With Each Sticker, a Story

• Posted June 12th, 2009
• By Adam Darowski (bio)
• Filed under: Community

Last month, I celebrated my two year anniversary with BatchBlue. I can’t believe it’s been two years already. I can’t believe it’s only been two years.

I also had a birthday right around that time, so the oh-so-thoughtful Sean figured that made it a perfect time to upgrade my laptop. So, I went from the older white MacBook to the shiny new aluminum one. While I love the new computer, it is with some hesitance I let the white one go. The thing has been essentially an extension of my body for the last couple of years. And let’s just say, it’s been well loved:

This was the first laptop I ever stickered up. Each sticker has a story and now is as good a time as any to share them.

1. Belle: Before we had our lovely Providence office, we were a completely virtual company. Living rooms became conference rooms. One day, I got up from sitting on the floor at Pam’s house. I had a Belle sticker stuck to my butt. Pam has three kids, so this isn’t very surprising. The laptop was already well-stickered at this point, so on it went.
2. BatchBook: Well, that’s us silly!
3. Twitter: When Saul Colt sent me an autographed FreshBooks sticker (see #8), he also tossed in an extra Twitter sticker. While there may not be many things I like more than Twitter, Saul Colt is one of them.
4. WordPress: I’m a big WordPress fan, and Matt Mullenweg gave this sticker to me at SXSW 2007 after I said something nice to him. I saved the sticker until I finally had something worthy to stick it to.
5. HubSpot: As the developer of a marketing website, I love HubSpot. So many things that were previously trial and error have become well oiled machines (SEO keyword selection, inbound link monitoring, etc.). HubSpot even interviewed Michelle and I for a case study (and released a portion of the interview for their inbound marketing blog). The fact that I just linked to them with their favorite SEO keyword shows you what I learned from HubSpot!)
6. SimpleBits: Similar to the WordPress sticker, I had this one for a while (since 2006) before applying it to something. SimpleBits is the design shop run by Dan Cederholm in Salem, MA. I got the sticker (and my trademark SimpleBits shirt that I always seem to be photographed in) at a Carson Systems workshop with Dan. Dan’s books and his blog heavily inspired the approach I take to design. And he’s a swell guy to boot.
7. Creative Commons: Michelle gave this one to me, and Creative Commons is a wonderful thing. Personally, I often pretend it’s a CC Chapman sticker.
8. FreshBooks: As mentioned in #3, this was given to me Saul Colt (that’s his autograph!). At the time, he was the Head of Magic for FreshBooks. Now he holds the same title for Zoocasa.com.
9. iStockPhoto: Like HubSpot, iStockPhoto just makes my life so much easier. Specifically, I’ve written before about how Kemie (an iStockPhoto contributor) is essentially an honorary member of the BatchBook design team. I got this sticker from the nice iStock team at SXSW in 2008.
10. bata: When Stephanie went to Japan, she had a little sticker set to help her learn the language. One of her favorite words in Japanese was bata (butter). It kind of became an inside joke and the sticker found it’s way on my laptop.
11. Firefox: Along with the WordPress sticker, I got this one at SXSW in 2007 and saved it. While I use Safari for browsing, Firefox simply can’t be beat as a development browser.
12. Kidoinfo: Kidoinfo is a Rhode Island-based site for parents run by our friend Anisa. Anisa has built an amazing resource for local parents. It’s so handy to quickly find something to do on a rainy day!
13. Barcamp Austin III: Michelle and I made it for the very end of Barcamp during SXSW in 2008. Barcamp is an “unconference” (meaning it is essentially a “user-generated” conference put on by the attendees themsevles). We missed out on the sessions, but we did get to hang out for the incredible live karaoke band Karaoke Apocalypse. That was the night my respect for Chris Brogan and Laura Fitton shot throught he roof.
14. DEMOfall07: The very last one is the very first sticker to grace the MacBook. When we launched our public beta at DEMOfall07 in San Diego, this laptop was the demo unit. It’s just a simple inkjet label with the company name, station number, and date & time we presented (which actually changed, so it’s not totally accurate). But it might be my favorite of all the stickers.

I’ve been using Macs exclusively since my dad got us an Apple IIGS in 1986. I’ve had quite a few Macs over the years. This white MacBook was definitely my favorite since my beloved PowerBook G3 Pismo. It was powerful. It was dependable.

And it had stickers.

Tags: barcamp, batchblue, batchbook, belle, butter, cc chapman, chris brogan, creative commons, dan cederholm, DEMO, DEMOFall07, firefox, freshbooks, Hubspot, istockphoto, karaoke apocalypse, kidoinfo, laura fitton, macbook, matt mullenweg, saul colt, simplebits, twitter, wordpress

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Kemie Guaida: Honorary member of the BatchBook design team

• Posted May 27th, 2008
• By Adam Darowski (bio)
• Filed under: User Experience

Here’s Kemie!

When building a screen for BatchBook or batchblue.com, there are a lot of things on my mind—user interface design, user experience, visual design, front-end coding, and more. I’m not afraid to admit when I need a little help. And time and time again, I have found that help from iStockPhoto, the wildly popular user-generated stock imagery web site.

iStockPhoto has an enormous user base that contributes photography, illustration, video, and more, making the media available for a fraction of the cost of larger, established stock companies. The end result is a massive user base purchasing from an equally massive database of superb imagery. Luckily, when I need to turn to iStockPhoto for icons, I don’t need to sift through the seemingly billions of thumbnails. I now visit the portfolio of one designer, Kemie Guaida.

While Kemie is an accomplished web designer/developer, photographer, and illustrator, to me she is our resident icon designer. Every time we launch a new feature or need to make an area of a page “pop” a bit, I turn to Kemie. Her style works perfectly with BatchBook’s and her extensive portfolio means I always find what I’m looking for.

You may recognize her work below (these are the icons we use to represent each main BatchBook feature on batchblue.com):

I am a huge fan of Kemie’s work. And like bands I like to listen to or the baseball players I followed as a kid, I generally like to know more information about people who’s work I greatly admire. So I recently emailed Kemie to find out more about her (and let her know I’ve essentially adopted her as an honorary staff member).

Kemie is originally from Mexico and “lived there until a few years ago, when a Swede kidnapped me and brought me to the far north”. She has been in Sweden for a few years, living the web worker life. She originally dipped into stock imagery and iStockPhoto because expensive stock imagery was not compatible with her or her clients’ budgets. She explains, “So I thought I could borrow my dad’s digital camera, upload some photos, and earn some credits to be used for my projects.”

While iStockPhoto has led to increased exposure and additional client work, she cites the free market research as one of the key benefits to contributing to the site. She explains, “Being able to present your work in a market like [iStockPhoto] has really given me insight on to what customers are looking for in terms of style and subject, which has influenced all my work, in and out of microstock.”

This resonated with me because it reminded me of one of the original cases for corporate blogging. By sharing information with the public and allowing readers to comment, you can garner invaluable insights from your readers about what they are currently looking for, where you should focus your future plans, and how quickly to get there. Kemie is doing the same through creating and sharing gorgeous imagery.

I have always focused on making sure BatchBook lets you complete your tasks as easily and intuitively as possible. Adding Kemie’s work has brought an additional focus—better exposing our company’s personality. We know our users are a fun, bright bunch. I think Kemie’s icons give BatchBook that same feel.

Thanks, Kemie!

Want a t-shirt with a Kemie-inspired design? Vote for your favorite Kemi icon in the comments and we’ll send you one. (She’s got some more here and sprinkled throughout BatchBook).

Tags: design, istockphoto, Kemie Guaida

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