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Field Notes Blog

News and thoughts on UI/UX, web design, and more.

Sea Dragons and Sea Turtles Swim Out for the 3rd San Diego Blood Bank T-shirt Design

6/18/2021

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San Diego Blood Bank illustration
Meet Seymour Sea Dragon and Santiago Sea Turtle! You can see Santiago brightly swimming around town on the 3rd t-shirt illustration in the San Diego Blood Bank's 70th anniversary series. After the Dulce, Diego and Duke Dolphin "Celebrated the Past" and Octavia Octopus "Embraced the Present", we needed a cheerful representative to "Improve the Future". Sea Dragons are amazing creatures that have a cool connection to San Diego. While they are native only to Australian waters, our own Birch Aquarium has a world-renown sea dragon breeding program and from the first time I saw them there, I was mesmerized. Although I had already started a sea turtle design, when Michael at the Blood Bank suggested a sea dragon, I was hooked. So how did the third t-shirt design turn out to be Santiago the Sea Turtle then? And where is Seymour now?


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Octavia Octopus helps the San Diego Blood Bank attract Donors

6/15/2021

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San Diego Blood Bank Illustration CommissionPicture
For my second San Diego Blood Bank t-shirt illustration I was tasked with creating a fun new design that would carry on the local sea life theme while communicating the second part of the campaign slogan of "Celebrating the Past, Embracing the Present and Improving Life Tomorrow". Who would be better at "embracing the present" than an octopus?!? Whereas the dolphins (our first design) had retro styling to reference the past, we wanted a contemporary look for this one. Armed (yuk yuk!) with these concepts and inspired by action sports logos and my love of cephalopods,  I set to work, however, it took a bit of Disney magic to bring it all together. 


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A Cheerful Retro-inspired T-shirt Celebrating the San Diego Blood Bank's 70th Anniversary

9/17/2020

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PictureClick for a larger view
As many of you know, I am an avid supporter of the work blood banks do in communities around the world. As a blood drive host I'm proud to contribute to that mission and it's a great way to stay on track since I'm working to earn my own 5 gallon donor badge. So, imagine my excitement when I got the opportunity to create some original artwork to help celebrate the 70th anniversary of the San Diego Blood Bank! 2020 has been a tough year but it hasn't been all bad. For this design I wanted to create something that would be oh-so-San Diego while helping people feel hopeful and inspired. I immediately remembered one of the high points of the year for me, a very special day in February at La Jolla Shores Beach when I saw bottlenose dolphins surfing with pure delight in the sparkling morning surf. 


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Liberty Station Blood Drive Saves 54 Lives!

8/24/2020

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Picture
​Pixel Lava has taken over blood drive organizing duties from Anneville Jewelry Lab and I'm super excited to announce that our August blood drive registered 25 appointments and collected 18 pints! It was a big success considering we had just two of the four beds operating due to COVID precautions. Due to the nationwide shut down, blood supplies are at critical levels. If you can't donate, please consider making a financial contribution or volunteering with your local blood bank. If you missed your chance with us, save the date for our next blood drive on October 24th. You can bet it will be a very special Halloween edition! RSVP link coming soon.

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Announcing Pixel Lava's First Blood Drive!

8/10/2020

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Liberty Station Blood Drive
Join us for a COVID Caring Blood Drive
​11am-5pm Saturday, August 22nd, 2020
Blood Mobile at Liberty Station near the Public Market

Want do something fun and easy to help your community? Join me at the San Diego Blood Bank's Bloodmobile as I work my way towards my 4 Gallon badge! Last time they were showing Godzilla on board and we had so much fun hangin' out in the AC watching the show and eating donuts that they had to kick us out! Due to COVID, blood supplies around the country are critically low. Giving blood is a super easy way to make a huge positive. It's safe, fast and fun. This drive is special as Anneville Jewelry Lab is handing the host torch over to Pixel Lava. As always, we have an ambitious goal - this time it's 30 donations. Help us hit it by download a flyer to share with friends and family. I hope to see you there! Reserve your spot.

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Help with Zoom and Live Streaming - New!

