Does Someone in Your Community Need a Website?

Cover pages CreativeMornings

This week, Squarespace launched Cover Pages, by far the simplest way to create a small online presence for just about anything in minutes.

To celebrate Cover Pages, CreativeMornings is running a campaign encouraging the community to create a web presence for people or organizations that should have one. Know someone in your community who could benefit from a small site? Make them a Cover Page and share their story with the world! But here’s the kicker: In the spirit of generosity, Squarespace is offering the CreativeMornings community a free year* for your Cover Page.

CreativeMornings will be featuring some of the best-ofs throughout the month of November. Get Started!

*Once you’ve signed up for a free trial, select the “Settings,” “Billing and Accounting,” and finally, “Billing.” You’ll need to enter your credit card info and the code DESIGNSOMEGOOD to receive 100% off your first year. Don’t worry, Squarespace will only charge your card when your year is up, and give you plenty of notice beforehand.

GIF Maker

Gif Maker

The new GIF Maker from GIPHY allows you to easily make animated GIFs from videos. I am way too excited about this. Also, one of these days I will just respond to email with animated GIFs. Or I’ll have my catsistant do it.

(via Product Hunt)

Digit Automates Your Savings

An app that is tricking me into saving? I am down with that. Might give this one a try: Digit.

(via Chris)

Webflow

Webflow seems to good to be true.

Splacer – like airbnb but for Event Spaces

splacer venue screenshot

I had the pleasure to meet one of the co-founders of Splacer, a service that helps you find event space for a party, off-site, photo shot etc. As someone who is and has been putting on events in NYC for years, I know how hard it can be to find the perfect venue. Splacer is an absolute delight to browse. I was told they are just about to come out with a new and imroved website but I am already impressed with what I am seeing. If you know someone that has an event space here in NYC (or in Tel Aviv) tell them to sign up. It doesn’t cost anything to sign up and you’d just give Splacer a cut of your rental fee. They will be soon expanding to other cities.

I for now want to have a dinner party on this rooftop farm or simply find a reason to hang out in this jacuzzi.

See for yourself: Splacer.

Wow! Google Translate App

I could have made some serious use of Google’s Translate App when I traveled to Asia a little over a year ago. Impressive!

SayHi Translate App

Say Hi Translate

While on vacation in Switzerland, Ella (9) made a friend that didn’t speak English, so I downloaded them the SayHi Translate App. The app covers 43 languages and dialects. While it’s not always perfect, it sure is helpful and makes for a good laugh here and then. What an amazing time we live in.

HazeOver

HazeOver lets you focus on one app by fading out all the background windows on a Mac. So good.

(via Amrit)

Fontstand: iTunes for Fonts

Fontstand_Foundries_2Fontstand

Netherland based Frontstand was introduced just a few days ago at TYPO Berlin and aims to be the iTunes of Fonts. Fontstand has created a Mac OS X app that allows users to test drive fonts from 20 international type foundries and independent designers for an hour at no charge. Fonts can then be rented for 30-day periods at 10 percent of the purchase price, with no location-based restrictions. This is fantastic!

Makerbook

makerbook

Makerbook is a hand-picked directory of the best free resources for creatives.

Emails I Like To Open

Out of the Ordinary Newsletters

CreativeMornings just launched a campaign highlighting Out Of The Ordinary Emails featuring exceptional newsletters about creative obsessions. They’re hoping it will inspire others to start their own.

Know some newsletters they should add, submit them. Or better, get inspired and start your own!

Hat tip to Karen Baker who so masterfully has curated this (growing) list.

New Dropmark

Dropmark

I have been a loyal Dropmark user ever since Oak launched it in 2011. They just pushed an updated version: The new team feature and dashboard make me want to hug a bear. I use Dropmark to save my animated GIFS, save artwork of potential new Tattly artists, furniture research, drawings by my kids etc. Try it yourself.

What cloud services do you use?

Here’s a question for you. What subscription based, cloud software do you use and love? I made a list of services I use personally or subscribe to with my companies CreativeMornings and Tattly. I was surprised to see how long the list is:

Freshbooks for all my invoicing needs (also does time tracking but I don’t need that at this point in my career)

Squarespace for my co-working space website and smaller CreativeMornings related project sites.

Helpscout is what we use for all of our Tattly support.

Dropbox is where we store all of our files. I would not be able to sleep without it.

Mailchimp is our service of choice to maintain our mailing lists and sending our newsletters.

