| Loobylu in the Press Blog of the week:
LoobyLu A self-employed illustrator in Melbourne on domestic life and the adventures of a newborn. Recent ramblings: "Amelia J likes birds. If she hears them while she's eating her dinner she stops and listens. If she sees a magpie on the road when we're out on a walk she waves her arms around and says, 'Ya ah!' " Cool extras: Snazzy, crisp art. David Stonehouse
"loobylu.com - Melbourne artist and illustrator
Claire Robertson doesn't update her personal site quite so often as
she used to, due to the arrival of a new baby. But when she does, she
can make the power going out on a dark winters' night sound interesting,
and worm-farming look like a barrel of laughs. Her stories are full
of warmth and insight; no wonder she has won several readers' awards
for web logs. The bonus on this site are the pictures; Robertson's trademarke
big-eyed, rosy-cheeked characters turn the tales of life in Melbourne
into mini-storybooks."
"Winners of the 2002 awards included best-designed
Web log Loobylu.com (www.loobylu.com), where Australian artist Claire
Robertson offers commentary on her daily activities, illustrated with
the beautiful small drawings that earned her the award. One recent entry
about passing her driving test showed an illustrated Ms. Robertson studying
a book of road rules, while another showed her pregnant and frowning
at a small bag of old shriveled mushrooms."
"Looby Lu is Claire Robertson, a Melbourne Illustrator,
and her work is widely admired for its elegance, humour and personality."
"Claire Robertson Australian illustrator and
Web designer (loobylu.com).
Joshua Allen: I'd like to think that it's just the content that matters, but the web is so dense with sites that if something doesn't twist my kilt within the first few seconds, I'm off someplace else. And what can you really garner in a few seconds? So it's arbitrary and unfair, I'll admit, but I mean come on, if someone is presenting their heartfelt writing in Comic Sans, can they really have anything all that valuable to say? Actually, Comic Sans on the Miami Vice fan fiction
site or whatever is fine - all I care about is the appropriateness of
the design. Does it fit the content? Can you get a feel for what the
content will be like just by looking at how it's presented? That's hard
to do, and most people these days are opting for a super-clean, super-simple
approach, which is easy on the eyes and easy to build, but doesn't have
much personality. Some folks have managed to come up with something
distinctive and fitting, however: Claire Robertson, Andy Pressman, Asian
Bastard.
"Claire Robertson looks out her Hawthorn window
every day and sees reluctant school children, focused businesswomen
and dog walkers going by, unaware that they are about to achieve global
reach on her site, Loobylu. This young artist and writer's sketches
have a slightly retro 1950s feel. She also maintains a written blog,
cover matters both personal and related to Melbourne's young alternative
arts community. Don't forget to hold your mouse over the image for Claire's
hidden comment."
"The other method of online prospecting is to
resort to the search engines, which yield surprising nuggets if you
are patient and prepared to follow blind links. It was here that I came
across the delightful Loobylu and the very amusing BlogmeJoe, two different
takes on the same confessional style...
"Loobylu, by Claire Robertson, Melbourne web
designer. Cute design, real personality"
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