My sister is starting a power washing business with one of her neighbors. She asked me to come up with a logo and I did… but then I went ahead and designed the website too.
I like to work with variations on the same theme. I like the whale… I got him from istockphoto and then added the water sprays at the top.
I used to be a ManiAAC and that experience was great, but what was really cool were the people I met during that time. From firemen and warehouse managers to graphic designers and accountants. Biggy happens to be the graphic designer of the group and he designed this poster the first season I was a ManiAAC.
Big is a graphic designer and recently he redesigned the ManiAACs MySpace page. He told me to go visit and knowing Biggy’s design experience I knew it would be pretty baller, but when I saw it I was blown away. Click here to check it out.
If you never done any design work then you might not know how much time it takes to make something flow nicely using a predetermined format. MySpace is not user friendly when it comes to template redesign and so in order for Big to make this one look so incredibly professional just floors me. Great use of color, it’s bright and professional and incorporates the right amount of Flash without being overkill. Also, if you check out the video it has me in it and so that is a bonus.
I don’t design websites anymore, but Big does as well as graphic design. I like what he did with the ManiAAC page so much that I may have to get him to hook me up with some cool graphics for www.eddierenz.com which is in need of a complete overhaul which I plan to do in silver and black.
If you need something designed, hit him up at www.designedbybig.com
Companies pay big bucks to have their links added to your blog, why? Because blog data is archived and indexed and the more sites that link to your site the more chance you have of being at the top of the search engine list when people search for a specific site.
Blogs also steer people to your site even when they may or may not be searching for what your site is about. Say I blog about Pamela Anderson on my site for home decor. I might use the phrase, “I saw this color in Pamela Anderson’s house”. Now when someone searches for Pamela Anderson my site will get a hit. Hits are important because advertisers look at the overall traffic that is generated by your site.
So why am I bringing this up? Because I just added a blog section to www.soundandshow.com, updated the overall look to give it a more dymanic impact and tried to keep as much information on the home page while keeping it simple and fun. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Happy New Year!
On Saturday I had a house painting party. That is where you tell you friends to come over and help paint and add the word “Party” on it instead of “help” and it sounds more fun.
Joe, Cody, Amy, Dumas and Melinda came and assisted me and man they worked their butts off. We didn’t stop until around 9:30 and everyone was there before 10AM. I kept thinking, “Man, these guys are killing themselves.” Mostly because I was already dead myself.
The ceiling in the living room, kitchen, breakfast nook, formal dining and hallway have all been scraped. No more popcorn. However, what is left behind isn’t bad, it’s just not exactly pristine either and so I may end up spending one weekend retexturing the living room ceiling, but for now it looks much better than the popcorn.
So about the nightmare…
I picked out these bold colors for the living room, Honey Gold, Turqoise blue, Deep Red, Mountain Trail Green. The blue was going to be an accent wall. The formal dining room was and is still the green and then the living room was going to be mostly yellow. On the little cards it looked so fun and cool, on the walls it looked like Panchos had exploded on them. It was too much.
Dumas was at the house on Sunday too helping me paint, he left and I immediately raced to Home Depot and bought primer and paint to fix the walls. I took the green card because the dining room color was the only color I liked. Then I found this khaki colored with a hint of green that sort of went well with the other green and painted the entire living room that color. It too was darker than I expected it to be once it was on the walls, but when I got up this morning and looked at it, I loved it.
This mistake ended up costing me about 175.00 and a lot of time, however, it was a lesson learned and sometimes you just can’t put a price on valuable knowledge. If someone had told me not to do these colors, I would not have listened. I needed to do it and then find out for myself that I didn’t like it.
If you wonder why my posts haven’t been as frequent it is because I am extremely busy. I know, I know, it’s the same old played out song that you are tired of hearing from me, but wait, this is busy on a whole nother level.
As you know I just bought a house and this weekend I am painting the interior of that house, but what you might not know is that I started a new business. I recently registered eddierenz.com and I do creative and technical consulting. What that really boils down to is in house computer support, small business networking and computer support, web design, wedding, birthday, anniversary, funeral slideshows/DVD’s and digital photo journals and archiving. Whew. What a mouthful. What is more is that I have a business partner in the works who is wonderfully connected and is great with public relations. Our main focus right now is the digital photo archiving.
Why digital photo archiving? Because everyone has old photos that are stored in the attic, on a shelf, in a closet and who really wants to flip through scads of dusty scrapbooks and albums? What is more, if you want to create your own slideshow wouldn’t it be nice if all your old photos were already scanned and categorized and stored digitally? What about storing them online and then creating a webspace for family and friends to catalogue all of their photos and that way everyone can share and see without the hassle of having to drive to grandma’s house in Tinbuctu in order to see pictures of your great grandparents.
Also, when it comes time to do a funeral slideshow no one wants to deal with the issue at the time of the funeral, so why not do one before? It sounds morbid, but in reality it is just a nice addition to your will. Music – check. Casket – check. Slideshow – check. It’s not a service you would normally think about, but there are scads of terminally ill people who would probably like to put together something for their families to remember them by. That is what this business is all about.
I’m actually doing a huge photo project right now that is archiving over 1500 photos, a slideshow, and a destination presentation. Then I have another client that wants me to do all of their wedding photos and honeymoon postcards and memorabilia. We also scan and save old documents, articles and anything else that you would like to preserve in case of flooding or fire.
So the new house will be painted tomorrow and then I have to go to IKEA to furnish my office with some simple desks and chairs. I already got a business phone, cards, website, and next week I am going to open a business account. It’s really hard to believe that things are coming together so nicely. God keeps blessing me and blessing me.
So if you are interested in any of the above services, let me know. The website www.eddierenz.com is still under construction, but there is a services page with some of the stuff that I’ve done in the past – one of my favorite online photo journals is Nikki and Jeremy Johnson’s Wedding – www.postednote.com/wedding.htm