Bon Iver - The Story of Us

Recently, I had the chance to work with a great group of creatives on a project for Community for the Confluence.  We did a video featuring Bon Iver's Towers which we titled For the Love (you can see it here).

While completing that project, I remembered an old project I worked on a few years ago for Wisconsin Public Radio.  It was talking about the Bon Iver phenomenon from the perspective of Eau Claire people both near and far.

It's slightly dated and shows my mastering abilities at the time, but I would like to share it with you.  It was a labor of love and features some great voices.

First, we have have new Managing Editor of Volume One, Eric Charles Christenson, talking about being a musician in the town of Bon Iver.


Then, Thom Fountain, also of V1 Managing Editior fame, shared what it was like simply seeing Bon Iver around town.


Brian Moen of Shouting Matches, Laarks and Peter Wolf Crier talked about that Shouting Matches project. Bear in mind as you listen, this was two years before Grownass Man came out.


Merideth, a Wisconsin transplant to Boston at the time, talked about how Bon Iver gave her something to connect to her home.


Lastly, Zana a person not from Wisconsin talked about how Bon Iver connected her with the state.
I hope you enjoyed this!  I was just thrilled that I could go back through old emails and share this with you!

WHYS Local Show Episode 12

This is the last week the podcast for the WHYS Local Show will be shared on this blog.  As of next week we will  be launching our own blog for the show.

If you have any feedback or comments about what you would like to see from the future blog please fill out the form below.

This week's show features Catherine Emmanuelle talking with Luke about Eau Claire's All America City Award.  Then Scott interviews Drew Kaiser from the Chippewa Valley Beekeepers.

Enjoy!

WHYS Local Show - Episode 11

Howdy WHYS Local Show Fans!

Like we said on the show we are working on WHYS Local Show blog right now.   We need your help in deciding what form this blog should take.  For instance, do we use blogger like this blog does or build an actual website for the show? Also, do we just share information about the pieces shared on the show or do news aggregating like the Huffington Post?

Below the podcast is a quick survey, if you could fill it out it would really help us decide what form this blog should take.

Now, on to our business at hand; Episode 11 of the show is right here.  On the episode, we talk about an innovative bicycle map coming to Eau Claire, the Sustainable Future Fest in September and a whole heaping helping of Eau Claire civic news!

Enjoy!




Episode 11

Content I've Created - Living and Playing Magazine - Summer Edition

Local Show - Episode 9

This week's covered a wide variety of stories and community issues.

To kick off the show Luke and Scott highlight that Jacob Winzenz was hired as the new finance director (and then try our best not to butcher his name).

Then, Jeremy Gragert shows his interview chops with Kate Hale Wilson from the Eau Claire chapter of the Citizen's climate lobby (you can find contact info for them here).

After that Luke and Scott talk about some issues about long lawns.

In his Reading the Land segment, Shawn Hartnett talks about why seeing snakes by the river means good things for the health of the river.

To finish things up, Luke and Scott talk about their opinions on the re-development of Brackett Ave.

All the while we are treated to the smooth sounds of Meridene's Love, Complete.

Enjoy!


Episode 9

WHYS Local Show Episode 8

Sorry for the late post.

Here is Episode 8!

Contributors:

Citizen Werthman
Sean Hartnett

Song: The Island of Dr. Lee - eh



Episode 8

Content I've Created

WHYS Local Show Episode 7

We are still trying to get everything we can done to get the WHYS Local Show page up and running.  Our hurdle is getting Google to see us as a person and not a company.  If you have any experience in this and advice we would be very glad to hear it!

This show is a work in progress. We would love to get any feedback you have.


Episode 7

WHYS Local Show Episode 6

We are so excited to be able to share episode 6 in podcast form it is unbelievable. The WHYS Local Show blog is just waiting on a google hurdle and then will be up and running.
This show is a work in progress. We would love to get any feedback you have.

Episode 6

WHYS Local Show Episodes 1-5

We are working on building a podcast site for the WHYS Local Show.  The show proudly calls WHYS 96.3 our home (you should check out all their programming).

Until that gets built we wanted to share our first five episodes with you here.

