Have you met, Michael?

You should have by now. He has been working with us since May.

Michael’s sense of design jives well with What Cheer. From graphic to web to interior to product; he loves clean, modern, sensible design.

He is a Flash guru and a HTML/CSS purist. His ideas are frequent and well formed.

When he is not designing slick websites; he is probably watching a movie or hitting a ball over a net.

Say hello to Michael: hello-there-michael (at) what-cheer.com

If you are lucky, he will be working on your next project :)

Yippity dooda!
John Henry Müller

We recently launched a new website for Regal Print. We love this company. They offer the highest quality printing around and are an amazing group of honest, hardworking people.

Quality and service. Everyone says this about themselves, right? But for Regal, it is true. Really.

Our challenge was to convey these ordinary concepts without using the cliché. We used large images, friendly headlines, smooth transitions and subtle animation to achieve this. Flash was the best choice for this project.

Like many other printers, Regal uses CMYK for their corporate colors. For better brand differentiation we literally put a spin on the color scheme and let it transform to fit the page.

Along with the website design and development, we worked closely with the Regal staff to refresh and simplify the Regal logo.

Features include a help microsite, newsletter sign-up, portfolio gallery, staff gallery and a sample request from.

Take a look: RegalPrint.com

Whoooptie woo wooooo!
John Henry Müller

Last weekend, our family turned old yard signs inside-out to create something new. Our objective was to use the yard sign medium for something silly with no commercial objective.

As of today, two of the signs are still up. Look for them at the traffic “peanut” at 50th & Happy Hollow and the six-way stop at 52nd / Happy Hollow / Western Ave.

After analyzing our market statistics…we have generated an estimated 1400 unique smiles per day.

1. Pomegranate for President

Side one: reads: “Pomegranate for President”
Side two: a patriotic pomegranate drawing

2. Fruit Cartoons

Side one: a drawing of a banana relaxing with a book
Side two: a orange wearing roller skates

3. Toaster Joke

Side one: reads: “What do you call a toaster with wheels?”
Side two: reads: “A ROLLERTOASTER”

Wow! You found the very first entry of our shiny new weB LOG.

For a long time we have understood the benefits of blogging…but also understand the risks of an unkempt one. Starting a blog is a commitment. When clients ask if having a blog or a news section on their site is a good idea for them, we reply with questions: Can you produce relevant/meaningful content for your readers? Can you do it often?

If the answer is yes and yes, we also warn them of the discipline it takes to keep it updated.

Starting a blog is easy and exciting. Keeping up with it normally isn’t. But can it be? We are gonna try.

This is not our first blog. Pathetic BiRD originally started as a blog way back in 2002 (before the term “blogosphere” made it’s way to cable news channels). The site eventually digressed to a visual sandbox. Denise also loosely maintains a vegetarian food blog.

So what is this weB LOG going to be anyway? Mostly about the stuff we create and how we do it. We are making an effort to step out from behind the curtain. We get to work on a lot of great projects for some really great people. It’s time we talk about it.

Can we do it often? See for yourself.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
John Henry