Featured blogger: Zoe Jessica

I came upon Zoe quite by chance on App.net, a new Twitter-style microblogging community that’s only been around a month or so but quickly gathering speed. (Basically it’s a bit like Twitter was about 4 years ago, but that’s another post I think…)

Half an hour later I had enjoyed a good snoop around her blog, felt thoroughly envious of her glam lifestyle which basically involves the Bahamas, Berlin and an Italian husband…ah, it must be tough!)

But anyway –the point is that Zoe is both an excellent cook and an equally-excellent writer. I read her Sicilian Cannoli recipe from start to finish, it was such a fun read. The blog is full of great photos too – did I mention Zoe is also an accomplished photographer? 

I know there are tons of food blogs out there but I was struck with the nice clean design of Rum & Reason, the interesting-sounding categories (‘Cool food, hot summer’, ‘Chocolate’, ‘Miami’…) and the range of great baking recipes. Baking often seems to be under-represented on general food blogs, but not so here.

As well as writing about food, Zoe also blogs about her travels, reviews restaurants, hotels and exhibitions, all with a witty and not uncritical eye.

48 hours in Las Vegas on Rum & Reason

The blend of sophistication and down-to-earth fun is really stylish, and just shows how a distinctive tone of voice and great photos can really contribute to achieving ‘standout’ in the blogosphere.

PS do come and join me on App.net, it's new and growing!

Featured Blogger: Donna Peay

Now here's a truly beautiful blog: Donna Peay's A Perfect Gray.

Who would have thought so much variety could be achieved out of one colour... and a colour that's often associated with drabness! I have to confess, I'm a total Farrow & Ball fan and have spent some time poring over their colour charts and marvelling at the difference between 'Old White', 'White Tie', 'Lamp Room Gray' and the rest. But if you're not convinced, take a look at Donna's blog and you'll be hooked.

Donna started her blog in 2007 and has built up a loyal readership and regular commenters. I'm sure it helps that she posts two or three times a week. Donna is great at finding inspirational imagery from around the web, and you'll see her guest blogging in various places on the subjects of colour and interiors. Oh, and she also has some awesome Pinterest boards...

'Pieces of Gray' - one of Donna's Pinterest boards

Donna's Pinterest page

GIVEAWAY

What do you think? Do you have a blog you'd like to recommend? If so, why not let us know about it in the comments either here on on this post, and you could win a copy of 'Blogging for Creatives'!

Featured Blogger: Grace Bonney

Design*Sponge probably needs no introduction - it has featured in just about every mainstream publication and has been called a "Martha Stewart Living for the Millennials" by the New York Times. Founder Grace Bonney is a writer and former style editor for a number of lifestyle and design magazines, so as you can imagine the blog has the professional feel of a media site - but it maintains a strong sense of community as can be seen in the lively commenting.

'Before and After' is a popular column on Design*Sponge

The site is updated several times a day by a team of writers, and there are regular columns such as 'Before and After', 'Made with Love' and 'Living In'. Always with gorgeous-looking photography, as you would expect.

http://www.designsponge.com/

For lots of ideas of how the 'pro bloggers' do it, Design*Sponge is well worth subscribing to - no matter what the subject matter of your own blog. I do think that seeing what others are doing, and trying to emulate (or better!) what works, is a great way to  develop one's own skills and style, rather than looking mainly at 'how to blog' blogs. Sometimes the best practitioners are the ones out there doing it, rather than talking about the process!

When I approached Grace about contributing a tip to my book, her reply was exceptionally prompt and generous for someone who is obviously extremely busy and moving in big media circles. She is a real asset to the blogosphere in so many ways and I was delighted to have her participate in 'Blogging for Creatives.'

Featured Blogger: Jeanne Horak-Druiff

The web is overflowing with food blogs - it's such a popular subject that we can't seem to get enough of pictures of delicious food, recipes and foodie talk. Some food blogs just seem to stand out and one of those is Cooksister by Jeanne Horak-Druiff, who is another of the lovely expert bloggers who contributed to 'Blogging for Creatives.'

Jeanne is a South African living the the UK, but admits that her heart is 'back home'! (The name 'Cooksister' comes from a South African doughnut-type cookie.) But Jeanne's blog includes recipes inspired by a huge range of cuisines and styles, and rather than simply presenting a recipe, Jeanne always has a fascinating story to go with it. She travels frequently and always blogs about her culinary experiences abroad!

