I’m a firm believer in picking one or two channels you like, getting good at them and driving them hard. Instagram isn’t one of those channels for me, but I think it’s fun and I have my own brand building use for it.

I’ve picked up some knowledge about it along the way. Many of my clients aren’t that versed in how it works, so I thought I’d do a brain dump of everything I know and post it on this here blog.

A million years ago in the 90s when I was in design school the way to get inspired was to buy (expensive) design magazines or even more expensive design books.

I treasured these magazines and books. The designs in them that sparked my imagination were precious, not easy to come by and there was a substantial amount of variance between designers and their work.

Photographers suddenly have a lot of free time on their handy, and let’s face it: you probably need one.

After reviewing Jill’s objectives, I realised she didn’t need a separate website. What she really needed was re-design (and re-platforming) of her existing website. This project, which was named Big Bad Beautiful Brown, would not be Jill’s last big idea or collaboration. What would happen with the next project, would she come to me wanting to build a new website for that? No.

Suddenly the entire planet has shifted a substantial portion of life online. You can’t go to networking events and tell someone about your work, or show them images on your phone. There are no craft fairs. Your gallery show is suspended indefinitely and all the retailers that purchase your work wholesale are closed. If you don’t have a website you are stuck.

I'm not going to give anybody a hard time for continuing to 'show up' no matter what's going on. Or for feeling frantic. The truth is, though, a lot of these mails turned me off. I also have a kid and due to daycare and school closures my hours for paid work have been cut back radically. Emails encouraging me to do more, sell or show up for this or that free webinar just added psychological stress and overwhelm to the situation.

Web designers like to kvetch about how shortly after launching a site, a client will come back and ask ‘Why aren’t I number one on Google?’

Unfortunately there is a limit to what I, or any other web designer can do to improve your Google rankings. SEO, and getting your website to rank well on Google is a separate exercise from designing and building a website.

The more I help clients design, build and launch their websites, the more I understand there are some critical things that need to be in place before getting started. Building and launching a website is like building a house.

I was still toying with the idea of launching a web design businesses and I knew I wanted to work with women, probably expats starting or running their own small businesses or practices. It dawned on me that Alice was my ideal client! She needed a website and a logo and I asked her if she wanted to be a test case. She agreed!

The existing Akasha website was difficult to maintain. It was not on a typical web builder (Wordpress, Squarespace) that Azade or her partner Nora could easily maintain themselves. The site was not responsive and it didn’t reflect the entirety of Akasha’s offerings; not just Yoga, but also Osteo+Thai Massage and Ayurveda. Lastly, it was difficult to navigate, menus appeared, disappeared and reappeared. It was difficult for the user to understand where he or she was on the site.

I read a lot. Lately I've been reading a lot of books about start-ups and how to market small businesses. Many of them say the same few things in a lot of different ways.

One book that does not do this is Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson of 37 signals. I have been a fan of theirs for awhile now. A lot of what they talked about in their first book, Getting Real, had to do with what I do for my day job.

After several frustrating experiences trying to find help on Upwork, I created a job posting that gets right down to brass tacks. And it worked.