I am a Chicago-based Web-designer/ writer/ Internet marketing specialist. I've worked in publishing for more than 13 years as a magazine editor, Web designer, book author, magazine feature writer, and Web director (pretty much in that order).

Here is a collection of my work and other things I find interesting.

You can contact me by emailing lisa[at]lisahazen.com

Portfolio

About

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April 22, 2008: Launch of Priya Arts
Priya Arts is an organization dedicated to taking the words of the Bhagavad Gita and interpreting it in music and video. This site introduces the concept to interested parties and will be updated later with information and clips about this project.

April 10, 2008: Launch of Pilates-Pro.com Redesign
It's really exciting when I get the opportunity to take a site I initially designed to the next level. I originally designed pilates-pro.com more than two years ago. In that time, the site has grown and evolved. I redesigned the site with new content areas, a job board, an interactive discussion board, and all sorts of other exciting additions. An integrated effort, we also created a full-featured newsletter to promote the new site.

February 2, 2008: Updates to NRSV.net
It's always very satisfying to see sites that I've designed grow and evolve. NRSV.net is the site for the New Standard Revised Version of the Bible. Since I designed the site two years ago, they have added several new editions and more information about the line. I updated the site to include this information.

January 15, 2008: Launch of Macalicomm.com
Kevin Donnellon is a public relations specialist whose focus is the golf market. He needed a site that would demonstrate his experience and expertise, while providing case studies which shows prospective clients exactly how he does it. I designed this site using a content management system, which allows Kevin to easily update all the content on his site on his own, empowering him to make site updates himself.

December 24, 2007: "Make Your Creativity Productive " article in HOW
Creatives are known for their big ideas—but often, inspiration is at odds with productivity. In this article, I spoke with the brilliant minds at Behance, who offer eight tips for making sure your creative ideas see the light of day. This is scheduled for the June issue, but you can download it and read it here now.

December 10, 2007: "Illustrative Design" article in HOW
Today's designers (myself included) are pretty detached from the core of design—actually taking a pen to paper. This article talks about how to put down your mouse, pick up a pen, and liberate your creativity by sharpening your illustrative skills. Von Glitschka was my inspiration for this piece. This is scheduled for the June issue, but you can download it and read it here now.

December 1 , 2007: Margot Madison Stationery Launch
Margot Madison is a successful small-business owner, a wedding-invitation designer to the stars and now the purveyor of different customized paper product lines. This site has been my most ambitous to date—using sophisticated AJAX scripts, users can place orders for custom stationery orders on the site. (Featuring Margot's wonderful designs.)

November 26, 2007: "Top of the Web" article in The Artist's Magazine
As a group, fine artists tend to come up short when they represent their work online. (And that's an understatement.) The Artist's Magazine asked me to write an article about some exemplary artists' Web sites and these sites can provide inspiration when building their own sites. The article will come out in the March 2008 issue, but you can downlad and read the article here.

November 21, 2007: Everyman News launch
Michele Weldon is an award-winning author (she's even been on Oprah!) and Medill Journalism professor. Michele's new book, Everyman News, pubs this month. This book provides an analysis of the evolution of contemporary American newspapers. The site includes interactive Flash maps, excerpts, discussion guides, audio, and more.

November 1, 2007: HOW article on Design for the Christian Audience
My article for HOW Magazine about design for the Christian market entitled "Putting a Fresh Face on Faith" hit newsstands with the December issue. I spoke with a variety of incredibly fascinating designers who are working to elevate the level of design for the Christian audience from the likes of clip-art doves, praying hands, and dusty-leather bound Bibles to innovative and (yes) inspirational design. Read it here.

October 24, 2007: Madisono Gelato Placeholder launch
Madisono Gelato is a new and delicious client is building a business that supplies Cincinnati's best restaurants with his creamy confection and a new store that sells direct. In the coming months, we'll be working on developing a site that sells online.

October 22, 2007: Sara Paretsky launches podcast series
Together with author Sara Paretsky, I recorded a series of ten different podcast episodes. Sara read from her new novel, Bleeding Kansas (which will hit bookstores January 1st) and her series of essays on her journey as an author and advocate of free speech, Writing in an Age of Silence.

October 5, 2007: DrStreicher.com launches
Lauren Streicher is one of the most well-known OB-GYNs in the country. But besides her wildly successful practice, she is the author of a book, Chicago Sun-Times columnist, host of an XM radio show on women's health, regular guest of iVillage's In The Loop, and a regular contributor to ABC and CBS news. This site tells about her many (many!) accomplishments and promotes her to the world at large.

September 24, 2007: HOW article on Design for the Book Publishing Industry
My latest article for HOW is about a subject close to my heart—design for the book publishing industry. I spoke to people from Picador, HarperCollins, Quirk Books, and (of course) Chronicle. It was fascinating to hear about how different publishers hone their design process, an I loved hearing the stories about how the designs came together. (Even an Oprah pick.) Click above to download the article as a PDF, or look for it in the next issue.

September 17, 2007: Help Yahoo Help You
It's beyond cliche that customer service for Web entities is disappointing. This site was created as a way for Yahoo's users to suggest ways to improve their customer service and create an honest, ongoing dialogue. With this site, I installed Wordpress on the server, souped it up with a bunch of plug-ins, and integrated the design with custom CSS.

