This is so cool!

Matt Mullenweg - the guy who originally created WordPress.com, posted a short piece about CitizenWausau.com on his blog.

As a result, readers from New Jersey, Houston, Greenville, Dallas and even Santa Cruz have approached us about doing something similar in their backyard.

What a very pleasant surprise.

Very, very pleasant.

<<see it here

This is what we’ve been waiting for since we started - blogging for our Citizens! We’re so excited to launch this feature, as this is why we started this project in the first place.

It was always our intention to see CW become a social network, so this is a major milestone for us!

Bare in mind, it’s still a beta version, so there’s still kinks ot be worked out but Andy has done an amazing job getting it done is such a short time frame - thank you Andy!

I’ve been invited to be a part of an amazing development project.  It’s a huge endeavor, one that I’m honored to play a part.  As we’re putting the pieces together, I’ve been designing reports and logos to help people wrap their minds around the idea.This is one of the report covers we came up with - though we’re not going to use it, I still like how it came out. Probably many more designs to come, we shall see.

Sometimes a client has a great foundation for an idea. Something so simple, it requires very little imagination. This was one of those projects - I knew as soon as I heard what I wanted to convey.

Result - clean, crisp design - almost effortless. How do you not love that?

Well, unless you don’t like green.

I attended my first “Geek Dinner” last night in Appleton, WI. There were ten people present from several different technological disciplines. As we consumed mass quantities, we discussed the state of Tech in Wisconsin, and what could be done to improve the states profile as being a world leader on this front (thirty years ago it was at the forefront of silicon processing, etc.).

There were many new concepts discussed, many of them revolving around web technologies and business - even the idea that some companies might even benefit from re-locating to the state from Silicon Valley.  A lower cost of living, higher quality of life, fewer distractions - plus there’d be less attrition rates as competition for talent is not as vicious.
A very interesting idea indeed.  We shall see how this idea develops.

Creating captivating visuals for newsprint is challenging considering colors never seem to pop on newsprint like they do on paper or web. Even these web versions don’t quite capture the vivid color as these are jpegs (which are notorious for washing out color).

No matter, you’ll get the general idea - the client asked for high contrast and a distinct sunset, which is what they got, even the printer thought it had, “snap!” So, there you have it.

After two months planning and coding into the wee hours of the night, in our free time no less, we now present to you this labor of love, Citizen Wausau web design.

Special thanks to my friends Andy Laub and Dino Corvino. Andy agreed to take on the role of Creative Director and Dino as the Editor for Citizen Wausau. Both of their involvement have been hugely instrumental, and I cannot thank them enough.

Please feel free to stop by, sign up and contribute as often as you like. WARNING: we are building something here, so please pardon our dust.

This is indeed a first for me - After designing a website for our client in Santa Barbara, they called last week to say they’d like to have a translation of the site to Spanish.

While I was at it, I dressed it up a the original web design a bit. I think it came out very nicely. Si, bueno!

<< See Website

Just wanted to call you attention to the new splash page we’re using for Citizen Wausau. In case you’re just joining us, Citizen Wausau is a new online blog for people of the Central Wisconsin area. There’ll be news, commentary, coverage of area events and what’s even more interesting, the ability to create your own personal blogs within the site (kind of like myspace).

Special thanks to Andy Laub for the design of our header!

Go check it out - we’d love to hear your feedback. If you’d like to be a contributor, please go to our contact page and let us know!

Everyone knew it was coming - just a matter of time, but as of today the Apple iPhone now has custom ringtones.