Welcome to the new DigitalScrapbook.com!

Welcome to the new and improved DigitalScrapbook.com! I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally invite you to join me in this new and improved space.

Ever since I switched from paper to digital scrapbooking, about 3 years ago, I’ve been dreaming about a site that combines a community experience with easy access to all the wonderful digital scrapbooking products and information out there, with simple and straightforward licensing. My background in web design gave me lots of ideas when I was browsing around in the early days trying to figure out what this thing called “digital scrapbooking” was. There were so many talented people trying to answer that question, but I was often frustrated by my inability to find them, with everyone seemingly lurking in their own special corner of the web, hoping that I might stumble upon them.

I was also intimidated when trying to navigate through all the different licenses and limitations imposed by various designers. Of course no one wants their work to be stolen, or abused, but reading through lists of complicated restrictions generally made me feel like I was already a guilty criminal, which meant that I rarely ended up purchasing anything, for fear that I might forget how I was allowed to use it! All this is to say that at DigitalScrapbook.com I am committed to keeping the licensing as simple and freeing as I possibly can. (I’ll have more to say on this subject in the future, and I’d love to hear your ideas, but I don’t want to hijack the welcome, so stay tuned.)

I’ve got big plans for DigitalScrapbook.com: what you’re seeing now is only the barest skeleton of my dream. If you used the old site a lot, this one probably won’t strike you as terribly different, but it’s been rebuilt under the hood, which will allow it to change and grow into the future. The main differences as of now are:

1. A new look, designed to be very minimalistic, so all your attention can go to the designs and layouts themselves.
2. A vastly improved search experience. Try it out, and see for yourself!
3. A site that is hopefully faster loading and more responsive (there’s a new server in place making everything go).
4. Site forums, where we can get to know each other!
5. A site that is now membership-based, meaning that you need to create an account and log in to download things, or comment. This will allow you to have much more control over your experience here now and into the future. For instance, one feature that you’ll notice right away is the ability to “heart” things, which will add designs and layouts to a personal list of bookmarks that you can browse in your profile. In the future you’ll be able to do a whole lot more!

I don’t want this welcome to go too long, as I’ll stop there for now. I’ll be posting about my future plans for the site right here in these forums, so stay tuned. For now, set up a profile, download some designs, try out a tutorial, browse through the layout gallery, introduce yourself in these forums, and make yourself at home! If you have any feedback, please post it here.

“That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.” -- Benjamin Franklin