Author Archives: Dara

Monthly Wallpaper: April (for real this time)

Yesterday’s monthly wallpaper, while totally gorgeous with its delicate combination of a matzah textured background, a clip art easter bunny, and my very favourite font in neon pink… was an April Fool’s joke. Shocking, right? …right?

Well, never fear, you’re not stuck with that mess. Not that I let you download it anyway, since the “download” links led to everyone’s favourite Youtube video.

Here’s the real thing!

wallpapers-april

Download

Desktop (2560 x 1440) • Tablet (2048 x 2048) • Mobile (640 x 1136)

(They’re sized for a 27″ iMac, a retina iPad, and an iPhone 5, respectively, but they should all work for smaller devices, too.)

This wallpaper is more on the optimistic side of things, since I just looked out the window and it’s snowing. Snowing. C’mon, weather, get your shit together. April also features one of my very favourite fonts, Memoriam Pro. It’s one of the first fonts I ever bought, though I wasn’t sure at the time what I’d actually use it for. I ended up using it in my own branding so I did find a few good uses for it after all. The illustration is, as usual, from the public domain.

Enjoy!

Hellooo, world!

Good morning, friends!

Today is officially ‘new everything day’. New business, new website, new (old) blog, new logo… phew! Let me just repeat that for emphasis: my business is now OPEN! I’m now a tiny business owner (take that in whatever way you want — my business is tiny and I’m pretty small in stature as well), a full-time freelancer, a solo-preneur, and/or whatever the cool kids are calling it these days.

Everyone is pretty excited around here:

ghosty

rosi

mrgiraffe

Well... almost everyone.

Well… almost everyone.

Confession time: I actually started last Monday, not today, but I wanted to take it all in for a bit before going public. And so I did. Now that I’m my own boss, I does what I wants.

Anyway! Let me walk you through all the shiny new things around here:

New (old) blog!

If any of you are here because you’re subscribed to my blog Reverie Time, you might notice that you’re in a different place. As promised, I amalgamated my blog with my portfolio site, and if I did everything right, you should have been seamlessly redirected. If you’re seeing this in an RSS reader, check out the new place!

One of the features of my new blog is that each post has a customizable header, where I can choose to change up the colours or background on a per-post basis. I think it gives my blog a slightly more editorial feel. Fun!

If you’re wondering why I said that this is a new (old) blog and not just a new blog, I actually used to blog in this very spot years before I started Reverie Time, and now I’m back here because having two sites was more of a pain than I thought it would be. The nice thing about the Internet is that these decisions are fairly easily reversible! I left all of my old posts up, so if you’re bored, you can see some gems from 5 years ago like a review of Godard’s Vivre Sa Vie or a very deep post about my very favourite ghost.

New website!

For the past four months (!) or so, I’ve spent most of my spare time working on this website (that is, the time that wasn’t already taken up by working a full-time job and doing client work). The site that was up prior to this one had been around for over two years, and it was both outdated and a little ineffective. It had worked great as a portfolio for traditional job hunting, but it wasn’t very useful for or aimed at new visitors or potential clients. Also, the design aesthetic was a bit outdated and didn’t feel like me anymore.

Here's the old site, in case you've already forgotten. Or never saw it in the first place. Either way.

Here’s the old site, in case you’ve already forgotten. Or never saw it in the first place. Either way.

So, it was definitely time for an upgrade. I’m going to write a couple of follow-up posts about the design and development process that I went through to get to this final(ish) state, because I always like reading about other people’s processes, and by that logic, there are likely some people out there who are curious about mine.

New availability! (Or, a little shameless plug)

The crappy thing about the best freelancers is that they’re always booked up months and months in advance because they’re so awesome — and rightly so. Because I’m just starting out, I’m in the unique position of being pretty great and not being booked ’til the end of time. Huzzah! I’m pretty busy this month and am already starting to put some projects in my calendar for April, but I have availability coming up soon. So, if you wanna work with a web designer and you want to do so sooner than later, now’s the perfect time to grab me! My new services page is a good place to start if you’re wondering what exactly it is that I do.

Thanks for reading, and have a super lovely week!

Monthly wallpaper: March

First, before I get to the wallpaper thing, thanks so much to basically everyone for being so encouraging about the big changes that I’m undertaking! Change is always at least a bit scary, but it’s much less so with awesome people cheering you on. I’m really lucky to know (and Internet-know) a lot of great people.

