Dayjob

Bulletin: Team Dayjob: SxSW

Todd Roeth — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 19:47:00 MDT

Some of my memorable musically observed experiences at the South By Southwest Music Festival, 2008 in Austin, Texas:

1. The Brazilian Girls
{Field Notes: Mark asked me before the set started if I thought the singer was a woman. I didn’t know if it was a rhetorical question… But I when I heard her voice I still didn’t know. }

2. Teenage Bottle Rocket
{Field Notes: Wyoming Rocks. }

3. The Black Keys
{Field Notes: Ohio Rocks. Really hard.- Though I may be biased. }

4. Mason Jennings
{Field Notes: I wish we were friends. This is the most dogs I’ve ever seen at a live music performance. I really wish we were friends.}

5. Slim Cessna’s Auto Club
{Field Notes: Holy Jesus. This makes me want to believe in something, but I am not sure it is You. }

Bulletin: Dayjob Art is for the Birds

Todd Roeth — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:42:00 MST

We at Dayjob take lots of pictures. One image in particular caught the fancy of a fine organization in Santa Monica California, Heal the Bay. I donated the image to for their use and promotion in a series of greeting cards. You can see the other great images available on their cards here.

Bulletin: Denver is What's Next

Sean Porter — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 00:49:00 MDT

It’s Dexter’s fault.

Chatting on the street after work, testing out the new phone ¹, we run into Hugh. Hugh mentions he’s looking for some help getting a site going for the upcoming conference and next thing you know (har!) Dayjob is on the job. Check out aiganext.com

The next symbol is a rectangle, twisting and folding, but to me it feels a bit more like a circle. Back in the heady days of 1996, when I decided that this web thing was for me, I bought myself an Academic version of Photoshop 3 (“School of Hard Knocks” edition), a copy of David Siegel’s Creating Killer Websites. David’s nearly slipped into obscurity now, but he opened my mind enough to realize that this whole words on a page thing went back farther than Mosiac)—if you wanted to do it right, there was a lot of stuff you needed to learn.

But the thing was, there wasn’t much out there on the fundamentals of design. So, I hunkered down in my one-bedroom house in Sterling, CO, where my nights were filled with The Elements of Typographic Style, The Form of the Book, and Looking Closer; my days were filled with HTML and Photoshop 3 (man, have you checked out this new layers feature? Wow!).

Thanks, boys. This time the drinks are on me.

(special thanks to Dan Treiman, who able to pitch in heriocally at the last minute to help us get the interactive screensaver working.)

¹ An exchange between Mr. Roeth and my girlfriend:

PC: Man, these pictures look terrible.
TR: You want to know why that is? YOU’RE TAKING PICTURES WITH A PHONE.

Bulletin: Bela Karoli's Live (I'm live! I'm live! I'm live!)

Sean Porter — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 15:32:00 MDT

(Photo by our own Todd Roeth)

Aside from pulls of vodka from our thermos, one of the few things that helps us through the grind at DAYJOB is music.

We love music.

And we love our friends in Bela Karoli.
We’re proud to be able to help them with a new website

We were pleased as punch to partner with Frederick Jesser on the illustrations for the site, he did a magnificent job of translating Bela’s spare stylings into compelling illustrations.

Bulletin: Gigbot Launches

Todd Roeth — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 16:57:00 MDT

With a final endurance-crushing push at the end that saw tears, joy, and a 4am Pete’s gutbomb run, we got an early version of Gigbot up on Saturday in time for the excellent Underground Music Showcase (a Marquee site.)

Gigbot is a search engine for live music, it pulls together all of the listings in Denver/Boulder so you always know who’s playing when.

The site as it is now is a pale shade of what we want it to be, so keep checking back as we’ll be cranking out new features in the days ahead.

(hand model: Annie Roeth)

Bulletin: This is how we roll: Saturday, 3:00 am MT

Todd Roeth — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 03:19:00 MDT

Sean And I: Double-Barrel Power Books, whilst swapping iTunes playlists via the Airport.

(My momma said there’d be days like this.)

Bulletin: We do ink & inches. (Now I will be understood.)

Todd Roeth — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 21:47:00 MDT

We recently finished a new project, The 2007 Summer Concert Series Event Site for the Denver Botanic Gardens. Does it looks good? Sure, we think so. Does it work? You bet. The site helped to sell out 6 of the 13 events in the first week. And you want to know what I think the coolest part of the whole project was? We got to design something in good old fashioned, un-editable and un-updateable, better-be-spell-checked, four-color ink.