Cooksister regularly features restaurant reviews

When she's not blogging, Jeanne can be found speaking at blogging conventions such as the Cape Town Food and Wine Blogging Indaba and at food photography and writing events such as those offered by From Plate to Page.

Jeanne manages to combine insightful writing with a professional standard of photography on her blog - something that can really make a food blog stand out.

Featured Blogger: Dan Blank

I think I first came across Dan Blank on Twitter. I've certainly enjoyed his weekly email newsletters over the years, with their nice blend of latest blog post, news round up and a couple of fun photos. One of the regular features is 'Owen of the week' - a photo of what Dan's young son has been up to - a charming note, but also a bold relationship-building technique that many would steer clear of in the name of privacy.  It's noticeably different to most email newsletters in that it feels like a concentrated dose of Dan: great business insight and information sharing, with a big dollop of openness and humanity thrown in. And well written, which comes as no surprise when you find out that Dan's background is in publishing, and his business We Grow Media helps writers and publishers to build and manage their online presence.

Dan Blank's blog at We Grow Media

The blog is a section on Dan's main website where he posts regularly on topical media issues of relevance to writers, explores new ideas and ways of doing things and offers insights into his own experiments. For example, he posted recently about his return to podcasting, explaining his reasons and how he went about it in detail right down to the equipment selection.

Dan Blank's YouTube Channel

Dan has also recently started video blogging (sometimes called 'vlogging') and has used video and audio in various ways on his blog.

There is a simple honesty and understatedness about Dan's approach that I love. In being both generous and genuine, an absolute expert in his field but also curious to learn and develop, he is someone who most definitely walks the social talk. Do take a look at his blog - and sign up for that email newsletter, it's a gem.

Featured blogger: Jaime Derringer

Design Milk is one of the stars of the blogosphere. Owner Jaime Derringer is an expert on design trends and contributes to a multitude of design blogs as well as running both Design Milk and its sister blog, Dog Milk. 

There are so many things I like about this blog, even aside from the cool content. The logo is understated but unpretentious (check out the subtle difference between the main logo and that of Dog Milk...) the social buttons are clear and the design overall - as you might expect - is clean and uncluttered, even though there are plenty of eyecatching things going on in the sidebar in particular. Lots of other things worth emulating - I'll be using Design Milk as an example in future 'tips' posts.

From the Design Milk blog sidebar - visual links to popular posts

When I approached Jaime about contributing to my book she was incredibly forthcoming and supportive. Among the many tips she offered, I loved this one:

"Running a successful blog is hard work. Don't let anyone tell you that it's easy or that you can make tons of money by doing practically nothing. In the early days, I spent my nights and weekends working on the blog while also working full-time. It took three years of doing that before I was able to quit my day job and feel secure. I still work more now than I did at my day job but the reward is that I'm doing something that I love."

The hard work has paid off - Design Milk has grown into a fully fledged online magazine with a team of writers and editors on the look out for the very best in design, interiors, art and style.

By the way, Dog Milk is great fun - although as a cat lover my eye was drawn to a rather nifty milk-carton shaped 'house' by Moissue - for cats or small dogs! 

Sister site to Design Milk - Dog Milk!

Featured Blogger: Emily Benet

When Emily Benet started working in her mother's chandelier shop, little did she know it would be the kickstart to her writing career. But after having blogged about her experiences, she was approached by Salt Publishing to turn it into a book - and Shop Girl Diaries was published in 2009. 

Emily's blog won the Completely Novel Author Blog Award (published category) at the London Book Fair in 2010 and has received praise from all quarters.

The Shop Girl Diaries blog continues and has developed into a community of writers and readers. Emily candidly documents her experiences and successes as a writer, posts interesting interviews with other authors and even runs the occasional reader competition. 

Emily also gives regular workshops on blogging for authors wanting to flex their blogging muscles - the next one is on London August 18th.

I was very pleased when Emily agreed to contribute a tip to Blogging for Creatives. She has a practical, down to earth approach to blogging and her blog is a perfect showcase for her engaging writing style and sense of fun. And proof that when you start blogging, you never know where it may lead!

Featured Blogger: David Airey

Designer David Airey has top notch credentials and works with clients from all over the world. His blog is actually his website and the number of readers has grown from zero to 174,000 subscribers in under six years.

