design geek[ess]

Blueberry Marketing

Niki — Fri, 25 May 2012 05:00:20 +0000

Blueberry Marketing is headed up by Barb Upchurch, and is a small business primarily representing creatives.

It was nice to have an opportunity to create a custom WordPress theme that was a little on the fun and funky side! Barb is always busy – she works as a marketing consultant, teaches classes and does publicity for her clients. Barb needed a site that emphasized her creative side, highlighted her busy schedule and made it easy for people to find her on online. Barb’s old site didn’t have analytics, so I’ll be interested to watch her site traffic over the next few months – I’m betting that it will increase exponentially!

Karen A. Chase Site Wins eLit Gold Medal for Best Author Website

Niki — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 05:00:25 +0000

I’m thrilled to announce that a site I programmed for Richmond author Karen A. Chase has won a gold eLit award for Best Author Website. This site was designed by Karen, and programmed by me and Christina Reeser at io studio.

Karen’s e-book, BonJour 40, also pulled in two eLit silver awards for Best Non-fiction Travel/Essay e-book and Best Book Trailer. Congratulations, Karen!

← Read Karen’s blog post about the awards
← Read my post about Karen’s site

Geek[ess] Refresh

Niki — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 05:00:37 +0000

So I was supposed to take this week off. I wanted to make some improvements to my website, which has been irritating me for a while now because it’s looking kinda shabby. But I didn’t get to spend much time on my site at all, because a bunch of other things needed attention. Fortunately, I had marked up the redesign as a static site in HTML5 a while back, so I just had to bring my database down locally, migrate the static site to WordPress, then push up the new theme.

I still want to refine my blog homepage, the single posts page and comments. I also have to add my print work – logos and marketing materials. I’m considering putting those in a lightbox. What do you guys think?

Please let me know what you think of the design geek[ess] refresh; and definitely holla if you see any bugs!

Living with Lucy Blog

Niki — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 05:00:41 +0000

This site was just fun.

A week or so before Christmas, I got a call from a guy who wanted a site for his wife as a Christmas present. He tells me she’s funny and a good writer, and I think, suuuuuuure she is. But I say I’ll try to bust this site out in record time, because he’s nice, it’s an imaginative gift idea, and it’s cute that he thinks his wife is funny.

Turns out, she IS funny. Belly laugh funny. But don’t take my word for it, read her Christmas newsletters. Once you’re hooked, consider subscribing to her blog.

I think this could become one of my favorite blogs. Check it out at http://living-with-lucy.com

Brett LaGue, Fine Artist

Niki — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 06:00:08 +0000

It was such a treat to create this site for Brett LaGue, and I’ve been looking forward to blogging about it. Brett, a prolific artist, needed an updated site that would allow him to easily showcase his art. Brett’s homepage has all his main content right there, I kept the excerpts short and included lots of pictures. This site was a little bit tricky to organize because Brett has three distinct styles of art – landscape, abstract and pop! to promote, and he wants to spend his time creating more art, not creating a zillion little thumbnails. Thankfully WordPress has built-in solutions for those problems. I used post thumbnails to size the images, categories to sort the content and custom fields to add details such as media, size and price.

Brett especially likes the way the lightbox plugin automatically generates thumbnails, so all he has to do with his new art is upload the image to the appropriate gallery page, type the name and caption, and then he can get back to doing what he really enjoys – painting!

The Tech Lady Logo

Niki — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:57:24 +0000

For this project, I returned to my print design roots to create a logo for Amy Lucas, a computer technician and social media guru. Amy’s the person you call when your computer dies and you have that terrible sick feeling that you just lost everything. To me, computer techs are like superheroes – so that was my inspiration when creating this logo.

In addition to home and small business IT setup and support, Amy is also a social networking expert and web developer. So, she can be your wireless-networking, RAM-installing, virus-eradicating all-around hero!

365 Awesome Designers

Niki — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:00:54 +0000

365 Awesome Designers is a WordPress site with a minimalist design that still wows. I’ve seen nothing like it – love the slider, the use of the Infinite Scroll plugin, the tidy way the author info drops down and the dirty-chalkboard background. No element is gratuitous, no space wasted. The site’s author, Matthias Mentasti, thoughtfully chooses content which will inspire anybody who enjoys beautiful, well-crafted things. One of my favorite featured designers is No. 49, Jens Windolf, a print, type and web designer. His logos are incredible and you can download a free typeface from his dribbble page. The designers featured in 365 Awesome Designers are all on dribbble, which is another website worth checking out!

Adding two-line navigation to the menu

Niki — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:41:32 +0000

This month I’m adding a new post category. Every couple weeks, I’m going to share something new I’ve learned about WordPress. Some posts will be targeting designers and some will be written with my WordPress clients in mind – most of whom have no experience with CMSs.

That said, my first WordPress tip is for designers. Did you know that you the menu area in WordPress is HTML-ready? Yup. If you have a navigation menu with subtitles you can just drop them right in your WordPress menu, and style ‘em with CSS. That rocks! I didn’t figure this out myself – I got it from Thesis Blogs.

Pleasant Hill Baptist Church

Niki — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:00:41 +0000

The project was to create a custom theme in WordPress for a local church. I wanted the design to be simple and unassuming and I wanted the website to be updated easily. The church required several different post types, and they needed to dynamically populate various areas on the site. A robust events calendar was also needed because this church is a busy place and there’s always something fun going on!

This project was such a pleasure. I got to expand my WordPress skills by adding multiple dynamically populated areas and a print media query. I also had an opportunity to get to know the wonderful staff of Pleasant Hill Baptist. They were all so kind, patient and excited about their new site. I hope they are as pleased with the end result as I am.

The Pioneer Woman

Niki — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 06:00:19 +0000

There are few things in life I enjoy more than eating. I struggle to think of something to post to Facebook that does not discuss something 1) I want to eat 2) I just ate or 3) I just ate All Of that I should not have eaten At All. In my favorite pictures of myself (those in which I look the happiest) I am usually eating. So it should come as no surprise that I like to look at cooking blogs. My favorite is by Ree Drummond, AKA The Pioneer Woman. Her blog is wonderful. Her recipes are To Die For. These are the kind of recipes that make my husband want to marry me all over again when I serve them up. And she doesn’t just stop at creating delicious recipes – she also has stunning step-by-step photos of her recipes, which I find makes me a much more courageous cook.

But here’s the thing – she does so much more than cook! She’s so funny that I’d read her blog posts even if I wasn’t hungry all the time. I’ve spent hours on her site studying her photography, her writing style and wondering what hair products she uses. She also has a new show on Food Network. I hope my husband doesn’t find out about that because along with all her other great qualities, let’s just say The Pioneer Woman is easy on the eyes. She cooks, she’s funny, she’s a red-headed beauty – can you blame me for being a little worried that Mike might find out about her TV show? It’s like food porn!

Please check out her site at http://thepioneerwoman.com. Just make sure you have a few hours to spare.