Jared Christensen
from http://www.jaredigital.com/
Jared Christensen: is a web and graphic designer living and working in the greater Dallas, Texas metroplex. As an all-round user experience designer, Jared makes sure that systems, interfaces, language and graphics are human-friendly, emotive, aesthetically pleasing, clear, on-brand and usable -- with a touch of mellow smoothness. He has brought his knowledge and skills to bear on projects for clients ranging from Fortune 50 companies to bootstrapped startups. He also fancies himself to be somewhat of a writer, but sadly he has little to say.
Jon Tan’s year’s-end retrospective was a fun read, as was that of my dotcomrade Travis Isaacs, so I figured I’d give it a shot as well. The problem with following in these two fine gents’ footsteps is that I suck at photography, both the “taking the picture” part and the “recognizing that this would be a good time to take a picture” part.
But one thing I apparently don’t suck at is blathering all over Twitter. A quick review of my tweets from 2010 confirmed that I predictably chirped about pretty much all the important (and sooo many unimportant) events of the year.
So, without further ado: my year in tweets, with commentary.
The year started out with a frantic race to the finish line with our You+Dallas project, the ongoing redesign of Blinksale and at least 2 other incubating projects. I shipped my best stuff in 2010, and it sure feels swell.
The Tablet may be the one thing Apple has done in the last 10 years that has done absolutely nothing to excite me.
“Got to play with an iPad for a bit this morning. Keyboard is truly awkward, but everything else is pure awesome.” #
Mmmm, tasty crow! My skepticism turned to curiosity as I started seeing some of the real-world applications of the device. Now, after getting an iPad for Christmas this year, it has already taken up near-permanent residence on my coffee table, serving as a stellar substitute for my laptop or iPhone for many activities. It’s a lot of fun, and holds a lot of possibilities. I can’t wait to see how it will evolve.
In late 2009, we tore out a massive, ugly (and massively ugly) 20×30-foot deck left in our backyard by previous owners to make way for something less… hillbilly-ish. This year, we succeeded in putting in a smaller but nicer stone patio, flower & gardening boxes, 4 trees and 6 bushes. These days, there’s nothing more relaxing than sitting outside on a warm day, enjoying the sights, smells and sounds. Time and money well spent.
Had a great time at the Bright Corner reunion shindig. Been a while since I’d seen most those guys. ∗sniff∗ good times…
Bright Corner is the little company that brought me to the Dallas area almost six years ago, and I credit my co-workers there for most of my subsequent successes. They are not only my friends, but my mentors. It was great to get most of the old crew back together to reflect on the past, discuss the present and get excited about the future.
I’ve lived in Texas almost my entire life. We get the occasional dusting of snow. Sometimes it even sticks for a few hours. But this? This was pretty extraordinary, especially for March. Unfortunately, I don’t think I could live anywhere that it snows on a regular basis, because after a while I was kind of coming unhinged by the sight of snow. Not a fan, as it turns out.
Redesigning a beloved web app. One that I & thousands of others have used for years. The stress. I feel it.
By April, the design for the new Blinksale had been chosen and I was working my way through all the various pages. Having incredible respect for the Firewheel/Alamofire crew (who originally built the app), it was a bit unnerving to be putting my fingerprints all over Blinksale.
Steam for Mac may end my use of Boot Camp for gaming. #yay
I’d been gaming from Windows via Boot Camp for years, but as great as Boot Camp is, it’s a real inconvenience to have to load up a different OS just for gaming. Though Steam for Mac has its issues (and a limited Mac games catalog), it is still so great to be able to play most of my games on OS X. Look me up. I’ll give you one guess as to what my Steam handle is.
I can’t tell you why I never tried a music subscription service before, but for 5 bucks a month, it’s tough to beat Rdio. 2010 was a fantastic year of music for me, and it has much to do with this great music service. I discovered a boatload of both new and old music in what was a sort of mid-year musical renaissance.
Tonight was my third time seeing Imogen Heap perform. It’s still not getting old.
I don’t get out to many shows these days, so I choose wisely. You can’t really go wrong with Imogen Heap. Her charming stage banter is only surpassed by the great music. This show was especially great, as she had a full band along for the ride!
You+Dallas launches! It was a rough and tough road, but ultimately an incredibly rewarding experience. I learned so much about managing complexity, design patterns, working with developers, documentation and much, much more. EPICPROJECT. What a relief it was to ship it.
Whew! A month after You+Dallas launches, Blinksale’s redesign rolls out! Clearly, I’ve been busy. Though this redesign was mostly a reskinning of the app, there was a bit of new visual design thrown in. And, a couple weeks later, Blinksale added brand new functionality the the workflow in the form of estimates.
Do you have video content that you’d like to sell? Would you like said selling to be dead-simple? Hit me up; I have a protip for you.
