When people go on business trips, they often trade business cards with a bunch of fellow professionals. SXSW is no exception. In fact, if you need inspiration for designing your next business card, go to SXSW and meet people. Take their cards and keep them in a safe place.
These are some of the ones I got from new friends. With apologies to Mark Bixby, that mangled one up at the top is Greg Storey’s. It didn’t do so well in the washer (remember the part about keeping them in safe place?). The one in the upper right hand corner is mine. Sadly, I left for SXSW with not a single business card. I creatively left them in a pile on my desk. Rats.
Now that I’ve finally caught up on sleep from both SXSW, immediately followed by a bunch of late nights working on the redesign of this blog and a secret project (hopefully you’ll hear about that soon), I’ll do a quick wrap-up of SXSW.
The panels were fantastic, i especially enjoyed the Design Eye for the List Guy and How to Be a Web Design Superhero. The Jim Coudal and Jason Fried Keynote was extremely inspiring too. Monday night we went bowling and to a party put on by Lifehacker. Before bowling a bunch of us went to dinner at the Spaghetti Factory. The food was ok, but the conversation was awesome. The party on the last night was ok, the only highlight for me being that I got to meet Craig (as in “list”).
I’m hooked. SXSW was a ton of fun and possibly the most valuable five days of my web designing career. That said, it’s a bit hard to put into words why. The panels were fantastic, chock-full of both inspiration and good information. More importantly, though, SXSW was the first time I’d really met …
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Greetings and welcome to the new Watchtan. I realigned the design here for a few reasons, but first, please indulge me by allowing be to share with you a bit of history.
In eight days, this blog will be entering the terrible twos. It started out with this design and then about eight months later I got bored and switched to this one, which suited my personality a bit better. Then I was pretty happy with it. About a year into version two, I realized that at no point in that time did I ever feel the need to redesign it. I wondered if something was wrong with me, as I don’t have a tendency toward that kind of contentment with my design.
Over time I did start to realize a few problems with the design of version two, and right around SXSW I really got the itch to fix it.
Over time, though, the purpose of this blog has changed, as have my desires for what to write about. I’ve decided to make this blog more a part of Be Good Not Bad. This blog has given …
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So far, SXSW has been a true delight. But good gravy, it’s stinkin’ hot here. Did anybody inform the South that it’s still WINTER? Sheesh? I know the people who live here get used to it. I used to live in southern Louisiana, and I adapted to the miserable humidity and awful temperatures. But that’s the point, I adapted over time. Stepping off the plane and walking around downtown in 90°F weather is a shock.
I’ve been hanging out with Mark Bixby a lot, and that’s been a treat. He and I had some chinese food, and got along quite nicely. This was somewhat a result of his Free Starbucks at SXSW post. On a side note, he told me all the people who responded to his post specifically asked to find a place other than Starbucks to hang out.
The panels have been awesome (a nice change from my last conference, AIGA in Vancouver), but as most people know, that’s only half of SXSW. The evening events have been, for the most part, a blast. 
Moreso than the panels, they really illustrate …
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And I’m off to Austin, leaving my sick wife and goofy dog. Oh my poor heartstrings. Hope to see you there.
Anna got it into her head that she wanted to start using Flickr a bit more and so I helped her out by adding a little flickr strip to her blog showing you the three most recent photos she has uploaded. I also showed her a cool extension to iPhoto that just lets you export straight to Flickr.
Speaking of out of control, check out these seedlings that she planted a month ago.
Lastly, check out Blingo. I say this because I wouldn’t lead you astray; it’s neat. Blingo is a search engine based on Google, so the results are quality. But every time you search, you randomly enter to win some sort of prize. Tonight, I was searching for “Mutt”, and instead of the results I got a message telling me I won a movie ticket. Neat! When I filled out my claim form, I chose to get an iTunes gift certificate instead of a movie ticket, since Lent just started and I’m cutting back on the …
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A little over a month ago we got it into our collective head that it would be a good idea to have an outdoor fireplace. We don’t have any indoor fireplaces that I know of, so we decided to go ahead and put one outside. If you have ever been to Colorado during the Summer, Spring or Fall, then you know it’s wonderful to spend time outside, especially in the evenings. We bought one from Amazon (that’s right, free shipping on a 43 lb fireplace). 
Anna put it together and soon we had an excellent-looking fireplace, but only a grassy yard on which to put it.
So, we dug out a 6’x12’ portion of the yard and put some paving stones down. This took less time than I thought it would, but still made for some sore backs. Tonight we lit our first fire and I’d say it was a fantastic success.
In other news, I leave for SXSW in a week. If you’re going or happen to live in Austin area, shoot …
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Be Good Not Bad is all about really good web design, based on the utmost respect for web standards, accessibility and respect for the user. Based in Denver, Colorado, Be Good Not Bad is run by Brian Warren, freelance designer, blogger, homebrewer and coffee nut.