Good Stuff

Tools & People I Love & Recommend

My desire for the right tool borders on obsession. From sketching first concepts with pen and ink to launching powerful software, I delight in what feels right in my hands; brings my ideas, objectives, creativity to life; works with graceful precision; or enlightens and connects me.

Below is an ever-changing list in my quest for the best. Be sure to come back. I make updates frequently.

Measure Your Marketing

Get Clicky
A prettier way to view your website stats and understand your visitors.

Kiss Metrics
A great way to get to know your website visitors by asking questions and offering surveys.

Self Publish Your Book or Magazine

Print on demand

Blurb
Easy peasy book publishing

MagCloud
Affordable magazine publishing

ReadyMag
Super easy, dynamic digital publishing for browsers, tablets and smartphones

Digital Printers

Conveyor Arts
Excellent customer service and a sweet portfolio of artists books. They have a nice range of papers and cover printing options. Book a printing slot early. 

Edition One Books
Another digital book printer I recommend. They, like Conveyor specialize in artists’ books.  

Printers for Promotional
& Identity Pieces

Digital

Moo.com
Affordable, high-quality print promotion and identity printer. I love Moo for many things but  I personally would avoid their “letterpress” business cards and give my money to an artisan letterpress printer.

Modern Postcard
Great reproduction, excellent customer service and a super easy process.

Letterpress printing

Mama's Sauce
Super friendly and beautiful work. They also offer 
screen printing. An invitation I designed for a friend/client were printed with them.

The Cranky Pressman
Gotta love the copy on their website. Nice, responsive and they have excellent information about letterpress printing.

Backup & Share Files

Dropbox
A great place to store, backup and share lot of files but I wouldn't store anything confidential or financial here. It does work great for collaborative projects when many files need to be shared/distribute to a group.

WeTransfer
A great and free service that allows you to share a folder of gigantic files.

SpiderOak
I’ve researched how secure many of the cloud-based storage and sharing services are and SpiderOak wins. The only other service I would consider paying good money for would be Wuala by LaCie.

Others I've tried

Minbox
Super zippy file sharing app

CloudApp
Sharing files made easy via mac

Browser Add-ons

PicScout ImageExchange
Find and buy images. Easy peasy.

Chrome SEO
Check your keywords, backlinks, pagerank and more.

Tin Eye
Find out where you images are being used or how to find images

Design and Build a Website

Coda
For elegant hand coding of HTML and CSS

Sketch3
Seriously, say goodbye to Photoshop. Design wireframes and high-fidelity mockups for any screen size. Super intuitive and a great community to boot.

Squarespace
Easy, low-maintenance website creation platform. Beautiful straight out-of-the-box.

Splash
Perfect for promoting an event. It has a lot of great features including integration with social media tools for live streaming your event.

ExpressionEngine
Robust content management system for those who require complex functionality and content relationships

Website Hosting

Sustainable Web Hosting (Canvas Host)
{Affiliate link} Excellent customer service and good for the planet.

SiteGround
{Affiliate link} Excellent customer service and great WordPress expertise.

Edit and Manage Your Photographs

To manage my photography archives

Photo Mechanic
The fast and easy way to edit, pair and rate your images

Lightroom
Super beefy (for me) but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty amazing.

Sell Your Photographs

Photoshelter
The best way to sell your images and share with your clients. Secure, stable and a great resource for photographers

Sell Your Products

EventBrite
Sell tickets, classes, events and more. Easy to use and easy to brand and integrate with your website.

Shopify
If I had a lot of products to sell, this would be the service I would use. I’d also recommend getting in touch with this designer to help customize your Shopify storefront.

Travel

Karma Go
Take WiFi with you everywhere. Use my code for $10 off yours: Deborah invites you to join Karma | Karma
You can learn more about how it works but if you want $10 off before, come back to this and use the link above.

Verizon JetPack MiFi
We were using this before we discovered Karma Go. Works great; just more expensive.

Hire Talented Creative Partners

Kelly Parkinson : Copylicious
Business Advisor. Marketing consultant.

Dawn Klingensmith
Copywriter. All-around wordsmith.

ExpressionEngine Developer
Detail-oriented. A designer’s developer.

WordPress Developer
Excellent WordPress developer. Reliable and responsive.

My Favorite Typefaces

Sweet Sans, Pitch, Quickpen, Dalliance … oh I have more I just can't think of them right now.

Tools for Teaching & Presentation

Screenflow
For training my customers how to update and manage their new websites and giving feedback to my students

GradeBooPro app
The alternative to Excel spreadsheets for tracking grades, attendance and more.

Slide Captain
Stylish online presentation tool

Flowvella (formerly Flowboard)
Gives Keynote some competition.

Social Media Management

HootSuite
To manage my Twitter strategy while at the desktop, laptop, or iPhone; keep up-to-date with my community; and engage my customers

BufferApp
Simple management and analytics for your social media accounts. They also make great suggestions for content. It comes without the noise of multiple streams.

Share Your Photography

Instagram
Hands down the best place to share images and be discovered.

Exposure
“Photo narratives” big and beautiful.

Storehouse
An app that pulls in all types of content for you to tell any story (recipes, photo essays, fashion shows, and more).

Flickr
To share photos with my family, friends, and colleagues

500px
Another great place to share your images with a larger community

My “Happy Snap” Cameras

Polaroid SX-70
If I had more play money, I’d buy more film and make so many more polaroids.

Fuji Finepix x10
Years ago, photography worked its way into my soul, life, and work. Lightweight, unobstrusive, stylish.

Publications I Love

More Magazine
Makes me feel smart and beautiful even at “a certain age.”

Audrey
A magazine devoted to featuring and sharing the Asian  American female experience. If only this had been around when I was a teenager!

The New York Times
Conveniently delivered to my inbox with top-notch storytelling

National Geographic
One of the best places to see stellar photography

National Geographic TRAVELER
The magazine I have loved since it first came out; the best travel magazine on the planet.

Website Magazine
Another magazine that helps me stay on top of industry tools, topics and trends.

Dot Net Magazine
A must-read magazine for web design and development professionals.

Fast Company
Engaging design and a way to keep my finger on the pulse on the intersection of technology, design and business

Entrepreneur
Stories of amazing people and their amazing businesses.

Photo District News (PDN)
Keeping current on what is important to photographers is important to me.

Gourmet Magazine
How I miss it! Delicious photography, delicious recipes, stories from around the world.

Organic Gardening
The gardener in me digs getting dirt in her nails.