The Give Up and Use Tables project is a nerdy (but totally practical) inside joke developed by the Creative team at echo during my time there. What’s even nerdier is that we actually built it. It’s a tool to remind us when we’ve argued enough with CSS. If you’re a developer, you may appreciate this.

On Labor Day, I re-launched annsharpsteen.com, the website of author Ann Sharpsteen. Emily Keafer did the graphic design. For the re-launch, I converted the backend from a custom content management system I’d built two year earlier to WordPress blogging software. The reason for the change was a shift in the direction of the website — from a somewhat static information repository to a blog.

On May 1, 2007, I began working in the Creative Department at echo as a Site Operations Specialist. I slice designs, hook up the content management systems and write the code behind our sites. I ended my full-time employment with echo in February 2008 though I still work as a site operations specialist on a contract basis.

echo’s clients include Kanye West, Janet Jackson, Korn, Rascal Flatts, Faith Hill, Dierks Bentley, American Songwriter, the Americana Music Association, and many others.

On 15 April 2007, I re-launched Bob Krumm’s blog with improved functionality and a handful of WordPress plugins implemented to increase his visibility. Previously, I had built Bob’s state senate campaign site and moved his exisiting Typepad blog into WordPress.

In early February, I launched the 3rd version of Prince Market Research’s website. I was brought in as the designer and developer for v.2 a couple of years prior. Version 3 improved on v.2 by giving PMR a customized content management system that I built in PHP and MySQL. The new CMS powered the site specifically as the client needed. One of our chief goals with the new site was making sure that the site was easily navigable. We went with a very clean design that simply presented the main sections of the site.

In the fall of 2005, I began work on oakhillschool.org version 3.0. This version replaced a 2.0 site that I’d designed and built using MovableType for content management software. V.3.0 featured a much larger customized CMS built by my partner on the project, Zach Collier. For this project, I designed the layout and basic functionality and then acted as project manager. Brian Fuzzell did most of the graphic design work for us.

NashvilleZine.com is the web publication of which I’m most proud. I had a simple idea: that those playing in bands, recording music and booking shows could cover the indie rock scene in Nashville better than the pro music journos who had to spend time covering country, contemporary Christian and everything else in town. The result was an overwhelming success. When I ended the zine in 20006 to focus on other ventures, we were drawing 2000 visitors a day (impressive for a local niche music site) and informing the mainstream media. We had around 20 contributors whose work I edited. I maintained the code of the site and worked as the managing editor — speaking with publicists, arranging interviews, requesting promotional material, et cetera.

In 2001, some friends and I worked to turn Bombast-xxx into a better all around zine. Funnily enough, our goal was a printed magazine but after two issues with circulations in the low hundreds and thousands of web visitors, we quickly saw the light and scrapped any plans for a meatspace version. (more…)

Not counting certain Geocities and AOL Hometown ventures, Bombast-xxx was my first official site. I launched it in 1999 as a place where I could publish reviews of music and movies. The site gave me my own space to learn HTML and attracted the attention of other writers and local press. Other writers helped turn the site into an official webzine and the local press eventually hired me as a freelance music journalist.

Don’t let the x’s scare you; they just looked cool.