Blubolt has moved to 25 Queen Square! It’s just around the corner from our previous office, but it is quite a bit larger so we have lots of room to expand, as we have been doing at an alarming rate!

Check it out, I’ve got the best desk:

Check out my view of the park! I sometimes stare out here and imagine what life would have been like in the 1800s when 25 Queen Square was brand new and residential. I picture myself in one of those big dresses, going out for my three turns around the park with a handsome Mr. Darcy on my arm. I love daydreaming about the 1800s…

Anyways, back to reality. On the other side of the room sit Daniel, Max, Krzych and Trevor.

Here’s a panorama of the front-facing windows, including a very shy  or scared Trevor. You can also see that we’ve hung the auction painting (it’s a Dominic Hills) on the wall near my desk.

Spinning 180 degrees, we’ve got Saud and Deividas separated by a small partition. Off to the right is our tea station, currently stocked with seriously amazing teapigs tea [new website coming soon!].

Further back, we have Duncan and Craig.

Vito and Alan also work back here.

Behind them is the small meeting room, which I didn’t really photograph as we had some clients working with us the day I took these photos and I wasn’t sure how they’d feel about being paparazzi’d.

From the small meeting room, looking towards the front windows, you can see how long this space is. Craig sometimes even has to use a loud speaker to get Max’s attention!

Despite the continuous stream of ambulances and car horns, we’re loving this office. It’s so nice to have room to stretch our legs – literally! We’ve even got another large meeting room and smaller storage room on the 2nd floor which aren’t photographed yet as they’re in need of a paint job.

As much as I loved my pink office, it’s just so nice to be part of the office banter again.

1. Take a photo of my sketchbook

2. Email photo to myself

3. Open in Photoshop

4. Crop & Fix

Quickly, I crop out the other crap. Then I desaturate the image (CMD + SHIFT + U) and manually correct the levels (CMD + L). You’ll see that the levels look like something like this before: Ideally, the whites need to be white and the blacks black. Afterwards, my levels looked like this: I’ve never really thought about how I do this step, but I guess I drag the dark slider to the right of its mountain and the light slider to the left of its mountain, then play around with the midlevels until it looks right to me. These four steps are quick as anything for me and beats mucking about with a scanner, in my opinion.

After I walked 10km from Bradford-on-Avon to Avoncliff and back on a whim (okay, okay, I got lost trying to get to Freshford), I realized walking was quite fun and discovered that I didn’t want to stop there.

Unfortunately, a thunderstorm was brewing, so I cut that walk short and vowed to try it again the next weekend.

August 14th: the next weekend had arrived, and this time I had RunKeeper on my side. Let me just say that I’m obsessed with this app, k. The lady announces my stats every 5 minutes and, as Chris pointed out, she kind of sounds like Amy Farrah Fowler.

Here’s the map of my Aug 14 walk from Bradford-on-Avon to Bath along the canal. You wouldn’t believe that such a scenic walk is literally the walk from my house to my work, but it is, and it is even more gorgeous than my photos depict.

This is the view from Bradford-on-Avon (why would anyone leave?!):

It’s gorgeous, right?! Just past Avoncliff, I found myself on the same path as the week previous. The bit between Avoncliff and Limpley Stoke is absolutely my favourite. It’s so calm and secluded that I always manage to get some good thinking in.

I soon arrived at Limpley Stoke, specifically on top of the Dundas Aqueduct. I’ve seen the Avoncliff Aqueduct many times, but this one takes the cake.

Carrying on towards Bath, I started to feel so privileged to live in such a beautiful area. I actually had to resist the urge to take photos of every barge I saw.

Here’s the view en route to Claverton.

It was around this point that I realized it was going to take me another 1.5 hours to get to Bath. When that settled in, my hunger became more and more irritating. My water bottle was almost done and my stomach began to growl. What would I do?!?

Oh right, wild blackberries! I seriously filled up on fresh, ripe blackberries and simultaneously wished I had brought a container to collect some in!

I swear, I actually got a few funny looks for stopping to eat these blackberries. What the heck!

I marched on and finally hit the 2 hour mark where I allowed myself a short sit-down and facebook status update. I had entered a quiet part of the canal that was just on the edge of Bath. There were a lot of farms nearby and I witnessed a bull sharing the river with ducks:

It was so nice here; the sun was getting lower in the sky and making pretty shapes with the landscaping.

