I wonder why my post titles have had so much to do with the current state of the season lately. Either way, Happy Spring!

It’s an exciting time here at Blog What? Design! We are currently taking on new projects for the May - July season. If you are interested in receiving a quote for your project, please contact us. However, please note that we will not be able to complete your project before this time period.

Additionally, our starting prices have gone up from $700 to approximately $1200 per project. Business has been competitive and we would like to provide our clients with the best service possible.

One final note: I have been experiencing an infinite number of problems with my e-mail within that last two months thanks to my transfer over to Gmail. If you have not received a reply, please e-mail me at your convenience.

SO! There’s been quite a bit going on this side of the Hudson lately! I feel like I owe an explanation for the lack of activity. Maybe not, but here’s my life within the past few months anyways:

• Ahmadinjad came to Columbia University amidst great controversy. I had a few hearty political debates with around three cameras in my face at all times (as did every other student that day). Check out some interesting photos from the event.


• I got through my first semester of college! Woohoo! And no. Unless we’re Facebook friends, there are no “interesting photos” so see from that.


• I have reaffirmed my belief that New York City is the best city in the entire world and that every undergraduate who isn’t attending college here is seriously missing out.


• I interned for two months at College Humor as a web developer—owned by Connected Ventures. I subsequently learned that working for free is not cool.


• I became online editor at The Columbia Daily Spectator. Since the beginning of the semester I have launched an entirely new blog network—entitled SpecBlogs—completed many upgrades for the publishing company’s websites, and have many big plans in place! (Including some super awesome web applications never before seen by any other College Daily… no Harvard… not even your ”Crimson” will be putting out stuff as cool as us.


• I hatched up a brand new business plan… which involves fashion and websites; these are very obviously two things I truly enjoy. More on this possibly soon…


• I bought a black fedora and I wear it everywhere.


• … because I have finally started to take on new projects at Blog What? Design and will hopefully be blogging quite a bit more after the semester settles in.

And life couldn’t be happier Anyways, that’s it for now! 

The Twirlin’ project was introduced to Blog What? through our previous client, Tyrone. We knew that Tyrone was always a pleasure to work with, so we got started on this project right away.

Twirlin’ is “a derivative of stepping or step-dancing originated from the Historically African American Fraternity’s culture of organizational boast worthy song and dance. The history of this art form dates back to the middle decades of the 20th century Anno Domini. While there are many organizations that use cane props in stepping routines, there are four organization that have emerged most well know in the phenomenon [Kappa Alpha Psi, Phi Beta Sigma, Sigma Gamma Rho, and Zeta Phi Beta].” [Wikipedia]

To demonstrate this passionate urban sort of dance, Tyrone and his client decided to go ahead with a design that was grungy and filled bright color on a black background. The final product is Twirlin.info. The logo you’ll see was designed by an independent artist, and we incorporated it into the best places.

Twirlin’ features a blog section with various videos and reports, a history of the style, a “how to” page, more current information on the dance, and finally a page with access to buy merchandise and contact the webmasters.
Twirlin’ is currently still in its production stage.. but check back soon to see new information up on the site.

We’re finally back after some God-awful downtime within the past few days due to some ridiculous name server issues with a new domain company. The lesson? Never switch away from companies that may charge a bit more, but are simply the best and most professional around.

Thank you for your patience!

The new website at Nick on Wine has certainly been one of the most exciting projects at Blog What? Design. Let me tell you a little bit about this “intoxicating” website…

Mr. Passmore was referred to me from one of my previous clients. The concept for the website he needed was simple yet precise. It would be a website that would showcase his articles and… his life.

“His life?” you ask? Mr. Passmore is one of the premiere wine critics in the world. His articles are featured in publications such as Forbes, BusinessWeek, and many, many more.

The task presented to me was certainly exciting. Mr. Passmore provided me with a selection of photos he wanted to incorporate into the site. As you can see, three of those magnificent wine photos are featured at the top of the design, and a few more around presented around the rest of the site.

Next came the color scheme. What better colors to choose than burgundy and champagne? Mr. Passmore already had a great, modern logo designed, so I grabbed these colors right from his business card.