The biggest reason this is important is this: When people ask me what I do, I several options in answering that question. And several more if I want to be sarcastic. But if want to answer it with one of the most popular (besides, I’m the guy that always has the dog with me) it would be, “I design for web sites.”

This nebulous – and now in 2007 – trite, answer has really lost it’s impact as of late.

“Oh, ...that’s cool.” with an anticlimactic eyebrow movement is about 90% – 95% of the responses I get. And as they say that, they reflexively envision bedroom in the basement of my parent’s house, where I sit at a hand-me down wood veneered desk in boxers and tube socks, slurping cereal out of a bowl while hunched over a computer, all the while, my mother upstairs yelling at me to ‘do my chores’. (some of this actually true. Only it is Sean over email or Skype yelling at me, not my mom.)

And who could blame them? Without any immediate verbally or physical visual aids to provide, that is exactly what picture is painted in my head, too. And it is incredibly annoying (believe me I know) to be on the other side of that question when asked to someone the likes of me. I have benignly ask that question dozens and dozens of times at social gatherings, and have the reply come in the form of coaxing me away from the party and it’ s food and drink, to be taken away into an empty room and an enthusiastic ‘Web Designer’ tries to wake up the desktop computer to try to show me proof of their work. Then I get subjected to the caveats and complaints of a slow internet connection, small screen, old browser, old plug-ins, et all.

Meanwhile, my beer sits warming in the other room.

It used to cool (maybe even sexy in the mid-90’s) to be a self-proclaimed ‘Web Designer”. I am old enough to remember when that answer got some real respect. But now, this occupational title is the modern-day stable boy.

Today, according to the The United States Department of Labor estimates that 2,769,000 of us will file ourselves under the ‘art, design, sports, entertainment, and media occupations’ by 2012. The USDL also predicts a combined even 100% increase in the ‘Computer Systems Design’, and ‘Internet Services’ sectors by the same year.

But now we at Dayjob also design in Print! So now, folded up in to a 2” square in my wallet is the Denver Botanic Garden Brochure. So what happens next time some casually asks me ‘what I do’? Boom. I slyly and proudly produce this little folded up brochure from my back pocket hold it to their face, and say with confidence, “I do this kind of stuff.”

I will have something real to show them. Without so much as even turning on a computer, or even setting down my drink.

(The brochure is also on my mother’s refrigerator. It is even harder for her to explain what her beloved little son does to her peers as it is for me. And you should see her try to use the Internet.)

Bulletin: Stick it to the Man... or whatever.

Todd Roeth — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 09:49:00 MDT

You can now stick the Dayjob ethos anywhere. New this summer, these three inch square clear stickers are available to those who already have them, and soon to the rest of you.

(If you do stick one to a man – or a woman, child, or animal, please be considerate. Press lightly, and remove slowly.)

Bulletin: Dayjob Summer Olympics

Todd Roeth — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 19:01:00 MDT

Sean visited all the unfurling greenery the great state of Ohio has to offer in June. Deep in the coniferious hills of our 17^th state, we spent a few sunny days discussing the direction(s) Dayjob is – and should be – heading.

Untethered and uninterrupted (except for Sean’s Earthlink account he initiated on the rotary phone) we talked with our friend’s Sam and Dave who provided great insight and opportunity from their respective and opposite areas of expertise.

In addition to the all shop talk and dense, anacromym-laden business speak(the ROI of horizontal vs. vertically integrated CRM tools, SMS integrated web apps, B2B and P2P IVR tools…), Sean and I spent some time in some old fashioned friendly athletic competition. Swimming, hiking, and canoeing were all on the weekend docket (The 21st century Ohio past time of cornhole was rained out). And for the finale, we sat down at the keyboard for the true head to head test of manhood; a match of strength, skill, wit, coordination, and endurance capped off our weekend activities.

The results are as follows:

Sean’s results:

My results:

... I will be submitting this contest to the IDTM for doping tests.

Bulletin: You've GOT to be Kidding Me*

Sean Porter — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 22:06:00 MDT

Our friend Alex King had some nice things to say about the Dayjob logo.

