Lisa Goodlin Design

In an effort to build my Photoshop and Illustrator skills I try to do a tutorial every day. I recently discovered the tutorials at Photoshop Essentials. The lessons here are aimed at complete novices; they even explain how to show rulers and create guides. But I have found some helpful information here, in particular the lessons on creating a shallow depth of field and making a starburst pattern. Of course, for some skilled users, these too are novice techniques. As everyone who works with Photoshop opines, however, it’s such a complex piece of software that no single person knows how to do everything with it.

The starburst is fun. It’s a very ’60s psychedelic look. It’s a great design element for a retro web page or advert. Here’s one for Halloween.

There has been a proliferation of That One logos since the October 7th debate. This is my contribution.

The CNY Skeptics site is done. Now it’s on to the next project: a website for the Potter-Jones Agency.

I’m almost finished with the new CNY Skeptics site. It’s a labor of love since I’m the founder and president. We’re just a small community group with a big mission: Promote science and reason in Central New York.

I had been admiring the clean look of websites that use a lot of white, so I thought I would give it a try. I’m not sure where I came up with the blue and orange, except they’re the colors of Syracuse University, which really has nothing to do with the group, but we are based in Syracuse.

The logo was designed after I spent a while looking at Smashing Magazine‘s article from 2007.
This article has been a great resource for me in refining a simple but effective style in logo design. Hm, I just noticed that Smashing Magazine uses white and orange.

Websites that use a lot of white:
Chris Glass
I love typography
Hicksdesign
Mezzoblue
PingMag
Rikcat Industries
Shaun Inman
Tim Lahan
Molly.com

Should I separate this site into two? A web design business site and a blog? I modeled this site after the those of designers I admire, like Elliot Jay Stocks and Veerle Pieters. But they’re big name, successful designers, not unknowns like me. Would it be better if my business site were more professional looking, without all the bells and whistles that I really enjoy such as the flickr and twitter badges? Does it turn off potential clients to see my inane twitter posts? Or my goofy photos?

I could do something like what Jen has done over at Pop Stalin. Although I like the blog design with its vector-licious birdies better than the business site, the business site carries the warm, casual tone of the blog, and is professional and friendly at the same time while clearly separating business from the personal.

I’ll give it some time and see how business goes. So far, all my leads are coming from referrals and not from my site, so now is probably not the time to worry.

For the redesign of CNY Skeptics I’m going to create a new WordPress theme. At first I started to simply copy the page layout for this site, and then I decided I would learn a lot more by stepping outside my comfort zone and doing something different. I’ve been looking at four column themes, and I’ve sketched out a rough idea of what I want to do.