Earlier this week, a project we have been working on launched. It is called: MixTape.me. MixTape.me is an index of music that already exists online and allows users to mix and share playlists.

The site has been getting a lot of attention this last week.

Our buddy Adam Pash is the brains behind the magic. We were responsible for the logo and graphic look & feel. We are very grateful to have worked on such an amazing project with incredible talent.

To get started, first watch this video. Or! If you are the type that doesn’t read instructions, jump right in. It is very intuitive and acts much like familiar desktop music players.

MixTape.me is a ton of fun. Make a playlist and share your link in the comments here.

Wooooooooooo!
John Henry Müller

Meet the newest member of What Cheer: Lauren Christie.

Two months ago we got a piece of “fan mail” from a young creative working at a publisher in Chicago. She was going to be passing through Omaha, so we took her out for lunch.

As it turns out, we happen to be in Lauren Christie’s fan club. We were so thrilled with her we decided to create a position for her.

This titleless position includes anything from office management to art direction and everything in between.

Say hello to Lauren at: nice-to-meet-you-lauren (at) what-cheer.com

I am sure you will love her as much as we do :)

Weeeeeeeeeeee!
John Henry Müller

We recently finished a website for Cariant Health Partners. Cariant specializes in placing occupational therapists, physical therapists and speech language professionals in short-term assignments nationwide.

Cariant’s strength is how far their account managers will go to find each traveler exactly what they are looking for. Cariant creates a “custom experience” for the traveler.

The website highlights four real life stories where Cariant went to great lengths to find them exactly what they were looking for.

We did simple arrow animations for each story to support the logo (which we designed last year). Our friends at MinorWhite took the photos.

Rather then pushing job listings and application forms, we instead lead candidates to a very low commitment page titled: “what are you looking for?“

Have a look-see: Cariant.com

Yeeeeeeeeeeeooooo!
John Henry Müller

We just launched a couple tiny websites for a project of our own. We are working with our friends Bluestone Development and SecretPenguin to bring you: Empty Room.

Empty Room is six one-month-long experiments where artists, entrepreneurs, thinkers, environmentalists, teachers, etcetera are given a small retail space to share their creative ideas with the Omaha community. Rent free.

More info about the project is available at: EmptyRoomOmaha.org

We are collecting the ideas at: EmptyRoomAvailable.org. Our favorite six concepts will each get a month (June through November) to re-invent the space.

A lot of brilliant ideas have already been submitted. I can’t wait for June :)

Soooo, what would you do with Empty Room?

Wooolooloolooloo!
John Henry Müller

We recently partnered with our good friends at SecretPenguin to bring you a website created specifically for Aromas Coffeehouse.

The look and feel is inspired by the low-lit European-style atmosphere of the coffeehouse. To capture the personality of the owner and staff, friendly and witty headlines cycle through on the homepage. These greetings focus on unique qualities of Aromas.

The site has a blog, events calendar and other useful information for a coffeehouse.

One feature that we find particularity fun is the Open Tables counter. This allows coffee drinkers to check table availability online before coming to the coffeehouse. We have been assured, this will be very handy during finals week.

To pull it off, we created a very simple iPhone web app controlled by the barista behind the counter. A couple quick swipes and clicks, the whole world knows how many tables are open at Aromas.

Take a look: AromasOmaha.com

Woooooohoooo!
John Henry Müller

We normally reserve blog posts to talk about the creative aspects of our business. But we recently reached a company goal that we would like to brag about.

We caught up with our start-up costs and we are completely self-sustaining and debt-free.

Yeeeeeeee!
John Henry Müller

Yay! We finally made it!

We are super-duper excited about what the New Year brings.

In early 2009, we will be unveiling some really cool client stuff we worked on in 2008. Plus! You’ll get to see a few of our own projects we’ve been working on :)

We have some other new projects that are just getting underway that will be very special.

We are looking forward to getting to know the new people we meet along the way.

2009, I know we only just met…but I think I love you.

Woooptie woo woo!
John Henry Müller

P.S. Stay tuned by following our RSS feed or signing up for WEN (Worldwide Electronic Newsletter).

Earlier this week we launched a new website (and logo) for Omaha by Design and Benson Ames Alliance called The Cole Creek Project. The project goals are to stabilize the creek, improve its water quality and enhance it for recreational and educational use.

There are two main goals for the website: 1) Inform about the project. 2) Educate about what “YOU” can do.

Stream conservation can be a pretty dull subject…we knew to truly engage people, it needed to be fun yet appropriate for a variety of age groups. We used intensely bright colors, ironically large type for the navigation and quirky animation to create this kitschy look and feel.

Because of the educational component of this project (and the fact that no one has ever heard of Cole Creek!), we felt Stream of Consciousness was a very fitting tag line.

For the community involvement part of the site, we broke down the things people can do into three actionable categories: Start. Stop. Spread.

Help spread the word:

• Send your friends to: ColeCreek.org
• Sign up for the email newsletter
• Follow @colecreek on Twitter
• Subscribe to the RSS news feed

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!
John Henry Müller

Last night was the Nebraska chapter AIGA award show. We saw some great work and familiar faces. There was no best of show awarded and only a handful of golds. I think it is safe to say awards were leaner then past years.

We received two awards this year. A silver for the Regal Print website and a bronze for the Patrick’s Market website. Congratulations to Regal and Patrick’s. We are very lucky to have great clients who allow us to create award winning work for them.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
John Henry

We find inspiration all over the place. One place on the web where I can always expect to be inspired is TED. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design…so no wonder we have an affinity for it.

TED is an annual conference that brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). TED.com provides the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free.

Here are some of our favorites:

• Stefan Sagmeister: Things I have learned in my life so far
• Al Gore: 15 ways to avert a climate crisis
• Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?
• Seth Godin: Sliced bread and other marketing delights
• Dave Eggers: 2008 TED Prize wish: Once Upon a School
• Jonathan Harris: The Web’s secret stories