Call it “2.0” or whatever buzzword of your choosing, but I’m excited to reveal that we recently launched a new site design for rockthatfont.com.
We’ve implemented Typekit and a highly-customized premium WordPress theme from Shaken & Stirred. We hope this design will allow you to more easily deep-dive into our archived content and enjoy the splendor of the album covers themselves.
Things are still very much a work in progress, so please don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts and feedback.
Some of you might recall my little post titled “Project Number One” almost 2 1/2 years ago — we now call him “Ian” of course.
Along similar lines, I’m very excited to reveal that our little family will become a quartet at the end of March:
And just this morning, we discovered that this baby is a “she”! Any tips or advice on how to raise a daughter or start a shotgun collection are very much appreciated.
Just a quick announcement regarding an upcoming speaking engagement…
I’m honored to be heading to The Netherlands for the first time in January to kick off the Interactive programming at Eurosonic Noorderslag.
Eurosonic Noorderslag is proud to present the first keynote speaker for the Interactive part of the conference: Shawn Michael O’Keefe, South by Southwest, Inc, Interactive Festival Producer. In the second weekend of January, O’Keefe will give his opinion on the emergence and future of music tech businesses in the music sector.
Very much looking forward to it.
Just thought I would share this video overview of SXSW, as it does a wonderful job of explaining a very complex event.
(Disclaimer: I work on this wild beast of an event.)
Just a little video archive of my recent 20-minute presentation at the Futur en Seine conference in Paris, now with 73% more jet lag:
Just a quick note that I’m in Europe this week speaking at a few conferences…
The first will be a 20-minute presentation and Q&A on next-generation crowd-sourcing tomorrow at Futur en Seine. (My first experience building a presentation with Prezi, which we used for the SXSW Interactive Awards in March — and so far I only have very nice things to say about it.)
Building Collaboration Frameworks for Success
From design competitions to raising capital to event programming, the innovative and controversial concept of crowd-sourcing is impacting all sectors of digital industry. Learn how to avoid exploitsourcing and appropriately build a collaboration framework for your community that leads to success for all parties involved.
Next up will be a trip to Germany for c/o Pop and the C’n’B convention. There will be a SXSW-focused panel and reception on Thursday evening, then I’m honored to be joining a group of conference organizers on Friday for a panel session called “International Networks III: Conferences – Networked Out?”
So if you find yourself in Paris or Cologne, stop on by and say hello (or “Bonjour” or “Guten Tag” as the case may be.)
Now to put the finishing touches on that presentation.
This is the time of year when, for better or worse, almost all my time and energy is focused on planning SXSW — which I dare remind myself is only three weeks away. In an effort to better archive my activities, I wanted to take a moment and share some recent media before my brain turns to complete mush…
» My “Who Gives A *!%# About Typography?” rant at Ignite Austin about Rock That Font.
» An archive of my January 24th appearance on The Brian Lehrer Show in NYC.
» A brief article I put together for TalentZoo titled, “Look Into the Future With Collaborative Frameworks” — inspired by my panel session at the MTO Summit in D.C. with Toby Daniels and Michelle Bruno.
» An archive of my live chat with cohort Kelly Krause and Omar Gallaga from The Austin American-Statesman about SXSW Interactive.
» And finally, I have a new post up on Rock That Font about The Hold Steady’s latest effort, Heaven is Whenever. Thanks to nicest-guy-in-Austin Christian Helms for sharing a bit about his creative process.
More soon. I promise.
Last May at WebVisions, I gave a 5 minute presentation entitled, “The Typography of the Bicycle.” The idea was to take a similar journey of discovery as with Rock That Font, but instead of album covers, explore the typography of some of my favorite bicycles.
The hilarious part is that right before jumping on the stage, I realized there was no clicker available to control my slides (they were to be auto-advanced in the traditional Ignite format) — and I had waaaay too many slides for the allocated time. As a result (and at approximately 7 seconds a slide), the presentation turned into a bit of a crazy and fun rant.
In any case, I’ve received a few requests for the slides, so I finally got around to digging them up.
(The names in the lower right corner of each slide are Flickr usernames — make sure to explore each of the photographers’ amazing work).
While I am by no means an expert on typography (very few folks are in my opinion), I do love to share my passion for it.
Tomorrow night I will get exactly that opportunity, as I am very honored to be participating in the second annual Ignite Austin.
Who Gives A *!%# About Typography?
Rock ‘n roll. Typography. Two subjects that many believe shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath. I beg to differ. Come hear what happens when you dare to combine the two.
If you are in town, come on down to The Phoenix to hear how Rock That Font got started, get a dose of inspiration from the intersection of rock’n’roll and typography, and see the words that surround you in a new light.
Hope to see you there.
I’m always surprised when folks inquire about whether or not to integrate social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook into their website. Many still express a concern for control, not realizing that their community likely shapes their brand more than they do. And for 9 out of 10 of these concerned clients, these online platforms are where most of their target audience is spending their time. Shaping (or not shaping enough as the case may be) identities 24/7, 365 days a year.
If you are not actively collaborating with your community to develop your product, service or experience — you are behind the ball. In this day and age, your clients/customers/consumers expect nothing less than a two-way street.
After all, it’s what good relationships are made of.
With this approach in mind, I wanted to give a quick heads up that Rock That Font has recently added a new Facebook page to better foster community interaction and discussion (along with our Twitter account of course).
Feel free to spark a discussion about your favorite records and fonts, as well as give us some “Like” if you so desire.