Posted on

Happy Thanksgiving

I’ve been on something of a self-imposed hiatus. A gathering of myself. Perhaps a literal gathering at my new lifestreaming hub.

Happy Thanksgiving

Things that make me thankful:

Lord of the Rings — As tradition, I am watching all the extended additions of the trilogy. Jason protested much as we’ve already seen them, and we’re trying to go through our collective movies and watch all the ones either of us hasn’t seen. (We only moved in together in July.) However, now that we’re on The Two Towers, Jason has realized that he’s never seen the extended editions, only the ones that were in theaters.

Both Jason and I are in good health. I was sick for much of October and Jason has been sick for the last week or so. The extended weekend will be good for our health as we get to sleep in and eat lots of good food.

Cooking with Erica — my cooking blog is live. That’s right, you won’t have to read recipe after recipe if you’re interesting in design and my other life thoughts.

Pratchett’s Discworld books — I’ve been listening to these on my iPod at work. I’m on the Sourcery. I’ve been in the middle of some rather monotonous work since October, and it’s nice to feel like my brain cells are dying every time there’s an Excel spreadsheet open too long.

Presents — All my holiday shopping has been completed. Presents are currently being wrapped.

Vacation time — I had accumulated more vacation time than I’d thought. Which means when my mom and fake daddy visit for my birthday and early holiday celebration, I’ll be able to take those days off and spend them with my family.

Terry Dodson — Dodson has taken over the art in Uncanny X-Men. Which means women are going to have figures like actual women and I’m going to be able to tell characters’ faces apart. There’s nothing worse than a group comic where you’re trying to guess who’s who just by costume.

Posted on

Commenting Policy

It’s come to my attention that there’s a commenter, upset at my post about dogs in grocery stores, that believes by not unscreening her comments, I’m not sharing the other side. But it’s not her opinion that caused me not to publish it.

My official commenting policy: I screen all comments because 1) all blogs get a lot of spam — both from bots and people actually just advertising their own blogs/services — and 2) it helps me moderate commentary and respond in a more timely manner. I do not tolerate commentary with profanity or personal libel attacks on this blog. Also commenters need to use legitimate e-mail addresses as it’s a sign of a legitimate comment, not a spam bot or troll.

To address my disgruntled commenter:

Puppy Mother,

I am not unscreening your comments due to you not using a legitimate e-mail address in your comments. (E-mail addresses are only viewable by me.) Additionally, your e-mail choice and your second comment is a directed profanity toward me, which is both insulting and does not make for a two-sided conversation.

I stand by my commentary that selfish dog owners should not risk other people’s business licenses by bringing their dogs. As for dogs themselves, I currently don’t own one, but grew up with them, and am not a dog hater. My dogs ran around on a fenced-in 20 acres and were very well loved.

Erica

Posted on

The Joke’s On You, Webmaster

As a gainfully employed person with a busy social and home life, I often find that my websites are neglected. They can fall into such disrepair that my only notion of ‘updating’ them to current standards and design are to take it all down and start from scratch.

Since relaunching this site, I am making a concerted effort never to let that happen again. Especially when I found myself looking at my homepage and thinking that there was just something about it I didn’t like. Continue reading “The Joke’s On You, Webmaster”

Posted on

Web Design: A Little About This Portfolio

I realized today that I never wrote about post about making this web site.

Obviously, every designer worth her/his grain of salt is going to have an online portfolio. My original one was not me. While I consider myself to have to a strong design-oriented eye, I am my hardest client. I am never happy with it, and it will never be perfect enough.

My inspiration for Sliver of Ice Design is actually my oil paintings. When I do oil painting, I tend to use bright colors, colors a lot brighter than I would ever use on the web. Here are three of my favorite oil paintings I did, which hang in my home:

I wanted to show off my art, my eclectics tastes, and have a little fun. A lot of time, when I’m designing professionally, I have to tone it down or take cues from branding because that’s the job, that’s what pleases the client, and makes everyone happy. Having rabbits surfing on carrots is often not appropriate.

The inspiration for the layout of my splash page was my love of comics. Comic artists like David Mack, Pia Guerra, and David Aja are very innovative and one of the many reasons I love comics as an artist. Their art has made me excited to explore new techniques and layouts. I did all the line drawings and took all the photos I used in the art, wanting to use this site to authentically show who I am.

Of course, what everyone really wants to know is: What’s up the bunnies surfing carrots? Well, I’ve always doodled them and in my painting, Universal Library Card, I used it as my signature and they kind of stuck. They’re wacky and memorable.

I do make changes here and there all the time. And I’m sure this site will morph. It’s still not up to this client’s perfect standards.

Posted on

You Googled Me and Got This Blog

I’m an incredibly easy person to find on the internet. My name is relatively unique thanks to my Scottish last name, which has 23 different official spellings, and that my mom decided on Erica (after the infamous Erica Kane on All My Children), not Katie, Lindsey, or Megan like many of my peers.

Google my name and bam, there’s my personal portfolio as the first result. There’s my time as a leader and volunteer at my alma mater’s gay-straight alliance in the second one. There’s even a result tucked in there of my eight years as a 4-Her.

It’s not that much of a skip and a jump to find my screen name and start researching my hobbies. But what about those hobbies and what about if potential employers find out or god forbid, my Grandma.

Well, Grandma already knows. I’m pretty notoriously not that secretive and pretty shameless.

(Plus, Grandma is one hip grandma, let me tell you; she had the internet before I could even convince my parents that we needed a computer so I could type up my own reports on the life and times of octopi instead of my mom using her electric typewriter.)

Employers can be another story. Continue reading “You Googled Me and Got This Blog”