Clearly there's a lot we can all learn from David, and quick delve into his blog reveals plenty of gems, such as this post in which he gives his top ten tips for how to grow your blog readership.

The blog's look is very clean and deceptively simple looking. David has pulled out some key information and put it into the top menu bar - 'Advice for design students' and 'FAQs' - I get the feeling he's trying to filter out unwanted messages or questions, and when your blog gets really popular that's something you need to think about. To begin with, answering questions and getting new readers is fun. But when you're successful you will invariably keep getting asked the same things, it makes sense to direct people to the answers before they take up your hard-earned time.

It goes to show that you don't need gizmos, gimmicks, bright colours or a ton of 'share this' buttons to make a compelling blog with hundreds of thousands of readers.

Featured Blogger: Fern Richardson

This week's featured blogger is someone with a name that really suits her job - Fern Richardson. Her blog Life on the Balcony is all about container gardening (something I need to know about, as our patio garden is the size of one small table and 2 chairs...)

The blog has a real magazine feel about it - partly due to it being built on the WordPress Thesis theme, well loved by many pro bloggers. Fern makes great use of videos - there's an introductory one on the home page and a whole page of vids which really bring her expert tips to life. Here's an example of one of them:




Another great feature promoted on the blog is Flower Chat - as Fern explains on the blog: "Fleur chat is a topic-based discussion that gets started every other Thursday at 6pm PST on Twitter (#FleurChat) and Facebook (Fleur Chat group). There is always a theme (such a wildlife-friendly flowers, aromatic flowers, edible flowers, etc) and usually an expert cohost." When the Chats are done, Ferns archives the transcripts on her blog, so if you missed the live event you can still see what was said later.

An extract from a Flower Chat session, archived on Life on the Balcony

Twitter or Facebook chats are a fantastic use of social media to connect with fans, readers and the wider online community. (You can run a Chat simultaneously across both platforms by syncing the two feeds.)

There are so many things I like about Life on the Balcony - do take a look and see for yourself, you are bound to take away some great ideas!

Featured Blogger: James Kicinski-McCoy

'Hello, I'm a girl names james married to a boy named aubrey...' So starts the introduction to one of my favourite blogs, Bleubird.

'What We Wore' is one of the feature sections
of the blog

At one time James ran a vintage store, but now she concentrates on her blog which she runs for profit. James blogs about vintage style, family life, favourite finds and her children's lunch boxes, amongst over things!

They are a very cute family and one of the real charms of Bleubird is the beautiful photography. No wonder James has such a strong following - on the blog, on Pinterest and on Instagram.

Featured Blogger: Lisa Lam

This week's featured blogger, Lisa Lam, has run her own online business U-Handbag for the last six years,  and a busy blog in parallel called the U-Handblog. She describes U-Handbag as "an online bag making supplies shop for bag making fanatics (and fanatics to be!)" The blog is where Lisa can promote her products, give customers an insight to who she is, provide tutorials and showcase the bag making skills of others.

Lisa considers her blog to be a more informal, more casual place than her online shop, which is more geared towards e-commerce, but having said that, both main site and blog are presented and written in a really friendly style. It's on the blog that we learn Lisa has recently had a baby, for example (congratulations!), and it's a forum for conversation with likeminded handbag-making fans.

Lisa's blog is a rich resource of information and
she has a number of free patterns for download, like this one.

Typepad is Lisa's blog platform of choice. Although it's not free, Typepad hosting starts at $8.95 a month, which Lisa considers to be a bargain, given the functionality and support it offers.

And her number one tip? "If you have a craft business a blog is essential" -  Lisa describes her own blog as "invaluable" to her business and the perfect platform to introduce current projects she's working on, talk about the craft process and engage with her customers.

As well as having authored The Bag Making Bible - a detailed guide to making your own bags, Lisa has a new book hot off the press, called A Bag for All Reasons  - here's a sneak preview on Lisa's blog!

Featured blogger: Tara Hogan

Illustrator, designer and yoga teacher Tara Hogan was expecting a baby when I was pestering her with emails about 'Blogging for Creatives' - sorry about that, Tara! Baby John was born in March this year and has already appeared on Tara's blog, Ink+Wit...

Ink+Wit is both a blog and a business, and Tara is a great example of how a blog doesn't exist in a vacuum - far from it! Take a look at the side bar of her blog and you will find links to dozens, if not hundreds of blogs: Illustration, Yoga, Vegan, Interior Spaces, Inspiration and more. This gal is well connected to the blogosphere, and has been featured and interviewed on many other sites about how she got into blogging, her motivations and inspirations. Read a 2008 interview with her here on Decor8.

