For the last few years, John Rowell has carried around a business card that reads “John Rowell, retired. No phone. No Fax. No email. No Worries” … No joke, he really printed a handful of those out.

In no way does this mean he’s been spending retirement fishing and playing the StarTribune’s daily Sudoku. Well – those are both pretty accurate – but much of John’s retired days are spent sawing, varnishing and wood-burning away at his lake home in Outing, MN. This has become the studio of Nature Enhanced, John’s creative outlet for all wood products. Handmade.

Just over 5 years ago, when I was writing my first lines of html, I told my Dad that someday I’d make him a website for Nature Enhanced. And just recently, I decided it was time to make up for the long wait. In the end, Nature Enhanced received an entire handcrafted package, including …

Full Re-Branding and Logo Design

It was time to replace the old clip-art logo with a fresh, logo that played off of the wood theme and the fact that all products are branded, literally, with “HANDCRAFTED BY JOHN E. ROWELL“.

Handcrafted Business Cards

The cards were printed on 13pt, Uncoated 2″ x 2″ cards, using UPrinting. They were designed to double as a product hang tag, and each was given a hole punch and a string. I decided that the cards also needed to embody the ‘Handcrafted’ theme of company. To accomplish this, I first gathered sticks during a late night stroll along Nicollet Island. The sticks were then broken into approximately 2″ pieces and laboriously super glued to the bottom of the cards. I prepared about 100 of these to get my Dad started, and gave him a hole-punch, string and super glue to finish the remaining 400 on days that Sudoku only takes him a few minutes.

Website Design, Development and Admin Area

The site was also designed closely around the wood and handcrafted themes – using wood background textures and brown tones. The navigation was kept simple: –
HOME – a very brief intro to the company.
PRODUCTS – sample products and descriptions, with a ‘lightbox’ javascript effect for viewing product photos.
OUTLETS – locations where Nature Enhanced products can be found, using embedded google maps
CONTACT – Office and studio info and a simple contact form.

I also set up a basic admin area that walks through accessing the new nature-enhanced.com email accounts, working with the online store, and cut-and-paste code to allow using the Nature Enhanced logo on Craigslist ads and other websites.

Product Photography

Using white foam board, masking tape and some flood lights, I created a makeshift photo lightbox to allow for isolated product photography.

E-Commerce Solution

I set up a Free account at Big Cartel to get John started with an online store. The free account allows for 5 products, 1 photo per product and basic stats. The Big Cartel admin area is very well designed and easy to work with – and, because they allow for custom CSS on all accounts, I was able to fully style the store to match the look of the Nature Enhanced website.

Hopefully all of this was worth the 5 year wait… In fact, I hope it’s so good that John has to fire up that phone, fax and email a bit more often.

Flashbelt 2009 is right around the corner. A truly exciting event where local flash designers and developers converge to see some amazing demo’s. A chance to learn what Adobe and flash masters are working on to push the boundaries and maximize the efficiencies of using flash in day-to-day work and play. The event is made up of both presentations and workshops and other events, and is appropriate for all experience levels.

Never been? Check out at least one presentation, you will undoubtedly go back for more. get yourself registered, space is limited.

Learn more about it and see who’s there this year.

Thanks to our friend Dave Schroeder at Pilotvibe, the founder and host

We are pleased to announce the launch of our latest makeover!

Southview Design came to us several years ago (through our friend Kristin Kowler at Genius to Go) in search of a clean, professional site that reflected the caliber of work which they were producing in landscapes. The new site not only improved their image, but made their team proud to share it. That was the site design “version 1″

Just yesterday we launched the all new Southview Design, while the previous site was plenty good they sought a more interactive and engaging user experience – and to continue to their already strong search engine presence. The new site features a striking new look, continually updated project slideshow on the home page, and intuitive navigation scheme. The project gallery allows visitors to explore by image – or quickly filter the list of landscaping projects by Service or by Price.

With this new site Kristin has again provided powerful and effective search engine friendly content, which will continue to build upon the already strong search engine presence Southview Design enjoys. Coupled with the ultra-clean site code and site optimization techniques employed in this go-around we wish them much happiness and success with the new site.

And just in time for Spring!

The hardest part of staying in shape is often staying motivated. Your significant other might drop a comment here or there, or maybe a winter trip to Mexico might do it, but I discovered that my computer (and a couple of accessories) actually does a far better job.

I read about it a while ago, but just recently made the purchase. The Nike+iPod Sport Kit.

For around $30 your runs can be monitored (pace, distance, calories burned) and you can turn on a voice to chime in each mile, provide motivational comments or simply announce your pace and milage with the push of a button. This of course is overlayed upon the killer mix you have created or downloaded as your ipod playlist.

