About pixelingo

pixelingo is a small studio founded by Carolyn Wood, providing copywriting, content strategy, user experience, and web design services for small (and, on occasion, gigantic) businesses, nonprofits, and creatives. Based in Portland, Oregon, we have clients from Maui to Manhattan.

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About This Site

This is the section in which geniuses like my friend Jonathan, at snook.ca, regale us with the story of the development of their sites, and how they used highly technical languages so frightening in their complexity that they would make me burst into tears. So, here goes: pixelingo, although technically valid, and using markup and code that is certainly good enough for mere mortals like, well, you and me, was constructed using XHTML, CSS, a can of sardines, a rusty bar of soap, three slightly burnt marshmallows, a jackhammer, and a dusty tablet of Purple Haze that I found under one of our sofa cushions along with two Cheetos, a penny, and a saliva-encrusted dog toy.

News and Name-Dropping

Online Magazine Work

I just spent two and a half years associated with Digital Web Magazine—much of that time in the role of Editor in Chief. With ten years serving professional web designers, web developers, and information architects, Digital Web is one of the top online magazines in the field. I worked with some great people, including those considered world-class in various aspects of the industry, and it was a sometimes grueling, always challenging, often exciting job. As my own business grew, I had to make some choices, though, and when the magazine was considering making some big changes—including rearchitecting and redesigning the site (yay!)—I thought that this turning point was the perfect time to step aside and focus on pixelingo.

Well, wouldn't you know it—about four months went by, and the mother of all web magazines, A List Apart, founded by the legendary Jeffrey Zeldman, asked me to join their staff. It was an offer I'd be crazy to refuse. I'll start in a few weeks, as I finish up previous commitments. I feel honored to be on the team and my title will be Acquisitions Editor. Maybe it's an addiction: I get to work with great talents, find and nurture new talent, and constantly learn from people who know what they're talking about. And stay up too late at night. And have discussions about em dashes.

Current Work

I'm currently working on a number of projects in a variety of roles, and with a number of companies. I'm on the Further Ahead team, whose principal and founder is Derek Featherstone. Derek is a good friend, a very smart man, and one of the top web accessibility experts in the world. Working with Further Ahead is a joyful experience. I like variety, and Derek's company works with all sorts of clients. Through my own company, pixelingo, I'm editing Mark Boulton's upcoming book. Between the eleventy skillion projects he and I each have on our plates, we'll see how that works out. Mark Boulton is viewed by people throughout the web standards world as one of the best designers, with his strong graphic design background, and he has been patiently teaching grids, typography, and other aspects of graphic design to the rest of the community. He's finally putting it all in print, and it will be exciting to see it when it's done. I'm working on other projects, as well, as copywriter, content strategist, designer, or as CSS/HTML gal. Some jobs are managed by my company, for some I'm brought in by another company or client to play one of those roles. For example, I'm now working on the copywriting for the redesign of a large site for a multibillion-dollar company and was recommended to the company by Garrett Dimon, who is acting as Information Architect for the site. The company's web and branding team seem like great people, and the deadline is tight, so this will be an adventure. I'm also working on two sites for artists (painters), and some other small companies.

Somehow, between living life, running my own business, helping my husband run his business, and dealing with an assortment of other projects, I must find the time to convert this lonely little page into a proper blog and I plan to use Expression Engine to do it. I was convinced by my friend Simon Collison to use Expression Engine, and was really inspired when I edited Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain's wonderful article about his redesign of the Expression Engine website (and the company's associated websites.) We'll see if I make it, or if another year goes by and these same words sit upon this page.

Much Older News. So, I guess it isn't News.

Interview with Chris Mills

At a frighteningly young age, Chris Mills is an influential publishing house editor who works with the stars of the web and helps shape what we learn and who we learn it from. As you'll discover when you read my interview with him at Digital Web, he's funny, he knows his stuff, and he's definitely one of a kind.

I Got Real!

I never win contests. I've never even won the lottery, and I've played, like, 3 or 4 times! So, my eyes popped out of my head when I saw that I'd won WorkHappy's contest. Readers were asked, “In 10 years what will be the most significant impact of Jason Fried and 37 signals?” The assignment was to choose from one of four answers and explain your choice. The writer of the most thoughtful response would win a copy of Getting Real, the ebook by 37signals. So, I was thoughtful, I was brilliant, and most importantly, I suspect, I agreed with site author Carson McComas’ answer. BTW, I love his site, it's full of (as he says) killer resources for entrepreneurs.

UPDATE: Um, what's happening? I've won two other little contests. Pretty soon they won't let me play anymore and I'll be escorted out of every web-related contest by burly men with steely eyes and the scent of violence and cheap aftershave. From Coudal, I won a limited-edition poster by Aesthetic Apparatus celebrating the good summer read, and a few Coudal-produced short films nestled in one of their beautiful jewelboxes. How did I win? The contest was too silly to even tell you. It required only a pinch of imagination and a powerful desire to postpone working on my blog. The other contest required a caption for a photo of all those British web authors we find so fascinating who have penned friends of Ed books. Mine was in poem form—if you have a very low standard for what you call “poetry,” and I won the runner's-up prize of a free friends of Ed book. My poem teased Jeremy Keith a little—yes, ultra-smart, attractive, kind, and good-humored Jeremy Keith. It's sad what I'll do for a free book, isn't it?

Interview with Derek Featherstone (Digital Web)

A top accessibility expert, Derek is also a master of web development and a sought-after, entertaining speaker. His company is Furtherahead; his well-known blog is boxofchocolates. He's hilarious and a down-to-earth, regular guy...oh, and an Ironman Triathalon completer? survivor? You'll learn more about accessibility and Derek in my interview with him at Digital Web Magazine.

Interview with Ethan Marcotte (Digital Web)

Ethan, who was principal of Vertua, and now works with Airbag Industries (who are incredible at all web-related stuff) is a triple-threat: a top-notch writer, designer, and developer. Technical reviewer of some great books, and co-author of Professional CSS, he's also funny and wonderfully humble. Learn more about what inspires him, in my Digital Web Magazine interview with him from July, 2005. Ethan now blogs at unstoppablerobotninja, which, while it is beautifully designed, makes me miss his former blog sidesh0w, where the writing was great, and the sidebar was relentlessly October. Sigh.

Interview with Kelly Goto (Wise-Women.Org)

Kelly Goto is a forward-thinking, world-class user experience design consultant, principal of gotomedia, and author of the web design classic “Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow That Works.” Her generous interview with me provides real value for web designers. A consummate professional, she pulled off this in-depth interview while she had the flu.

Sound

Once upon a time I wrote an article on getting started with podcasting. Listen to a very short podcast (2 minutes and 40 seconds) created using Odeo's services and a simple microphone:

Warning: Subject matter is pet-related!