It was almost hard to force myself to continue! I pressed on and, before I knew it, I was in Batheaston! It was just as gorgeous as one would expect.

As nice as Batheaston was, I was getting impatient. I had been walking for what seemed like FOREVER and I just wanted to be done with it all. Half an hour more and this view made it all worth my while, though.

As I was so close to my destination at that point, I realized that I had a very short while to up my average speed. I basically speed-walked the rest of the way and couldn’t be bothered to take photos – sorry!

Anyways, I made it: all 196 minutes of it and I enjoyed every second. It’s a lovely walk; I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a nice, long afternoon walk!

We were featured next to a photo of John Cleese!

The Bath Galleries Group Charity Auction was held at The Octagon Chapel, one of my favourite, albeit slightly neglected, buildings in Bath.

It’s a huge, gorgeous 18^th century building somehow hidden away in the centre of the city. Jane Austen apparently used to frequent the Octagon Chapel as it was (and in a way still is) a place to see and be seen. Despite its age and apparent neglect, The Octagon still manages to seduce you.

Here I am at the auction. John Cleese is one of those blurry blobs behind me, I swear.

The auction began after a bit of mingling and a few nibbles, c/o the Jamie Oliver restaurant. John Cleese did his bit by reading out the raffle winners and somehow made it effortlessly hilarious at the same time.

Following the raffle, auctioneer Richard Madley (the professional auctioneer, not the guy from Richard and Judy) took the stage and the real auction began.

It was my very first auction, so I didn’t realize it was as exciting as it was! Chris caught the bug, too, and started eyeing up a painting…

In a spur-of-the-moment decision, Chris asked me to bid on a painting for him. Wow, what an adrenaline rush! Seriously. Next thing I knew, Richard Madley was like “SOLD!”

Jemma, my friend from bo.lee gallery deserves some credit here. She did a ton of work to organise the auction on behalf of the Bath Galleries Group!

Chris’s purchase was a large Dominic Hills oil painting titled Bear. Naked lady alert!

After the auction ended, we headed to Opium (cocktail bar) and I snapped a few shots of the Pulteney Bridge that I can’t help but share. Bath is so pretty!

I am saving my pennies for the next auction!

Red having lunch at Hall & Woodhouse

…and hitting up Victoria Park for a silly game of catch or frisbee.

Elliott in Victoria Park by the Royal Crescent, Bath

Even Gravy has been enjoying the warm weather as well. He now only comes home once a week, at most. It’s almost enough to make me wish for winter!

One of the best things about this wave of warmer weather is the length of the day. I love having a morning cup of tea while sitting on the doorstep, looking out at the view and anticipating the warmth of the forthcoming afternoon. I love being able to have barbecues on the patio without racing to scarf down our dinner before the sun sets.

I also love and eagerly anticipate our regular Sunday breakfasts at Wild Café, Bath. Seriously, this place does the best eggs benedict that I have ever tasted. It’s never been short of amazing. Poaching eggs is apparently all about the vinegar.

Just looking at that photo made me hungry.

Oh yes, and we had another visitor! Laura came to visit a few weeks ago and we had fun showing her around and laughing at our mutually favourite YouTube videos. Laura was the one who showed me grape lady falls, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

Among other things, we took her to Burford and dragged her around the massive garden centre there.

We also went bowling and afterwards I experienced my first plank.

One night we went for a few drinks and stumbled upon some dudes breathing fire outside of Opium cocktail bar. Oh, the things you see in Bath.

After Laura left for France, I attended a bo.lee gallery art exhibition at The Octagon, Bath. The work was truly stunning and the venue is probably one of the most under-appreciated in Bath. The Octagon is absolutely gorgeous! I’m attending a charity art auction there tomorrow night which will be hosted by John Cleese! What to wear…

We also got to meet the two little kittens that Paul and Daria are raising (they’re looking for good homes, btw).

One of them is a black smoke, which we were hoping for with Pipsqueak’s litter; Chris has always wanted another black cat.

They were soooo cute!

This past weekend, I played in a softball tournament in Bristol. Miraculously, the weather was perfect both days! I somehow managed a homerun, too – my first!

I got a new lens for my camera, as well. It’s a Sony DT 50mm AF f/1.8 SAM. I also got an E to A mount adapter so that it would work with my Nex-5. I’m in love with it already!

Check out the quality this thing produces!

