I hope you like the new home page design. Since I am freelancing full time now, I want to feature my business more on my home page. The new design keeps several elements from the blog but makes it secondary to my marketing messages. The path to my services, contact, pricing, and portfolio pages should be very clear now. In addition, my latest work panels are nice and large now. Yes, I’m still a blogger. You can find the blog stuff lower on the page. On the interior blog pages, the article content is still high on the page.

Here was the design on May 2, 2009:

Home page on May 2, 2009

Here’s the current home page:

Home page on Jun 18, 2009

And a current blog page:

Blog page on Jun 18, 2009

My full-time high school career now ended, I am fully open for business as Blue Lobster Art and Design. Please contact me for a free initial consultation if you need any of the following services (or check out my Pricing page.) Thanks!

Web Design

• Web site and Web page design
• Search engine optimization
• Installation and customization of Web storefronts (eCommerce), galleries, blogs, and other Web applications
• Banner ad and HTML email design
• Content management and blog template/skin design
• Research to find solutions for advanced needs or troubleshooting

Graphic Design

• Brochures
• Business Cards
• Flyers
• Icons & Symbols
• Illustrations
• Labels
• Letterhead & Envelopes
• Logos
• Mailers / Postcards
• Maps
• Photograph Retouching & Restoration
• Print Ads
• Publications: Magazines, Newsletters, & Books
• T-Shirt / Clothing Imprints

Fine Art

• Charcoal Portraits from Photographs
• Individual Instruction

I’m winding down my high school teaching career this week. My final day of teaching high school classes, perhaps for good, is this Friday. I taught high school full time for the past three years. If you want to know why I am deciding to leave this glamorous and rewarding career, check out my latest posts at dawnsbrain.com.

The good, great, fantastic news is that I get to go back to teaching college kids (and adults) in July. I got a part-time teaching position at the Art Institute, where I will have two web design classes. Each class is four hours long, once per week, for an eleven-week quarter. I could perhaps have taught there full-time, but I want to keep my schedule open for all the freelance design work I hope to pull in.
My other good news is that I have decided to create a new side business for myself. Some of my tutorials here have been very popular. However, I’ve been kind of all-over-the-map with what I create. For the past year or so I’ve been thinking about writing a Photoshop tutorial book geared toward the classroom. So, instead of cranking out a new tutorial a couple of times a week in random order, I’m getting organized. I want to create a comprehensive curriculum and have it all online. This new effort will appear in due time at 60Lessons.com.

Here’s the synopsis:

Art and design lessons tailored for the classroom:

• 45-minute daily lessons
• 10 lessons per unit
• 60 lessons per course
• Instructor guides
• Unit reviews
• Unit projects with rubrics
• Unit quizzes

Subjects:

• Photoshop
• Illustrator
• Dreamweaver
• HTML and XHTML
• CSS
• design principles
• drawing
• and more!

My slogan is Daily Doses of Smart™.

I hope to build the site to

• offer 60 lessons for beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels
• invite guest teachers
• cater to people learning on their own as well, perhaps providing paid coaching
• eventually provide a social networking/community setting

Some of the 60Lessons.com materials will be free, and others will be available at affordable prices. Banner ads alone do not pay the bills, I have found.

I’d love to have your feedback on this venture. Is the 60Lessons.com concept of interest to you? What would you want to see offered?

Things are looking up (they weren’t too bad to begin with.)

1. The traffic for this blog is doing very well (thanks, everybody!) In April, the traffic doubled over the March stats. Then in May, the traffic doubled again. It’s nice to see my hard work pay off with so many visitors.

Traffic for February 23 through June 2, 2009

2. I had a second interview with the local Art Institute today, and it looks like they really want me. The only thing that might prevent this is my lack of a Masters degree. They asked me to write a Letter of Justification which they could show accrediting officials to justify my teaching position. I would be teaching two Web design classes starting in July. Here’s the letter I wrote, in case you’re curious (or find yourself needing to write one some day yourself).

Dawn Pedersen
Letter of Justification

Degree: B. A.—Fine art with Drawing and Painting Emphasis (California State College, Sacramento)

Teaching Credentials, State of California: Single Subject—Art; Single Subject—Biology;
Teaching Credentials, County of Sacramento: Career and Technical Education—Information Technology; Career and Technical Education—Arts, Media and Entertainment

Courses Taught, College: Intermediate Web Page Design, Beginning Photoshop (Sacramento City College)
Courses Taught, High School: Web Design, Graphic Design I, Graphic Design II, Life Science (Natomas High School); Art I, Art II, Drama (Esparto High School)

Justification: Mrs. Pedersen was selected to teach design courses because she has extensive industry experience and expertise. Mrs. Pedersen has been a Web and graphic designer for over nine years, working not only for employers, but directly for clients through her own design companies.

Mrs. Pedersen worked as a professional Web Designer at Connectix, a Silicon Valley software company, where her expertise in design, marketing and web usability were a valuable asset in a fast paced, demanding environment. Responsible for both the company’s public website as well as its internal intranet, she developed a passion for best coding practices and project management. As owner of Dawn’s Brain Design, Pedersen designed web sites and printed pieces for client companies in New York, Georgia, Colorado, and Australia, as well as locally. She gained further experience in web and graphic design while working for a printing press company and a small design studio.

Mrs. Pedersen discovered a love for teaching when she was hired by Sacramento City College to teach intermediate Web and beginning Photoshop classes. While teaching Web and graphic design for two years at the high school level, she built a comprehensive Web site for her students which was devoted to the curriculum of her three courses (nhsdesigns.com). It included all class materials, schedules, a forum, and a student gallery.

