As some of you already know, my husband @josephspeiser & I had a baby boy a few weeks ago adding a 3rd little munchkin to our brood.

Of course the apple geeks we are, we quickly downloaded all the best baby apps out there, but we thought we’d start by training our little mac-tike the old school way… using iPhone wooden blocks of course!

Kyle Bean a Brighton-based designer created this groovy wooden toy style iPhone where the apps are represented as wooden blocks which can be repositioned in and out of the iPhone frame.

Eco friendly and free of radiation, think shape sorter for the hipster baby. Now find me a magic mouse rattle and I think we’ll be all set!

I had the pleasure to be asked by Oliver Lindberg to partake in this month’s website build-off for .NET magazine (issue 212). The build-off feature has always been one of my favorite sections of the magazine and I was thrilled to get a chance to participate. The brief was to mock up a contact page that was both user-friendly, aesthetically pleasing, but also technologically sound to help provide visitors (and prospective clients) the necessary tools to get in touch.

I had a lot of fun creating this and was really pleased to be included amongst such a great group of creatives.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, today I’ll be releasing my first free icon pack, which are available for download here. I had a great time dreaming up these little darlings and hope you’ll enjoy them too!

If you’re curious as to how many layers make up that cute-as-a-button Tiffany box, you can download a PSD of the entire set at 365psd.com.

A note about usage: These lovelies are free for use and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. If you have any questions about usage it’s all listed under Creative Commons, or you can feel free to contact me. If you don’t steal my stuff, I promise not to bite.

I, along with my partner Read at Relay Creative, were honored and humbled to be given the opportunity to work with the family of UVA student Yeardley Love in establishing the branding and creating the website for the the One Love Foundation.

Over the last year or so I started this blog and have really enjoyed the entire experience, but in the past couple of months I’ve wanted to begin adding more articles about the work I do and the exciting projects I’m involved in. This post is my attempt at that.

If you’ve been following along thus far (thank you), you’ve probably noticed an absence of posts as of late.  Thankfully, I’ve been keeping pretty busy.  I’m excited to report that I have recently gone into business with my developer partner Read Roberts, to form the company Relay Creative.  Read and I have been working together for many, many years now and while working on a current project (more about that soon) we decided it would be best (and less confusing for clients) if we came together under one name.  So here we are.

The second announcement is related to the project that got us here which is the CAJE Miami Website.  CAJE contacted us to redesign their site to allow for an easier flow of information and navigation as well as a cleaner more modern aesthetic.   In addition to the redesigned site, CAJE tasked us to create a customized CMS to help them maintain the information of the programs constituents, donors, members etc. I hope to write more about the process that got us from the initial kick-off through to launch in a later post, but for now I’m happy to report that the site is live and the client, very pleased!

Relay Creative was also recently contacted to work on very special project, one I know will touch many and I’m honored to be asked to play a small part in it.  Not to be a tease, but unfortunately, that’s all the information I can divulge at this time. I hope to post more updates as they become available or you could also follow me on Dribbble to see the latest little tidbits!

Inspired by Garren Lamson’s dribbble post, I created the above is a infographic poster design to be submitted to The Great Oil Leak Poster Project, which plans to sell posters to help generate funds for relief efforts and the folks who are suffering as a result in south Louisiana.

Hoping we can get enough designers to participate and really make a difference.

As the disastrous Deepwater Horizon oil spill spreads along the Gulf Coast and threatens to cause lasting damage to land, water and wildlife resources, the design community has been looking for opportunities to help. Read the rest of this entry »

Growing up I took for granted the devotion and love my mom showered on me. I was one lucky kid. Never did I ask or want for anything for my mom always provided. It took being a mom myself to finally get it. My girls are still very young (one 2 1/2, the other 9 months), yet even now I worry about how to properly shelter and care for them. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve delayed and procrastinated starting a blog because I’ve wondered if I really have enough unique ideas to contribute to the online design community that I’ve grown to know and love over these last 5-6 years or would I just be adding to the noise. In the end, my own love for the community and social media curiosity, won out.

So here’s to the start of something new. The thoughts, rants, and findings here will mostly be related to design and my personal experiences as a designer. I will also reference the people, places, and ideas that influence me and inspire my work. This “web log” of thoughts is mostly for my own record, but if you’re along for the ride, welcome – let’s have some fun!