Rachel Mercer

Though I've been active on this blog for the better part of two years now. Sometime towards the end of last year I discovered the joys of Tumblr. Part of my goals for this blog initially were not only to serve as a platform for content and sharing of items that I found to be relevant, interesting, or pertaining to my eventual goals in life. I'd struggled with this blog as I felt that it need to not simply be a link blog, where I posted little things with a blurb that merely said "hey, look at this, it's interesting right?".

Tumblr has proven to be a great platform for that, expanding my audience beyond those who share my google reader or a subscription to this blog and providing me with an easy ability to not only track who is reading content, but also network and consume content that is relevant and engaging. I realize that I should have written this post months ago (when the Barbarian Group was first discussing their transition back in November), however, I'm just a busy woman, and writing these long-format posts is a task unto itself (yet another reason why I made the switch).

Part of the reason why I subscribe to so many blogs on my RSS feed is that I strongly believe that exposure to content is the greatest way to inspire creativity, change, and forward thinking not only in myself but also in my work. If I can see what is being  done in my industry, or in the design world, perhaps I can move forward to produce better content, and better design. I happen to actually prefer the fact that a majority of the content on Tumblr  is image-based, so that I can easily scroll through and find good design, save it with a little click of the heart, and move on. In some ways, this can be easier and less cumbersome than even Google Reader.

I have since moved a large volume of my blogging to the Tumblr platform because a lot of the things that I want to share with my readers or my friends are simply things that I find to be visually interesting. I don't feel that I have the chops, personally, to stand out as an effective  commentator on new items - as someone like Noah Brier or Jason Kottke would. So, this is my mini-explanation as to why (in case you've been looking for me on this blog) I've been noticeably inactive. Check out my Tumblr for more frequent (and concise) updates.