Mrs. Pedersen is currently the owner of Blue Lobster Art and Design, and a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. Returning to freelance design after a three-year hiatus, she has found that her previous clients are enthusiastic to have her back on their team, and have recommended her to their colleagues. She creates popular tutorials on Web and graphic design for her blog at BluLob.com. To keep on top of all the latest innovations in design and technology, she is a constant reader of industry magazines, books, and instructional Web sites. She is currently working toward a Masters in Fine Art.

Self-Portrait in Illustrator

Click the image below for a larger version.

Self-Portrait in Illustrator

I’ve mentioned at my old blog, dawnsbrain.com, that the high school I’ve worked at for two years is not having me back next year. This has turned out to be a real blessing. Teaching public high school has become a horrible chore. Sometimes a nightmare.

Since February, when I learned I would not be back, I have worked on getting Blue Lobster off the ground. It’s been three years since I’ve freelanced. It is a far more appealing prospect than another year with students who hate being in school.

I still love teaching though. I have sought a job at the Art Institute nearby for the past month. AI is filled with students who are out of high school and serious about their education. I am now about 90% certain that I will be teaching two classes there (Web design,) starting in July. The Web design program really impressed me, and I’d have a lot of freedom with my curriculum. And I’ll probably need the money, frankly.

An influential teacher there has green-lighted me after meeting with me yesterday. We just need to wait for me to have a formal interview with the academic director in a couple of weeks.

Wish me luck!

I’m testing out a new feature of BluLob.com: a reader poll. I’d like to get an idea of what you do with the information I yap about here. If I did this right, the poll results may help me better tailor the content on BluLob.com to your needs. Let’s see how this goes!

What profession are you in, or what do you do with the information at BluLob.com? You can give more than one answer, or write in your own. Thanks for your feedback!

Evolution

You can look up archives of Web sites with the Wayback Machine at archive.org. Sometimes images weren’t archived completely, so some of the screenshots below have some missing bits.

August 2000
Yes, I used frames and I am ashamed. But, hey it was 2000. I wasn’t even promoting my design work yet. Longest copyright notice ever. This is the earliest version I can find of dawnsbrain.com.

August 2000

January 2001
The Flash splash page with various animations is missing in the archive. Luckily, I have samples of a few of them below. Roll over one of the thumbnails on the left. I had just learned to use Flash.

July 2001
I have no idea how I expected people to contact me. There were no links on this page while I redesigned the site (which apparently took a few months). Just some self-promotional verbiage.

July 2001

February 2002
I still like these goofy creatures I used for the navigation. I made some decent glass buttons for the left edge, but the text formatting is so lame. When you rolled over the text, you got a JavaScript image swap in the right-hand box. This is the first appearance of a Dawn’s Brain logo.

February 2002

September 2002
What was I thinking? This looks so formal and bland. At least I was learning how to tighten up the layout, and the logo looks better. I think this is when I started using X-Cart as a way to generate my portfolio. X-Cart was not a bad solution, and I used it for several years in this manner.

September 2002

November 2002
This is a small improvement. I added images of recent work above the introductory text.

November 2002

February 2004
Finally a return to color, with an aquatic theme. I really love animals. I took those photos as Monterey Aquarium, I think. This was about the time I also fell in love with the combination of orange and green.

February 2004

December 2005
I was really falling in love with 50′s modern design motifs. I finally came up with my favorite logo design for Dawn’s Brain: the retro “dbd”. This was my first Web design done completely with CSS positioning rather than tables.

December 2005

August 2006
This was when I went into teaching full-time and put my freelance career on hold. The banner image is missing here but it looked pretty much like the current banner. I swapped the X-cart portfolio for my first WordPress blog.

August 2006

BluLob.com
I’m hoping that the archive eventually shows my earlier attempts here at blulob.com. I failed to archive the screenshots myself. The Wayback Machine says that it takes about 6 months for the archives to appear after they have been collected, so I’ll be checking back with them in September. In the meantime, here’s what blulob.com looks like today, May 2, 2009:

May 2, 2009

Check out my new Pricing page. It is not exhaustive of all the services I provide, nor of what you might be looking for. However, it might give you a ballpark figure of what I charge for common design needs.

Logo Revision 5 for Orchestrated Home

I’ll post all of the stages as the logo goes from concept to final.

April 17, 2009

First I began with some loose sketches. Pencils sketches seem at first like they might add extra time and effort, but they actually save me time every time. Plus, by coming up with more ideas than I really need, I can cull out the ideas that don’t really captivate or are too detailed.

Logo Sketches for Orchestrated Home

Below are the six logo concepts I created yesterday.

Logo Concepts for Orchestrated Home

April 18, 2009

Here is the first revision, based on feedback asking me to “work with #1 and #3″, and for “the house to be personalized so as not to look like clip art. Possibly illustrating the house in a slightly cartoon like shape would do this” and “a more custom font.”

Logo Revision 1 for Orchestrated Home

April 26, 2009

Here is the second revision, based on feedback asking for “three fonts maybe each with a different color combo and seeing the logo with the text at the right in an example or two. Then tell me or show me how the logo would fit into a banner.”

Logo Revision 2 for Orchestrated Home

May 2, 2009

“These are really cool! We are very, very close.” A few color changes, and one rearrangement/font change.

Logo Revision 3 for Orchestrated Home

May 5, 2009

A few more font and color tweaks.

Logo Revision 4 for Orchestrated Home

May 8, 2009

The client asked me to round off the pinkie knuckle a bit more, reduce the boldness of the word “home”, and show some more shades of green. Almost done!

Logo Revision 5 for Orchestrated Home