Wow..over a week since the earthquake and I have just felt another aftershock…at 12.30

During a career presentation I made recently to 8th grade students the question arose, “what do you do in a typical day?” Every day is different but to give you a flavor here is what I did yesterday.

• Put the final touches on a new web site for Helicopter Incorporated: copy and photograph changes. Uploaded site and sent to client for review
• Worked on a new logo for St Louis Jazz Cafe and submitted two concepts for the client to review. Later followed up by phone to get feedback
• Created a flash annimated button for a new web site for Outlook Today, incorporated button into site. Uploaded to testing server and emailed client to review. Followed up on client change requests
• Scheduled a meeting with a new client to discuss the branding of a new business
• Wrote a post for the blog
• Worked on new web site for St Louis Woman’s exchange – currently populating the site with copy
• New Stroco web site: Site is currently in the design phase. Called client to get feedback on progress so far.
• Scheduled meeting with client looking to outsource web and graphic design services
• Followed up with exisiting client requiring web site maintneance
• Dealt with miscellaneous emails
• Read a few blogs and a new copy of Dynamic Graphics magazine
• Drank two cups of coffee!

This is pretty typical for my day and as you can see it is all about managing multiple projects. I put Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Flash though their paces.

I spent all day Monday speaking with 8th graders from the Rockwood School district about a career in graphic and web design. My bit for the community! It was fun but quite exhausting . At the end of the day I was pretty hoarse from giving my presentation six times.

I covered the main responsibilities of my job, jobs likes and dislikes, education requirements, required skill set and steps the student could take now to prepare for this type of career.

However before we started I gave the kids a little test … much to their disgust before they realised what it entailed!

Am I color blind?

The discs above show the numbers 56, 45, 25, 6, 29 and 8 to those with perfect color vision.

Being able to see in perfect color is an essential requirement for a career in web or graphic design though it would be a fitting start to my talk. Two of the students I spoke to were indeed “color challenged”

Thanks to client Cindy Reeg, who recently sent me this fabulous review about her web site:-

“I thought you might enjoy this review of my website by Jennifer Gladden–a teacher, parent, and author. She is exactly who we’ve designed this site, so I’m thrilled to hear that she likes it. “

“I made a recent discovery: Cindy Reeg’s blog. The minute her page loads on your browser, you see colors galore. It has an immediate “kid appeal”, which always grabs my attention. Her blog highlights news of fellow authors, such as today’s post featuring Margot Finke.

I planned on just focusing on Cynthia’s blog, but realized that wouldn’t do her justice. I found myself browsing her entire site for quite some time. Her creativity shines right down to her “About Me” page, which is in interview format.

There’s a little something for everybody. On her “Teachers and Parents” page she has information about her creative school visits. There’s even tips for us writers on how to conduct a fun school visit.

No matter which page you visit, you’ll likely run into something fun. The “Kids” page is just that: FUN. There’s links, crafts, recipes and even suggested readings.

My personal favorite was her “Travel and Family” page. There’s exciting photographs of her worldly travels. Viewing her picture of Italy may be the closest I get to that country for a while. The picture I loved the most, however, was of her two cats napping on the photocopier. Nothing could capture a cat’s peronality better than that.

Hey, don’t take my word for it. Go visit Cynthia’s Blog and website at http://www.cynthiareeg.com/blog/index.html too see for yourself. If you love it as much as I do, don’t forget to visit her contact page and tell her about it.”

I always like hearing about my client successes and today had news from St Louis children’s author, Cynthia Reeg.

Cynthia will be enjoying her first book signing on December 8th. You can read more about it on her blog

Congratulations Cindy!

A clear winner for the new Missouri Licence plate, recieving 56.2% of the votes, is the Bluebird … the design which got my vote

The more my investigation into second life continues the more impressed I become …here is a big hitter, Circuit City, testing a presence in Second Life.

Online shopping of the future!

Just about every publication I have picked up over the last month has had an article about Second Life. So a mission was set for the St Louis web designer to find out what all of the hype is about.

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. It is accessed by initially registering at secondlife.com and downloading an application. Once the application is installed on your computer the door to the 3-d vitual world is opened by logging in.

Once in Second Life you are represented as an Avatar ..which can be customized however you want. Fat, thin, short, tall, ugly, beautiful and any type of clothing imaginable. If a human form is not to your taste you can designate your avatar as an animal. The permuations are endless.

Here is my Avatar (Indigo Oh)

The 3-d world is transversed by walking, flying or teleporting to a specific location and you are free to interact with other Avatars

You can buy a whole island, a parcel of land or rent a shop in a mall to stake a claim which is akin to buying hosting for web sites. Do you purchase a dedicated server or a space on a shared server. On you land you are free to do as you chose, build a vitual corporate office, sell t shirts for Avatars, set up a virtual university, host a corporate meeting. …the potential is huge.

These stakes of land in Second life will be web sites of the future and it is no wonder Second Life is the subject of huge media attention.

Our investigation will continue..watch this space!

We are currently adding some new content to a web site for Urological Metropolitan Specialsts that was launched about a year ago.

When the site was originally designed, consideration was made for future additions to the site. This forward planning is making the addition of a large new section much easier than it would have otherwise been. We are able to build on what the client already has without going back to drawing board.

Having a web site that is capable of evolving with changing business needs and objectives is an important feature to consider when a web site is in the design phase.