Tara's main site is the shop at www.inkandwit.com. As well as the blog (which incidentally is a Blogger blog like this one), Ink+Wit can be found in many other social places including Pinterest (Tara has some gorgeous boards, take a look!) and various blog directories. Tara is also on Twitter.

Tara Hogan of Ink + Wit on Pinterest

Staying connected to other blogs and around the social web is important for getting your blog known and read. This blog is only a couple of weeks old, so I have plenty to do to get it better connected. Experienced bloggers like Tara can teach us all a lot about what it takes to create and maintain a great blog!

Featured Blogger: Ricky Salsberry

Running a blog on your own can be tough. And sometimes, the urge to blog comes from a collaborative endeavour, and what you actually end up starting is a group blog.

This week's featured blog is The Donut Project which is a joint venture under the editorship of Ricky Salsberry, and began in 2009. He describes it as a design blog "created by a group of young designers who aspire to inspire." Ricky is one of the experts to share a tip in Blogging for Creatives.

Design inspiration blog The Donut Project http://www.thedonutproject.com/

Although all the contributors are designers, they don't only share design-themed material on the blog. The idea is to present all the stuff that inspires them (or annoys them!) The result is an eclectic mix of visual material ranging from calligraphy to automotive, from branding to fashion.

Blogging with others has many advantages - when creatives get together the results can be amazing, and on a practical note it does mean less pressure on you when you can share the various tasks involved in running a blog and keeping it fresh.

Ricky has some strong advice for new bloggers, such as 'don't post unless you have something awesome to post' (even if it means not posting regularly) and 'don't start a blog to make list posts - you're ruining the internet' which I love, because it's controversial and it's a genuine other viewpoint.

Although it can be great to be given a set of hard and fast guidelines ('this is the right way to do it') your blogging journey is your own, and you'll find what works for you. One of the things that really struck me when I was researching the book was that bloggers all have very distinctive tales to tell - there are no standard routes to growing a successful blog, but you can certainly look at how others have done it and learn from their experience.

Featured Blogger: Laura Trevey

When I was researching the book, one of the really nice parts was discovering so many wonderfully passionate and committed bloggers from around the world.

Laura Trevey in her Studio / Office.

So on this blog I'm going to feature a different blogger each week - both those who you will meet in 'Blogging for Creatives' and also others as I come across them.

My first featured blogger is Laura Trevey of Bright, Bold and Beautiful. Laura is a watercolour artist and her blog is not only a showcase for her work but a gorgeous diary of all that inspires her, particularly beautiful interiors, design and fashion.

Bright, Bold and Beautiful blog - http://www.brightboldbeautiful.com/

Laura, based in Richmond, Virginia, was one of the first bloggers I approached - not only was she was delighted to contribute to my book, she was a joy to do business with too. Here's what she told me:

"I started a blog called 'Watercolors by Laura Trevey' as an avenue to attract viewers to my online watercolor shop. I immediately fell in love with the whole concept of blogging, and wanted to blog about more than just my art. After 6 months, I started Bright Bold and Beautiful, which was originally on the Blogger platform. Blogger is extremely user-friendly for beginners and you can get set up within minutes. I love Tumblr as well, where the inspiration is endless!"

Laura's pride and joy - her art studio/ home office, featuring a custom island
with wide shelves for Laura's watercolour paper.

Here are Laura's top tips for beginner bloggers:

1. Be Yourself.
2. Be Original - You will quickly develop a loyal following if you post original content on a regular basis.
3. Post every day.
4. Be Kind and Genuine to other bloggers. Believe me, they will become your best friends!
5. Invest in a good camera, and take quality photos! 
6. Make sure every post has at least one photo.

I for one am going to try to follow Laura's guidelines as best I can!

Inspiration
Laura has written a great book called smART Business - an Inspirational Guide for Artists and Crafters, which I'd highly recommend. As well as being visually inspiring, it is full of excellent tips on building your brand, organising your time, getting the best from social media, Etsy, art/craft shows, blogging and many more resources. Find out more about smART Business on Bright, Bold and Beautiful.

Do you know of an inspirational blog that should be featured here? Let me know in the comments box, or leave me a message on the Blogging for Creatives Facebook Page!