I spend a lot of time in in a digital environment, creating and designing using my computer as a tool, and so it becomes an extremely important space that I try to make both functional and beautiful so that it supports my creativity. Today I’d like to share two tools that I’ve found boost creativity as well as One Small Change for a greener digital life.

Concentrate

Concentrate

Concentrate is a simple and intuitive application that helps you eliminate distractions so that you can focus.

Concentrate lets you create Activities, which are groups of actions that help you focus on a task. For example, you may want to create an Art activity that quits social networks, launches your favourite software for creating art and changes your desktop to an image that makes you feel creative. If you like you can set a time for the activity.

Activities in Concentrate

Here you can see the different activities I’ve created with Concentrate.

There are activities for blogging, writing, art, economy, general focus, but also an activity that turns on social networks and my RSS-feed.

For a visually oriented person it’s wonderful to automatically switch desktop wallpaper to indicate that you’re moving into a different space. I love how it makes me feel like there are several spaces in the same digital environment, and as though I’m moving from one space to another when I switch between activities.

Below you can see my desktop dressed up with its regular wallpaper as well as the solid black I like to use when I focus on art and design.

This is software for the Mac. There’s a free demo of Concentrate and the application sells for $29 with a money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied.

Desktop for play and desktop for focus.

ColorSchemer Studio 2

ColorSchemer Studio 2

When you create art using digital tools, you use the colour wheel with its endless possibilities for selecting colours. I like to limit my palette when I start working on a piece and pick a group of colours as a starting-point. This is where ColorSchemer Studio 2 enters the scene.

ColorSchemer Studio 2 is a professional colour-matching application that helps you build beautiful colour schemes with speed and ease. It can help you identify colour harmonies, create unique palettes based on photos or images, find related colours, mix colours to create a gradient blend and work with RGB and CMYK colours in a colour-managed environment. But it doesn’t stop there.

With ColorSchemer Studio 2 you can preview colours on a variety of layouts, view colours through colourblind eyes and analyze contrast, readability, and accessibility!

This is an incredible tool for handling colour, again this is software for the Mac there is both a version for the Mac and for Windows and although the price-tag might be steep for a hobby I think it’s well worth it for professional art and design work. ColorSchemer Studio 2 costs $49.99 and there’s a free trial available.

One Small Change

Lastly, in February I’ll be making One Small Change to make my digital life more sustainable. I’ve already got my laptop set to be optimised for high energy savings, but I tend to leave it on and charging over night, so I can just flip the lid open in the morning and read my e-mail over my morning coffee. Of course it’s ridiculous to leave it on charging at night! So, no more of that.

Seashell, stones and a plug

Tags: art, blogging, climate smart, colour, creative process, Creativity, design, earth friendly, ease, eco, environment, focus, green living, Mac OS X, review, simplicity, software, sustainable, technology, utilities, Windows, Writing

“Green is not a colour it’s a state of mind”

One of my plans for the New Year was to take a break from participating in online activities and focus on my creative projects. But this changed when I read about the One Small Change project to help protect the planet.

The idea is to make one change each month leading up to Earth Day (April 22, 2010), and to blog about it. The challenge is hosted by Hip Mountain Mama.

I first heard about One Small Change from some of my blogging friends. At A Place Like This where Valarie will be using re-usable grocery bags instead of plastic bags, and at Mousy Brown’s House where the plan is to “find a source of locally produced (organic?) vegetables and use only these or those I have managed to harvest and preserve from our own garden”! How inspiring! Of course I had to join in!

So what will I do in January? What will my small change be? It’ll be switching to a new brand of climate smart, soft toilet paper made of 100% recycled fibers. Also switching to a new brand of locally produced and eco-friendly laundry detergent and washing-up liquid. And to remember to bring my re-usable cotton bags to the grocery store!

Tags: blogging, climate smart, earth friendly, eco, environment, green living, sustainable

Firefly lights and a sunset view from the studio.

In the winter, the sunset begins around three o’clock in the afternoon, and then it goes on for an hour. I often think, these sunsets are the reward for putting up with the dark and short Scandinavian winter days. Photos rarely capture these sunsets and although I’m often tempted to paint them, the paintings would probably be considered garish, cheap, unrealistic and even cheesy!

Today we’re closing the studio for the winter holidays. I’m busy finishing my last projects before the break and preparing a holiday e-mail with limited edition desktop goodies exclusively for members of Club Marmalade Moon. I expect to keep on blogging throughout the holidays. We’ll open the studio on the 8th of January and look forward to starting the new decade in a refreshed and inspiring environment.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who reads my blog, my window from my studio and to the world. Your comments and emails have been so encouraging, appreciative, inspiring and supportive. I wish you all the very best for the holiday season and for 2010!

Tags: blogging, colour, studio, sunset, winter

Gefle Design

Lately, there’s been lots of work going on under the hood here at Marmalade Moon. Talented and friendly web designer Gefle Design have helped me migrate this site to the WordPress engine, creating beautifully compact code that makes the site load faster in the process!

Gefle Design also helped me to add some new functions to Marmalade Moon, I’d like to especially mention the handy, new search function located at the top of the sidebar, as well as a brand new RSS-feed, so don’t forget to change the address for the feed if you subscribe to Marmalade Moon’s RSS feed!

If you’re looking for a creative web designer, with a sense for style and Wordpress expertise, I strongly recommend Gefle Design.

Tags: blogging

The Skandia Cinema, Stockholm, Sweden

Yesterday I watched Julie and Julia (here’s a link to the trailer) with my mum. It’s a delightful, witty and sensual film about passion, obsession and lots of butter!

New York blogger Julie Powell (Amy Adams) spends a year cooking and blogging her way through Julia Child’s (Meryl Streep) “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”. This meant that Julie had 365 days to cook 524 recipes from the classic cookbook that introduced the French cuisine to America documenting the process in her blog The Julie/Julia Project.

What I adore about Julie and Julia is the joie de vivre, the zest for life, the passion that infuses Julia! I’m so fed up with artists in film and literature portrayed as tormented, miserable, paying a price, victims of their past or current times, that it was refreshing with the description of Julia Child’s creativity as a passion for life. A joy. Julia loves cooking, she loves her husband, she loves writing, she loves Paris and she loves life. First and foremost. Then she becomes famous. That’s delicious, sublime! As Julia would say: Bon appétit!

Melting butter

Tags: blogging, carpe diem, cooking, film, France, seize the day, senses, sensual, USA