Little plug for Squarespace (and a friend's book)

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Squarespace is everywhere these days. I hear their ads on Sirius XM. And tonight, I just saw their television ad on the Super Bowl.

I've hosted Sketchbook B on Squarespace since I started the blog in 2007. It's crazy to see how much they've grown and their product has gotten significantly better over time. I wrote a brief review of Squarespace 6 last year. They've added a bunch of features since that review.

If you've spent any time with a content management system like Wordpress, you should be able to figure out Squarespace quickly. It's pretty intuitive. But if you know some CSS, you'll be able to get even more out of it.

If you are the type of person that learns better from a book, Columbia designer Kris Black actually wrote the book on Squarespace. He's a illustrator, former Squarespace-tech-support employee and all-around good guy. His book, Squarespace 6 for Dummies, is available through Amazon, on Kindle and Apple's iBooks store. I have a copy of it and Kris really does a good job of summarizing the basics. So if you have decided to start a Squarespace site and want a good introductory book, pick it up.

New emphasis for 2011

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I started Sketchbook B as a reason to explore creative projects that fell outside of my normal, everyday job. My original emphasis was projects that I didn’t get to work on often… but over time my interests have shifted. So starting in 2011, my goals at Sketchbook B have changed as well.

iPhone and iPad apps

I’m intrigued by the possibilities that iPhones and iPads offer designers. I’ve already started working to learn Objective C - the programming language for iOS and OS X. So hopefully in 2011, Sketchbook B will release it’s first iOS app. And I’ll be posting about the process of learning to program and resources that I find helpful. 

eBooks

Another area that I find interesting is eBooks. Right now, eBook design is in it’s infancy. As Kindles and iPads evolve, the potential for electronic publishing will continue to increase. I really believe that it will become a major distribution channel for information and I look forward to experiencing with design and distribution of eBooks.

Some old standbys

I still plan on working on type design projects, although my main focus for 2011 is releasing at least one commercial typeface. That doesn’t mean I won’t play around with Fontstruct… just not as often.

And I will continue to post tips and techniques for Adobe Creative Suite, especially InDesign and Illustrator.

Of course, I also would like to post more frequently here on Sketchbook B. That’s a New Year’s Resolution that I make every year, but for 2011, we’ll see…