Happy Birthday Blog!

Wow – What a difference a year makes!

It was just one year ago that we started this blog, and a year later it’s time pause for a moment to reflect on the success of this online community you all have helped build.

Proposing this idea a year ago really did just start out as nothing more than an idea – with the uncertainty of how successful it would become or how much work it would really end up being. And though everyone involved in the planning thought it was a great idea – the one concern was how we’d manage to devote the time to such an online community. Though it has at times required extra time to write new articles, post job/internship opportunities, upcoming events, or competitions, one thing is for sure – it has proven to actually have been a wise investment of our time. In fact, it actually helps simplify our ability to communicate with students, faculty, and industry professionals. It has become an valuable resource for us to share or knowledge and inspire others about what we are passionate about – and that is educating designers.

So let’s take a quick look at some of the great things we’ve seen since starting this online community:

• We’ve seen 202 postings (including this one) on our blog, thanks to Kristy Pennino (32), Barbara Peterson (2), Stacy Alberto (1), Kevin Scarbrough (2), Dennis Santspree (1), Cliff Manspeaker (1), and myself (162). Yes, I love to write.
• We’ve seen over 65,700 hits. We’ve had 823 comments – that is if you’re NOT counting the 11,495 spam comments. Thanks askimet for keeping those things under control and saving us time!
• On average our blog sees about 150-250 visitors a day. The most ever visitors we’ve had in one day was 1,063.
• WordPress has called us one of the top 100 growing blogs of the day on December 11, 2006 (#95) and again on April 3, 2007 (#10). Keep in mind there are now over a million wordpress blogs out there, so making the top 100 is a big accomplishement. But heck, I’d still love to see us make #1 someday.
• We’ve uploaded 643 photos to our flickr account. Most of which are examples of student projects which have clearly inspired not only students but creatives around the world. In the last year we’ve some how managed to rake up nearly 65,000 views of our photos and student work in flickr. And we’ve also had 97 people add us as a contact in flickr from very diverse locations to include: Vancouver, Pasadena, Las Vegas, Taipei, Colombia, Argentina, Brasil, Phillippines, England, Japan, Norway, Argentina, UK, New Zealand, Egypt, Lebanon, Costa Rica, Romania, Portugal – and of course Orlando.
• It’s fun to see the trivial things in our flickr account such as what piece flickr considers the most interesting, what has the most views (4,083 views), the piece that has been added as a favorite the most times, and the piece that has gotten the most comments.
• We’ve continued to request students to submit their absolute BEST work to be considered for potential inclusion in our flickr site.
• To add to our online community, we’ve redesigned our web site to help maximize the exposure of our blog, flickr, and of course a few more resources that I’ve shared through my online bookmarks. I can’t thank Jason Ellison and Efrain Lugo enough for their hard work and dedication towards creating an awesome web site that has certainly gotten a lot of attention this past year.
• We learned quickly in our very first blog posting that it was wise to establish a blog etiquette.
• We began linking to student portfolios that can be accessed online for all students who are at or near graduation, or who are now alumni. We’re hoping to add more soon – especially from all those awesome print designers who don’t currently have an online presence!
• We’ve written a lot of blog postings, but we’ve consolidated the most useful in a resources page so you all can locate more easily.

I could go on with a long list full of stats and other things we’ve done this last year, but honestly – it’s really way overdue to take a moment to thank YOU all for helping make this community what it has become. Whether you’re a Valencia student, faculty, creative professional OR you’ve just somehow stumbled upon our blog on the web from a far away location – we can certainly say that this blog has shown it’s success in not only your interest in it – but your participation. Though you might not realize it, you all are very involved in inspiring others as well. In fact, I had a potential new student contact me just this past week after somehow locating our web site and blog and had this to say:

“What an amazing page, and blog! I have already added your school to my financial aid list, because I was so impressed by the portfolios that I’ve seen! Honestly, this site alone exudes the type of enthusiasm that I have been endlessly searching for in my own school. I love the fact that students seem to be encouraged to form a graphic design community at Valencia.”

I’d also like to thank Barbara Peterson, Kristy Pennino, and Dennis Santspree for their never ending support of my crazy ideas. Though we all had concerns of the time this type of endeavor might take – they supported my decisions 110% to allow me to go forward with what initially was nothing more than an idea that I felt very passionate about. And without their support this community certainly wouldn’t be here today.

So again, I can’t say it enough – thank you all for being involved in our online community.

Now that it’s a year later we’d love to hear your feedback. What do you think about our blog and flickr? We’d also love to hear any proposed idea for how you might like to see this online community develop further in the future.