Second, I was interviewed today by Ashley of Your Super Awesome Life. Check it out! Thanks, Ashley!

Now, back to business. It’s the start of another month, which of course means that I owe you another wallpaper! I wondered about how to treat March, which really should be the start of spring, but usually doesn’t really feel like it in Canada. I’ve been looking around and seeing a lot of bare trees and a generally winter-ish vibe lately, but I’ve also been noticing that the sun is setting later and later each day. And if that wasn’t enough, my BFF Daylight Savings Time is starting up again this month (aw yeaaahhhh!). So, I see March as a month of cold and bleakness but with the promise of sun and warmth ahead. With that, I present…

wallpapers-march

Download

Desktop (2560 x 1440) • Tablet (2048 x 2048) • Mobile (640 x 1136)

(They’re sized for a 27″ iMac, a retina iPad, and an iPhone 5, respectively, but they should all work for smaller devices, too.)

All of the illustrations in my wallpapers are from the public domain, and this one features the excellent Ostrich Sans font.

Enjoy!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Hello, my lovely, neglected readers!

Nah, this post isn’t about Mr. Bowie, despite the title. And this isn’t even the right album anyway. Just checking to see if you’re paying attention. ;D

You may have noticed that things are a bit quiet around here. Big changes are happening around these parts, and I’ve inadvertently left you in the dark for much too long.

Here’s a brief overview of what’s been eating my time and thoughts for the last few weeks and making me run around like a headless chicken:

Thing 1: I quit my dream job to work for myself

Whoa! This is the big one, and it’s only just finally sunk into my brain as something that’s really happening.

About a month ago, I made one of the hardest choices, if not the hardest choice, of my entire career when I decided to leave my awesome job as a front end developer at Jet Cooper to start my own tiny business and work for myself full time. When I say I left my dream job, I mean it. I’m a huge fan of the company and every single one of my coworkers, and I learned a shitload (pretty sure that’s the scientific term) about being a great front-end developer over the past year and a bit.

So then, you might be wondering, why did I decide to leave?

The first answer is because running my own solo business is something I’ve always dreamed of doing, and this feels like exactly the right time to give it 100% of my attention and effort. I’m really excited to jump into figuring out exactly the kind of work makes me tick, the type of clients I like working with, and the values and principles that will inform my decisions. I’m also super excited to be taking on more design and strategy work in addition to front-end development, because despite really loving The Codes, I’m not the kind of person who ultimately enjoys being a hyper-specialist. I know, I know, there’s that common wisdom that people who spread themselves too thin end up not truly being good at any of the things they do, but I think that the “too thin” threshold varies wildly from person to person, and I’m pretty confident that I’m nowhere near that line.

The second answer is simply that I need to take better care of myself than I am right now. It’s not glamorous, but it’s true. Being chronically exhausted and unwell is, unsurprisingly, not super fun (o rly?), and I’m of the firm belief that people do their best work when they’re happy and healthy. So, time to make that shiz a top priority.

Thing 2: Oops, I took on too much work already

So, I decided to work for myself because I want some freedom, control, and flexibility in terms of how much I work and what kind of work I do, so I can prioritize my wellbeing… right? Well, somehow, I kind of forgot about that and have booked myself solid for the past few weeks (while still working full time, I might add), AND going forward into March when I’ll be starting on my own full-time. Oops? Admittedly, it’s a pretty good problem to have (hey, people like me! they really like me!), but it means that blogging has totally taken a back seat. And that’s too bad, because I like writing here. So, I’ll be sorting out my schedule soon and making sure I set aside time for writing. Speaking of which…

Thing 3: Adios, Reverie Time!

Don’t worry, I’m not shutting my blog down. I am, however, going to be amalgamating it with my main portfolio site, because it’s way easier to maintain and promote one site, one name, and one brand instead of two. The good news is that if you’re subscribed to this site, you won’t have to do anything when I change over to the new location, ’cause I’ll use my mad skillz and redirect you without you even knowing it. Magic!

In conclusion…

Stay tuned, because I’ll be back in action soon with lots of new, shiny blog posts (and, of course, March’s wallpaper). Thanks for your patience with my silence, and for following along!