I should mention that Trevor brought his cat, George, in to work yesterday. He was meant to be catching a big rat that escaped from the cellar, but instead he meowed a lot and peed on Chris’s lunch! LOL. He was cute nonetheless, though.

The lens is amazing; I am a huge fan of the massive blur and sharpness that you get all within one photo. Once I get the AF working, it’s going to be portrait time once again for the cats! </crazycatlady>

I suppose that brings us up to date. Graham has requested I post more recipes and I’ve got a butter tart recipe from my Aunt Lynn to try out, so that might be up next…

We were there with our friends Dave and Jemma and their cute little dog Megan.

It was lovely. We spent the first night collecting firewood and hanging out on the beach. We climbed up Corfe Castle and had a look around the village as well.

Once back at the campsite, we got a nice fire going and had a feast. We even toasted marshmallows! As the fire slowly died down, we entertained ourselves by painting with light.

Chris added that third leg to Dave’s silhouette… Classy, right?

We woke up early and packed up in a rush to beat the rain, then headed to Lulworth cove for a look around.

Somehow, after this, Chris convinced me to walk up a really steep hill. I normally detest walking up big hills, but the view from the top was gorgeous. Next time I should not attempt this without my puffer handy!

The weekend following our camping weekend was spent relaxing. We did go and wander around Great Chalfield Manor, where they filmed The Other Boleyn Girl in 2008. It wasn’t as impressive as I’d hoped. I think I’m a tourist snob now!

My old college housemate, Ally, came to visit as well. I took her on a whirlwind tour of London which began with changing of the guards. From there we went literally everywhere I’ve ever been to in London, apart from Harrods. I’ve also decided that Trafalgar Square is my favourite bit of London.

While she was here, Ally taught me how to make Ukrainian perogies from scratch! I’ve yet to attempt it on my own, though.

The day before she left, we went to Stonehenge and Salisbury.

And I think that pretty much brings us to the present. As you can tell, I’ve certainly been making good use of my National Trust card lately!

Figure out your branding

I can’t tell you how much easier it is to design a website when provided with catalogues, past advertising campaigns, copy that is indicative of your company’s voice, etc. When you know where you’re going, it’s much easier to follow you there. Occasionally, I’ll be given a “go nuts with it” or “we’ll provide the logo later” spec, but chances are good that I’ll go in a completely different direction than you were envisioning. If there’s a disconnect between your designer and your brand image, your website will stick out like a sore thumb.

Done poorly

In my opinion, the Laura Ashley redesign is a great example of what happens when the designer doesn’t fully understand your brand image. If you have a look at their catalogue, Laura Ashley is all about texture, traditional British patterns with a touch of shabby chic. The website now looks too “John Lewis” and not enough “Cath Kidston.”

Other branding confused sites are Ted Baker, The White Company (post-redesign), and Gucci. I won’t expand on these, but feel free to ask me about them in the comments if you’re interested.

Done well

Kate Spade is one of my absolute favourite online stores right now. Not only do they have a “Play” catalogue section that they keep updated, but the colours of the entire site change seasonally to relate to the product line. The website screams “utility, wit and playful sophistication” which is coincidentally how they describe themselves on the about page.

Other noteworthy sites that relay the brand well are Joules, Hollister Co., and Habitat.

Get your photography done first

This kind of goes hand in hand with branding. You can ramble off the usual adjectives (clean, simple, organized) to your designer, but if you show your product lifestyle photos and/or some creative photos of your shop interior, we will be way more likely to get the design right the first time. Plus, isn’t it so much nicer to look at a design mockup with your lovely images in place?

A lot of the time, clients will have us whip in some stock images while they get their photography together. This works, but hunting down appropriate stock images is not really great use of my time. I’d rather be laying nice typography over your actual lifestyle images!

The entire web design can hinge on the photography; this is especially true of fashion stores. How boring would the Reiss layout look with grey boxes in place of the photos?!

Bornshoes.com is another excellent example. The lifestyle shots define the brand, own the layout and make this website. The photography in the background scales with the window, too (which is kind of hard to illustrate from this little thumbnail so go and have a play with it). If you’re interested, they also have a behind-the-scenes page about the photography team.

Know your competition

What is your competition doing well? What could be improved upon? What will drive users to your store, as opposed to theirs? Does your product have a specific feature that theirs doesn’t?

