About

Once upon a time, there was a shy little girl who adored the smell of honeysuckle dew, and the feeling of raindrops on her eyelashes. She lived most of her years in Tennessee and Arkansas; honeysuckle and warm, light rain were two of the things she enjoyed. She also loved to make all kinds of cute things that made the recipients and her smile: paper pop-up greeting cards, bracelets, handmade diaries, plush toys… it didn’t really matter to her if she was very good at making any of these things. She just did it for fun.

One day when she got older, she found out that she could actually make a career out of making one thing in particular: web sites. She didn’t remember exactly when that epiphany came to her. It all just kind of happened. People started asking her for web design help; she was making web sites for all sorts of musicians, artists, and small businesses — and then the next thing she knew, she was a “professional” at this. She had to learn to keep her shyness in check, as people began asking her to do larger projects, or to come talk or write about what she did for a living. She was still very, very nervous, though.

She never thought her old hobby of making Shirley Manson fan web sites would actually get her anywhere. However, some pretty awesome things happened for her. She went to Spain and Italy just before graduating from art school. Shortly afterwards, she travelled to many other places, got published, and moved to California to work at a dream company (though she never had even considered it having been a possibility). Things seemed to be really going well for her. Still, she felt like something was wrong.

Unfortunately, things changed over time and she pretty much only made web sites. That was what was wrong. She was no longer making greeting cards, bracelets, handmade diaries, and plush toys. That was until this website, Sushi & Robots. The idea came to her that she would make a website that not only showcased her web site design and development, but would also feature some of the more fun things she likes to make. Of course, the only way to showcase fun things is to actually have them… which means making them. Call it motivation, if you will.

Biography

Jina Bolton is a visual interaction designer and artist working in Silicon Valley and residing in San Francisco. She likes making pretty websites, and then she likes writing and speaking about it. Jina is a co-author of The Art & Science of CSS; she has also written articles for publications including A List Apart, .net Magazine, Vitamin (of which she is an advisor), and SitePoint. Jina has been featured in CSS Professional Style and Web Designing magazine, and has spoken at interactive and web design conferences around the world on topics including web interface design, CSS, and social networking.

Jina has consulted for various agencies and organizations, including the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Redesign Project and Mass.gov. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Computer Arts and Graphic Design from Memphis College of Art, and is an active member of AIGA (San Francisco chapter) and CSS Eleven. Jina is currently attending graduate school at Academy of Art University toward a Master of Fine Arts in Computer Arts New Media. She enjoys traveling, is learning Italian, and digs sushi and robots.

Colophon

Sushi & Robots is proudly content-managed and hosted by Reflect CMS, a simple and customized solution that rocks Jina’s world. This web site loves Coda and Sexy CSS. The typefaces of choice are Hoefler Text and Myriad Pro. The beautiful illustration work found on the home page, Contact page, and Publications page are created by a friend, the super-awesome, talented Jim Mahfood. The light gray flowery swirly images are purchased from iStockPhoto. All other images are by me unless otherwise noted.