Um, did I even sleep this summer? Between our You+Dallas client work, and work on Blinksale, our scrappy little studio had been developing a cool new way to buy & sell videos online. Monetizer, as it is called, was beta-launched at the end of July and has been enjoying a steady stream of signups and tire-kickers every since.
iPhone 4: best birthday present ever. It may be the finest piece of industrial and software design I’ve ever seen. Even now, I hold it and feel like I truly am living in the future.
Instagram is great! Makes me wish I hadn’t bought Hipstamatic a couple weeks ago.
Though there had been other apps with the same or similar functionality, Instagram was the first to craft an experience that felt natural and fun. I had just purchased Hipstamatic and was bemoaning its complexity and rigidity. Instagram was a breath of fresh air, and a great social experience to boot.
Are you a @blinksale customer interested in taking credit card payments on your invoices? patrick@blinksale.com to get on the beta list.
Though only released in private beta at this time, Blinksale gets a huge upgrade feature: Blinkpay. A $10 add-on to Blinksale, Blinkpay will initially allow clients to pay invoices with a credit card. The option to pay with electronic check + other related features are rolling out in the next few months.
This has been a huge undertaking. The feature itself touches many parts of Blinksale, and had to be carefully integrated. Working with payment processors was also a huge challenge. The feature seems fairly simple, but you would not believe the plethora of paperwork and minutiae required to make it work. But that’s the point, isn’t it?
Though Viewzi was no longer being developed and had been essentially left to drift on the internet seas almost 2 years ago, the site was still available to those who liked using it. But the time came when it no longer made sense to continue supporting the non-trivial costs of keeping the service online, and we pulled the plug. Viewzi was a great idea, and I’ll always remember the time I worked on it fondly.
And so ended my last day of full-time employment at Doublewide Labs/Blinksale. It was a fantastic run, and I’m so glad I was able to be a part of such great opportunities. I will still be involved with design and product development to some extent, but not as my full-time gig. Thusly, I am currently looking for work in the Dallas area (or via telecommute). I’m excited for the possibilities!
I haven’t blogged for a while. That’s because I’ve been field-testing the following jams for listenability. For you. Because I got your back like that. I’m like the USDA, but for music. Or something.
Metric – Fantasies
I’m not crazy about the album title (it makes me think of Mariah Carey for some reason, and friends: that’s not right), but holy woah do Metric bring the rock on this, their 4th album. These kids know how to write the hooks, you know? “Sick Muse” may be my favorite Metric song evar, and the video for said song is pretty great, too. It’s amazing to me that much of this album was written during a time when singer Emily Haines was wondering if she wanted to keep making music. Geez, she even sounds awesome when she feels like quitting.
Imogen Heap – Ellipse
Genius. No, really. This album is fantastic, but you might have to work for it.
I would describe Ellipse as more vulnerable and cinematic than Speak For Yourself, Imogen’s last album. That record seemed to have one foot in Frou Frou (Heap’s collaborative effort with Guy Sigworth) and one foot in Imogen’s own eccentric, experimental compositions. Ellipse, by my ear, has now stepped almost completely away from the sweeter pop sensibilities of Frou Frou and planted both feet in a soundscape that I suspect is the closest we’ve come to hearing what goes on in her uninfluenced musical mind. This album is full of homemade samples, delicate melodies and sweeping strings, all tempered by Heap’s commanding precision. Totally delightful.
Lovelikefire – Tear Ourselves Away
Lovelikefire ain’t no slouches. I know this because of the 11 tracks on their debut album only one is a re-recorded version of a song released on one of their two (also excellent) EPs. That’s 10 new songs, kids. They could have phoned it in with, like, 3 to 5 re-recorded songs, and it still would have been an excellent album. But no. LLF aren’t like that. And there ain’t no filler here. These are great songs powered by fantastic vocals and a tight tight band. These are hard-working rockers, and super-nice human beings to boot. Check out the video for “Stand In Your Shoes”:
The Big Pink – A Brief History of Love
This album is a serious time-warp. Maybe it’s just the classic Vaughn Oliver design-fu, but this band makes me feel like I’m in the mid-90s again with their wall of sound guitars and knob-twiddling tendencies. So tasty. And I’m nuts about this “Dominos” song. I may need to join a support group.
I don’t think there’s a better reason to break over eight months of blog silence than this.
Miriam and Marzieh are two Iranian women arrested in March and held for the last six months of their lives in Iran’s Evin Prison. Their crime? Apostasy. Meaning, they practice Christianity.
If you feel so inclined, it would be great if you could head over to Freethemm.com and see if there’s anything you can do. At the very least, it would help to get the website linked up on Facebook and Twitter as much as possible. The more people know about Miriam & Marzieh, the less likely they are to “disappear”, and the more pressure there is on the Iranian government to begin granting basic human & religious freedom to its citizens.
