Tag Archives: design

Cataloging Inspiration

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
2

For over 6 months now I’ve been meaning to write a post about my love for Svpply. Svpply is a site that allows you to save what you may want to buy later from any retail website. I’ve been using it more like  virtual storage for all the things I like. In the beginning that was mostly clothes and accessories, but more and more it’s becoming more of a place for me to keep a catalog of products that inspire me.

Svpply is frequently compared to Pinterest. Pinterest lets you catalog the things you love. It has similar features to Svpply in that it allows you to grab images from the web and “pin” them. But it also acts like a social bookmarking tool, letting you place things into categories, called pinboards.

This is a style pin board by my friend Patrice. Unlike Svpply, Pinterest allows you to add text to the photos you are saving. It also has features similar to Tumblr. Users can “re-pin” a post, like it, or leave a comment.

I find both these tools more visual and more appealing than traditional bookmarking sites like Delicious. I love just scrolling through the main page on Svpply, and discovering new things from the people and stores I follow.

What are you using to save inspiration on the web?

The difference between loving the design and loving the service

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
2

On my last day in Austin, TX I was wearing a Gowalla shirt. I walked into the Aol Studio and someone asked me how I got the shirt. Gowalla was doing a special SXSW promotion, you could get your Gowalla passport, fill it up with stickers and get Gowalla swag.

So when the guy asked me how I got the Gowalla shirt, I was honest with him. I said “I paid for this shirt”. He looked really confused, he said “wait, you paid money for that shirt?”. My response: “Yes, I paid cash money for this shirt”.

I love the design of Gowalla, so I am willing to pay to wear their brand. However, I was not really using Gowalla at SXSW. I was not willing to check in everywhere just to get a shirt, but I was willing to pay for one. That’s the difference between loving the design and loving the service!

I love Foursquare, and the new update makes me love it even more! Foursquare bringing back the leaderboard was smart! It feels like a game again. Every check-in counts and I’m loving it.

Foursquare is also showing me more about my check-in history. Gives me extra points for hanging out with the same people, and really is helping me to explore my city.

This is going to make foursquare tips more useful. Just the other day I got a thank you on twitter for a foursquare tip I left over a year ago.

My Gowalla shirt from SXSW 2010

It’s things like this that will make me add more tips because I know they are really useful to my friends. I also think this will turn into certain friends becoming experts in the categories of places that they check-in most. Of course my friends are going to look for my tips when they are looking for a good vegetarian place to eat. Hopefully foursquare will start to reflect the expertise that your friends have. They had the data, why not use it!

Gowalla hasn’t lost me as a user yet, I just use foursquare more at this point. That is why you will see me wearing a Gowalla shirt, while checking in on Foursquare.

Typography, cold?

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
Reply

So I’ve been asking people what they think of my new theme, and most people like it. However I did get one comment on twitter that threw me for a bit.

@danlavelle said:

@sarahcooley love the format, very simple and easy to read. What don’t I like? The fonts. Too industrial and not enough personality conveyed

I mentioned in my last post that both themes (old and new) have had the same font. Helvetica.

It’s the type of font that does display anything, no personality, no emotion, and yet…it says everything. It’s clean, simple, timeless.

I never really noticed Helvetica has a font until I saw the documentary film, Helvetica.

From the website:

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which celebrated its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.

The film showed me how much this simple little font had already affected my life. It’s everywhere!

So I stand by my choice of font, and I think it says a lot about me!

:)

If you are on iTunes to check out Helvetica, you should also check out the other documentary by Gary Hustwit, Objectified. They are both really interesting.

Also from the website:

Objectified is a feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the designers who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability.

Blog redesign

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
Reply

Hey guys, it sure has been a while since I blogged here on radomsarah.com!

I have been settling into a new city and  a new job, not to mention helping crush cancer!

It sure has been a crazy few months, but I do really miss blogging. I never really stopped blogging, I have kept up a constant stream of content on my tumblr.

What I blog on tumblr is a lot like the kind of content that I used to post on Random Sarah. Random things that I find around the web that interest me. Over time I started to blog in a more focused way and tumblr became my outlet for all of the random stuff I found. But Random Sarah is where my twitter profile (and almost all of the other social sites I use) point too. When people are trying to find out more about me, they are dorected to a site that I don’t think currently reflects my level of activity on the web.

That being said I have decided that it’s time for a re-design of Random Sarah! I would really want this to be my home online, I want it to accurately reflect my activity online. I don’t want you to come to randomsarah.com and not see a post for a few weeks and think I dropped off the face of the earth!

As you can see, there doesn’t really seem to be any consistent design element, or branding across all of these sites that I use.

I am not 100% sure how I want this to look, of course I have ideas of my own, but I would really like to work with a designer on this.

If you would like to be considered for the project, or you know someone who has experience with wordpress and tumblr, please leave it in the comments. Or you can always shoot me an email at sarah.k.cooley@gmail.com

Building a theme

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
5

I have always wanted to design my own theme, while I love the random sarah theme now, I find from time to time I just get the itch for a redesign! Looking through the thousands of wordpress themes out there can be daunting, and if you have been reading random sarah for long enough you know what I went through when choosing a theme last time.

You will like a part of one, and a part of another one, and so on. You get to the point where you want to build it yourself (or in my case at least design what it will look like)

I cannot code for my life! This is a fact. But I consider myself to be a pretty good designer. So I wanted to know if it was possible for me to design what it looked like and how all the buttons would work, and someone else just code it for me. I have a few friends who are willing to help me out with this once the design is finished, so I started to build! You can watch the full evolution of the theme on flickr (I posted a link to the set below) I have been posting screen shots as I go along and getting feedback from my twitter peeps on how it looks.

The whole idea for the theme started with a set of free icons I found on Spoon Graphics of hand drawn icons for bloggers. I have seen a lot of hand drawn web design and it’s an aesthetic I like. So I decided to look around the web for some great blogs and find inspiration. Another important step was using iStockPhoto to get great art I could tear apart and use for the design. I got the background image and most of the other artwork from there. TIP: YOUR DESIGN WILL LOOK BETTER IF YOU SPEND A LITTLE MONEY!

So here is where I am so far, I would be happy to answer any questions about how I did this, it really wasn’t that hard. (and it’s not done yet!)