8/2/2020

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COVID 19 has changed the way we work, learn, discuss and create...probably forever. Even after we have a vaccine, the immediacy and cost savings of meeting online will continue to make it the default way to communicate. Learning how to use these technologies is a new basic requirement for all of us. Making the most of them is a great opportunity for making your business or nonprofit successful going forward. Whether you're looking for help in running professional Zoom classes or meetings or you want to live stream to social media to reach a larger audience, I can help. I provide patient, friendly, hype-free assistance with both the technology and content. In addition to hosting live online gatherings I can help you make sure your content will work in an online setting. I can also help you choose and test equipment, practice your presenter skills and work through the details of moving your presentation online. Learn more at my Zoom & Live Streaming page. 
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Happy Holidays 2019

12/16/2019

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Greetings from BatuuYep, that's THE Millennium Falcon!
With the holidays upon it’s nice to step off the hamster wheel of life to say hello and weigh in on the year’s activities. How has your year been? What were your highs and lows? What are your plans, hopes and wishes for 2020? Pixel Lava certainly kept busy in 2019. It was a year of website redesigns mostly but also some fun new sites. I did a big redesign for the Huntington Beach Desalination Plant, a nonprofit called A Future Without War and I'm in the midst of one for First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego (launching in January). A few fun new sites were the personal site for playwright Patricia Loughrey, a site featuring the stunning photographs of Wayne Brabender and the history of Brabender Farm, and a site for a conservationist working to bring back beavers (I'm totally a beaver believer now) and create a protected watershed called the Superior Bio-Preserve (as in Lake Superior). I also had the chance to do some pretty cool graphic design and a couple of video projects.


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A New Website for the Huntington Beach Desalination Project

3/2/2019

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Picture
I’m excited to announce that I've just completed a website redesign for the Huntington Beach Saltwater Desalination Project. This Orange County initiative aims to bring a carbon neutral, drought-proof water supply to the Huntington Beach area of Southern California. As a redesign/upgrade from Wordpress to Weebly, this site represented two tricky technical challenges. Firstly, I needed to recreate - and improve upon - a scrolling RSS news reader feature. Secondly, I needed to recreate a javascript that counted UP (not down) in a unit of gallons (not time). Everything I build is user-editable, so these puzzles came with a big additional requirement ... my non-techy users needed to be able to edit them in the future. Our other goal was to bring the site into line with the company's established branding and associated online assets.


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A Freshly Upgraded Website for Seaport Village San Diego

3/1/2019

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Seaport Village San Diego
Seaport San Diego is a wildly creative and ambitious new downtown development that will add an array of amenities to the waterfront area. With world renown architects and public relations by the talented crew at MNM Advertising & PR, we’ll no doubt be hearing a lot about this over the coming months. This website upgrade project consisted entirely of one key objective - replicating the look and feel of a technically-problematic Wordpress build on the much more user-friendly Weebly platform. As I often find with Wordpress, the site was originally created to be maintained solely by the developer, so the site owner did not have the ability to add additional features over time. Additionally, the site owner wanted to escape the tedious security hassles of maintaining an aging Wordpress site. ​


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Happy Holidays 2018 from Pixel Lava!

12/22/2018

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As we close out 2018 I want to wish you and your family a very merry Solstice, a merry Christmas, a happy Kwanzaa and a joyous New Year. From the launch of my new Partner Program to my trip to Japan and a whole new business endeavor, 2018 has been a whirlwind. I hope that the holidays bring you peaceful joy and that you share my excitement for the coming year. From my family to yours, Happy Holidays.
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    Blog

    Ame Stanko, San Diego Web Designer

    About the author

    As the owner of Pixel Lava Interactive I've helped hundreds of small businesses and nonprofits with websites, graphic design and more. I hope you'll find this blog full of useful information.
    ~ Ame Stanko
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  • Home
  • Websites
    • New Websites
    • Website Redesigns
    • Website Portfolio
    • Website Tune Ups
    • Website Updates
    • Zoom
  • Graphic Design
    • Logo design and brand identity
    • Business Cards
    • Postcards, flyers, ads and more
    • Illustration & Infographics
  • Marketing
    • Seasonal Website Promos
    • Video Holiday Cards​
    • Video & Motion Graphics
  • Training
    • Online Event Hosting
    • Web Lab Kits
    • Webinars
    • 1-to-1 Trainings
    • Weebly Training
    • Digital Summer Camp
    • Training FAQs
  • About
    • Blog
    • Client List
    • Good Vibes
    • Review Me
    • Recommendations
    • Partner Program  🔸
      • Partner Portal
    • Pixel Lava Unplugged
    • Art Barn Shop
    • Happy Holidays
    • Happy Halloween
    • Remembering Bob
    • Remembering Mary
  • Contact
    • Support
    • Make a Payment
    • Video & Motion Graphics BU