Chris Jennings

Every so often a project will come along that allows me to venture out of the browser and into a different medium. Say You Will is getting a lot of attention by the press, labels and most importantly new fans. The band and I decided to go in a very colorful direction with a bit of “fresh grunge” to draw attention on shelves and shows.

I began with a panoramic photo of a New Zealand skyline… I found the photo very breathtaking from the moment I first laid eyes on it and wanted to bring that sensation into the piece.

I then scanned some burned and crumpled paper along with some ink splats I created over Labor Day weekend. Soon enough I had a treatment for the type and the rest is history. You can look for this CD, “Now or Never” to drop late October.

After an entire month of delays, Matt Mullenweg and crew have released the highly anticipated WordPress 2.5.  As a WordPress developer, I am excited about the abundance of new features included with the most major release since 2.0.  For example, one of the biggest complaints from my clients is the fact that the standard WYSIWYG editor would try to out smart your code when saving.  Not this time.
Other great features include a brand new admin interface, one-click upgrading for plugins, multi-file upload for attachments, enhanced tagging features, built-in photo galleries, and full-screen editing.

Find download and upload information here, and if in fact you need custom development, get in touch

I’m really jumping headfirst into this, but I have decided to take the knowledge I’ve gained over the course of my online career and put it to use for myself. I have had this ominous “entrepreneur” word laying around for awhile now, and it’s past due time to show up.

So at this point, I have done some preliminary  SEO research  for my targeted phrase and concluded that with the right dedication, I can dominate the phrase in the course of a year or so.  After I begin, I will provide a recap of my success if I so find it.

So let’s begin, I have taken an admittedly ambitious path with the niche I’ve picked, but I feel that with the passion I have for the topic of Teeth Whitening, I will be more likely to stick to it.

In my teens I suffered from naturally stained teeth.  I didn’t smoke and brushed regularly but this wasn’t enough.  My sister had similar luck and was treated by our dentist for $500.  As a kid, this was a TON of money.  I felt terrible for even wanting to ask my parents to pay for a treatment that was so expensive… I mean it was only vanity, not life of death… the stains remained.

I tried whitening strips, over-the-counter bleaching formulas and as seen on TV lights and had no success.  My sister’s teeth were so white and these off-brand solutions had left me broke and without results.

Luckily, I have a few friends in the dental field and they pointed me to their suppliers, unknowingly that I was looking to join them in practice.   To make an overwhelming long story short, I was able to cut a deal in which a certain supplier would ship orders on demand of my orders.

With no further ado, I bring you the Premium White Teeth Whitening system, one of the most powerful procedures available on the market and no thanks to your dentist, priced so that anyone can afford the confidence of a whiter, brighter, smile.

I have some great friends who have started a pop-punk band in my area and things are going really well with them. Earlier this year, they approached me for fundraising ideas and some-what of a proposition - to be their manager. They had asked this because of my network of contacts I have made in the music industry with my clothing company… to make a long story short, I am now managing First at Last part-time - so please check them out their myspace (which I designed) here:

http://www.myspace.com/firstatlast

Here’s to me living a little. Tell your friends and let me know what you think of them.

I don’t know what it is about this time of the year but I have been absolutely swamped.  I don’t think I’ve even looked up once since New Year’s and I am very thankful.  I have worked with some great people and have learned so much already in 2007 that I can’t imagine things getting much better…more about this in a moment.
In other news, my friend Eric (notice the sweet blog design) has nominated me this week for a Thinking Blogger Award.  I’m not exactly sure on what they are all about, but I appreciate it all the same… thanks for thinking of me!

Things really kicked off in January when I was commissioned to code a site for my friend and ex Facebook / Microsoft marketer, Noah Kagan.  After finishing his site, he referred me to Tim Ferriss, an entrepreneurial author, who was looking for a blog design to promote his latest release, “The Four Hour Workweek”, which was released earlier this month.  Please note that I only designed the blog portion of his site.

As I was finishing up on Tim’s site, I was able to land a deal with Joe Rogan, the guy from Fear Factor / News Radio / The Man Show / UFC, to help his team develop a blog for him.  He wanted to be able to have RSS feeds and a mini-blog from the road so of course I recommended the love of my life, Wordpress.  I wanted to take the design in a different direction, but they were worried it would not be consistent with the work they had done… so no worries.  Hopefully he’ll hook me up when I’m out in LA. Look for the launch of the New JoeRogan.net later this month.

Soon after the Rogan era, Noah came through for me again in mid-march with his friend and venture capitalist Dave Feinleib.  Dave wanted a design that wasn’t too cluttered and I am pretty confident I was able to come through for him.  One of my best designs in my opinion.
And if things couldn’t get any better, I was able to join the Miami based startup, OurScene.com, by designing their landing page and blog.  Jason Calliero and the rest of the Ourscene crew are doing big things that are going to effect the way music is done locally and globally so definitely check them out and reserve your seat for the beta.

That’s all for now, thanks again for a great year so far.

I have finally decided to start a “Refresh” group in my community. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, a “Refresh” is a community of developers, designers, usability experts and other new media professionals working together to refresh the creative, technical and professional aspects of their trade and help foster new ideas in their area. The area in this case is the Tri-Cities area of Eastern Tennessee.

If you live in or around the Tri-Cities area (Johnson City, Kingsport or Bristol) and you would like to be a part and/or would like to assist me in planning, please contact me.

This was my first project with Shiftcore Studios. Motion Picture Demise, an Orange Peel Records band, wanted a site that would enable them to keep in close contact with their fans, display tour dates and share photos.

Tim, our lead designer and founder took on the task of designing this layout from art from MPD’s CD. He then animated the main flash header and sent the layout to me for XHTML / CSS slicing.

Once the layout was sliced, I installed wordpress and implemented this design as a theme.

As you may have noticed, I am implementing a brand new design for this blog.  I have spent the better part of the day on the design and I couldn’t be happier with it.

I’ve also decided that this blog will now be much more Design, Marketing and SEO oriented as they are primarily my livelihood.  I want to learn what you know, by showing you what (little) I know.

I’m going to call it a day, if you get a chance - tell me what you think of this new theme and how it could be improved in the comments.

Web + was a project I worked on for Brian. I adapted his design to Wordpress in order to give his blog the custom feel he wanted.

Rose Concrete Coatings was an adventurous web design for a concrete coatings company from Nevada.  Mike from Rose Coatings wanted to show off his work and also display his various inventory of stone finishings for garages, patios and decks.

Unfortunately Mike went with the updating service, HWS, and they have posted a claim on the design at the bottom of the page.  I assure you this is my work and they have claimed it fraudulently.  Oh well!  Still had fun with this one.