Jasmine is a great friend of mine and she is an amazing photographer. I was honoured when she asked me to do her site’s re-design! Go check out her new site and don’t forget to look at her awesome photos! Jasmineluxfoto.com

This month has been crazy for me. Seemingly out of nowhere, current and new clients all needed my help with new or existing projects. I’ve been working my butt off to meet deadlines and produce some of my best designs. I might as well start off 2012 with a solid portfolio, right? Perhaps I will let you see a sneak peek of what I’ve been working on… but only if you’re good.

My design style has certainly changed a great deal over the last 8 months since I graduated. I’ve found a style that I really enjoy and feel shows off my skills up to my current standards. However, sometimes I go back a week after designing something, scratch my head and ask myself “What was I thinking?!”. I think we all have that moment – some designers more often than others (depending how much of a perfectionist you are), but I know you know what I’m talking about. I often find myself laughing at what I’ve done – I actually laugh at myself a lot… heh – but it makes it that much easier to create something even better; something that I can go back and look at and not cringe.

ANYWAYS! I know that I have no interest in reading blog entries unless they contain pretty photos or images, so now I leave you with a few teasers of what I’m working on. Happy New Year!!

After approximately two years of trying to design new business cards for myself, I finally came up with something that I love. I had starting designing the cards a few months ago and then got inspired to re-design my portfolio to match my business cards (is that backwards? Who cares – it worked). After getting opinions and making small tweaks, I came up with these and decided it was finally time to get them printed.

Designing for print is tough. I am not a fan of it at all – getting the colors right is the hardest part for me. There is definitely a reason that I’m a web designer and not a graphic designer!

On another note, I got my MBP yesterday and I plan to replace all of my friends with it (kidding). I’m slowly getting everything set up and trying to figure out the best way to organize my files – it seems so much easier on a Mac! I’m glad that I finally bit the bullet and picked one up because it’s something I have been coveting for years and I figured that getting it *before* my other laptop crashed was a pretty good idea. S-M-R-T.

PS – Where on earth did the last 11 months go?!

Well, here I am, yet again on a Friday night, sitting in front of my computer, nerding out on my portfolio. The life of a web designer is just so glamorous, isn’t it?! Ya’ll know what I’m talking about. While most other people are going out and drinking their faces off, we’re sitting here, possibly with a glass of wine or maybe even a beer (if you’re into that kind of thing) working feverishly on a pet project. Let’s face it – nobody wants to work on client work after-hours. Am I right?

In other news, the best day of my life has finally arrived: I ordered my very own, very shiny, very fabulous 15″ Macbook Pro. I have been coveting a MBP since I got to use OSX while I was in school. Let’s just call it a little Christmas present for myself. Maybe a birthday present, too… for the next 3 years. BUT EITHER WAY! I can’t wait for it to arrive.

That’s basically all that I have to say about that. For a  minute there I thought I had lost my dog in my small apartment (it happens). Turns out he was snuggled up behind my purse. As you can tell from this photo, he’s quite small and easy to lose track of. Most of the time he is annoying the heck out of me but there are times when he’s a good boy and decides to leave me alone and sleep somewhere strange.

This has nothing to do with my post title, and call me crazy, but I have to get up early to volunteer at Edmonton Humane Society and walk some dogs (8am on a Sunday! It’s gonna be -27C). Just though I’d let you know just in case you were interested in what I do for “fun”.

Now I suppose I can get into the original topic behind this post: Wordcamp. If you’ve never heard of it, then you’re obviously crazy. My fabulous employers at AgileStyle were kind enough to inform me of this event so we brought the whole team (all 4 of us!) along.

All I can say is that I am so glad that I went. I met a ton of new people (and new people to follow on Twitter, of course) and finally met some people that I’ve been following on Twitter for at least a year or so. Twitter has become an amazing tool for networking and meeting new people. I can’t even count how many people from Twitter I’ve met! It’s pretty stellar for making new friends and acquaintances.

Oh, yeah. I also learned a ton of new stuff about WordPress that I had been wondering about and didn’t even know about. I am definitely going to have to go back and reference the presentations to refresh my memory but all in all it was an incredible event – especially for a little baby one! This was the first Wordcamp in Edmonton and I think it was a smashing success!

Kudos to all of the organizers, speakers and volunteers. You guys did an amazing job! Follow Wordcamp Edmonton on Twitter right now!