Our most successful clients have done this well. Sometimes it can be as simple as an uncluttered design or approaching the main navigation differently, but other times clients have had to offer additional services or add extra functionality (such as interactive catalogues or liquid layouts) to their site.

Inject personality

Does your brand have a unique voice? A character, perhaps? An interesting and relatable personality is far more likely to get sales. Same old, same old is boring! Be brave!

An obvious way of injecting personality is through a blog. Any lifestyle store should definitely have a blog accompanying it. A blog will also help with your SEO and returning visitors as well as refer readers to relevant products. I think that Lilly Allen’s Lucy in Disguise store website leaves much to be desired, but the blog posts written by fictional character Lucy are interesting, unique, and enough to persuade me to keep visiting the site.

Done well

Marie Catrib’s is just so dang adorable. The personal touches and handwritten copy draw you in.

Don’t be too vague or too specific when briefing your designer

When it comes to explaining what you like and what you don’t like, keep in mind that you’ve hired a professional for that very reason: they are a professional. Don’t stifle their creativity.

Try not to limit yourself to one inspiration website (cough, John Lewis, cough) but be careful not to provide too many.

In fact, these days I actually prefer to work from a list of adjectives and lifestyle photos, when possible. Inspiration websites are fine and I do like to discuss which sites you like and why, but the why is the important bit. There’s nothing more confusing than receiving a long list of websites with contradicting styles and not knowing how to interpret them. You need to say what you like and why.

Equally important when briefing your designer are sites and styles you do not like. I find this probably more useful than just hearing about sites you do like. No left navigation? No problem. No dark backgrounds? Cinch.

What style do you like? Grunge? Clean? Collage? Grid-focused? What layout style suits your brand and why? Figure out what you’re after and make us designers understand you, but give us room for creativity. If we’re meeting face to face, I actually like to scribble up layout wireframe ideas right then and there. I think most designers will probably happily do this with you. It’s good to start off the project on the same page.

Know your statistics

What’s your conversion rate? What age range are your current shoppers? Are you looking to expand your target market? How will you market to them? What browsers do current shoppers use? Do they abandon their carts? Are they likely to become loyal customers?

Knowing a lot about who your customers are and how they shop will help you immensely in redesigning your store. Adding loyalty cards, referral campaigns, recommendations, etc are all do-able, but are they worth their while?

Be social

Build up your fan base by being active on Twitter & Facebook. An easy trick would be to hold contests & giveaways, tweet about them with links shoot potential customers off to your blog. Offer exclusive discounts through your email newsletters and tweet like crazy about this. Create conversations by asking questions with the new Facebook Questions feature.

Stay relevant and tech-savvy by any means necessary, and use your brand’s developed personality to really sell it. It really depends on your product, but you could send SWAG to YouTube weblebrities or relevant bloggers in hopes that they will promote you. (Hint, hint!)

Hopefully this is helpful. There’s probably a lot that developers could add to this; feel free to comment below!

My mom is a beautiful person. It’s Mother’s Day in Canada, so here’s why I’ve got the best mom.

Growing up, she never missed a single one of my softball games or tap dance recitals.

When I was 5 and fractured my arm at ice skating lessons, I vividly remember sitting in the heated stands with my head on her lap. People kept saying I was white as a ghost, but I felt like everything was going to be ok. It happened to be Halloween and mom made sure we waited until the end of the lesson so I got my bit of candy and then we headed to the hospital.

When I decided on a whim to change the colour of my room to beige with dark green and maroon accent colours (don’t judge me), she helped me paint and put up a border (it was the 90s, ok?). She also painted my entire bedroom set and sewed a quilt to match. A few years later I decided I liked primary colours and we started making a new quilt together.

On that note, my mom is very talented. She can play the flute, french horn, piano, organ and guitar. She used to be fluent in French. She is amazing at crafty things such as sewing, quilting, cross stitch, knitting, embroidery, and can master pretty much else she sets her mind to. She is a pitcher on her church slow-pitch (softball for you Brits) team and didn’t shy away from the position even after a hard hit to the nose gave her two black eyes.

As well as being a member of the softball team, my mom also volunteers as the secretary for the Awana weekly youth program at her church. She will also play any song (whether she knows it or not) for the Sunday worship team, which often requires hours of practice.

