aside from the obvious myspace and facebook links), it smoothly slides you down to the next section using anchoring and bookmarks, where the same nav is present again so you don’t get lost. I thought this was so cool and although an old technique, used in a new and efficient way. Not to mention how the main “i heart” graphic is created, layered gifs over a really cool background, this being the first stop on the navigation journey - all the links are sort of hidden inside. The site loads quickly, smoothly and is all there - so no waiting for new pages to load.

I like how they’ve broken the typical “link-must-click-to-new-page” preset and done something easy and simply unique.

Thoughts?

Take some time to check out the site and read how the album was created. It is beautiful stuff! I praise God for people who can use these talents in music and media for Him.

One of my best friends, Christy, finally got her playmate - a baby 9 week old cockapoo puppy named Violet. She was a little lethargic and tired this weekend, but when Kristin and I went to visit her we still got some adorable pictures. I wish I could do animal photography for a living sometimes! Christy was just glowing in the pictures - if she is this happy with a puppy, I can’t wait to take beautiful photos of her with her newborn baby (when the time comes)

I downloaded a photoshop action and had some fun with these… you can see how they’d be great for wedding photos or dreamy nature shots. I thought they were so cute for Violet! You obviously have to be careful with these things, but hey, it was fun!

This is a ROSE BUSH. It always freaks me out how plants start out SO tiny.

Seriously - Christy? Hello? Model?

This looked even cuter through the lens!

I love this picture!! My Nikon would NOT auto-focus. I still don’t know why. So excuse my slightly perturbed expression.

Happy Friday everyone!

sidenote: It is 12:40am. I stayed up late getting some of the many things done that need to be done this weekend - I’m really glad I did, because although I am tired, I am much less stressed now! Thanks to some crazy second wind I get around 11:45 if I can stick it out, I decided to blog. Anyway, I was typing something into my google search bar in safari and I saw this message:

UM….. WHAT?????

Thank you so much for all your compliments yesterday everyone. They really mean a lot - when I post these things it’s not necessarily to get a bunch of praise, but feedback either way, and of course the positive stuff is always appreciated!

So I’ve decided to start a .mac trial (60 days - I like that they give you a full two months) mainly for the “Back to My Mac” feature, where you can connect and control two (or more) of your mac computers remotely. I’ve had this need for the last few months especially when sometimes I’ll end up needing to work on agency work from home, and I don’t have all the files, so I end up emailing them to myself, etc. It’s just not efficient. In theory, .mac allows me to have not only storage space online (which I can’t say I’ve been too thrilled with - a friend of mine and I use it to transfer sermon mp3s and it often crashes my computer if I try to copy too much at once), but remote management of both macs depending on where are at. You can do screen sharing, but I’d probably avoid this since on Mondays and Tuesday there is another designer sitting at this computer and I don’t think she’s appreciate her mouse and folders being taken over by me Anyway, for $100 a year, if this works, I think it will be super helpful and very worth it!

Anyone else have experience with .mac that they could weigh in on?

Thanks - and have a wonderful Wednesday! GE Shareowners meeting is today, (big deal in our town) so I hope to go down to the convention center later and get a look at all my agency and some other vendor’s in towns hard work in helping GE put it together!!

I actually clicked on a text link in my gmail today and it brought me to the graffiti cms site. It is intriguing. Does anyone know anything about this software and whether it would be worth a switch? I doubt I will as I finally regained control of my own domain and now I think have t he ability to get my blog on puremotif.com… hopefully that will be coming soon. Either way it looks interesting, and it’s good to know developers are working with the kind of demands that are prevalent in the world right now.

And now an American Idol moment…. because it’s been in my life but I haven’t blogged about it much. Is this shallow? Maybe… but come on it is so much fun!

Boys - First of all, why are there so many David’s? It’s bizarre. My pick (and most of my friend’s picks as well?) David Archuletta. I just can’t believe that beautiful and pure voice comes out of him. He is seriously talented.

Girls - Overall I am unimpressed with the girls this year as I was last year. I do have soft spot for Brooke White because it is obvious she has an immensely good heart and a really cool voice and style to boot. So my pick? Brooke White.

Overall I hope David Archuletta wins, but I worry that he is a little too innocent for America… but maybe not because Jordan won last year so who knows!

Have great days everyone!

I know that I have been pretty M.I.A. the last few weeks.

Basically my weeks have been filled with this: (Most designs and by Danielle and implementation by me)

Basically the main photo bar takes you to a new section of our site. The campaign billboards are around Erie and direct you here to read true stories from real people in our church from all stages of life. Who is grace? We are grace. I am grace.

and this: (looking at these now i see some dust on my lens and i’m not happy about it)

and this (first time i’ve witnessed them on a bed “together”):

and many other non-photographic elements including web updates, grocery shopping, budget planning, laundry, kitty playing, husband and friend time, worshipping at church, volunteering, life life life life.

Can’t wait to get back in the game!

This weekend was really great and I have lots of cute Tycho and friend picks to post this week. As for the links following, I can’t take credit for finding any of these with any hard work, but I wanted to list the ones that interested me even so I have a chance to remember to check them out!

photoshop brush viewer
I think this one will be a necessity for me as my big photoshop brush collection sometimes takes 20-30 seconds to load.

a really funky form builder
I’ll have to check this out to see if it really is as good as it seems to be. Aren’t the different colors so cute??

electrifying beams in photoshop
seriously? someone can teach me how to do the beams thing from the sprint commercials??

a similar light beams tutorial
from PSDTuts

really beautiful website design
nothing except to look at it for inspiration…

a logo design handbook
is it possible to have a handbook on how to design a logo? you’ll have to read it (as will i) to form your opinion

aaaight font!
Looks like a sharpie marker, handwritten kind

vintage photo effect
this is really cool, and i think could come in handy.

another beautiful light effect
in a cute coffeecup….

desktop wallpaper method
maybe i can try this on my next offering …

this logo design is so awesome
I guess it was “unchosen” which sort of sucks, but it was inspirational nonetheless.

Have a great rest of your Monday everyone Only another hour left to go… (for local readers)

This is what my Illustrator Toolbar looks like right now:

I moved over some of my old blogger posts - there weren’t many, but I wanted to get rid of them over there and consolidate a little. I don’t think I can consolidate my xanga, and I still use it sometimes, because there are literally hundreds and hundreds of posts over there… but I thought I could at least get some of the blogger goodness in a happier home.

The update on everything is that today was quite possibly one of my most productive, stressful, and nice days in a long time - if that makes sense.

Things I accomlished:

• Full website download and upload to new home
• Domain transfer (didn’t quite understand what I was doing here…)
• Tons of essential web updates for the Grace site, but not even 1/2 of what needs to be done.
• Those three things probably amount to about 5 hours of the day
• Laundry
• Workout - 40 minutes of strength training
• PowerPoint for church
• Gorditas with my hubby at home
• Talked to my mom on the phone for an hour
• Shoveling snow
• About 3 hours worth of banking/billing/tax prep and office organization
• Drank hot chocolate
• Took some photos
• Went to the grocery store
• Took care of my cats… they’ll be updates on them next week. sigh.
• Watched some Will & Grace
• Babied my aching back
• Vacuumed up a broken ornament
• Showered and got ready for the day at 7:00 pm
• Transferred a blog

Whew! I’m exhausted. It’s 11:30 and I’m checking out. Thanks for reading that if you did