In a lot of ways the logo was a reaction AGAINST the things about our former corporate jobs that we hated. Over time it’s grown into all the things we love about the business we’ve built—hardworking guys with a wry sense of humor slaving away.

We don’t have a lot of advice to give1], but we have learned a few things:

Work really, really hard
Build a company you would want to work at
Work really, really hard

*quote from a potential client who still needs a little convincing

¹ Advice is usually dispensed by people selling you something.

Bulletin: The New Year's (High) Resolution

Todd Roeth — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 18:18:00 MST

For autographed copies of our very own Sean Porter, the best dressed R&D Director to ever touch a mouse, please send your requests to frontdesk@dayjobinc.com. (For a nominal fee + Shipping & Handling. Allow 3-4 weeks for delivery.)

Bulletin: The process and the product

Todd Roeth — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 16:59:00 MST

The collaborative work environment that the year 2006 yields all of us allows for immediate and ubiquitous communication.

We at Dayjob employ many devices to keep the creative process as lively, as productive, and as efficient as possible. While scattered across the continent, we can contribute our local influences, our geographic exposure, and personal experiences instantly to all of our projects. Communicating with sight, sound, voice, and text, all aid in the process of creating our final products.

As lively as the end result, the process here at Dayjob is where the real beauty transpires.

Bulletin: I was nearly late to a Lecture, and I was the speaker.

Todd Roeth — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 13:06:00 MST

There are countless billboards in Orange County. All of which I stared at as me and my car poured down the the 5 on my way to CSU Fullerton. I was on my way to give a small lecture for the JACC on the new challenges faced by young photographers shooting for digital mediums. What exactly was I going to talk about? I had a lot of information to share, but nothing really to say. I stared out onto the sun shining off the clean black luxury sedans piling up on the interstate.

The billboards looked like….. billboards. And the license plates looked like…... license plates. How soon until things start to look like Websites? The internet, in earnest, is only 15 years old. (Digital Photography, even less!) Like a child, it has had growing pains, temper tantrums, bad decisions, fads, and mood swings. But now it is starting to come into maturity. At least it is old enough now to almost get it’s drivers license. More than I could say for the bleach blond in the Audi sedan beside me who could barely manage her cell phone and her Jamba Juice, let alone drive. (Albeit we were moving 20 mph. in the traffic.)

But soon, I think, the Web will find it’s identity. Website will start to look like….... Websites.

Marshall Mcluhan once said:

”We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.”

We always try to apply past conventions to new mediums to try – often in vain – to understand new ideas. No longer are images, graphic design, or information design, bound or shoehorned into previous mediums. on the World Wide Web. (i.e. : Web pages are no longer looking like print design, brochure, magazine, etc.,)

And speaking of rear view mirrors, the traffic was filling up in mine.

The web now is developing its own unique characteristics. As hardware improves and becomes more accessible, computer screens are gaining resolution and physical size. Coupled with faster and faster internet connections, images are getting BIGGER.

This is a trend that I hope will continue, giving far more precedence to images, and changing the dynamics and proportions of page layouts online. The web will become a medium, if not an art, in its own right, and how we communicate with it and through it will continue to grow.

Now what was I going to talk about at this lecture…...?

Bulletin:

Sean Porter — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 00:05:00 MST

Bulletin: Welcome

Sean Porter — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 00:04:00 MST

To our shareholders, employees, business partners, welcome to our new home on the world-wide-web.

(Hi Mom!)

Of Interest: The Beauty Pageant Winners

Todd Roeth — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 18:19:01 MDT

80 Beautiful Typefaces For Professional Design

Of Interest: What the 90's looked like online

Todd Roeth — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 16:39:22 MDT

Of Interest: Helvetica. The Movie. (Will it be rated R?)

Todd Roeth — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 11:39:16 MDT

Of Interest: A Cloudy Crystal Ball

Todd Roeth — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 13:55:01 MDT

Of Interest: Keeping it Real

Sean Porter — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 08:52:22 MDT

Of Interest: A Dying Breed is Now Dead. (or at least on it's death bed.)

Todd Roeth — Thu, 25 May 2006 20:53:48 MDT

Of Interest: National Bean Bag League

Sean Porter — Tue, 23 May 2006 11:33:47 MDT

At a recent off-site meeting in the wilds of California, the Dayjob executive team greatly enjoyed this up-and-coming sport (think horseshoes without the head injuries).

