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Meet:Jon

Jon has a B.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing from Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois. After completing his Master's Degree from the University of Illinois in Mass Communications, he worked in video production and post-production in conjunction with several advertising agencies in Central Illinois. In 2003, he began producing long-form and 30-second television commercials for Insight Media in Springfield, Illinois. He produced several award-winning campaigns, including a finalist for a national award for creative production from the Cable Advertising Bureau. He also co-produced and edited several short-form music videos and full-length concerts for national, touring musical acts, and two seasons of the aforementioned Alternate Tunings, a television program on the UPN network showcasing live musical performances.

Posts by Jon

• Wednesday, November 19, 2008
  Google Adds Every Picture Ever to Archives   Design (0)

  Not exactly, but close.  Google is now hosting  “millions” of images from the archives of LIFE magazine, the vast majority of which were never before published.  The best part: the scans are wallpaper-makingly ginormously huge.   Some of them suffer from some halftone issues, but hey, what do you expect?
  Obviously, there’s no Creative Commons license [...]

  
  
• Tuesday, October 28, 2008
  Make a Recent Bookmarks Widget with LaterThis and PHP   Computer Machines, Web Design (1)

  I like LaterThis a lot, because I  work on two computers and I like to access my bookmarks on both of them.   It works like this: Find a page you want to save, click on the LaterThis bookmarklet in your browser toolbar (or bookmarks list) and walla-it’s automatically saved to your account.  As an extra [...]

  
  
• Wednesday, October 15, 2008
  Some Very Nice Dudes Give Rifflet The Once Over   Computer Machines, Projects (0)

  How great is this?  Iyaz and Rob from Channelflip (The UK’s Finest Video Magazine) take a pretty detailed look at Rifflet.com, our project site for lonely musicians to upload and remix unfinished songs.  If you like a good creation story, you can read Part I and Part II of “Making a Social Music Site in [...]

  
  
• Saturday, October 11, 2008
  TV on the Radio’s “Dear Science”   Design, Packaging (0)

  Never mind that this album is completely great.  From the titles written in one of those old push-pin on velvet signs to the delicately laid out “letter to science,” the artwork is one of my favorites from this year.
  Update: Here’s a song from the album:

  
  
• Monday, September 29, 2008
  How Do You Read Comments on Your Blog in a Foreign Language?   Computer Machines (10)

  A few days ago, Hajas Tamás was kind enough to read my post about Making a Social Music Site in Drupal and mention it on his blog.  The catch is that, two years of college Spanish notwithstanding, I am uni-language; if it ain’t in English, I got nothing.  I recognize exactly three words in the [...]

  
  
• Wednesday, September 10, 2008
  Making a Social Music Site in Drupal, Part II   Open Source Reviews, Projects (2)

  At the end of Part I, we had decided on Drupal as the CMS of choice for Rifflet.com, a site where users can upload and share unfinished music they’ve recorded. Here’s where the problems started:

  I initially installed Drupal 6.2 because GoDaddy, our hosting company, offered it as part of their 1-Click installation program.  If you’re [...]

  
  
• Monday, August 4, 2008
  Kickass Handmade Greeting Cards   Design, Packaging (1)

  I found these handmade greeting cards at the MacArthur Artist’s Market here in Springfield.  They were made by Good Behavior and feature found art from school textbooks and other recycled stuff.

  Bonus: I also bought the greatest thing ever–a little bound notebook featuring a ’70s drawing of the Mercury spacecraft.

  
  
• Tuesday, July 8, 2008
  Saturn’s Wildly Original New Tagline   Complaint Department (1)

  Nice one.
   

  
  
• Friday, June 20, 2008
  5 Best Typography Videos   Design (1)

  I’ve been finding a bunch of typography-related videos on the YouTube. Here are some of my favorites. There are definitely some similarities between the entries based on movie dialog, but they’re still amazing to watch.
  5. Pulp Fiction in Typography

  The blood spatter is precious.

  
  
• Wednesday, June 11, 2008
  Handle Your Business, All Open-Sourcey Style   Open Source Reviews (1)

  We’ve been looking for an online substitute for Quickbooks for some time now, mostly because we run our business off of three computers and the one that has all the invoice info. always seems to be the one that’s 1) farthest away and 2) not turned on. Here’s a great list of online invoicing [...]

  
  
• Friday, May 16, 2008
  Making a Social Music Site in Drupal, Part I   Open Source Reviews, Projects (8)

  I had an idea for a website the other day: I play the guitar, and I have a terrible memory. So, when I come up with a song idea, I usually record it on the computer before I forget it. I assume I’m not alone, and a lot of other people have a bunch [...]

  
  
• Sunday, April 20, 2008
  The Gray Lady and the Mobile Interweb   Complaint Department, Mobile (0)

  I don’t use CNN.com on my phone, because it sucks. I’ve sort of given up on news sites in general, but that’s a different story. The real reason I don’t use CNN.com is that after every line or two, I have to click a ‘more’ link to go to the next line. [...]

  
  
• Wednesday, March 26, 2008
  Be Your Own Pet’s New Album Art   Good Advertising, Packaging (0)

  And the record industry suckers me out of another $10. From the gatefold packaging to the actually hand-drawn typeface (I always compare similar letters to see if it’s just a fancy font or not), this album is one of my favorites this year. The highlight is the fresh-from-a-foodfight photo cards packaged away on the [...]

  
  
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This is the blog for Ancillary Factory, a graphic and web design company in Springfield, Illinois.
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