Every once in awhile I like to share what’s going on in and around my life and TDC, while also spreading a little giveaway cheer (continue reading for more on the giveaway)! A lot has happened over the past month with some exciting announcements and a new blog… so lets begin.
10,000 subscribers

After only 13 months of blogging, The Design Cubicle has reached an astonishing milestone establishing 10,000+ subscribers! I want to sincerely thank each and everyone of your for helping to make TDC into the success it is today — without all of you this would not be possible. I have enjoyed reading all of your comments and learning so much from all of you. Again, thank you!

Here are a few more stats that TDC achieved in the past year:

» In the past year I have published 174 articles — that’s an average of 3 articles per week
» 4,800 comments have been approved to date — an average of 28 comments per article.
» The most popular article to date is 10 Common Typography Mistakes
» 3 articles have been on the front page of Digg
» Between the Twitter accounts @behoff and @TDCBrand there are 11,000+ Twitter followers
» TDC currently receives between 8,000—10,000 visits a day with 73% of those daily visitors being new to TDC
» The largest traffic source has come via StumbleUpon

TDC is now part of the Smashing Network

I am thrilled to announce that TDC has been asked by the chief-editor Vitaly Friedman to become apart of Smashing Magazine‘s new Smashing Network. So what does this mean for the future of TDC?

Absolutely nothing (except for higher traffic and more exposure of course). There will be absolutely no changes to TDC… I will still be delivering the same quality content and will not be influenced by anyone other then myself. So what’s in it for Smashing you ask?

Smashing Magazine’s network thrives to deliver the highest quality content and will be featuring selected posts of TDC to be featured on their front page, with a short description and a link back to The Design Cubicle’s original article. As a collective, we both aim to deliver and support high quality content to help others grow and learn as much as possible, which I’m honored to be apart of.

Birth of a new blog

As I’m sure you can see I’ve been extremely busy as of late and have been working on the design of my new blog, www.behoff.com. This will be a more personal blog of mine, focusing more on my work, personal experiences as an independent designer, discoveries, interests, inspiration and more importantly events and happenings around the design community. I will also be doing video casts and tutorials as well — something I’ve yet to do on TDC.

The new blog uses Typekit for all of its font — Droid Serif was selected due to its improved readability over Georgia because of its larger x-height which makes for easier readability at smaller sizes. All sans-serifs displayed use FontFont’s Dax which allow more characters to fit on a single line (articles titles) because of its condensed form.

The sidebar’s Recent Happenings section will display information about what’s going on in my career, such as new clients I’m working with, features of my 3 sites, and other exciting news. I am also an avid user of LittleSnapper and store tons of inspiration as they are discovered that will now be streamed into the site for your inspiration as well. If you like feel free to grab my Flickr RSS so you don’t miss a beat.

I plan on updating BeHoff.com once or twice a week with new, fresh content so feel free to grab free updates by RSS or email.

Also, special thanks to shopHTML for doing a great job on the backend development and integrating the PSD into WordPress. For those unfamiliar with shopHTML they are a team of XHTML/CSS specialists that provide conversion services and expertise in XHTML/CSS, WordPress and Joomla (read more about them from their previous giveaway).

I must say working with them was an absolute pleasure. Not only were they proficient and accurate but their eye for detail was incredible. I am very particular when its comes to typography (line heights, spacing small caps and all caps, etc) and they nailed it just by looking at the PSD — something that other services I’ve used had to be directed to do so. I also enjoyed the ability to discuss the project and changes live with them over Skype opposed to emailing them and waiting for a response. Overall: great customer service and awesome eye for detail for the little things.

Giveaway goodness

I try to give back to you, my readers and supporters as much as possible and with the great generosity of shopHTML I am able to do so again.

We are giving away one free PSD to WordPress conversion and 20% discounts to everyone that leaves a comment on this post to shopHTML, and also two free books, The Elements of Typographic Style and How to Be A Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul, that two readers will win that leave a comment below.

Continue reading on how to enter:

Free books and shopHTML 20% discount code

» Write a comment on this article with your name, email address and a short sentence or two about why you would like to win.

» Subscribe by RSS to www.behoff.com

You will then be contacted via email by the folks over at shopHTML with the 20% discount code (valid for anytime!) at the end of the week (Friday, December 4th).

PSD to WordPress conversion:

» Become friends with myself (@behoff) and shopHTML on Twitter — this way we can DM the winner

» Second, retweet (RT) this article followed by the hashtag #designcubicle — you can use the Retweet button at the bottom of this post if you like, just make sure you include #designcubicle at the end.

One lucky winner will be chosen at random at the end of the week (Friday, December 4th) that tweet with the #designcubicle hashtag.

Again, thank you for all the support you’ve provided TDC in the past year — I am beyond grateful. I look forward to bringing you more great content in the upcoming year.