Of Interest: Soviet Children's Books

Sean Porter — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:55:49 MST

Of Interest: Snappy Folders

Sean Porter — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 13:24:33 MST

Of Interest: Practice Predicates Perfection (The Darwinian iPod)

Todd Roeth — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 21:47:13 MST

Of Interest: I miss you, Tibor Kalman.

Todd Roeth — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 18:03:51 MST

Of Interest: Go Find Your Self. (Ambient Findability)

Todd Roeth — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 18:03:29 MST

Of Interest: Chip Kidd Interviews Martin Glaser

Sean Porter — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 22:40:55 MST

Portfolio: Denver Botanic Gardens Summer Concert Series

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 09:00:42 MDT

One of the musical highlights of the summer in the fair city of Denver is the Denver Botanic Gardens Summer Concert Series. This year, Dayjob took care of all DBG marketing needs to promote the popular series of thirteen concerts by branding the entire event – designing and building the website, designing and printing the direct mailings, concert programs, and print advertisements in the local and regional markets.

The concerts were first made avaible to members of the organization, before general public sales were offered. Within the first week, seven of the thirteen shows sold out, and only four had tickets remaining when they were released to non-members.

Portfolio: Belly Up

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 08:59:55 MDT

In Solana Beach, San Diego, Belly Up called on Dayjob to assist in upgrading their website. The venue hosts some of the best talent to roll through town, and also boasts a tasty restaraunt while capturing all the great atmoshphere So. Cal. is “famous” for.

As another Marquee customer, we rebuilt the site from the ground up to allow our colleagues there to cumulate Belly Up’s own database of artists with their associated photos and sample songs. They now can easily manage the events calender of shows, promote and sell tickets, track sales, and still have enough pixels left over to showcase their great amenities and ambiance.

Portfolio: Belly Up Aspen

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 08:59:47 MDT

The place to go in Aspen, Colorado to watch live music is Belly Up Aspen. And now, thanks to our new music promotion tool, Marquee, you can find the scheduled acts, see and hear the bands, learn about the venue, and buy tickets. But we take it one step further; once you buy your tickets, you can get them emailed right to you from the comfort of your cozy chalet, while you sip cognac and surf the internet on a bearskin rug following a day of great skiing.

Or if you are like us, you can hit the site on some poached wireless network from your laptop in the back of your truck in the free parking lot out at the ski slopes. It is hard to type with your mittens on though, and my breath always freezes on the computer screen. And, then I have to use my ski pass to scrape the frost of the screen…. um, well – either way, we think the site is pretty cool.

Portfolio: NCAA On Demand

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 08:59:41 MDT

We partnered with our friends at Thought Equity to quickly deliver a site where NCAA fans could preview and purchase championship games on DVD.

We moved quickly, from concept to delivery in less than two months, developing a highly-scalable site that could endure the legions of March Madness fans who learned about the site during on-air announcements.

Portfolio: Anthony Doerr

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 17:27:46 MDT

Anthony Doerr is a native from the great state of Ohio.
Anthony Doerr is the Writer-in-Residence for the State of Idaho where he now lives with wife and children.
Anthony Doerr is brilliant.
(Those three declarative sentences are our ode to the written word, in honor of Tony.)

Anthony’s work has won him critical acclaim in the States and abroad. He is author of three award-winning books and countless articles for The Morning News and The Boston Globe.

In order to visualize the essense of his writing style and sensibilities, we collaborated with Mr. Doerr and another Ohio artist, Beth Nash, to craft eight custom illustrations with footnotes written by Anthony for his website.

Portfolio: The Gothic Theatre

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 17:16:45 MDT

One of the landmarks in Denver, The Gothic Theatre is a restored Art Deco theatre that has played host to countless fist-pumping guitar solos, elbow-jiving-jam-bands, and shoe-gazing indie rockers.

This 1,000 seat venue routinely hosts a full schedule of national artists of varying genres. Dayjob delivered its very own patent-pending promotion marketing tool, Marquee to handle everything from artists’ info, image and audio files, calendars, album integration at Amazon.com and a hefty set of behind-the-scenes professional marketing tools, including ticket sale tracking, and custom genre-specifc email management and marketing. Dayjob put all this together with a look and feel to give the unique architecture of each venue some due props.

We at Dayjob can’t be rock-stars (...at least Sean can’t), but we know what it takes to fill the house for one.

