February, 2010
The Site: The new site (version 2) for the boldest live theater in town.
http://bedlamtheatre.org
The Client: Bedlam creates some of the most interesting and original theater in Minneapolis. They run their own production and, in addition, rent their space to other groups. This means they have a large number of events to keep track of and promote, and they needed a site that could accommodate them all.
My Role: Having designed, built and maintained their version 1 site, I was keenly aware of the workflow issues and front-end pros and cons that they were experiencing. I worked with them to find the new look and feel of the site and to expand the functionality. In the end, the new site was built on WordPress, with collaborative design and unique plugins.
The Technology: One of the initial hurdles of this site was importing the existing years of data into WordPress, including media and event dates. I created a unique plugin for them called TheatreEvents and wrote a custom import script that inserted the new posts and attachments and populated the data. The plugin features direct hooking into the admin interface so that event data entry is in the same form as post entry. On the front-end, the plugin allows for sorting by the event dates and custom week and month views. The plugin will be released publicly soon.
The Highlights: Weekly calendar in the sidebar of most pages with Ajax navigation. Monthly calendar of events.
Tags: Development, development lead, minneapolis, mysql, PHP, wordpress
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January, 2010
The Site: Thomson Reuters, the leading provider of legal and business research products, needed a site to promote the launch of their newest product, WestlawNext.
http://westlawnext.com
The Client: Thomson Reuters’ clients are savvy and busy. They knew that if the site was going to reach them, it had to be fast, solid and engaging.
My Role: Developer in small, focused group to create the prototype and an on-site advisor during integration with their existing systems.
The Technology: The client needed to integrate the site into their CMS but they had asked us to create and test a prototype site before handing it over. We built the original with very limited PHP since we knew TR would be using .NET in the end but PHP allowed our team to quickly build the prototype. The site uses a custom Flash video player and also has a limited but useful mobile version. This mobile version was very important to the client as the majority of their customers regularly use BlackBerrys and other mobile devices. During integration a few technical hurdles appeared from use of their legacy systems but because I was on-site at the time, launch was not affected.
The Highlights: Multiple video players used in conjunction with jQuery UI tabs. Animated main navigation.
Tags: CSS, Development, javascript, jQuery, OLSON, programming
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November, 2009
The Site: The site of the premium disposable tableware manufacturer.
http://mychinet.com
The Client: Chinet wanted to revamp its site to drive sales of a product line that was deeper than most people knew. As part of a full campaign, OLSON designed, developed and promoted their new website.
My Role: Development lead of concentrated development group. Development planning and production.
The Technology: The client had an existing CMS which they wished to keep. The system had been hand-rolled by another agency. We were asked to work with the CMS, improve it where needed and rebuild the public-facing side using CodeIgniter PHP framework. The end product included an implementation of the Zend Lucene search library and smart data caching to reduce server load and speed load times. The team developed inviting Flash features for the home page and Moments Calendar on the site. Also, the site used MooTools for JavaScript interactions. Finally, the site was built for progressive enhancement where the content is available without Flash or JavaScript and present for SEO.
The Highlights: Club Chinet where visitors can save recipes and tips and sign up for the Chinet newsletter, Moments Calendar where visitors can find a reason to celebrate any day.
Tags: codeigniter, development lead, javascript, PHP, progressive enhancement
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October, 2009
The Site: Advertising agency OLSON’s showcase. http://oco.com
The Client: OLSON is dedicated to building social circles around their clients. OLSON designed the new site to show off the ability and results of our work.
My Role: Development lead of concentrated development group. Development planning and production.
The Technology: We wanted to make our site fun, intuitive and easy and the data long-lasting and reusable. The CMS behind the site holds a lot of data about our work and client relationships (more than we could show on the site) and we wanted that data to be reusable for presentations and other communications. We loaded the information into the Daisy CMS and stored it in logical ways that would allow us to easily retrieve whatever we were looking for. On the front end, the site uses Java Faces and a custom caching system to quickly present the data as pulled from our custom Java services. The site uses jQuery for JavaScript interactions.
The Highlights: JavaScript-backed animation of features and features card stack on home page, New and Featured Work, Interactive Client List.
Tags: daisy cms, development lead, html, javascript, progressive enhancement
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September, 2009
The Site: A next-generation meal planning site from General Mills. [NOTE: This site is still in development. The features noted here are based on the prototype, information architecture and in-progress development.]
http://betterathome.com
The Client: General Mills has an extensive recipe collection (Betty Crocker is a flagship property) but they needed a way to stand out from the crowd of recipe sites and a way to connect with the current frugality of today’s families.