The features of Mr. Passmore’s site suit his needs perfectly. The focal point of Nick on Wine is ”Nick’s Wine of the Week.” Each week, Mr. Passmore publishes a new article showcasing a wine of his choice. I was able to make use of WordPress’ custom fields, and provided him with a dynamic template and form in which he could enter his rating of the wine, food pairings, etc… Each new “NWOW” is featured on the front page, while the previous wine is archived.

Another aspect of Mr. Passmore’s career is his corporate wine events. To showcase this, I featured a page-link at the top with a promotional bit of information he provided me with. Alongside the explanation of his services is a lovely photo Mr. Passmore during one of his events.

Nick on Wine also features Mr. Passmore’s latest articles and a chance to comment on them, along with his own wine blog.

The final (and one of the most humorous) aspects of Nick on Wine is the gallery page. Mr. Passmore needed a static page which he could edit easily and constantly with photos and captions of his choice. I installed a few more plugins to WordPress’ TinyMCE editor which allowed him to create a table to drop any number of photos he wished.

So, looking for a great wine to accompany your meal tonight? Need to supply a corporate “wine and dine” event? If you’re an expert or a novice, looking for a great deal or the top of the line, Nick on Wine certainly has something to offer. Blog What? Design had a pleasure designing and developing Nick on Wine, and we know you’ll have the same pleasure reading Mr. Passmore’s articles as well!

Here’s the latest addition to the portfolio! Crunchy Mustard!

Crunchy Mustard is a personal blog of mine and Christian’s along with our friends Yurij and Ryan. This blog was launched a few months back and features a wide variety of absurd news stories and findings.

I decided on this excellent graphic from Simon Oxley because of its absurd nature and the way it fit into the theme. I put a fishbowl around it and voila: a strange blog logo (but a perfect fit!) was formed.

The aquas and greens fit together naturally; they’re reminiscent of a pond scene. The blog is run strictly off WordPress with your basic features in the sidebar. These include: an about blurb with some pretty funny author photos, the top commenters for the month (along with a link back to their blogs!), your basic blogroll, search spot, category display, and meta section with RSS and login “stuff.”

Our extra cool features include: a small sidebar chat room (it pops with each new message!), and a display of recent readers via mybloglog.  Not found in the sidebar are these great plugins: ajax comments for the permalink pages, and a special “dofollow” feature to allow our visitor’s sites to be crawled by Google!

And the summer is off! It’s been a busy one so far at my end. Currently, I’m blogging to you all via laptop from the Catskill mountains at which I am attending a Ukrainian dance workshop. We’ll be performing at the end of the week for around five to seven thousand people. Woah!

Anyways, there are quite a few projects I am balancing and tying off the loose ends for. These sites include:
Nick On Wine - written by the extremely distinguished wine connoisseur Nick Passmore who has written articles for Forbes, Business Week, and many other publications.
Andrew Stuttaford - currently we’re finishing up and revising hundreds of Mr. Stuttaford’s archived stories (He has written for National Review and The New York Sun among others).
Twirlin’ - An awesome steppin’ site I’m working for my friend and colleague Tyrone.

Plus, I have quite a few projects to catch up the portfolio! So far, it’s been quite a jam-packed summer and it seems it won’t let up much anytime soon. Come September, Christian and I will both be returning (and starting) college. (Fordham University and Barnard College at Columbia University respectively.) Our plans are not yet set in stone, but we will certainly be taking on only select projects come the school year to allow for not only school work, but our own online projects, and *gasp* a social life!

Itching for a design? Stay tuned to see when our schedule will next open up!

View this latest portfolio item over at… our portfolio!

I had another excellent time working with my friend, Tyrone II at SEMTAN Media on the redesign for The Moderate Voice once again. The original concept was actually presented by one of the contributors to TMV (it’s quite a large blog!) and I took the idea and ran with it.

To really pick up on the new age of media, I chose vibrant blues to match bright blue sky. I used heavily contrasting colors to make things easy to read, and styled your basic “Arial” font to look like a totally different one! To really make the design “click” I used famfamfam’s AMAZING silk icons. (Check ‘em out!) I also created simple header 2 tags for the sidebar, so that Tyrone could throw in any sidebar headers he needed with out fussing around with lots of code.

The left sidebar displays the “meat” of the blog (dynamic page listing, login spot, author features, categories, blog roll) while the yellow (right) sidebar caters to the chunk of ads TMV has displayed. This really allows the reader to separate the two, and to migrate over to the ads only if they’re interested (while still pulling in some income for TMV!)