My mom is more organized than you can even imagine. She has entered my tax returns competently (and for free!) since I turned 18. She is the quickest typer I know and she will own you in Scrabble. Mom has become real competition for me in Facebook Bejewelled Blitz, which I now regret introducing her to! She also excels at Photoshop (which I taught her a few years back) and has a great eye for photography. In fact, all of the landscape photos in this post are ones that she has taken! She also took up golf in her mid forties and wins all kinds of ladies’ tournaments.

Basically, my mom is very selfless and excels at everything she sets her mind to.

Her sister (my aunt) Heather adds:

When we were teenagers and Sharon could drive but I was still too young, I would beg her to take me places – McDonald’s, a drive in the country, Ipperwash beach, etc. The thought of that little independence was so enticing to me. Sharon, who worked long hours for Dad in his office, pulled off straight A+’s at school, plus worked on her flute, french horn and piano skills, would always give in and head out to the open road with me. This is just a little example, but the big point is, Sharon is a softie – great big, huge, kind heart. That’s why I love her and that is what I know makes her a great Mom. Lucky you.

And this is what my younger brother Nick had to say:

In addition to all of the above (and her more than 400 rounds of golf per year), mom somehow had the time to be my personal chauffeur growing up. She was the one getting me up at 5:30 AM for hockey practice, driving me to band at 7 AM, or taking me to Toronto to see the Blue Jays. I’m not sure I realized what a huge commitment she was making at the time – I was too busy complaining about having to get up so early! But without mom’s dedication to providing me with opportunities to try and succeed at new things and pursue my interests, I wouldn’t have a career in music today. Thanks mom!

We love you, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day!

Originally, to get to the bedroom, you had to go through the bathroom as there was no landing at the top of the stairs – just a door to the bathroom. There was also a trap door through the ceiling with a pull-down ladder that gave access to the loft.

It’s kind of hard to describe as the bathroom renovation is based on some structural changes, including two staircases and several partition walls. But I digress.

Here’s a before picture, taken from the bedroom and looking towards the bathroom.

Before

During

This next photo is a ‘during’ shot, depicting how the walls and door changed from this angle.

Before

And here’s a closer before shot from that same angle which is slightly obscured by the open door on the left. Through that door used to be a set of stairs. You can see the bathtub and the toilet, complete with vintage 70s toilet paper – seriously, from the 70s!

During

Okay, now for a demolition shot. Slightly blurry, I know, but since the panelling partitions were taken out, it’s easier to see the before structure. See the pipe sticking out of the floor? The sink resided there.

Here’s what the sink nook looked like. It is now part of the landing.

Before/During

Okay, here we go. This is the toilet area, which we left in the same spot as before.

After

It’s a slightly different angle, but you get the idea.

Before

Now from the toilet, looking towards the bedroom.

After

This is one of the after shots I’ll replace soon, as you can’t really see much. The floor is slightly graded so all the water runs towards the drain. Then it’s just a shower, with the partition wall extending quite a bit further than before.

Before

Now, standing at the shower and looking towards the window. This is kind of where the door used to be, so you can’t see much in the before photo.

After

And here’s our new sink, mirror and window!

And looking left a little bit, you’ll see the new door, which leads to the new landing at the top of the new stairs.

Now that I’ve got a proper camera, I do plan on updating these photos. We’ve added some storage and towels and other decorative things, which aren’t in these pictures.

We were going to bring the TV out to the garden, but it was a bit grey so we stayed in.

We had Pimm’s royale, which is basically a bit of Pimm’s and a strawberry, topped with cava. It was pretty good, actually.

The wedding itself was really exciting. Trudy correctly predicted that the Queen would wear yellow and Alan discovered his love for Pippa Middleton. I kept noticing Canada flags in the crowd and we all went crazy when we saw the Princes arrive.

Alan earned his princess crown…

After the wedding, the sun came out and we moved to Mat & Sarah’s garden for a BBQ.

Check out the food! We had corn on the cob, homemade beef and turkey burgers, chicken skewers, salads, spicy chicken drumsticks and probably more that I’m forgetting…

Mat cooked it up for us…

…as Alan dished out more Cava!

We enjoyed our feast and had a few laughs as the sun went down. We even toasted marshmallows!

At one point, Pipsqueak surprised us by jumping onto the roof of the marquee! I think she was feeling left out…

Once it got dark, we went in and belted out tunes in Sing Star until eventually we retired to our own Tory houses and hit the hay.

What a day!