projects

For the Love of Corduroy

A public service announcement for people who like Corduroy fabric:

Bad Feather is pleased to announce the momentous unveiling of the newly redesigned CorduroyClub.com, and perhaps more importantly, the imminent Grand 11|11 Meeting of the Corduroy Appreciation Club!

Below is a screenshot of the Corduroy Appreciation Club’s new home. Please visit the website, and if you have a true appreciation for Corduroy fabric, consider both joining the organization and attending the 11|11 meeting, which promises to be epic.

HAIL THE WALE!

CorduroyClub.com

Spin to Win at Sonic Union

SOU_SpinToWin-2

This summer we had a lot of fun designing this prize wheel. Turns out Sonic Union and their clients are having even more fun playing with it!

We created the wheel as an alternative to branded SWAG. Sonic Union is sending its clients away with a memorable experience (and maybe a siiiick prize) instead of more stuff we all get (but don’t really want or need). Prizes vary from ‘Free Stuff You Get Free’ – recycled copy of this morning this morning’s Metro anyone? – or ‘Super Special Commute’, an escort to the subway with a free swipe, to a ‘One Night Getaway’ room at the W hotel. Who doesn’t want a shot at that? A spin of the wheel and a coupon for a free Frosty at the Union Square Wendy’s keeps clients talking about Sonic Union round the water cool for days.

We Got Our Data On, Now Get Your Skis On

We just completed an interactive infographic for SKI magazine online. Data visualization was a new and exciting thing for us to tackle here at Bad Feather and if we do say so ourselves, we’re pretty pleased with the results.



skinet


The oh-so-pretty infographic, which represents the top 50 North American ski resorts’ comparative ratings according to the 2010 Reader Resort Survey for such categories as terrain, snowfall, lodging, dining, family activities, is animated in Flash to allow users to interact and discover the top resorts in each category. The SKI site is chock full of resort stats and content to satisfy your inner ski bunny. Ski season is just around the corner – check it out.

Bring the Noise

We are psyched to announce a new site we built for 1928 Recordings, a Brooklyn-based record label helmed by Ryan McReynolds. Designed in collaboration with our friend Sohrab from Shadowless Kick, 1928recordings.com features a catalog of the label’s releases, listings for upcoming tour dates, and label news and info, all editable by 1928 Recordings (thanks again, WordPress). The online store was built separately using the new White Label service from Insound.com.

Check it out.

BF_1928

For the WordPress nerds out there who might be curious, we used GigPress for the tour listings, Cleaner Gallery and Shadowbox for the image slideshows, Audio Player for the audio samples, and Viper’s Video Quicktags for the video embeds.

Project Management The Bad Feather Way

Here at Bad Feather we’re huge fans of the various Google apps. A recent topic of interest is the fact that we manage our studio operations using Google Sites. We’ve set up a web-based project management and collaboration system using a Google Site in combination with Google Docs and Google Calendar. The added bonus to all of these services being interconnected is that they are free (sorry BaseCamp, but you can’t top that). So here it is, an overview of a few of the hot features of Google Sites and some creative ways we’ve come to use them:

The Google Sites service allows you to build your own internal site without any need for a domain name. However, you can map it to a custom domain such as projectmanager.yourstudiourl.com. It is password protected by your Google account, and easily accessible by anyone the administrator invites to join. Everyone involved with the Google Site can sign up to get email alerts when updates have been made to pages; that way everyone is always on the same page (ha)! There are different page options, including a basic web page, an announcement page, a file cabinet page, a list page and the catch-all dashboard. Every page in your site is designated individually so you can tailor it to the content that will be included. Here is a complete definition of each page.

The Dashboard is the first thing we see when we login, and one of our favorite features. You can customize the dashboard to pull from any of the pages you’ve set up within the site, as well as from your Docs and Calendars. Continue reading →

Bring on the Pickle Party!

We recently completed a small packaging project, creating a set of labels for Bradley Farm. If you happen to shop at the Grand Army Plaza green market in Brooklyn, you may know the ever-popular, bearded chef turned farmer, Ray Bradley. In addition to his beautiful produce and delicious, naturally raised pork, Ray also sells his own brand of pickles, strawberry preserves, wildflower honey and other specialty items [Read: homegrown and ground paprika. Run, don’t walk].

To help get the pickles to market, Heather and Kristen headed to Bradley Farm in New Paltz to jar and label some Dills, Bread and Butters, and the almighty Lemon Cucumber pickles. Thanks to Ray’s generosity, we didn’t leave empty handed and we’ve since enjoyed the scrumptious treats in the studio. Nobody ever told Kristen she might have to wear a hairnet when she joined team Bad Feather, but if you ask her, we’re sure she’ll tell you a day in the country and her own jar of those tasty dill pickles was worth it.

