About 1:00 this afternoon, I got an email from Ethan Millard, who hosts a show called The Nightside Project on the grand daddy of talk radio stations in Utah. He wanted to know if I was interested in talking about what I do.

It seems in a conversation on Twitter, a friend let him know that a local guy had been involved in producing the halftime show for Super Bowl XLV.

After a quick email exchange, I was booked to be on the show the show later that night.

Here’s how it went down…

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I was a little worried listening to their first segment as I waited to go on. They didn’t dig the halftime show, so I was afraid they had me in studio to grill me about it. But I had a great time with Ethan and Alex, and thought they were cool guys to talk to.

It’s funny. You work hard to do cool things, but rarely get a chance to talk about it. I really appreciate the invitation to be on the show, and I hope to cross paths with these guys again sometime.

It was a wonderfully fun project, and we’re excited to help spread the magic in future years.

Since the last parcel sleigh has left the north pole, and the crew up there has turned their energy to preparing for Christmas Eve, I thought I would share the letter that Santa sent to our own little guy this year.

Thanks to all who helped us spread a bit of magic, and I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

In my defense, life was a bit different back then. I was single and had just hauled my butt 700 miles away to chase a dream. The whole reason the blog started was to keep my family up-to-date on the latest and greatest happenings from California. …of course, that explanation sounds much nicer than how it actually felt. To speak more plainly, I was getting annoyed at having to re-count the same stories over and over by telephone to each member of my family. So I started the blog and told them all to get online.

I wrote very frequently back then. Every little thing that happened was spun into a narrative published promptly – usually the same day that it happened. I actually remember it too. I remember typing the posts while sitting at Starbucks after work. I remember enjoying my life, and being genuinely excited to tell the world about it. Words flowed easily and the stories were fun to tell. So what’s changed?

The stories are still good

I still enjoy my life! Great things happen every day, but the place I share my stories is different. My lovely wife is the first person I run to tell the exciting news. She is usually within earshot, so she gets it even before it’s a story. I still tell the rest of my family stories… but while they were once 700 miles away, now they are 2. So they get them in person. And with that, I’ve sort of covered the core audience of the previous blog. …so is it the audience? Is that what changed to slow things down?

I’ve thought about why I post less, and that internal monologue usually ends up with me blaming life changes, wife, kids, yard, house, work, bills, twitter, facebook… all of which are perfectly valid excuses, and I’m sure they all contribute to this blog getting pushed down the priority list, but none of them really feel like the core of the reason I don’t post here.

I decided some research was in order.

The Archives

I fired up the ‘ol computer and dug deep into the archives of that old blog. My goal: to remind myself what I was writing about that was so damned interesting.

I found that reading those old posts brought back a flood of exciting memories. It was so much fun to read the funny, stupid and passionate things I had to say about my life as new adventures unfolded in front of me. After enjoying myself for a good 30 minutes (I actually was enjoying reading what I had written about my own life, is that narcissistic?) I let my eyes wander to the very short bio that was on the top of every page.

I’m a 25 year old guy living out a dream in southern California. This blog is just a brain-dump of whatever is holding my interest at the time of posting.

I rarely stick to a theme and always have an opinion.

BINGO! That little passage held the nugget that was the exact reason you don’t hear from me more on this site. Pay close attention to that last line: “I rarely stick to a theme and always have an opinion”.

That old site was a hodge-podge of whatever struck me as interesting to write about. This site… well… isn’t. Or at least it wasn’t, because I’m going to do some things different now. Or at least I’m going to start. Here, let’s back up just a bit to why this site isn’t the place I post everything.

The “new” site you’re looking at now came about when I needed a place to present my work, as I was getting ready to make a jump into the freelance world. I needed a place that stayed professional and presented information that centered around what I did for a living, and interests of the people I wanted to hire me. I ripped out a lot of the bits I felt were unprofessional and tried to stick to a theme of designery & eventy things.

I am declaring this course a complete failure.

I have a place to present work. So over time this site developed an identity crisis. It’s not really a personal site… but it’s not a business/professional site either.

Live in the now

So, I’ll no longer be censoring myself, my personality, or my way of speaking, typing, or thinking on this site. I’m taking it back as my personal platform to pontificate about what ever the hell I want and tell my stories to people who may or may not care to read them.

I can’t promise it will pick up quickly. But for now this feels like the right thing to do with this site.

I’ll still talk about designery and eventy things that are cool… but it will most likely be mixed with stories of insomnia, stress, dog poop, a two foot tall chaos machine ruining all my nice stuff, mowing the lawn, renovating an old house, my talented wife, my damn cute son and other completely unrelated topics of interest to me. You can stay and read, like them, don’t like them. I don’t care. I want my soapbox back.

