Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The software I can't live without.... Fireworks!

This post is for anyone who has found themselves needing to create some graphic pieces for their website, but don't have the experience with the tools.  Over the past year things have changed up and now I need to create artwork for emails, the website and social media. So, I got Adobe Creative Suite and without any training just dived right in.

I first started with Photoshop, but ran into many challenges. The most frustrating was having to click on the layer I wanted to work on. I always forgot that piece, then I would mess up a different layer and need to back track a bit. Then I was turned onto Fireworks.



Compared to Photoshop, Fireworks is a dream. It is pretty easy to learn the tricks on this program and- no more going to the navigation bar of your piece to change layers!

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Can't Live without.. My Music!

My job has me primarily working on the computer and like most entry level employees I am in a cube. I am very close to customer service so there is chatter constantly. Most of the time I don't mind, but sometimes it can drive me crazy. So I block it all out with music so I can focus on my work.

I usually use my iPad to play my music so that I don't drain the battery on my phone, and my iPad can usually last days before I have to charge it again. I have realized that my music tastes change almost weekly. One week I will be more into country, the next week top 40 music and next week it will be entirely different.



Not only do I use music at work, but I listen to it in the car (obviously, need a distraction from traffic) and while working out. If I have music to listen to, then I have a much more successful workout!

Life a year after College

After graduating over a year ago (I know time flies!) I am now in the business world putting everything I learned in school to practice. I work in ecommerce and focus on running the consumer websites (the company as a whole is more B2B focused). I love that I have my hand in everything, from email design and implementation to content management and campaign management.

I have realized that I can be pretty ADD when it comes to the work I do. I can never really start and finish a project without doing other things. So, this job is perfect because I don't have to. I can take little breaks and do other projects (or put out fires). Now that I have this amazing job, I will be sharing some of the experiences I have had as well as the software and technologies we use everyday.