Hooked by Zanne

Seven months ago I took a plunge and started a new hobby-business on Etsy.com. For those not familiar with Etsy, it is an online store made up of crafters and artistans selling their creations, designs, and finds. There is plethora of vendors selling everything from neon wall hangings to granny-square dish clothes and like any business, they all have one goal- be noticed and make sales.

For better or worse, I decided to throw my needle into the hay-stack and started Hooked by Zanne, a crocheting hobby-business. I have crocheted since I was a teenager and decided it was time to try to make a few extra dollars off a pass-time that I love. So I started to sell my creations: hats, purses, slippers, scarves, necklaces and accessories. Designing each pattern from scratch, no two pieces are the same and all are customizable to meet the needs and desires of the customer.

Like the rest, I wanted to get noticed and so the first step was to create the brand. Starting with the name and then the logo I created an image to go with my personality and vision for the business. The logo combines stylized and simple fonts along with subtle and striking colours to display a playful creativity weaved into a longstanding tradition. My goal was to show my funky side while still remaining professional and approachable. The  ball of yarn and hooked Z adds an identifiable image for viewers to recognize.

The second way to get noticed is to create an online presence. With a Facebook Page, Blog and Twitter account, I showcased my brand while highlighting my products and sales.

To be honest, the whole endeavor has been more for my own enjoyment than for the sake of profits but never-the-less I have loved every step of the way and the few bonus sales have made it that much more enjoyable.

Feel free to take a look at my work but be warned, you may get Hooked!

Living Life with Food

A friend of mine asked me to help her with her blog called “Living Life with Food.” The blog is essentially a cook book of recipes that she has either created, adapted or changed to fit into her family’s dietary preferences- whole grains, non-processed sugars and better dairy. The blog came after a number of requests from friends for Jenn to share her recipes and so the blog began. Living Life with Food has always been one of my favourite blogs to visit but the esthetics needed a little work.

A brand, or character was what the blog was truly lacking and so before I began, we set a few goals to help us in the process:

1. Make it fun and creative
2. Use strong colours
3. Keep it easy for readers to find recipes

1. Make it fun and creative

What better way to keep things fun than with a cartoon. Using Adobe Illustrator, I created a character for the blog that would both exemplify Jenn and also promote a fun feel. The Cook logo adds a flare on each page and is fun, flirty and funky.

2. Use strong colours

Jenn wanted strong and bold colours, no milky tones for her. After some back and forth, the colour scheme was chosen with ORANGE as the background. Wow!

3. Keep it accessible

Being a blog dedicated to recipes, we thought it would be a good idea to have a cookbook viewing option. Under the tab, “Cookbook” I created a way for readers to browse through the recipes by category. With a readership who may or may not be very online savvy, I decided it was important to make it very easy for readers to find what they are looking for and so mimicking the table of contents of a physical cookbook I made all recipes accessible by category. So if they want to look for desserts, they can click on the dessert link and all the dessert recipes are there. Easy as pie.

Working the Jenn was so much fun and after it was all said and done, the blog looks great and I’m hungry for some tasty Chocolate Nut Truffles!

Challenge or Adventure!

Moving to a new city is a challenge for anyone; new people to get to know, new environments to get used to, and new workplaces to get familiar with. This can be very stressful and a heavy load to bear. For me, the decision to move to Ottawa, was made by choice and so I didn’t want to be weighed down by the challenge of it all but wanted to be excited about the adventure. I wanted to take the opportunity to explore new territories, try new things and test out some new skills. But sometimes, even an adventurer likes to start with something familiar: United Way.

Back at home, United Way St. Catharines was an organization that was passionate about the community, gave back to the community and was run by the community.  I always admired the vision and mission of the organization and so when moving to Ottawa, I decided that I would try to connect with the local chapter as a way to enhance my adventure.