After the run, simply plug in your ipod and it uploads your run data to a very slick nike web application – a beautifully designed web site application. Here you get graphs of your run and a plethora of other very cool options like:

Download ipod playlists of others’ workout mixes (Sport Imixes)
Find running routes that others in your area have mapped, and add your own
Create running groups or teams (and compete!)
Create a training schedule
Create goals and competitions (for yourself or you and others)
Get interactive coaching/workouts

And much more. I am only 2 weeks into it but I have never been so motivated to stay on track with my workout, and to continue to improve my pace with every run. Tonight, Lance Armstrong even chimed in at the end of my run to congratulate me on setting my personal best pace per mile.

In all, I see it as the perfect blend of human and computer interaction. The design of the hardware, the user experience, graphical interface and feature set, the personal and community aspects are all exceptional.

Best of all my wife can’t give me a hard time for sitting down at the computer after getting the kids to bed. Just uploading my workout hon’!

If you like art, and you like people, you’ll love Craftstravaganza – a rogue art and craft fair for handmade art. My wife and I attended last year and were really impressed with the talent and variety of artists – some really great stuff. Great gift buying opportunities at affordable prices.

At that time our baby clothing project was still in the design phase, so one of our goals for this year was to apply to become a vendor – and am pleased to announce we were accepted. Vendors are judged and a limited number are accepted so we were very excited. Come and say hi, and support our local artists. In fact, I will even offer $5 off any onesie or t-shirt if you mention this post! Preview our wares, http://orangerhinokids.etsy.com

Craftstravaganza takes place this weekend, complete information on the website: http://www.craftstravaganza.com/2008/home.html

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Saturday April 26th, 9am – 6pm
Minnesota State Fairgrounds - Fine Arts Building
Complete directions here

Our booth will be directly across from the band (yes there is music too!), our business name is Orange Rhino
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Across the world on Thursday, people learned how to “make life easy.” Yes, there is an entire day devoted to ensure that the services and products important to life are easier to access and simpler to use. While this year’s theme was healthcare, we are going to focus specifically on the Internet, or as some of us like to call it, the Global InterWeb.

The University of Minnesota Office of Information Technology and Digital Technology Center celebrated the day by organizing a free event in the Walter Library on campus with the help of the UMN Usability Services Laboratory. Yesterday’s event included guided tours of the state-of-the-art usability lab, a presentation discussing practical usability practices and a professional panel discussing an overview of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

So what does all of this mean and why is it important?

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Design for Babies, (enough rubber duckies and puppies)
September 30th, 2007 : Jess Louwagie

Its been about a year in the making, but my wife and I finally have something to show for our ‘creative collaboration’ that we decided to pursue together. She has the retail experience, an eye for merchandising and a love for babies, I guess I bring the graphic abilities and Adobe Illustrator know-how. Together we’re trying to dress babies better.

The official web site is still in progress at orangerhinokids.com, but you can get a glimpse of the first official releases at our Etsy: http://orangerhinokids.etsy.com/ and our official site is coming www.orangerhinokids.com

If you’re in Minneapolis, Patina stores will be carrying some designs very soon.

The first line is all animals combined with contemporary and/or vintage-esque patterns. You’ll find some onesies (organic and color variations), t-shirts an hoodies for babies and toddlers.

*UPDATE*
We have just been accepted as vendors at “Craftstravaganza”! Excited to be a part of such a great local outlet for local artsists, designers and musicians. We attended last year (as shoppers) and there was a very impressive mix of work. Come down to the Minnesota State Fairgrounds Fine Arts Building on Saturday April 26, 2008 and say hello.

If you’re in a technology market, or even if you’re not – I highly recommend you check out Flashbelt 2007 – June 18-20. Three days of education and inspiration. I met Dave Schroeder a few years back when we collaborated on a project and have been friends ever since. He had this great idea to promote Midwest flash experts and local technologists. Each year its been bigger and better than the last and this year has some BIG names.

The topics vary and cater to anyone form beginner to serious nerd – something for everybody. Check the official site for details and sign up to attend, you’ll be glad you did.

ArcStone is a sponsor of the event providing the online registration and last year our own Nick Longtin presented his implementation of a multiplayer flash tank game.

Might be time for a replacement…

If I did more presentations, or had a reason to use mac’s “front row” tool more I would definetely scrap my apple issued remote and get one of these. Maybe when I get my Apple TV

SiK Remote

Post-worthy simply because its a great design – why didn’t apple think of this?