SM

This has been a while coming. Over the last few years I have accumulated a number of link blogs, including Posterous and Tumblr. My reasoning at having these separate blogs was quite  logical, to keep the ImJustCreative website and blog focused on what I do, logo and brand identity design with a healthy helping of typography and other related graphic design topics.

The simple way to keep my own business blog free of clutter was to set up these alternative link blogs where I could feed them as much or as little as I wanted. Using these blogging platforms has many advantages, not least their ease and speed of use. Little or no maintenance required, perfect for when you just want to relink to something cool for others to see.

Over the last 6 months I have felt the need to keep all my blogging activities closer to home. Some of this comes down to traffic of course. If I am posting upwards of 10 link posts a day on Posterous, then I am missing out on some nice traffic to my main website, which would benefit me a lot more.

AdPacks

I was also recently invited to partner with the outstanding AdPacks network from BuySellAds, joining other creative types such as : DesignKindle.com,  siteinspire.net,  wefunction.com,  5thirtyone.com,  blog.echoenduring.com,  lovedsgn.com,  minimalsites.com,  sohtanaka.com,  fancybox.net, logodesignlove.com,  davidairey.com,  identitydesigned.com,  iospirations.com,  kiwi-app.net and iainclaridge.net

Since joining AdPacks, I have a viable incentive to increase traffic. It was quite a treat when they approached me earlier this year, I had been loosely thinking about advertising, but did not want any form of Google adverts or the 12 boxes of random garish adverts. Ad networks like AdPacks, FusionAds and the leader in this style of advertising, The Deck, all helps generate some much needed revenue for the work I put into the social/web side of ImJustCreative. The ad’s are small and well designed, and do not affect the overall aesthetics of any websites they are placed in.

Iain Claridge and I and in the process of redesigning the website, so expect some nice aesthetic changes early next year. Here is a sneak preview of the footer and header.

Streamlining

I have never wanted to choke up my main blog with dozens of links, I really wanted to this that lean and mean. If it meant 4 days without a post, then so be it. I needed another way to make all this happen.

One of the more obvious ways was to look at incorporating a link blog within the IJC domain. Running this in alongside the IJC blog. The easiest way has been to do a fresh install of WordPress under the name of Single Measures within the IJC domain. This way the Single Measures blog would be running off its own database, have it’s own unique RSS feed and just be it’s own entity, in no way mixing it up with my existing blog. All I had to do was incorporate the SM blog into the existing nav and job done.

By keeping the same theme, and just making a few minor style changes, like swapping the IJC logo for Single Measures, I help keep uniformity across both blogs, different but the same.

You may even see LoveHelvetica and MonoExpressions incorporated in much the same way, so lots of plans being made, all for the better I hope.

What can you expect from Single Measures

Exactly the same sort of content that you have seen from the Posterous blog, posts with a bit more editorial, more comments and opinion, single link posts aka DaringFireball et al, but pretty the same sort of stuff, just better: creative thoughts, ideas, inspiration and suggestion, fonts, technology, Apple, logo and brand identity lust, new websites and services, freebies and more emphasis on showcasing work and portfolios from other creatives.

There will be just one line link posts, and there will be more detailed posts with writing and photos.

I have noticed a few other bloggers and writers have quoted what the unique and inspirational John Gruber says of Daring Fireball, I shall be no different, to paraphrase: “This blog is written for another version of me, for people just like me, who like exactly what I like.”

Single Measures on Twitter

Along side the SM blog, I have a new Twitter account, @SingleMeasures where all the new posts will be pushed to and outwards.

The Twitter account also has additional content being fed to it. I read and subscribe to a healthy number of websites and RSS feeds, I often ‘Google Reader Share‘ links that don’t make it to the link blog or my main @ImJustCreative Twitter account. This is to cut down the amount of link tweets in my stream.

I have drastically cut down the amount of Tweeted links on @ImJustCreative and instead ‘Share’ them for any one who cares. Using Twitter Feeder, I have pushed my Google Reader Shared links to @SingleMeasures.

Simply, @SingleMeasures is just tweeting links from this blog and Google Shared and anywhere else I find stuff. This is all it will do, I will not be chatting on this account. So if you like the sort of links I generally share, then you may find following @SingleMeasures worth a shot.

You can always unfollow if its too much. :)

What about Posterous?

I will keep this going for the time being, but the end game is to move most of the blogging away from external sites. So if you are currently subscribed to Posterous, then you might want to sign up to the Single Measures RSS feed whilst things work themselves out.

I will keep not abandon Posterous or Tumblr versions, but they will be used far less than what they are now, maybe for just really random funny stuff and rather odd links that don’t really fit in anywhere else.

The scrapbook’s scrapbook.

To summarise

This is to streamline my online activies. ImJustCreative.com will mostly be for my work, portfolio and logo design articles that I feel are of a higher value and interest, the best of the best. @ImJustCreative will mostly be just me and a few of the better links I find each day, much as how it is now. Single Measures is everything else, it is design and creative link and inspiration heavy.

The overall structure of Single Measures is still being worked on, with a few tweaks here and there over time, working out the best way to set up the duel navigation between IJC and SM with help from Iain Claridge on the design and development side.

But it’s good to go.

Follow/Subscribe

ImjustCreative : RSS feed and Twitter @ImJustCreative
Single Measures : RSS feed and Twitter @SingleMeasures