The gift of a Web site: Priceless

So for Christmas, the present I gave that made the biggest splash was a Web site I built for my husband. He's a potter, a sculptor and a painter, and the site was designed to showcase his work. The gift included a domain name and perpetual updates. He's never had a Web site before and was so impressed with the idea that I could have gotten anything I wanted for about a week.

In hindsight, I realize I should have taken more advantage.

He spent the next few days taking new photos of our studio space along with shots of some pottery he had been working on. He also spent a good bit of time looking up information including titles, sizes and exhibit information. Some of the portfolio pieces I had initially marked with dummy text like $priceless and with sizes like really"xbig" which didn't really fly.

I included a lot of dummy text all over the site. It was meant to be funny on Christmas morning, but then replaced with information my husband was supposed to give me later. And the idea did spur multiple readings and a lot of out-loud laughing, which was the whole point of not using "Lorem ipsum" everywhere.

What I wasn't ready for was how much he liked that silly dummy text. He liked it so much that he chose to keep the bulk of it on the site. As is. He said if people couldn't handle his sense of humor, that wasn't his problem. I protested at first, but eventually gave in, and we ended up keeping all the references to beer and how much his wife totally rocks.

Really, I'm just the designer. Who am I to argue?

nornie.com

I think I forgot to mention it here before, but I try to keep my different art lives separate so as not to frighten the children. I've built a Web site that has the links to all of them though, and it's here: www.nornie.com. If you're old enough and you can handle the shock, you can take a look at what I do when I'm not designing or fine arting. It keeps me out of trouble, mostly.

Even though all my sites are different, I try to keep a similar feel through each one. I use different fonts and different colors, but I've created a grungy background that has found its way through all of them. It helps me get rid of that corporate "I like to follow the rules" kind of feel because I'm not a corporation and I don't like to follow the rules. At least not as far as art goes.

Nornie was the nickname my dad gave me before I was old enough to understand what a nickname was. Apparently I didn't like it, and I guess I told him so. But it stuck and now it's mine. Thanks, Dad.

Total redesign!

Just wanted everyone to know I've totally redesigned both my graphic design/editorial illustration site: www.graphx.us and my fine art site: www.norathompson.us. I was hoping to make both of them a little more classy than they had been, so I created the pages in Flash and dropped them in a main page I created in Dreamweaver.

And, although it's been up for a little while already, I guess this would be the official announcement of my fine artwork online. I use many mediums including oil, acrylic, graphite (powdered and in pencil form), charcoal (powdered, vine and compressed), conte crayon and many natural materials, to name a few. I have also included several of my silver gelatin photographic prints on the site as well as previous show listings, my artist's statement and bio.

I'm hoping for feedback, especially if anyone encounters problems in the technical area.

And thanks to everyone who has already fed back!

Ohiopyle Weddings

I've finished my first entirely Flash Web site for Ohiopyle Weddings. I still have way too many things I want to do, but don't know the ActionScript to do them, and don't know the correct terminology to be able to search for the scripting on the Internet. Still, it's functional and basically attractive, and best of all, approved by the clients!

Flash

Been learning Flash and loving it. I'm still taking baby steps, but I've got so many animations and Web sites in my head, I have to keep pushing myself to get there.

One week more...

Well, for me, the semester is almost over. I've been teaching a Digital Imaging class for seven Saturdays now, and next week will be the last one for this class. After that, it's nose to the grindstone to crank out some graphic design I've been putting off until I had more time. I've got two Web sites to put together, a logo, some odds and ends that it's been so long I can't even remember what they are! And a tattoo design!

I hope everybody will forgive me for just one week more...

Firefly Chocolates

I just finished putting together a simple Web site for some nice people I know from Ohiopyle. They have a couple restaurants down there (The Firefly Grill and Highwaters Grill) that are open through the summer, and then they make chocolate goodies through the winter season. They just opened a shop at Seven Springs Mountain Resort a few weeks ago, and I've been working on their graphics for it.

The image above is what I designed for the sign that hangs outside the shop in the hallway of the ski lodge at Seven Springs.