September 10, 2007: Alert Chicago launch
The City of Chicago had a ton of information they wanted to make available to residents about what to do in an emergency, but no real Web structure to do so. They wanted this site to be a hub that people returned to, with realtime news and information. I designed the architecture and look and feel for the site, hoping to convey a unique Web presence for the city, as well as a useful hub of information.

August 15, 2007: Studio on Sixth launch
I designed this pretty little site to promote a cottage for rent in San Francisco's Sunset neighborhood. Quick and dirty, this site took just three days to build and launch. Check it out at Studio on Sixth. Just goes to show, there is no job too big or too small!

August 10, 2007: Guru of New launch
Sarah Browne, a digital strategist and market researcher based in Carmel, California. She wanted me to create a Wordpress blog for her with a charming retro feel that she could use as a place to profile what hot new products and trends live up to the hype, and which do not. The Guru of New is the result.

August 2, 2007: Red Room placeholder
A small job was designing a placeholder page for a fantastic site that is coming in a few weeks named The Red Room. This site will be an online home for all of the world's best writers—a place where they can post information directly to their readers and easily host their online presence. Writers including Salman Rushdie, Norman Mailer, Amy Tan, and Po Bronson are already committed to participating.

July 31, 2007: Mommy Track'd Bookstore launch
The folks over at Mommy Track'd hired me to design their bookstore portion of their redesigned site. This was an interesting challenge, as it involved going into their existing templates and integrating an Amazon store within their framework. (Without making it look like the user ever left their site.) The result (I hope you agree) is seamless.

July 19, 2007: Incorporating Movement launch
I designed this site for New York-based Pilates instructor, Rebekah Rotstein. She wanted a site that would bring together the health and life benefits of the practice, and promote her new business as an instructor. Shawn created her logo, which provided the launching point for the design direction. There's even a Spanish translated version!

July 10, 2007: June Chronicle Books Newsletters
Chronicle never disappoints with the books it asks me to write about monthly for their email newsletters. The featured books in June were Pretty in Punk, a book teaches knitters not how to craft cardigans, but rather punk mohawk hats and skull-and-crossbones armwarmers. I also interviewed the authors of Extreme Barbecue, who themselves interviewed guys who barbecue pigs in steel drums and coffins (not used, thank you). And lastly, I wrote about the pop-surrealist work of artist Alex Gross.

July 1, 2007: Kids Off the Couch
In my quest for world domination of mommy blogs, I started writing for another. Kids Off the Couch offers different activities for families that don't involve anything you can see on Nickelodeon. I am the Chicago guide, which means that I'm discovering a bunch of fun things for Finn and I to do. Tune in for your weekly adventure!

June 28, 2007: LeeFenVisual
Lee Fenvyes is a Bay Area-based artist and designer. For Lee, I set up a Web store to sell some of his work and revamped his style sheets to refresh the look and feel of his expanded site. I'm really pleased how the entire site came together.

June 16, 2007: May Chronicle Books Newsletters
In May, there were some really interesting books to write about for Chronicle's enewsletters. I took a "walk down memory lane" (har har) with Core Memory, a photographic (and surprisingly beautiful) look back at vintage computers. Also, I spoke with Joyce Ostin, who photographed everyone from Tom Hanks to Steven Spielberg for Hollywood Dads.

June 4, 2007: Web Design Work for Golin Harris Presentation
Working with big firms like Golin Harris mean that I can't talk about the details of the work we do because of brand confidentiality and work done on spec. But let's just say that it was fascinating to conceptualize a well-established brand through a proposed Web site design that is very of-the-moment. Frustratingly obscure description? Email me and I'll tell you more.

May 14, 2007: April Chronicle Books Newsletters
I love writing the monthly enewsletters for Chronicle Books. Every month, I get a box full of fascinating books that really resonate with me. In April I wrote about the enigmatic designer Florence Broadhurst (who was mysteriously murdered in her home), pastry chef Emily Luchetti's favorite recipes, and graphic artist Jeffrey Brown's new book, Cat Getting Out of Bag

May 10, 2007: Life's Golden Ticket site design
Written as an inspirational parable (in the style of The Alchemist or The Five People You Meet in Heaven), this is yet another title that you may be seeing on the NYT best-seller's list soon. There's buzz about this book from everyone from James Redfield to Publisher's Weekly.

May 1, 2007: Pentagram Papers Article
The article I wrote about the 35th anniversary of the Pentagram Papers project is in the most recent (June) issue of HOW. Read it here.

April 11, 2007: Redesigned site launch
Finally! I've only been in business now for almost a year and am now officially launching my portfolio site. My excuse is that I have been so very busy with client work. Please hang with me while I work out the kinks.

April 10, 2007: Milk Memos Featured Book on Mommy Track'd
I did an online feature for Mommy Track'd promoting the title, Milk Memos. This charming book was written by two women who returned to work at IBM only to face the bane of the working moms' existence—the pumping room. This book is a great exploration on how to balance work and motherhood.

March 30, 2007: Launch of iwasareallygoodmom.com
The site that I designed for this humorous, clever, and wise book that tackles the expectations/myths of modern motherhood just launched at www.iwasareallygoodmom.com. For obvious reasons, this was a project particularly close to my heart. The authors are going to be all over the media—you can find them on The Today Show, Rachael Ray's show, and Shape magazine.

February 22, 2007: Launch of NRSV.net
This site was to support the NRSV, or the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Published by HarperCollins San Francisco, this revised translation was prepared by the National Council of Churches. with the goal of updating the Bible for a contemporary audience. This is widely accepted as the most ecumenical of all Bible translations.