A Little Holiday Music

I'm just wrapping up a cool website for a friend of mine, guitarist Jon Jeffers, and his new duo "Jeffers and Rose, " featuring saxophonist Les Rose.

I used the Wix.com flash site, which worked really well for building a fun online listening interface, as well as creating an interactive and hip-feeling website. Take a look at http://www.jeffersandrose.com/! I really do enjoy creating sites with Wix -- it's so easy and fun (especially compared to Dreameaver, which I'm trying to learn right now and is giving me nothing but headaches)!

We also put together some other promotional materials, including a rack card, business card, and demo CD label.

Jeffers and Rose are available to play holiday parties, fundraising events, weddings, vineyards, restaurants and more. They're fabulous musicians, and know how to create just the right musical ambience for any occasion.

Time for a new website look?

I was scanning through one of my LinkedIn graphic design discussion groups the other day and noticed someone asking about easy to build websites for designers who aren't necessarily web experts. There were quite a few glowing responses referring to Wix.com, so I decided to check it out myself.

Right from the start, I was very impressed with how simple, and well, just how plain fun it is to use! I've been wanting to update and refresh my website for a while, so I started tinkering with laying out a new Art Department website... and just couldn't stop.

Wix is a Flash-based sitebuilder, and it features lots of really slick looking transitions and movement, sounds and effects. I've never worked with Flash, but I had no problem with the Wix interface. It seems like a good way to build a site that's dynamic, professional looking and easy to use. I don't think there's any software to download, either -- it's all done online, so should be updatable from any computer, anywhere. I really like their templates, too; lots of fresh, contemporary layouts that were well designed.

Now, I've always heard that Flash websites aren't a good option if you want to be searchable by Google and the rest, but Wix claims they've fixed that and are search engine friendly... I'll be looking a little more into that before I transfer my domain name. Right now I'm signed up on their free service -- yes! I was able to put this all together without spending a dime! And that's something I really appreciate -- I didn't need to provide any credit card info or anything to get started. If I do transfer my domain to their hosting service, I can pay a fee (from $5 - $20/month, depending on the package), which will take their ads off, provide site statistics, etc, etc.

I'd appreciate any feedback regarding how the site loads, and what you think about the site overall. If you've got a minute, please check it out at http://www.wix.com/suekrauer/Art-Department.

Color My World...!

Here's a super cool website to check out: http://colorschemedesigner.com/

It easily generates all sorts of color schemes, from simple to complex, ID's the colors, and exports them in a variety of formats to use in different programs (like Photoshop) or to file away or send to clients, etc. You can adjust hue and contrast to fine tune for subtlety or boldness. But wait, there's more! There's a randomization option, and even a vision simulation option to see how the scheme would appear to viewers with different variations of colorblindness. Wow, who comes up with this stuff?

It's a brilliant tool for easily visualizing color scheme concepts. Well, and for some of us, it uh, can provide hours of entertainment! There's also an "Instant Designer Shop" with pages and pages of ideas for logos, websites, etc... an all around handy place to go for inspiration when the creative juices aren't flowing so well, like on these hot summer days!

Current Graphic Design Project: Nerds Are Fun!

NERDS: WE CAN FIX THAT! Now there's a company name I can relate to -- nerdy with a positive attitude! ;-)

This local Santa Ynez-based company created a computer support service franchise. They already had a logo, but needed a bright, playful, eye-grabbing look that would solidify their branding throughout all their printed promotional materials.

I found some great "nerd" stock photos, and integrated the images (including their very cute signature cars) with their bright color scheme in clean, bold layouts for stationery, business cards, a brochure, banners, owner's manual and ads...

I think the point I want to make is that with good graphic design, even nerds don't have to look nerdy!

Current Project: Dressage Trainer Websites

It's no secret that I'm a horse nut... so any project that involves horses in any way is a treat for me!

I've had a great time lately working on websites for two local dressage trainers. Both trainers wanted sites that would be easy to update themselves, especially to promote their busy clinic schedules and other news.

