Crystal Picard is a Halifax-based graphic designer and hand-lettering artist behind Hello Sweetie Design. She graduated with the Highest Recognition Award from the Graphic Design program at NSCC Waterfront in 2015, where she developed her side hustle in the wee morning hours between homework and late nights at her part-time job. Passionate about building community and helping others become successful in their goals; Crystal utilizes her experience as a solopreneur to help others get more done outside their regular 9 to 5 grind. @crystalpicard
What’s been your best experience with WordPress?
Using WordPress has opened a lot of doors for me as a Graphic Designer. I started using it when I was still in school, and I landed my first paid internship with my current mentor because of my growing interest in the platform.
Time and again I have been able to break from the crowd by having WordPress skills in my back pocket. From my Second Year internship to my first job, I have been told that having the ability to build a site that I can hand over at the end has been the thing that helped me stand out.
These days I make a good portion of my income from building sites on WordPress, and having a whole community of people to turn to when something goes wrong never hurts!
Tell us a bit about your WordCamp Halifax talk.
I’m going to be talking about the Divi theme! Divi is a code-free theme made by Elegant Themes that targets solo-entrepreneurs, small businesses, bloggers, and artists looking to have an online portfolio. However, as easy as it is to use, there is a bit of a learning curve to getting used to it!
In my talk, I’m going to be sharing the pros and cons of using the theme, show examples of the pre-made layouts, cover the plug-ins I use with every fresh install of the theme, and also show a demonstration of the theme’s builder in use.
Attendees will be leaving this talk with an idea if Divi is good for them, the kinds of layouts available, plug-ins they should use to keep a large theme speedy, and an idea of how to change theme options and set up a landing page.
What’s your favourite thing about attending WordCamps?
This will be my first WordCamp! I’ve heard amazing things about them, and I’m excited to just nerd out with anyone who wants to talk WordPress, freelance or whatever. Also, I heard about this guy named Carl who has a paper cut-out floating around at WordCamps, so I need to meet him in person.
Recommend one to three people in the WordPress world to follow on social media!
Well, definitely @eraserheader. Alison is our fearless WordPress Halifax leader, and she taught me everything I know about the platform. She does something called LunchPress every Tuesday where she chats about WordPress on Facebook Live.
She turned me to Kim Doyle, WP Chick – She’s no-nonsense and shares my love of new apps.
And also @AnitaKirkbride – She’s not a WordPress person, per say, but she’s talked about social media at the WordPress Halifax meetups, and she’s a fab person to follow online.
If you could have any superhero power, what would it be?
It would 100% be teleportation. Without the whole “I need to have been there before” clause that you see in X-men. And it would include object transport, in case I want to send home my 30lb book bag so I could skip out for dinner with friends unexpectedly. (No, I’ve definitely not spent a lot of time thinking about this.)