Sunday, January 29th, 2006

I don’t think I’ve really mentioned my brother’s studio or his website, so I figured I’d give both a plug now. Jason recently (well, about 3 months ago now) opened up a recording studio in Alpharetta, and it’s a sight to be seen. Granted, I have only seen a few photos of other studios, but I am nothing short of impressed with the entire facility. It has a live room that’s got to be around 20x 15, with a full-featured control room, vocal booth, break room, etc. There are a lot of shots on the studio site, and I have taken a few myself.

Anyway, I also created the web site for his studio, which is complete in the sense that it’s live and has content, but still going thru some changes on it’s way to the full-featured page we’d like it to be. Eventually, the site will have more video, flash and audio content on it.

One thing I noticed about competing sites in the area - and really in general - is that they not only look cheap & don’t really focus on their target market, they are static pages that simply do not immerse the target demographic in the ’studio experience’. I’m not sure what the perfect approach to that is, but I think that when you’re dealing with 16-24 year olds that are looking to book studio time, it’s important to sell the aforementioned ‘experience’. Being in the studio with your band mates has to be one of the coolest things to a teen/20something in a band, and you have to really push that cool factor.

In an effort to stick with a standards based site that would do well with search engines, I opted out of making a flash-heavy site, although the main header does use flash. But, the presence of audio, video and interactivity is there … something other local sites simply don’t take advantage of. I feel this will drive traffic to the site for a couple of reasons. First of all, by featuring photos, mp3 downloads, and videos of bands in the studio, you will instantly get traffic from the bands being recorded and their friends/families. Additionally, you get residual traffic from fans of the band looking for any scrap of video or audio they can find. By keeping the content fresh and changing, I think Jason’s site will contribute heavily to his business in the coming years.

I’m pretty proud of how it, and the rest of the assets I’ve created for him (business cards, etc) have turned out. I can only imagine how excited he is to have not only his own business, but a huge professional facility to do exactly what he wants to do - record and produce bands. I’d call it a culmination of everything he’s worked for, but I really think this is only the beginning for him. It’s still an amazing accomplishment, and obviously and everyone that knows him is super proud of what he’s doing.

Check out Spotlight Sound Studio here.

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Posted on January 29th, 2006 | No Comments »

Friday, January 27th, 2006

So where has Mr. Daniel Andrews been you ask? A lot, actually. Most notably, I have found another new job that will hopefully be the last job change for quite some time. I’m really excited about the people I’m going to be working with, and the area it is located in is exactly where I hope to live in the near future (Midtown, at the corner of Monroe and 10th Street). Overlooking Piedmont Park is a pretty nice location, to be sure.

Anyway, I’ll be doing web/interactive design and hopefully it’ll be something I can stick with for a while. Like I said, if I end up living in Atlanta long term, that’s the area I’d like to end up in. Living and working in such close proximity would be nice.

In other news, the quest to get back (or maybe just get) into shape is on. My goal is to run the Peachtree this July, so I need to get up to 6.2 miles before then. After one week, I’ve run a total of 7 so I have a lot of work to do. Should be interesting to see how long this lasts…

I sold my k750i and got a black RAZR - while I miss some of the features my old phone had, the RAZR seems to get much better reception, have longer battery life, and is smaller than I even imagined it would be. The camera isn’t as nice as the k750i, but it still turns out pretty good. Not too sure I like the interface of Motorola phones - very unintuitive and very unattractive - but I can’t argue with it’s form factor and reception. Bottom line, that’s what a phone is for.

I’m planning on attending An Event Apart on April 3, down at the 755 club in Atlanta. I don’t think I can pass up a chance to see Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer in the same room speaking about some great web related topics. Should be good stuff!

Posted on January 27th, 2006 | 2 Comments »

Saturday, January 7th, 2006

It’s been a while since I talked about football on here, but it’s wild card weekend, and the Bucs are playing the Redskins in Tampa this weekend.   After 2 piss-poor seasons, it’s pretty exciting stuff to see them back in the playoffs.  The crazy thing is, most people (myself included) didn’t really think they’d be playing in the post season. 

If they can beat the skins this weekend, I think they have a pretty good chance at doing some real damage in the playoffs.  The Redskins match up better against Tampa (because they have a very good defense and a good balanced offense) than the other teams they could face, so I think this game could go either way.  However, if I were a betting man, I’d take the Bucs at home by a touchdown.  Let’s hope I’m right.

Posted on January 7th, 2006 | 5 Comments »