Portfolio: Hi-Dive

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 12:24:11 MDT

We partnered with local Denver illustrator and designer-about-town Jonathan Till to work up a Marquee site for the city’s best intimate indie rock club.

Portfolio: Belly Maternity

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 12:06:00 MST

After scoring the biggest product placement coup of 2006, what’s an upscale maternity and kidswear boutique to do?

Why, get Dayjob to completely rewrite their web site, of course.

Partnering with our friends at Bright Factory we ported the data from an old in-house ecommerce site and rewrote and redesigned from the ground up to give Belly’s inventory more light and breathing room.

Portfolio: Playola Logo Design

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 23:40:23 MST

Portfolio: Disc Partners Logo + identity

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 23:38:54 MST

Dayjob knows rock stars are long on mojo and short on cash. (Just like us! We like to empathize with our audience.) Disc Partners knows this too. They specialize in Compact Disc and DVD packaging, printing, burning, and replication for independent musicians looking to release an album.

To keep the D.I.Y. spirit alive, Dayjob teamed up with Discpartners to make a logo and help give them a look. May rock and roll never die.

Portfolio: Nobody in Particular Presents

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 23:37:42 MST

Nobody in Particular Presents is Colorado’s biggest independent promoter for live music and entertainment events. Dayjob clocked in to develop, design, and implement an industrial strength site to handle the organization, explanation, and promotion of all shows for NIPP’s many venues and their events.

Location photography, a thick spread of Dayjob design, and a custom content management system makes the NIPP site the very model of a modern web application. The NIPP team can quickly blog, edit band bios, import discographies live from Amazon using web services, and send out targeted marketing emails with just a few clicks. Colorado music fans can listen to the songs from a simple Flash player, and subscribe to upcoming shows via RSS so they never miss that next Johnny Cash show.

(Johnny Cash is gone, Todd. It’s time to admit it.)

(faint sobbing echos through the room)

Portfolio: Mike Doughty

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 20:20:05 MST

Mike Doughty, former front man for the band Soul Coughing, needed help launching his acclaimed solo career. Already a pioneer in promoting himself online, Mike needed a site to match his music: witty, comical, and spontaneous. Dayjob delivered with a site that gave Mike a microphone to the world. A blog, calendar and news page all easily editable from a content management system we developed especially for bands callled Playola.

Artwork and illustration was made to fit the personality and persona of Mike, and the photography and design for this project extended to the CD packaging for the Reissued Albums, Skittish & Rockity Roll, available after Mike’s Major Record Deal with ATO Records (one of the founders being some guy, Dave Matthews?)

Check out more from the photoshoot at the greenappleslingshot gallery.

Portfolio: Wendy Woo

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 23:09:35 MDT

We partnered with Commotion Music Promotion to Playolafy a new web site for Wendy Woo, one of Denver’s most successful singer-songwriters.

Wendy’s new site lets her quickly and easily update her fans about goings ons, new music, and upcoming shows, all through her web site and mailing list.

Portfolio: Kelly Buchanan

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 23:09:31 MDT

New York based singer/songwriter Kelly Buchanan hired Dayjob for her World Wide Web representation. Dayjob designed a site to allow Kelly to keep in touch with her fans via news posts, photo galleries, a music player, and upcoming shows, all with a few clicks (or finger picks).

Working with established art and photography, Dayjob reinvented Kelly’s look for the Internet, and quickly built an efficient site to support her albulm release and national touring schedule.

Portfolio: Smith Mountain Lake Homes

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 23:09:20 MDT

Jim Singleton, a Buyer’s Agent for Property in Smith Mountain Lake Area in Virgina needed a site to distinguish himself in the local real estate market. Dayjob utilized local photographer Ted Pratt to help create a website showcasing both Jim’s services and the local landscape.

Utilizing a custom web based application that lets Jim update detailed information about his listings, and helps Jim’s clients quickly find out about available real estate in the Smith Mountian Lake area.

Portfolio: Colorado Apartment Locators

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 21:32:03 MDT

Already having an existing site and identity, Colorado Apartment Locators approached Dayjob to help them better connect with people listing apartments and their potential renters.

Dayjob developed custom content management system that quickly let property managers submit the details of their rentals with full photos, and then let renters search with a simple interface to find them.

The site uses Google Maps to show where the properties are in the metro, so the users can quickly find the apartment in the perfect location, location, location.