The code I set up allowed Tyrone to drop in quite a few different plugins as well. Take a look!

Here’s a post I put up on Crunchy Mustard a few days back and received some great feedback for. Hope you enjoy this cross-post!

There’s a new project over at Successful Blog, and I thought I’d give it a shot. It’s a group writing project and the question is: What’s Your Blogging Metaphor?

Blogging has always been a hard thing to explain to the generation before us. “Web 2.0” and “blogosphere” are things they just don’t know about. Rather than ignore this fact, I’ve come up with the perfect metaphor for blogging.

Blogging is like a county fair. You know… funnel cakes, completions, and all. Everyone gathers around - your family, your neighbors, kids, grand parents, friends. Each person brings something unique - money for amusements, pies to sell, or BBQ equipment to compete with.

All of these different attractions at a fair make up the diverse spectrum of topics in the blogosphere, or the entire “blog world.” Although food dominates at a county fair, Aunt Suzie’s pie represents a gadget review blog while Uncle Tom’s secret BBQ technique represents a fiery political blog.

Aunt Suzie proudly brings her pie to the table. She takes look at every other ladies’ pies (even though she knows hers is the best) and shares recipes, comments on the shape and style of each crust, and new ideas for next year. Think of this small congregation as a blog. Whether its a gadget or a pie, there’s constant review, commenting, and chat going on.

Now Uncle Tom… he’s a little more competitive. You see, he represents the fiery world of political blogs. Uncle Tom knows he’s got the best BBQ recipe, and he’ll fight to prove it. The men gather ‘round and openly critique each others’ rigs and styles. No holds barred: review, commentary, and discussion still occur. Although none of the men want to admit it, each of them are learning new techniques, styles, and ideas during this event.

Catch the underlying theme here?

In both of these examples, discussion and feedback are the defining point. This is exactly what a blog represents. The blogosphere represents a world of discussion and commentary… just like your local county fair competitions

I had the MOST FANTASTIC time ever creating this design for Alexis and Justin. It just makes you want to run down to the beach and feel the waves run over you. Enjoy!

From our portfolio feature:

While creating a website for Alexis and Justin’s special day, I often found myself smiling at the thought of their big day to come. The end product is simple yet enchanting… perfect for one of the happiest days of a young couple’s life!

The overall mood of this sea-themed wedding is captured in the sand-dollar and wave-like heading. Long, elegant fonts were used for this design to add a “wedding-like” touch as well. The design directly mirrors the theme of the invitations. Each invitation directs the guest to this website for more information as well.

The website features a homepage with the basic invitation information reproduced. Links to the bride and groom’s registry are also available. An itinerary is included to inform guests of the events set for the week along with a page dedicated to the beautiful Sea Island, Georgia.

To top it all off, this website was created entirely with WordPress!

Best wishes to Alexis and Justin!

Crunchy Mustard is a fabulous featuring a panel of excellent writers putting out stories filled with snark, wit, and humor. We collectively offer a unique perspective on life (through the eyes of a bunch of college students of course!) We write about everything from white cheddar popcorn to the serious pains of selecting a college major. The general theme of the blog features the idea of everyday absurdity.

This design was created by Lara. It features a very unique theme and mood with various greens and aquas - a very natural look.

This is just a quick note to let everyone know that my schedule will not open up until the beginning of next month (April). Even though I’ve got a plate-full of projects (more like two - my new set maximum) feel free to send over your project details and forms for a free quote!

In other news, I have a few side designs I’m working on for some nice, creative additions to our portfolio. The new “Crunchy Mustard” blog is currently being created for an anonymous “client.” *Shifty eyes...* I know this blog will certainly be a great addition to the blogosphere with the group of writer’s witty musings on various current events. COMING SOON!

That’s all for now. So, thanks! - and HAPPY SPRING! 