My Role: User experience development lead. My team worked onsite with internal General Mills task teams who were developing the browser output and deep data areas of the site. I also worked with another OLSON developer to create the prototype that helped win the job.
The Technology: The main elements of the front end are built with the MooTools framework which was coaxed to cooperate with generic ASP.net AJAX components. The recurring recipe tiles on the calendar, recipe box and search pages employ a micro format that allows identical markup to serve several purposes and designs around the site; this allows the back-end development to be more efficient while giving the JavaScript classes reliable semantic information.
The Highlights: The site’s most useful and interesting feature is the meal planning calendar that gives the user drag and drop capabilities and drill-down or -up views. Also of note is the recipe box which works easily with the calendar to bookmark and categorize recipes.
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August, 2009
The Site: Flexible and stylish boutique for promotion of Target’s most stylish clothing and accessories.
http://style.target.com
The Client: Already well known for their design-on-a-dime offerings, Target needed a site to regularly update with new product announcements, features about their relationships with top designers and frugal fashion tips.
My Role: Implementation of ongoing content and evolving design of blog. Each post has a slightly new feel that keeps the whole blog fresh.
The Technology: The site is built on WordPress but uses custom short codes and fields. In this way, the project is able to keep WordPress’ ease of use while using unique design features.
The Highlights: Designer’s directory from which users can quickly access any designer’s Target collection. Integration of Target’s universal header and footer navigation, including seasonal updates, into the WordPress theme.
Tags: Development, OLSON, PHP, programming, progressive enhancement, wordpress
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May, 2009
The Site: Information about, commentary on and current events in the practice of law. A custom WordPress theme for Thomson Reuters.
http://legalcurrent.com
The Client: Thomson Reuters is the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. They needed a blog to maintain contact and conversation with legal professionals.
My Role: Development lead for custom WordPress theme.
The Technology: The data is driven through a WordPress installation but the theme is setup to enable a number of special features. The site uses native category functionality to populate special areas of the site while keeping those specific categories out of the blog flow, e.g. Featured media and Headnote of the Day
The Highlights: Custom design, unique widgets and features.
Tags: Development, development lead, OLSON, PHP, wordpress
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March, 2009
The Site: The home of Lee® Jeans and Apparel.
http://lee.com
The Client: Lee is one of the top Jeans brands in the world. The new site was designed by OLSON for ease of use and style.
My Role: HTML and JavaScript development during principal development in small group. PHP programming of prototype site for proof of concept which was handed over to third-party back-end developers. After launch, development lead for follow up and enhancements.
The Technology: Dojo Toolkit for JavaScript, complete with custom builds and minification. Our team also provided Flash elements for featured messaging. Deep progressive enhancement; the site is completely usable and friendly with or without JavaScript, Flash or images.
The Highlights: Fit Finder, asynchronous results filtering and pagination built to work with IBM’s WebSphere technology.
Tags: html, javascript, OLSON, PHP, progressive enhancement
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February, 2008
The Site: Weather information destination in use across Hearst Broadcasting stations.
http://www.kmbc.com/weather/ (and many others)
The Client: Hearst Broadcasting is a part of the powerful and historic Hearst Corporation. They needed a friendly and useful interface for the weather section of the stations’ sites.
My Role: Part of the small, dedicated development group.
The Technology: The site is built for progressive enhancement and semantics but at the top level the interface is JavaScript driven with AJAX-loaded content and smooth animations. The JavaScript uses the Yahoo User Interface library and build system to provide a consistent experience across browsers and platforms.
The Highlights: Home page tiles are arrangeable by user and saved in a cookie to persist across visits. The tiles and their associated content are built abstractly to allow content owners tight control over presentation and interaction.
Tags: Development, javascript, OLSON, programming, progressive enhancement
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April, 2006
The Site: Online showcase for the work of renowned collagist and painter, Steven Lang.
http://stevenlang.net
The Client: Steven Lang needed a site to show his work and needed it to be congruent to his approach and style.
My Role: Development of light-weight, custom CMS to allow the artist to easily update the site. Mr. Lang had a clear idea of how he wanted the site to look and act, and asked me to make the site a reality.
The Technology: The site is built on PHP and MySQL. It features custom JavaScript for the gallery interactions and uses a few CSS tricks to keep the background’s ceiling and floor in place at almost any resolution.
The Highlights: Implementation of the artist’s design vision, unique and JavaScript gallery interaction.
Also, here’s my original post about this generation of the site.
Tags: Development, development lead, mysql, PHP
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The Site: The new site (version 2) for the boldest live theater in town.
Hi, I'm Joe Song. I live in Minneapolis. I'm a Senior Developer for OLSON and a musician when I want to be. This blog is my public personal stuff.
