May 30th, 2009 | Articles | 1 Comment
Over Memorial Day Weekend, I made a new background image and coordinating avatar for my Twitter account (psst, I’m CrowChick). While I was researching my task, I kept running into articles about “how to get the most out of Twitter,” articles from people who promised that with Twitter, you could “build a publicity powerhouse” and “harness the power of the masses.” This contrasts nicely with the opinion of a coworker of mine, who stated that, “Twitter is a waste of time.”
I agree with neither of these sentiments. Twitter is useful, but it isn’t the be-all and end-all of marketing or promotion. It’s best to think of Twitter as a supplementary item, like a MySpace page or Facebook presence. It can be useful on both a professional and a personal level.
In this article, I’ll try to dispel some Twitter myths and provide some insight to how you can get the most out of your Twitter account.
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May 5th, 2009 | Articles | Please comment!
I’m delighted to announce that my latest article on usability has gone live at UXBooth. It’s all about, as you may have guessed, website navigation and how to keep users oriented and moving. Shoo shoo shoo! Go read it now! And of course, I’d love to hear what you think!
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February 28th, 2009 | Portfolio | Please comment!
When Karen Luk asked me to design a gallery site for her with a CMS to help organize her artwork, I jumped at the chance to help a fellow artist. But there were some interesting conditions: under no circumstances could the site look like it was powered by WordPress, and she needed it all done in time for a looming convention!
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February 2nd, 2009 | Articles | 1 Comment
WordPress has a bad reputation for getting hacked. It’s opensource, so anyone can figure out how it works and where it’s weaknesses are. And most new owners don’t take very basic measures to protect themselves because they don’t know how. So here’s an excerpt from my resource Essential WordPress Plugins to help guide would-be victims.
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December 15th, 2008 | Articles | 9 Comments
Some employers want it all, but what do you really need in a web designer?
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December 3rd, 2008 | Articles | 4 Comments
Some time after reading Steve Krug’s fascinating Don’t Make Me Think, which is a fantastic introduction to usability and accessibility that any web monkey worth their salt should read immediately, I began implementing something I like to call my Three Minute Accessibility Test. It’s a fast, simple way of making sure that your page makes [...]
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December 3rd, 2008 | Portfolio | 1 Comment
A front page design mockup for a retro salon. It never got used, but it’s still sweet.
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December 2nd, 2008 | Portfolio | Please comment!
Before I built The Pink Crow, I had just one site called Subculture of One. Previously, Subculture of One was just a place where I kept links to all my old gURL.com comics, blogs, social networking sites and a newsletter, but once I started making sites full time, I tried to integrate that part of my work into the new site…. with mixed results.
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December 1st, 2008 | Portfolio | Please comment!
I realized that there wasn’t any sort of promotion tool in place to help me get more comics like mine to my readers, who were emailing me for webcomic recommendations on a regular basis. Seeing a need, I decided to provide a solution, a banner exchange for webcomics by/for/about women: Exchange.Rubifruit.com
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November 30th, 2008 | Portfolio | Please comment!
I was commissioned to design PercolateTV.com earlier this year. They wanted just a design, so the actual coding was handled by someone else.
Percolate TV is a startup peddling an out of the box You-Tube-esque solution for small to large businesses. They wanted a retro, diner feel for their site. I was given the coffee cup [...]
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