Thank you, and goodnight.

(photo credit: FindMiMi)

For now I’d just like to invite you to see the new TouringPlans.com.

For reference, here’s what the site looked like when they first contacted me:

Betaloft

First, I’ll let you know about the launch of one of my own projects. The re-branding and site design of an absolutely killer coworking facility in Salt Lake City called Betaloft.

If you work independently and, like me, often find yourself talking to your dog during the work day, Betaloft provides a wonderful way to keep your sanity and meet cool people. There really is nothing like the spark of creativity and inspiration that comes from face-to-face time with other humans.

I could go on for hours, but I’ll let you check out the site for more about all that.

Jessica Hische

I was first introduced to Jessica’s work when I ran across her Viney Alphabet in my feed reader. I became an instant fan.

She’s launched a new site full of hand-lettering goodness, and a store full of drool-worthy goods. A must see for type fans of all ages.

On a side note, don’t miss Jessica’s Daily Drop Cap for more beautiful lettering.

Ligature, Loop & Stem

This new site has a small, but wonderful, catalog of type related goods. They’ve just released a white version of their wildly popular Ampersand Test Print that I can’t help but love.

…and just look at that site. lovely.

Teuxdeux

A brand new web app by swissmiss that puts a slick designy spin on the todo app. I love the way it looks, and I’ll spend the next week or so giving it a try.

Mighty

Design hero of mine Jason Santa Maria resolved to work on “stuff that matters”, and he’s launched a studio to do just that. Meet Mighty.

I, and the rest of the web/design universe, will be watching closely for the stream of wonderfulness that is sure to emerge from this little studio.

Prep & Landing

Last, but not least, a beautiful bit of animation hit the airwaves this week. I was skeptical when I heard about it, but last night I watched it on Hulu while I worked. Disney’s Prep & Landing very quickly seated itself as a Christmas classic with me. It’s a creative little story with a ton of heart that will be played right alongside Christmas Vacation and A Charlie Brown Christmas.

If you haven’t seen it… get over to Hulu and check it out.

So I guess that’s about it. I wish the very best to everyone launching something new, something they care about. It’s a difficult but wonderful thing.

Now… back to work.

On May 15th, 2003, I drove a car stuffed with every worldly possession I could smash in it, to California to begin my life as a Disneyland Cast Member. That day, my birthday, I embarked on what would become the most amazing adventure I could have possibly wished for.

My heart is full right now as I try to find a way to express the deep sadness, and giddy anticipation I’m feeling.

I truly love Disney. I love what it stands for, and the legacy Walt Disney left behind. And I love the people. I love those real down-to-earth people who embody the essence of what Guests have grown to expect from Disney. True pioneers. Pillars of talent & creativity that I have had the great fortune to learn from.

Then why leave?

I’m in a new place in my life, a place where I want to spread my creative wings a little more independently. There are a few big things I want to create. I won’t give too much away now, but you can expect a launch this year.

Still, even though I’ve decided to chase a new adventure, I believe Disney is wonderful. There is not a finer group of people on this planet. I will always proudly speak of the time I was fortunate enough to spend as a Disney Cast Member.

So what now?

For now, in between feverishly working toward a launch of some new products, I’ll be ramping up my consulting work. I’ll even happily be keeping a few Disney divisions on as clients after my departure.

That said, I am looking to fill a few holes in my schedule for the next month or so. If you have a project in the areas of User Experience, Collaberation, Web Design & Development or Live Entertainment Events that you’d like me to weigh-in on, please feel free to drop me a line.

I anticipate this blog will see a boost in content as well!

And so there it is… the announcement is made and the next adventure begins. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

As my wife can attest, this type castle project was always meant to be a letterpress poster. When I first started laying out the piece, about two years ago, I got all excited about how cool it would be to do a big letterpress poster of some Disneyland attractions all set in typography. I was so excited to share when I finally finished the artwork I decided to set it loose as a set of desktop wallpapers, but that was more of a fun little tangent than anything. Letterpress was always the goal.

Life threw a few curve balls to slow me down a bit and it’s taken me a while to finally get the show on the road… but I’m very happy to officially announce the Magic in Type Castle Letterpress Posters are for sale in the new shop!

Since the posters aren’t quite off the press yet, I’m offering a pre-order discount of $25 per poster through August 1, 2009. If pre-ordering’s not your thing, just leave your email address in the box on the shop, and I’ll let you know when the posters are shipping.