Please take a moment to review our revised terms and conditions here. A few important sections are:

2. Quotes
Blog What Design agrees to provide the client with a full quote detailing all the specifications of the project before the project begins. Any parameters outside of the quote will NOT be included in the project unless requested and charged at a later time. All quotes are based on an hourly rate of $65/hour. All quotes include the minimum total hours for the proposed project (charged at $65/hour) plus a buffer of three hours (not charged) to account for technical difficulties due to the designer’s fault. This three hour buffer does NOT include extra client requests or difficulties due to the client’s activities. Your designer will detail in the quote how many hours they anticipate the project will take. Blog What Design does our best to calculate how many hours it will take to complete a project. HOWEVER, Blog What Design will not be held responsible if the designer runs into a problem or requires additional work hours. The designer MUST notify the client if they feel an aspect of the design process will incur additional fees. The designers has the right AT ANY TIME to postpone work until the client approves the additional hours needed to complete the select aspect of the project. A rate of $65/hour WILL be added to the final second payment, for ALL hours worked past the originally quoted time.
7.  Rates and Prices
Any changes to the template(s) after the approved, final product is launched will incur an hourly fee of $65/hour (unless personally arranged). Any additional work not listed in the initial quote will also incur an hourly fee of $65/hour. The client will be notified if such a situation arises. All posted rates are STARTING prices only, and signify the costs for a project at the MINIMUM specifications for that type of project. Additionally, all rates, specials, posted starting prices and published packages are subject to change at any time.
10.  Drafts
Each custom quote accounts for a minimum of eight full hours for design research, development, and draft creation. The client must make sure that all changes are listed after viewing each draft. A designer may at any time inform the client that they have exhausted their services, and may choose to charge the $65/hour design charge for any further design work.

RATE INCREASE
Please note that our hourly rates have increased from $50/hour to $65/hour. Additionally, our starting rate for any type of website is $700. This is the minimum and starting price for all projects.

The immense number of requests and excellent projects we have received have prompted this realignment of our rates. Blog What Design truly appreciates the support all of our previous clients have shown us, (especially right after our launch in November!) The reaction has simply been amazing. To thank our clients, we are offering a 20% discount to all returning customers. PLEASE NOTE: Certain exclusions apply wherever Blog What Design deems appropriate.

Thank you!

I just had the pleasure of launching the brand new AIDP blog. It has quite a bit to offer in terms of “souped up” blog features. This blog is the new home to (at the time of this post) twelve different bloggers posting on a variety of topics. From the official description: “The AIDP is the oldest association of criminal law specialists in the world and one of the oldest scientific associations. This blog serves as a discussion site for all things law, with a focus upon criminal law, comparative criminal justice, international criminal law, international humanitarian law, war crimes, international criminal tribunals, human rights and counterterrorism law & policy.”

Since there were quite a few bloggers who weren’t extremely tech-savvy, a special permissions plugin was used to restrict what each blogger could edit so no part of the design would go awry by accident. Each blogger has their own personal biography page which they can edit, along with a personal CAPTCHA contact form which forwards any reader messages to their e-mail address.

A special manipulation of the WordPress “loop” was used to display certain posts in certain areas. A special “Tribunal Materials” tool was created to showcase various media items the bloggers wished to post. Along with this special archive, a slick “months and posts” archive plugin was used.

Various subscription opportunities for the blog’s feed are located on the right sidebar. AIDP took our suggestion to use Feedburner for all their subscription needs. Users can subscribe via e-mail to the feed, view the total number of subscribers, or add AIDP’s feed to more than ten different feed readers.

A variety of post features were also used. A “share this” link was placed beneath each post allowing readers to e-mail the post to a friend, or add it to popular social networking sites such as digg and technorati. Additionally a “Print This” feature was also included. This link leads the reader to a black and white, easily printable version of the current post.

But wait! There’s more! Each post features a small author head shot. This was a nice touch that allows for more personality in the blog. This feature can also be applied to comments, and more.

We had a fantastic time working with AIDP to create their new blog. We hope you like the project as well, and will consider Blog What? Design for your next project!

I decided to throw in a little featured spot on our portfolio page to highlight what recognition we have received and a few extra special accomplishments. So far this includes:

• Successful transfer of 9,000+ posts from Powerblogs to WordPress
  » The Moderate Voice
• We have had our designs featured on the following websites:
  » Magnolia
  » Kloobik
  » One Pixel Army

• Clean, structured, and valid code
• Slick and modern design
• Gain access to a personal project management system accessible from any internet connection
• Near 24/7 customer service
• ...plus answers to all your questions, no matter what they are!
• And finally… designers who love their jobs and what they do!

Voila! Have a happy afternoon everyone!