Robert & Verena Gharibzadeh's "Top Riding International" features a bold, contemporary design, and some animated text & slide show elements to add energy and interest. Robert is a Pferdewirtschaftsmeister (I'm trying to learn German, but please don't ask me to pronounce that one!), which is the highest level master rider/trainer certified by the German government. One of the elements he wanted to incorporate was a calendar that he can easily update from anywhere to publish his very active schedule. We found a great solution by integrating a Google calendar into the website, which has worked really well for him. Robert also has a lot of videos posted of horses for sale, which were easy to incorporate through Homestead's YouTube tool.

Katja Elk is the resident trainer at Felicity Farm in Santa Ynez, and her dressage training program is called "Gentle Solutions for Horses and People." Katja is also a talented designer herself, and collaborating with her to create an elegant look for the site was really fun. I love all the great photos she had to work with! One of the things Katja wants to do with her website is to share the wealth of information and ideas that shapes her training philosophy, so clean organization and navigation was very important. Communication is a key element in what Katja does with horses, as well as people, so we built in a mailing list and blog, which I think she's going to have a lot of fun with!

Now I've been testing Katja's patience and skills as an instructor as she's giving me an introduction to dressage riding! ;-) I'm thoroughly enjoying learning about a world of subtle communication with horses that I've never experienced before. Katja is a wonderfully talented and insightful horsewoman, so if you're interested in horses on any level, I encourage you to check out one of her clinics, or take some lessons with her! Special thanks also to Ann Cain, for allowing me to ride her lovely thoroughbred gelding, "Si."

Fundraising Event Invitations & Program for Hearts Adaptive Riding

I feel fortunate to enjoy all the work I do, but there are a few organizations I'm especially proud to be involved with.

Hearts Adaptive Riding Program provides therapeutic horseback riding to children and adults with disabilities. It's a truly inspiring place that strengthens bodies, minds and spirits, and really improves the quality of life for so many families in our community. Those who know me know how profoundly my life has been changed through being involved with this amazing organization!

It's been wonderful to watch Hearts grow and continually improve over the years. Today I attended a really lovely fundraising event hosted by Hearts at the Santa Barbara Yacht Club, called "The Pegasus Luncheon: Giving Wings To Dreams." Bravo to everyone who made this elegant and inspiring event possible -- you did a wonderful job!

I was happy to be asked to design a logo for the event, which we applied to an invitation, event program, and other print materials.

Please visit www.HeartsAdaptiveRiding.org to find out more about what they do, and how you can get involved -- it's an incredibly rewarding experience, and fun too!

Current Graphic Design Project: Higher Ground Coffee Company

A fun recent client has been "Higher Ground Coffee Company," a mother-daughter startup
that needed a brochure and website to showcase their gourmet espresso machine service. (Please check out their website, www.hgcoffeeco.com for more details!)

Like many of my small business clients, they didn't need or want to invest thousands of dollars in a fancy website with all the bells and whistles, but they did feel they needed some sort of professional-looking presence on the web to refer their clients to.

This is where the Homestead service I offer provides such an affordable option for startups, small businesses and nonprofits.

They also needed a brochure, and wanted it quickly, so we used the Alternative Printshop in Santa Barbara. They offer excellent pricing and have proven to be a reliable option for short color runs with short turnarounds.

We've also put together tent cards for use at restaurants, and an informative flyer for their leave-behind package.

Sherry was great to work with and did a fabulous job of having all her images and text well prepared, which made it easy for me to put together quickly. I was also able to find some great free stock images that helped juice up her website & printed materials for no extra cost, which is a nice thing to be able to offer a startup on a tight budget.

It's personally very enjoyable for me to work with new businesses, who have so much enthusiasm and great ideas, and I'm happy to find creative ways for companies on tight budgets to get the most for their investment!

Great free stock photography site ~

I often have projects for print and the web that need a photo or two, but the client doesn't have a budget for pro or stock photography. Or I just need to try out some cool textures to layer into an illustration layout.

A super resource that I've come to rely on is Stock.Xchng -- a free stock photography and illustration sharing site. True, the selection and quality overall isn't as high as most of the paid stock photo sites, but more often than not I find an image that's perfect for what I'm working on... and you can't beat the price!

And if you like to dabble in photography or illustration, it's fun to upload some images and track how many times they're downloaded all over the world, and what sort of comments people post. (if you search hard enough, you might even find a few by yours truly...!)

I think it's also cool to have a place where creative folks can share some of our work and help each other out -- not just focus on making money.