Here they are for your listening pleasure:


Episode 1


Episode 2


Episode 3


Episode 4


Episode 5

How to create PDFs using Inkscape and Drive

For those of us starting out in the design world Adobe products are not always instantly accessible out the gate. 

While they do a great job creating high quality content for print and the web, the initial investment in these products can be steep.  

In my home design process I often use Inkscape to do layout and design work.  The ways you are able to interact with images, typography and filters are pretty familiar for people who have used illustrator in the past.

Though exporting my designs from inkscape as PDFs has been frustrating  maddening  worse than shooting myself with a staple gun difficult for me.

As I was researching this topic I saw many options that are doable using other freeware and plug-ins.  But, for me, I like to keep my process simple.

I realized in 5 quick steps I could go from design to PDF using drive.  I can't say that this moment was transcendent, but the skies did seem a little bluer.

Here are my steps to simply get a PDF from Inkscape:

1. Export png of design from Inkscape (tutorial)

2. Open a new doc in google drive.

3. Set doc margins to .25" to give a buffer (tutorial)

4. Paste png in doc.

5. Download doc as pdf (tutorial)

Hopefully this helps.  My monitor can tell you it saved it's life (why do we always get mad at the monitor?)!

Passion Projects - Community for the Confluence

It was my honor to be a featured blogger for Community for the Confluence!  This is a fantastic project and I am humbled to get to be a part of it.

My article is titled, "My Story to Tell". Make sure to watch the video at the top of the page first.  It's my friend Jake and he does a fantastic job explaining why this will be such a great project for the theatre community.

http://goo.gl/qpXa13

Content I've Created - Picturing the Joynt: VolumeOne Magazine

I wrote this article about the Joynt, my favorite bar in Eau Claire.

For almost two decades this was a world renowned jazz venue where more than 30 grammy winning jazz, blues and folk legends played.  This article is on their legacy and how the staff is preserving it.

To compliment the article I also created a spotify playlist of several musicians who played at the Joynt. I tried to keep all the music era appropriate to when the artist performed at there so readers could also listen to some fantastic music which potentially could have been performed there.

You can read Picturing the Joynt on the VolumeOne website.

In 2014 it was my honor to have my fellow contributors choose me for the 2013 "VolumeOne Contriby: Best Written Content" for this article.

How to keep track of your projects using google forms

In my journey to learn ux (user experience) design and philosophy I find that I have quite a few free educational resources available at my disposal and many opportunities to do professional projects for friends who own small businesses.

With so many opportunities for exciting projects I've realized that keeping track of everything I'm doing can be daunting. 

The solution that works for me is building a google form and then using it's output spreadsheet as my task tracker.  If you are unfamiliar with google forms check out the video on their support page. 

The reason I chose this to use forms for this task is because they are easy to create and very pleasant to use and the possibilities of what you can do with their output spreadsheet is amazing.  

Though, my number one reason for using this was that I knew I would be a great interface that I could easily use to keep myself organized.  

I'm a big fan of simple designs which are functional and easy to use across platforms.  Making a form that works for my needs was relatively simple.

Here's what I did:

1. Created google form

For this project I chose a simple template because I would be the only one seeing it. However, it other templates suit you feel very free to choose whatever you like.

The actual form I created is set to private because only I will be using it.  This form can also be shared with project collaborators very easily.  I regularly use google forms for crowdsourcing information from friends and clients.  It is a very versatile tool. 

2. Wrote questions:

I based my questions on my freelance content creation model.  The great thing about google forms is I can always update the questions to meet my needs if I ever decide I want to enter more questions to the form at any time.

3. Entered a project

I chose to do my first entry on this blog.  It made sense to be the very first entry in the list (and I like being a little meta too).

4. Reviewed data

The familiar spreadsheet interface of google forms gives us many options with what we can do with the data.  Though, for a project like this I will probably just highlight the tasks as they are completed. 

I hope this was helpful to you.  Please email me if you have any questions, suggestions or opportunities for us to work together.

Software used to create this post:

Photo Editing: PicMonkey/Photoscape
Graphic Design: Gliffy
Blog Platform: Blogger