After an information interview with the Director of Communication, it became clear that her needs and my skills were going to be a great match and so I began volunteering in the communications department with the task of reviving and re-tweaking the online presence for a local project called Kind Ottawa. Kind Ottawa, climaxing with Kindness Week (February 17-24), is a fabulous initiative in its fifth year, that promotes kindness throughout the community. United Way Ottawa, along with its community partners, encourages Ottawaians to be kind and make their City a kinder place, through random acts of kindness, community events and local volunteerism. It was my job to start the promotion of this great initiative with two online tools.

The first tool was a Facebook Page, available to both users and non-users alike. The goal was to create a platform for users to share stories, generate ideas and access important information about the initiative. Creating seven static pages, including a calendar of events, sponsor page and about page, the Kind Ottawa Facebook Page is customized to act as a mini website with interactive abilities. After one month of being active, our content has been viewed by over seven thousand people and is “Liked” by just under 200. We’re making progress.

The second tool that was created was a new website: kindottawa.ca. My task was to customize a wordpress.com template to highlight important information and promote our new Facebook page and existing Twitter feed. Working with the sites CSS, I customized the layout, fonts, sizes and positioning of the content and then tag-teamed with the Communications team and a graphic designer, to create a visually appealing site completely customized to the requests of the department. In the month of January, the page has received over one thousand views, and is growing in popularity. Again a good start.

My time with United Way Ottawa has been nothing but an adventure, giving me the opportunity to explore new territories, try new things and test out some new skills. Thank you to all the staff who welcomed me, put their faith in my abilities and stepped out and showed true kindness to me. You have eased the weight of the challenge of moving and have most definitely helped create excitement for the adventure I am on.

Women4Women

This past month I have been working on some communication tools for Women4Women, located in St. Catharines, Ontario. Women4Women is a small community-grounded outreach that provides a safe place for women of the Queenston Street Community to gather, exchange ideas, emotions and their lives. It is an incredible centre offering a wide variety of services and programs on a weekly basis. Women4Women is a truly inspiring place and so I was more than happy to volunteer my time in helping to spread the word about the work they are doing.

The first communication tool that I created was a three-fold information brochure. Being a grass-root organization, Women4Women needed a tool that they could hand out to community contacts, potential partners and funders. The objective was to give readers an idea of what Women4Women is, in as few words as possible. The director of Women4Women’s philosophy is “a picture says a thousand words” and so the focus of this brochure was the faces of Women4Women.

Created using Adobe InDesign

The other tool that was requested was a new website. Women4Women has had a website for a couple of years, however the woman who was running the website moved to a new community and was unable to maintain the old site. Women4Women’s director took this opportunity to create a new website and asked for my help.

Some requirements for the site were a)it need to be free b)accessible by multiple administrators c)easy to edit and update d)very user friendly as the main administrator has zero web development experience and e) simple and clean. I decided to go with Blogger as my host as it met all my requirements. Using the already established brand, I created a simple, clean and easily managed website/blog for the group. The community administrator can now go in, make additions, on their own, while still feeling good about the end product. I am pleased to launch www.w4w-queenston.blogspot.com.

New Blog

My husband and I just moved to Ottawa for a new adventure and to explore professional opportunities in a new city. As a way to communicate with family and friends back home, I decided to create a personal blog to track our journey. Feel free to check out what we are up to in O-Town.

Blogs

Working as a Community Animator, I find communicating with the community a challenging task. To combat this, it is important to use various different communication tools to get the message out. One tool that I have found to be very effective in a blog. A blog allows me to be constantly updating the community about what is going on and allows them to access important information at a moments notice. The other good thing about blogs, while working in a not-for-profit, is that they can be free.

Here is an example of a blog that I created for one of the communities I was working in. Common Space became the brand for all work done within the community and the image floating in the background became the icon in all flyers etc.

Website Development

The organization I am working for as asked me to create a mock up for their new website. They wanted a complete rebranding for the site, and a new image. Here is a sample of what I came up with: