sydco.de

Mia Dyson This site encompasses everything I’ve enjoyed about my jack-of-all-trades lifestyle over the last few years. I co-produced Mia’s album, played drums on the record, tour with her in the US and our music co-operative The Co-Op helps her handles logistics and strategy here in the US. Of course she needed a website refresh in the midst of her album release. So I got to ask my longtime music/design/code comrade Matt Hryorsky at Soul Sparrow to take the lead on design. He did an unbelievable job using Rob Helmstetter’s clean and classic design and translating it for the web. This is a hand-coded Wordpress site that pulls in a ton of dynamic content and allows Mia and her team to update just about any piece of it themselves.  My role: Coding and Project Management Design: Matt Hryorsky using Rob Helmstetter’s artwork 

In early 2011 I signed on to do some development for Scott Feldman’s new venture DI-Why. Fast and reliable is the name of the game with his clients and so Wordpress has become the platform of choice for almost all of Scott’s clients. Howie Day is a mult-million-selling artist and his people came to DI-Why with a few ideas — keep it simple, showcase the music and build it in wordpress. So I did. It’s the first theme build I’ve done from the ground up and one of the few sites I’ve designed and built completely solo. My role: Design and Coding

Megan Burtt Megan wanted a site that both expressed her individuality and gave her fans a deep user experience. She wanted to hit all the normal band site marks (video, mailing list, a store, rss feed, social networks, etc) but she wanted the information presented in a way that really had some personality. She worked with Aaron to develop the look and feel and once they’d come up with this I put the site together. We use Forrest’s hand-built CMS “SimpleCMS” to update news, videos and press quotes.  My role: Front-End Coding, Client Relations Design: Aaron Taylor-WaldmanBack-End: Forrest Grant 

Bitches Brew Revisited When Art Edelstein came to me with this project, I knew Aaron was going to love designing it. Aside from being a fantastic designer, he’s a musician with an appreciation for things like the seminal Miles Davis album Bitches Brew. Aaron put together this concept based on Mati Klarwein’s original album art and I built the site. Again, a good example of what can be accomplished using one page. Through some clever fold-outs we can tease information like the band’s bio and past tour dates while still maintaining readability and ease of use.  My role: Front-End and Back-End coding, Client Relations Design: Aaron Taylor-WaldmanBased on artwork by: Mati Klarwein 

Taylor Carson Taylor came to me through his manager James Kenly who was working closely with Taylor to develop a complete look and feel for Taylor’s album “Defending The Name”. The website was the culmination of my work as Design Coordinator on the project as a whole, which included album art, iTunes singles art, the website and other assets. We started with physical artwork, which was designed by Rob Helmstetter. Rob’s album art was passed on to Matt York, a designer/developer, to translate to the web. Matt’s grasp of web UI and James’ vision for a clean and simple lightweight site came together in what I think is a gorgeous marriage of usability, depth and simplicity. As James was fond of saying — everything you need is right here on the home page. Music, video, tour dates, mailing list, press credibility, contacts — there’s quite a bit of information there yet it’s easy to access. A very rewarding corollary of this project was getting to play a role as something of a field producer/assistant director on Taylor’s music video.  My role: Front-End Coding, Art Coordinator Design Assets: Rob Helmstetter/Foundations DesignWeb Design: Matt York/Soul SparrowManagement: James Kenly/Horizons Management

Lane Gibson Lane’s studio nestled in the hills of Vermont is a full-service music studio with lots of great gear but more than anything, it’s got a wonderful vibe which is exemplified by the view that greets you as you enter — the Green Mountains right outside the studio window. So, when Lane came to me looking for website assistance, I knew it was imperative that we found a local photographer who could capture that vibe so we could communicate what it feels like in the room.  I found Andy Duback who came by and had a very productive session with Lane. Those photos were passed on to Aaron to work into his design, and I implemented the design. I remember this project being very easy — the photos tell the story so well.  My role: Front-End Coding, Client Relations Design: Aaron Taylor-WaldmanPhotography: Andy Duback

Kiva Imports Shauna, the founder of Kiva Imports, came to me looking for a simple solution for her African imports-with-a-purpose business. A well-travelled friend to Africa, she wanted to move beyond selling her goods at tradshows and festivals and give the artisans she represents a wider audience. After doing some research together we felt that Big Cartel was her best bet to host the store. While Aaron put together a look and feel I touched up her photos and cropped them for the site. I also spent some time getting to know the proprietary coding language Big Cartel utilizes.  I’m proud of the way this project went. The site displays the work and communicates her message very clearly and at the same we stayed well within her budget. Now she’s able to travel overseas to gather more goods and her site is doing the selling for her wherever she may be. My role: Front-End Coding, Client Relations, Art Production/Photo Retouching Design: Aaron Taylor-WaldmanBackend: Big Cartel Custom Flickr Slideshow: Forrest Grant 

Hotels & Highways This is my band. This spring we embarked on our first national tour and needed a full-featured site. Drawing from my experience on the Taylor Carson project, I strove to make the homepage clean and simple while giving us some additional features like a blog powered by wordpress. Rob Helmstetter, who did the art for our album, helped me make design decisions to accomplish that goal.   My role: Front-End & Back-End coding, Design, Client Relations ;-) Design: Rob Helmstetter/Foundations Design

Rachel Cantu Rachel came to me with a finished album and artwork that she wanted to use as a thematic starting point for a website. We quickly realized that Celeste Potter’s wonderful hand-drawn style was the best way to communicate Rachel’s vision. So we laid out the site and I used source material from Celeste to build a watercolor world for Rachel. My role: Development and Design, Client Relations Artwork by: Celeste Potter