Joel G Goodman - For Media & For Web

Summer Activity

Well, the Bravery site has been up for a month. I know this because it’s been exactly a month since I’ve posted on this site. There have been a lot of exciting things happening and a lot of new work coming in. I spoke at WordCamp ATX 2013 last Saturday and had a blast. I think it went well and I was asked to give the same talk at WP Summit on June 11th. I’m excited to do so, and if you work with WordPress at all, you should consider attending this online conference. It’ll be great.

Monday and Tuesday of last week I went to Artifact Conf. here in Austin and got some great inspiration for improving the way I design and work. I also feel like I got better plugged into the creative design and tech community here. (more…)

It’s Alive! Bravery Transmedia Site is Up

It took a [long] while, but v1 of the Bravery site is now live at http://braverytransmedia.com.

Crossing that task off of Wunderlist felt really good. There’s lots to come, though. In order to get it out the door I decided to pare back some features originally slated for the first launch. Being nearly two months away from Bravery’s one-year active mark, I felt like I need to at least get some visibility for the work we’ve been doing.

This first iteration is essentially a portfolio, blog/news section, and a contact form. That’s it. There are some half-done pieces I hope to get up and running in the next few weeks, but we’ll see how that turns out.

I’d love for you to take a look and give me your thoughts in the comments on this post.

My Workflow vs. LayerVault

Last November I started using a service called LayerVault. LayerVault’s pretty cool. Basically, you install a little app on your Mac and it monitors a folder. In that folder you save the design files you’re working on. That could be Photoshop, Illustrator, PDFs, and just about anything. The app syncs that folder up to your LayerVault account and keeps an eye on each revision you create. As soon as you save your PSD, a revision shows up on LayerVault’s site with a full preview image and everything.

I loved it at first. I was able to share Signposts (their semiotic device for a milestone) with my clients, and they could comment and request changes. I was happy to pay $20 a month for the service because it covered everything I could want and even managed to create a solution to a problem I didn’t know I had. (more…)

This past Tuesday I got to spend an hour talking about effective Admissions homepages with Ashley Hennigan and two of the awesome guys at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I’ve gone through the process four times: Twice on a site-wide scale, a twice for specific admissions campaigns. In this episode we share our insights into not only managing an effective admissions redesign, but staying sane in process as well. Check it out.

Higher Ed Live // Admissions Homepages on #AdmissionsLive

Admissions Live: Homepages

On Flight

I grew up around airplanes. As a kid I thought the coolest thing ever was that my dad was a pilot and some of my earliest memories are set in Chino, CA at the Chino airport, inside of my dad’s hangar. He flew for his uncle’s hotel business but the planes felt like our own since he also cared for them and maintained them. I would often go to work with him and the smell of jet fuel (and the occasional scent of cows from the nearby dairy farms) worked its way into that pool of scents that trigger vivid emotional memory in me. And I like it that way. (more…)

How Netflix Is Making a Sneak-Attack on Television

This time last year who would have thought that Netflix would be the company to completely disrupt traditional television? Probably very few people, but the introduction of House of Cards—their first true foray into premium original content—marks the beginning of a flank attack to the television old-guard.

For years various factions of the public have been crying out to their cable and satellite providers to unbundle television programming and deliver a la carte purchasing options. Many have dropped their subscription television altogether and have opted to pull streaming content into their homes by way of a Roku box, Apple TV, or Boxee setup. iTunes is about as close as any of us will get to a la carte programming with it’s pay-per-episode model, but it isn’t anywhere near what we had once had in mind. (more…)

On Music Memory

I often heard my mouth saying and saw my fingers typing this statement:

“I love music because of its memory.”

I’ve written it down again and though my memory has lessened over the years, there’s no doubt in this mind that my own love for musical artistry is rooted in its ability to capture and store entire memories within the confines of three to five minutes and that upon listening to several simple bars (I spend too much time // Chasing windmills) we are transported through time and space and sight and smell back to a state so vivid we can’t help but fall back in love with the song. (more…)

On Pavement I

The pull of deep black tarmac stretching for miles through the deserts and forests, mountains and valleys, is something that sits at the core of my own identity. The structural form of the classic road trip has been done justices and injustices, but when I connect my own life’s experiences to the road, none of that history matters. What matters is movement.

The summer before my sophomore year of college was eventful. I took the standard Christian kid pastime of working for a church camp, albeit one I had a long relationship with. In high school I would make the drive up from the desert, around hairpin turns and through blind corners until the scraggly brush of California’s high desert became tall, majestic Ponderosa pine trees.

The air always turned cooler around that second bend and I’d keep my windows down – unless, of course, it was winter and that coolness took on the form of bitter cold. My small car would fill up with the scent of vanilla and wood and that indescribable freshness that mountaintops send out into eternity. And it was here that I found so much joy, tension, relief, care, pain, and revitalization. Those mountains, with their wide lakes beckoning the sun to fall with a gentle splash into their waters, and imposing rocks turning black against the unmatched sunsets that southern California so smugly gifts its inhabitants each evening. Those mountains were my place of solace. (more…)

On Artistic Drive

There was this feeling that I would get often – well, I remember it as being a frequent sort of instance – that would get my mind moving and propel me, emotionally toward creation of … something. During college, in particular, it came more in the form of what I recognized as melancholy. I found that place to be warm, actually, and full of promise; pregnant with words and melodies and good intentions.

In those days I would actually do something about it, much the same as I am doing something now.
(more…)