Okay, this has been a BIG week of BIG announcements around here. As if the WPJA acceptance wasn’t enough, I have also accepted a full-time job as a graphic/web designer with Imagekind.com!

From the Imagekind.com website:

Imagekind.com is one of the fastest growing online art sites on the internet. Our newest partnerships allow us to bring almost unlimited options in the world of framed art, poster art and wall art.

Imagekind is about three things:

• Creating art from digital files
• Providing an online marketplace for selling art without any actual inventory
• Providing the world’s largest online venue for shopping for unique fine art prints

Our goal is to develop a fresh new online art experience that allows both consumers and professional artists a new outlet for sharing, creating and buying actual wall art from digital files. We often describe Imagekind as a cross between an art gallery, a photo-sharing service and a print-on-demand service.

Could a job GET anymore freakin’ perfect for me? I am so excited about this opportunity! I’ll be honest: I wasn’t even LOOKING for full-time work. I love freelancing (and I love all of my clients), and it’s been great to focus on my creative vision and freelance business for awhile. I updated my Monster.com resumé to toss my hat into the ring for some steady contract/part-time positions, and got a call from an iMatch recruiter for Imagekind the very next business day. As soon as I looked at the Imagekind website, I was in love. I love the Imagekind.com business model, their Web 2.0 flare, their Flickr partnership, and the fact that they have an office dog named Fenway. (Go Sox!) I knew that this was my Next Right Thing. There’s a paradigm in my life of the Universe (God/higher power/fate/the force/whatever you want to call it) presenting perfect opportunities to me exactly when I’m ready for them. Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, says, “What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us.”

I am being hired because of my background in user interface (UI) design. While I always design with the user in mind, I rarely get to do UI design on projects for which I am the actual target audience! I am so excited to bring my web, design AND photography experience to the Imagekind team to further the business and vision.

So, what does this mean for you, my amazing freelance photo clients?

Well, I’m finishing up the last of my family photo sessions by the end of the day tomorrow because I know you’re excited to see your photos and have them ready for the holidays. I am still booking wedding, portrait, pet, kids & families, and coquette sessions for 2008. You know me—I’ve always done my own freelance thing on the side when I’ve had a full-time job. I love what I do; photographing candid moments, authentic memories and real people is my passion. I imagine I will be more selective about the sessions I take so that I can sort of pretend that I know what “work/life balance” means, and I might take a look at my stated image processing times. What WON’T change is my dedication to excellence while capturing the important moments of your life that tell the story of who you are. So if you have a session you want to book, drop a line!

If last week was a whirlwind of image editing, this week is the same thing for business development! I’m deep into research mode for adding new products and services to my 2008 catalog and I can’t wait to see some of these ideas in action in the new year. I’m looking at expanding the options for coffee table books and adding some more album options for family photo sessions (and budget-conscious wedding couples!). I’m also planning to add a complimentary in-home consultation with some of my packages, to help you plan for the final display of your photographs in your home. I can’t wait to share these developments with you as they happen.

In the short-term, though, I’m very pleased to announce that I am offering customized holiday card designs for family photos this year! I have six fun, elegant and dramatic holiday card templates from which to choose, and I may be adding more by next week. Here’s just a few of the card fronts that I’ll be offering:

I’ll be scheduling follow-up sessions with everyone this year so we can get your cards, prints and gifts perfected and ordered, and I’ll bring some samples of these cards for you to view. I’m so excited to see your families on these cards this year! If you haven’t scheduled your family session yet—DO IT NOW! I have very few spots left!

Speaking of holidays—I have to be honest, I’m not a big fan of holidays in general, but I have found one thing to love in the last few years…it may sound weird, but I love Tofurkey! I was never big on turkey as a kid, and then I became a vegetarian in my early-mid 20’s…well, I’m not a vegetarian anymore, but Tofurkey is one (new) holiday tradition that I won’t be giving up! My other favorite tradition is going to the movies on Thanksgiving and Christmas. So that brings me to my question—what’s your favorite holiday tradition and why? It can be any holiday! Leave it in the comments, or drop me an email by this Friday (10/12) and I’ll announce the winner with the best answer next week!  Winner receives a $10 gift card toward your next print order, or a free 8×10 print of your choice.

Wow, my site is finally really finished!  (Well, with the exception of this blog’s design, but that’s in the works, too!)  The final section of the website that needed some TLC was the design section.  Dennis (my web developer) and I had this idea of an additional set of thumbnails (like sub-thumbnails) for the design gallery, in order to show alterenate views of certain projects.  I wanted to be able to display internal pages of annual reports, and both front and back views of invitations without sacrificing the overall size of my “main” images.  Sounds easy enough, but it was actually pretty complicated!  Dennis worked really hard to find a solution, and he finally did it!  It’s not exactly like we envisioned it—it’s waaaaaaaaay better!  Go to my main site and visit the design section to see what we finally came up with.

And once again, BIG BIG BIG “thank you” goes out to Dennis for working so hard for me on my website!  If any of you reading this ever need a Flash designer/developer, I can’t recommend Dennis highly enough!  Check out his website to see some of his other work, and hire him for your next Flash project—I certainly will be!

Since I was transitioning the blog and website during the time this happened, I didn’t get a chance to blog about the awesome recognition that one of my projects received recently…

I just finished a 4-month contract with PayScale, and one of the projects I worked on in that time was the GigZig. GigZig is an awesome tool that you can play with to think about the direction your career is taking. You simply type in your current job title, and the GigZig will show you two things: what people with that job title were doing five years ago, and what people who had your job title five years ago are doing now! It’s a really awesome tool, so check it out!

…and I’m not the only one who thinks it’s a great tool! The GigZig was recognized by three prominent business technology sites: TechCrunch, the O’Reilly Radar, and Business Week (scroll down to “Where you are headed”).

And by the way, while you’re over at the PayScale site take a moment to register and take the salary survey. Make sure you fill in the question “what were you doing five years ago?” so there’s even more data for the GigZig to use!

One more thing, before I go home for today…

A BIG BIG BIG “thank you” to Dennis at DCK Design for helping me get my new website up! We’ve been working on it since last fall, and started the “big push” in January…because I scrapped the original re-design in favor of what you see on the site now. Dennis was a total trooper, forging through my many changes and iterations. I really couldn’t have done this with anyone else. If you ever, ever need a flash developer, Dennis is your guy!

I’m sure some of you are wondering, “Molly…you ARE a web designer…why were you working with someone to get a new website?” Well, the answer is in the question: I’m a web designer, not a web developer…and I also had a very strong aversion to Flash for a very long time. So when it came time to upgrade the website and I realized that I needed to use Flash to keep up with the times…I had to admit that I needed help to get the site I wanted. I did all of the design and branding work, and Dennis built it according to my specifications. We’re still ironing out some kinks, but I’m really happy with how it turned out!