BF_kristen_pickles

Bradley Farm is at the 97th and Amsterdam Market on the Upper West Side on Fridays, and the Grand Army Plaza Market in Brooklyn on Saturdays. We also created a hilarious Ray Bradley button that Ray is selling to his loyal customers to help recoup losses from the late blight that severely damaged this year’s heirloom tomato crops. Support the farm and get yourself some pickles!

Stefan Rules!

We recently completed StefanRules.com, a portfolio site for our friend and occasional design collaborator Stefan Lawrence. The site, designed by Stefan, is built in WordPress and takes advantage of its built-in gallery functions, albeit with a little tweaking and jQuery magic, to create a pretty cool, custom portfolio theme (if we do say so ourselves).

Here are a few of its snazzy features:

  • Thumbnails images of featured galleries get pulled into the home page.
  • Each gallery section has a sliding exhibition of design projects and details, accompanied by a numbered navigation system. For this we used the excellent jQuery plugin jQuery Cycle.
  • An accordion navigation on the left that expands the work section and subsections. While we’re in the habit of sharing, we chose this plugin to accomplish this.
  • And, of course, a blog; this is WordPress after all.

Stefan Rules - Home

A Passport to Learn Money

Our friends over at Skill-Life Inc. launched their first product this week – the Beta version of CentsCity, an online world packed with games that teach teens and tweens financial skills as they earn rewards from their parents, teachers, and out-of-school providers.

We were happy to work with Felix Lloyd and crew again to design both print and online elements to support the launch of CentsCity. Bad Feather created the CentsCity “passport”, which players receive via snail mail when they sign up. The passport comes with a set of stickers kids can affix to pages for banking, investments, charities, rewards, and general progress as they play online.

SKL_pass_cover

We also teamed up with our pals at Dtek to design and develop the container site, CentsCity.com, to house the game, which was created by 360KID. Check it out and invite some youngsters to Learn Money! Earn Rewards!

SKL_centscity

The Fruits of Our Labor

Recently Bad Feather had an opportunity to design a wine label! James Benedetto of Scotto’s Wine Cellar in Carroll Garden is releasing his ’05 Benedetto Blend and he came to us for assistance. The design was inspired by the wine-stained, handwritten label stuck on a sample bottle from winemaker, Tony Coturri.

The Coturri vineyards are sustainably farmed, the grapes are hand harvested and the wines are hand crafted. The limited production of the Benedetto Blend 2005 is a bold, earthy wine that will compliment hearty peasant food well. We’re finding the wine and the label very appetizing!

BF_benedetto

Emily Heller Photos

EH website

Emily Heller is a friend and photographer who recently relocated from Brooklyn to San Francisco to pursue an MFA (sniff, sniff…). Emily’s work, both commercial and fine art, is food photography and she sure does make tasty pictures. We recently completed a new portfolio site to promote her work and we’re happy to see she’s utilizing the WordPress platform for blogging and regularly adding new images to her portfolios. Check it out for yourself.

We also need to give props to Emily for the photography of the print pieces in our Bad Feather portfolio. Thanks for making our work look so good!

Playtime with Sonic Union

These invites are hot off the press and we couldn’t wait to share…

Our pals over at Sonic Union are preparing for a launch party to introduce their newly founded audio post company to industry friends. We created this self-mailing poster as an invitation to the event in their amazing new space where they record, mix and – ahem – PLAY.

SOU play poster

Announcing (drum roll)… the all new PoetryProject.org

Bad Feather is proud to introduce the new identity and website of The Poetry Project.

Located at St. Mark’s Church in NYC,  the Poetry Project has been publishing, hosting readings and workshops, and providing resources for writers and readers of contemporary poetry for over 43 years. They needed an updated identity and site that looked beyond their rich history to their future as a vital arts organization.

The new logo is composed of a brush-lettered scrawl projecting in a megaphone shape. The colors are bright and bold, like the character, present currency, and dynamism of the organization itself. We hope the new identity communicates the voice of the Poetry Project:

…The most important thing that we do is present… Without listenership, readership, AUDIENCE, the Project wouldn’t exist for the luminaries to do their thing.

We built the site in WordPress (as code is poetry), allowing the Project to post content on a regular basis in various types, including calendar events, photos, audio, and video from events, historic archives and news. The Poetry Project hosts many events, so a calendar function was a big priority. For this, we used the plugin Event Calendar 3. (Other plugins used, if you’re curious: Contact Form 7Audio Player, Smart YouTube, WP Super Cache, Cleaner Gallery and a few more. We went plugin crazy on this one).

The site also features a store to sell, among other things, membership to the Poetry Project and subscriptions to their publications. We used Big Cartel for that puppy.

We’re psyched about the results. It’s been a true labor of love. Take a look.