I am also 99% finished with the new site for Jack Lannom - Lannom Worldwide, and Green Garbage which is an environmental clothing and jewelery company. That is is really cool in my opinion. So hopefully I get the last bit of content from those guys and it launches soon. I’ve also designed a few new logos and have been tweaking up the Digital Skratch site so go check that out.

We have also started to work some with the Alt Space Art Gallery in Coconut Walk down in the Grove. If you are in the area you should check out their gallery for some pretty cool original paintings, and limited edition apparel. So if you purchase anything from those talented artists you will probably get some Digital Skratch buttons and stickers in your bag!

I would also like to pay my respects for those who lost their lives on the September 11th attacks.

During a recent episode Lilly and Marshall needed extra money to pay for some improvements on their new apartment. So Marshall creates a website to sell his wife’s clothes. They mention the address on the show lillyandmarshallselltheirstuff.com and again after the show. Rather then just having it be another promotional site for the show they are actually doing some good. The website sells items from the show for a fundraiser for the LA Children’s hospital which I thought was very cool.

Also in a previous episode about Robin and her embarrassing past as a teen pop star in Canada, they showed her second music video. When I was watching it I was wondering if they would have a link to it on youtube or another website. At the end of the episode it said go to myspace.com/robinsparkles to see the rest of the video. I thought that was a brilliant way to showcase the video, and create more content and information about the fictional 80’s pop star.

This is a great example of how some subtle cross promotion mixed well into the plot of the show can help extend the following of the show beyond the television and to the internet.

Over the years I found myself always going back through my clients sites and making small minor improvements. Even if we were not paid to do regular maintenance on the sites and just did random updates when the client requested I would often go in free of charge and make minor improvements. Many times they are only things that probably I would notice. But those things over time help keep the site fresh and little improvements add up. The changes would be small graphical improvements, adding favicon logos, iphone bookmark logos, google analytics or improvements with cleaner code.

Clients would greatly appreciate this attention to detail which has enabled us to slowly grow our base of close clients. Often times a small improvement or doing that little extra thing is all it takes to set you apart.

These three sites are perfect for iphone / ipod users or anyone who travels lots and would like to make better use of their time.

http://www.dixero.com
It is a service that is prefect for people on the go or like listening to podcasts. Now you can stay up to date on your favorite blog sites while you travel. It is a service that allows you to listen to rss feeds via a computer, ipod etc. It is currently in beta version right now.

http://spanishpod.com
This service allows you to learn spanish via your ipod or iphone. There is a free 7 day trial with access to the paid lessons and after that you must pay to continue.

http://www.wirenode.com
This service allows you to design and build mobile websites with relative ease. It also has it’s own version of analytics available.

Last week I searched for “clean web design” and Digital Skratch came up in posistion #54. After deciding to optimize for that term I checked the results every few days. At first we dropped to position 72, and then regained to spots 54 and 53. I checked it today and found our site listed at the bottom of page 1 in the #10 spot!

Again this is proof that proper SEO and ongoing website maintenance should be at the top of your list if your website or online marketing is important to your business.

In the world of design I think the web 2.0 phenomenon has brought simple design to the forefront where we see it every day. Simplicity is great for usability, as the design gets out of the way of the content so the user can focus on the job at hand.

With that said there is a fine line with good simple design and design that doesn’t put much on the page. One must find a balance between simplicity, getting the message across and not looking too barren. I have seen many 2.0 style sites with hardly anything on the page and they look so amateur. Then I have seen other sites with relatively the same amount of “stuff” on the page and they look amazing. It takes a professional designer who can add those subtle things to achieve clean web design.

I think simplicity goes beyond design and should be a way to live life -Less is more.