Jesse says...

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m working for a few progressive campaigns around Minnesota. One that I just pushed live is for Marcus Harcus, a progressive activist in North Minneapolis. Marcus is a smart politician with great policy ideas and a lot of youthful energy. Plus, he’s just an overall nice guy and family man. This campaign is important to me not just because Marcus is a good friend, but because he’s running to be my representative, and I think he’d reflect my values well. He is the face of the changing Northside. Good luck, Marcus!

I’m currently building sites for a few progressive campaigns, and I’m happy to announce the launch of the first of these. I recently did a little identity freshening for the Joe Bodell for Minnetonka City Council campaign site. Joe is a strong progressive who is maybe best known as one of the founders of the Minnesota Progressive Project. I got introduced to Joe and his campaign via Tony Petrangelo, another MN Progressive Project contributor and fellow web developer, who suggested Joe’s site could use some work. Check out the result of my handiwork at joebodell.com.

We got a little write up in the Rake a couple of days ago. Yes, we really are a sexy, sexy agency.

I did a little illustration for my buddies Ensemble Productions and their latest performance, Seven Santas. Jeff Goode, the playwright, liked the image so much, a theater troupe he’s associated with based in LA picked up the image for their own performance. And you know what? A Metromix posting for the play called my image “the best poster ever designed!“. Woohoo!

A great time was had by all this weekend at the party of the year. And Bryan got the pics to prove it!

It’s been a while since I posted, and as I’m really tired right now but can’t seem to sleep, I’ll give just the quick overview of my world as of late:

• Work’s been really busy, but I have our Open House to look forward to on the 3rd. Check out our promo for the party!
• Freelance has been equally busy, but I should have a nice new piece to put up on my website when I’m done (in the next couple of days, probably).
• We’ve got some nice stuff happening with the new Étoilé site… but that won’t launch until early next year. But still, I’m really happy with the new direction.
• I’ve taken a hiatus from learning Chinese for a while, instead focusing my language-learning endeavors on Portuguese. I don’t know what it is about Portuguese, because even though Spanish makes much more sense for me to immerse myself in here, I just keep getting drawn to Brazil and it’s beautiful sounds.
• On the theme of Brazil, I’ve started taking samba lessons. It was stepping out of my comfort zone, but it’s going really well so far.
• I just discovered Alan Watts, and he’s awesome.
• I really dig the new CW show, Reaper. It’s damn hilarious… check it out if you find yourself home on a Tuesday night with nothing better to do than watch ridiculous television.

A couple of swanky shots of Sevnthsin Internation Headquarters… man do I ever like coming to this space every day…

Check out what we do at work… or when we’re supposed to be working:

Sevnthsin Company Blog

For two weeks now I’ve been a sinner. A Sevnthsinner, to be precise. Starting a new job can be tough, and it was kind of a stressful first week, but I think that was just the standard job-adjustment situation. Jamey, my buddy and now boss, has been awesome, and it’s going really well working for him. So far, I’ve been working on Black Van Records and some smaller stuff for Target. I’m actually doing a surprising amount of PHP, which I really dig being able to do again. And while PHP is certainly not Ruby, CakePHP has been a blessing. As fun new projects come in (and there look to be quite a few in the next couple of weeks), I’ll be adding links here for the perusal of my lovely audience.

As of Friday, I will no longer be an employee of MRM Worldwide. My buddy Jamey from Sevnthsin has invited me to join him on his path to world domination. Starting Monday the 30th I will be Employee Number 1 of his new firm, cranking out sites for the likes of Target and other local shops (and some not so local clothing companies and record labels).

As part of my wonderful and elaborate send-off from MRM however, every day since last Wednesday there has been cake brought into the office by others in the creative department. That means that today is Cake #6, with two more on the way. You would think after six days of cake I’d be feeling a bit over-sugared. The fact that I’m not yet is a true testament to my love for sweets. A big, gigantic thank you to the MRM Minneapolis office for a wonderful two years. Keep up the great work, guys! (And if any of my faithful readers out there ever finds themselves in Minnesota in need of a design job, check them out… they’re a great bunch of people!)