For the past several years, my New Year’s resolutions have revolved around a healthier lifestyle.  I’ve given up fast food for a year – which sounds easy enough, but the moment you get on the road for a trip, becomes a slightly more daunting task.  I’ve joined gyms.  I’ve said “yes” to opportunities, any and all, similar to Jim Carrey’s character in “Yes Man”.  I’ve found that giving myself these challenges has been a useful exercise in discipline.  I”m proud to say I’ve seen my resolutions through the last three years running.  Not bad, but I can do better.

This year, I’ve decided to go a different route.  Instead of focusing on self-improvement, I decided to give some thought to donating time to something bigger than myself.  Now, I’ve volunteered before, and every experience has been wonderful and rewarding – from working with the LGBT center in Seattle to the Olympia Child Care Center and Unity in the Community.  Volunteering your time becomes a pleasure when you’re able to find a worthy cause in need of people with a skill set you possess.

This year I turned my attention to Project Gutenberg.

Project Gutenberg was founded by Michael Hart, who passed away on September 6, 2011.   Hart is widely considered to be the creator/inventor of the electronic book (or, eBook)[1].  The mission statement of Project Gutenberg is as inspirational as the work they are doing:

* Encourage the Creation and Distribution of eBooks

* Help Break Down the Bars of Ignorance and Illiteracy

* Give As Many eBooks to As Many People As Possible

Reading through Michael’s Wiki page and the information on the Project Gutenberg website, I realized this was something I had to get involved with.  I became a volunteer member of Distributed Proofreaders (DP).  In December 2011 alone, DP volunteers preserved 212 titles.  In all, the DP volunteer base has proofed 22,040+ digital titles, ensuring those books will not be lost to history.

So, every spare moment I have (and like you, I sometimes must make the spare moments because they don’t tend to happen on their own) I hop onto the DP website and proof a page.  It’s as simple as that, and your effort adds up – more quickly than you’d immediately realize.

You can become a volunteer.   Click to “Get Involved!” icon below to get started.

Get involved!

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_S._Hart

UX Movement is a robust online resource for UI/UX designers that can help give you a serious edge on your next project.  You can find a great collection of UX Movement‘s most read articles of 2011 on their website, and while you’re there, check out some of their thought-provoking tips on ways you can make your designs a pleasure to use.

I’d like to share this great video put together by Viewpoint Creative…it wouldn’t be so funny if it weren’t true.  I think it’s a great, and hilarious, insight into the design process:

Viewpoint Creative – Holiday Card from Viewpoint Creative on Vimeo.

Cheers!

"Vintage Holidays" © 2011 Studio C. All rights reserved.

“Vintage Holidays” greeting, a Studio C original (that’s me!), topped the Smilebox catalog this weekend.  There’s still time to make this design uniquely yours for the holidays.  Click here to get started now.

Smilebox Last Minute Wonders

Happy Holidays!

Freshly ripped for your holiday salutatory needs, I present you:

The “Holiday Gifts” Collage.  I was inspired this year to take liberties with some traditional color schemes and holiday shapes.  I drew hundreds of different stylized bows, allowing myself to get swept up in the whimsy and joy of the season and simply have fun.  This versatile design features multiple photo layouts, color schemes, and fully-customizable title text.  Multimedia development by ajellebean.  Printing and home delivery available just in time for the holidays.

Releasing December 7th, “Vintage Holidays” is my take on a familiar concept.  This typography-dominant photo greeting allows users to customize and send their best holiday wishes in a variety of fresh holiday color schemes.

All those many years ago, after a four-hour interview, I took a leap of faith and took a position well below my skill set for a small start up located in Redmond.  I began as a Production Assistant, working in the company’s kitchen beneath the microwave.  I told myself, as someone’s lunch reheated only inches away from my head, there’s no shame in admitting to oneself the need for medical/dental insurance…not to mention a regular income.

I caught on quickly, was promoted (sort-of, by way of a title change), and began producing the only workable designs available for a product launch that quickly approached.

Creating weekly-released content for a living piece of software is never easy, as many of you know.  This remains the case today.  Designs are never truly finished.  With each client software iteration, many designs need further finesse.  The hours devoted to each are almost unfathomable.  For me, it was a labor of love.  Seeing my designs used by people living thousands of miles apart to share the special moments in their life was the fruit of that labor.

Some of you may know that Smilebox was purchased over the summer by IndrediMail.  For more information, head here.   This, more than anything, heralded a need to approach the future with new eyes and a willingness to embrace change.  It marked the end of an era, and a beginning.

Today, I step forth into life after Smilebox.

Oh.  That’s right.  I started my own design business }  Studio C.  And like a small child, it requires and demands much of my time, attention, focus and creative blood.  My blogs were the first in a long line of sacrifices offered in an effort to appease the venture, but they weren’t to be the last.  In their wake has come a plethora of new and exciting interactive designs, illustrations and greetings.  

Yes, some 18 months have elapsed since last we met.  We’ve grown older, you and I, but wily and shiny with creative fervor.  Now, as the end of another draws near, and I find myself with a spare moment or two, I shall endeavor to share some of my concepts.

Stay tuned.

design by Ann Tooke, multimedia design by Cassie L. Taylor

Built with twelve pages (with twelve editable points for customization, referred to as “Month 1″ through “Month 12″), the calendar is chocked full of user customizable goodness from choosing a starting month, choosing font colors from a spectrum, image filters, and twelve different layouts.

The user may choose to begin with any month up to January 2010 and the design “autofills” the rest of the calendar with subsequent months, making the actually editing of the calendar less work for the customer. 

The hue slider was a bit of work – given the saturation and brightness values from the designer, the month and calendar’s colors adjust when the user selects a new value on the hue slider within the UI panel.  To get the color just right required taking that value and converting it first to an hsb value, then to an rgb value, and finally into a hex value that could be used in a tinting protoype.  I’ve since extended this code to work with the Smilebox text component.

Many of the layouts feature click to zoom images, with a great assortment of visually pleasing portrait, square, and landscape photo layouts. 

The design review went smoothly – receiving “perfect” marks with no requests for change.  I attribute that to Ann’s keen design sense and her ability to clearly communicate complex ideas with ease.  I look forward to creating more calendars in the (very near) future.