And what would a post about a letterpress project be without a little print shop eye candy…

Some time ago while searching for a typeface to use for my wedding invitations, I ran across a wonderfully inspiring project on Veer called Type City. It’s just a great example of what a talented artist can do with interesting shapes. In this case, the shapes happened to be part of a well-designed typeface.

Greatly inspired by what veer did with that awesome fly-through (turn up your speakers, even the soundtrack is perfect), desktops, and letterpress prints, I started a project of my own bringing together two great loves of my creative life. Typography & Disney.

Here is a peek at the result:

I thought it would be fun to turn this piece into a desktop image for those who find this sort of thing interesting.

• 1920 x 1200
• 1680 x 1050
• 1600 x 1024
• 1440 x 900
• 1280 x 1024
• 1024 x 768
• 800 x 600
• and of course… iPhone

The castle is set entirely out of characters, ligatures and ornaments from the Affair typeface created by the totally amazing type designer, Alejandro Paul. Every single bit of type was individually placed (and in many cases placed and replaced several times). It took a lot of hours to hammer out how I was going to approximate some of the beautiful architectural detail of the castle. But it really was fun work. A wonderful diversion from my usual faire of markup and style sheets.

I’ve got an awesome letterpress shop ready and waiting to do some large prints for me. Letterpress was the plan from the outset… these desktops are really just a fun little project for tonight. In it’s final form the Sleeping Beauty Castle print will be approx 35″ x 24″ (I had to scour the country for a shop with a press this large). It’s really going to be a stunning piece… I’m very excited to finally get it to press.

This is the first in a series. I’ll be starting with the classic Disneyland attractions and just see where I end up.

You can’t just launch right into a post. You’ve got to introduce yourself, say who you are and what you know. Right? I think I’ve got to tell you how much of an expert I am on some topic or another and tell you why you should come back and read again. But then, maybe I should just let loose with a bit of a brain dump and see what sticks. In any case, here it goes.

It was supposed to be so simple

For the the better part of two years this site root has been a simple splash page. I’ve tinkered with the page now and again, most recently landing on a look I called Colonial Book. I always had plans to do something useful here, but I wasn’t sure what.

What finally kicked me into gear was a conversation with a potential client who needed some web work done. While on a conference call with a team from this company, we started talking user interface and experience. I wanted them to see some of my past work and I ran into an all-too-familiar problem of not having any one place to send them.

This is happening more and more as I take on larger freelance projects. It always turns into this awkward conversation where I say a URL and I wait while they type it in their browser. There is usually some mistake in typing or spelling and it takes me a stupid amount of time to make some minor point with a visual aide. In the end, we always get to the right place and they see the examples, but it’s so cumbersome and makes for a terrible experience for my clients. I needed a solution.

When I finally set about making plans to resurrect this site it was purely to have a place to share my portfolio. So I started sketching and planning. This process cemented that I never want myself for a client. Beyond being demanding, picky, indecisive and late with content… I pushed the scope of the project every chance I got.

So that simple web portfolio morphed many times and finally came to rest on this blog based site where I can showcase all my projects, not just web… and if you can believe it… at the time of launch I still don’t have the work content finished. Ahh well. I just want to get this first iteration out the door. The scaffolding may still be up, the paint is still drying (and in some places still being applied), but things are straightened up enough to invite some guests in. So please pardon my dust… all the rough edges and dusty corners will be sorted out very soon.

So… What’s under the hood?

Elasticity is the name of the game

I am hugely inspired by the writings of Jon Tan on the practical application of elastic em based layouts. Ems were a mystery to me for a very long time, but I’m happy to say I’ve now got a firm grasp and am very happy with the result. This site is completely em based and, as all my testing shows so far, resizes perfectly in all the browsers I care for. That’s not to say IE doesn’t make me want to throw shit at the moon… but that’s another post I hope to make in the future.

Running in new fields

Before this, I had never used the custom fields feature of WordPress. I never really dug into the subject enough to know what they were for… or more specifically, what they could do. When I was trying to figure out how to have an image, alternate title, and alternate subtitle associated with my featured posts, but not to be a part of the post, custom fields filled my need perfectly.

So that beautiful photo of a mountain lake in the winter (don’t ask me what that has to do with launching a new blog… I just liked it) will follow this post wherever it goes. It’s actually part of the meta of this post. So short of re-imagining the style of every post, it will let me give my featured posts their own visual identity.

That’s about it for now

And so that’s my intro. The ice is broken, and the first post is made. I’ll now get on with some regular programming… and, of course, get that portfolio filled out.

I’d love any feedback you may have. Please feel free to comment with whatever you’ve got.