Shutterstock is our stock photography service of choice.

JustworksHR takes care of our CreativeMornings payroll, benefits and HR related services.


Trinet
takes care of our Tattly payroll, insurance needs and HR Management.

Netsuite helps us keep track of our Tattly inventory, our financials and we use it as our CRM. It’s a beast.

Shopify is what powers our Tattly e-commerce site.

Typekit makes sure we look good on the web with designy fonts.

Mediatemple hosts our CreativeMornings website

Contactually helps me organize and keep on top of all my contacts.

Sanebox is the best $5 I spend every month. It filters out non-important email.

Brandboom is our wholesale e-commerce platform for Tattly.

Slack is a chat app on steroids. It has completely revolutionized how I communicate with my teams, cutting down on emails we are sending each other.

Basecamp keeps track of our custom projects at Tattly and allows conversations for our CreativeMornings hosts around the world.

Tinyletter is the simplest and most pleasant way to send small, personal newsletters. I use it for my co-working space.

Authenticjobs is where we post all of our job listings

Trello is keeping us on track with internal projects and bugs we need to fix.

1Password keeps me sane. Not sure what I would do without it. The team functionality is pure gold.

Flickr hosts all of our CreativeMornings photos.

Teuxdeux is how I keep track of my daily to-dos. (it’s my own app)

Simplenote is where I keep all of my notes, combined with Notational Velocity on the computer.

rdio is my music library in the cloud.

Feedly is where I keep all my bookmarks organized.

Netflix is what I use to watch shows.

What about you? Do you love and use certain services that we don’t know about? Share in a comment!

Admin Mondays

admin mondays

Over dinner last week Jessica Hische convinced me to try her concept of Admin Mondays. Read her entire post on email efficiency.

Kredo

I always pay attention when the super talented folks over at Format launch something new. In this case it’s Kredo, a brand-new free iPad Portfolio app for creative professionals. What I love best: users of Kredo can share their retina-quality, high resolution portfolios online by email, social media, or within the in-app Discover Network.

MOO Letterpress (!!)

MOO *just* introduced MOO Letterpress. They’re bringing letterpress printed business cards to the masses, for an incredibly affordable price. MOO, you keep impressing me.

Legacybox

Legacybox is just what the doctor ordered: I have boxes of non-digitized photos and dozens of old VHS tapes that I have been meaning to convert to digital. Legacybox is a mail-in services that will digitize everything for you. Anyone tried this yet? Or a similar service?

Typegenius

Typegenius

Typegenius helps you find the perfect combo of typefaces. Helpful!

(via Kary)

The Bézier Game

The Bezier Game

Here’s a game that helps you master Bézier curves. If you’re a designer, you know what they are. If not, read this.

Cheap Art

cheap art

Here’s an interesting new project by the folks of Krrb: Cheap Art features local classifieds dedicated to buying and selling artwork priced under $1,000. The idea is based off the Bread and Puppet Cheap Art Manifesto. The folks behind Cheap Art believe art should be available to everyone, not just the privileged. The ‘Cheap’ in ‘Cheap Art’ is not meant to degrade the value of art but rather celebrate the everyday consumption of it. They believe walls don’t need to be decorated with mass-produced prints from Ikea, but rather original works created by our neighbors. Check it out: buycheapart.com

Social Good Ipsum

Social Good Ipsum

Social Good Ipsum is Hyperakt’s spin on the Lorem Ipsum generator, pulling words and phrases from the humanitarian, do-gooder world they are immersed in. Because wouldn’t you rather “Equal opportunity mobilize; Global, accessibility, fairness NGO support; technology. Invest billionaire philanthropy humanitarian relief natural resources outcomes. Peaceful overcome injustice collaborative cities, gender rights youth change-makers save the world” than a string of Latin?

Go ahead, try adding a little compassion to your comps: socialgoodipsum.com

Brand Guidelines from popular online brands

Screenshot 2014-06-27 16.16.23

Brand Guidelines from popular online brands. Handy!

(via Chris Glass)

outdatedbrowser.com

outdated browser

Do you ever wonder if you should update your browser? outdatedbrowser.com will tell you.

50 Ways to Get a Job

50 ways to get a job that makes good

50 Ways to Get a Job is the brainchild of Dev Aujila, co-author of Making Good. The site breaks down your job hunt into actionable to-do items. Smart.

(Thanks Jerri)