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The Start Conference
I recently had the pleasure of working with Messrs. Jeff Veen (Greg’s brother) and Bryan Mason on the launch of their latest enterprise: The Start Conference.
The conference is a great idea: learn how to start a company. And it’s one I wish had been around when Erika and I started Mule. Jeff writes about it rather eloquently on his “weblog”, which is usually devoted to steampunk fan fiction.
They were also a joy to work with. You know a client relationship is going well when they’re comfortable enough to send e-mails like this one:
Can we put the Let’s Start a Company tagline back? Then Veen will quit punching me and I can buy you beer?
Written by Mike Monteiro on June 12, 2008 with 2 comments | 
All Things D redesign
My two favorite kinds of phone calls to get at work are: a) new clients referred by old clients, and b) old clients coming back for more work. Either of those are a sign of good service.
So when Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, one of my all-time favorite clients (and yes, YOU are the other one), called for a home page refresh we were extremely happy to work with them again.
The first incarnation of the page featured great big photos of Walt and Kara and did a great job of establishing the site. But, ultimately, the site needed to get more active to keep up with the news cycles. We went for a mix of blog and prominent features. More of a blog/magazine hybrid, or a blogazine, if you will.
Take a look and/or read Kara’s post about it.
Written by Mike Monteiro on May 13, 2008 |
Work with good-looking and talented people!
Since its inception as a splinter organization from the Works Progress Administration in 1942, Mule Design strives to collect the best talent of its generation under one roof. We scour the country looking for talent in the design field. We look for young emerging talent. We go to field hockey games.
And now we’re looking for a project manager.
Yeah, you really DO want to work here.
Written by Mike Monteiro on October 16, 2007 with 1 comments |
Serious Eats
A new Serious Eats launched this Wednesday, and we’re very happy to have been one of many chefs in that kitchen. Alaina Browne and the The Serious Eats staff managed to take the one comp we gave them and flesh out an entire site, while adding some fantastic details. I love the final site.
Not too long ago Alaina was the first ever project manager at Mule, and our first full-time hire. She’s seen how we make the sausage.
She left us when she moved back to New York to run Serious Eats, and although we’re thrilled she’s doing what she was clearly born to do and doing it really well, we miss her like crazy. And we’re really proud that when the time came to take Serious Eats to the next level she thought of us.
Written by Mike Monteiro on July 20, 2007 with 3 comments |
Movable Type 4; The Return of Real Betas
We’ve been working with our friends over at Six Apart on the latest, and best, version of Movable Type. They released a beta today.
We’ve been using MT to build sites since we started Mule. And, yeah, there are some other really good blogging tools on the market right now, but MT feels like family. (Of course, that’s not always a compliment.) So when they asked us to do some UI work on MT 4 we were happy to help.
We’re pretty happy with the results. We’re also pretty excited about what still needs to happen. Six Apart released an honest-to-goodness beta. Not a web 2.0 lying liars telling lies and hedging bets ‘beta’; but one with some real bugs. Bugs that hardcore MT users will help us fix. By getting the developers community involved we’ll have access to real user data and the opinions of some really smart people.
Of course it’s risky to put an unfinished product out there with its warts showing, but it’s a smart risk. You’re gonna get a better product out of that experience. And it takes a grown-up confident company to take that risk.
Written by Mike Monteiro on June 5, 2007 with 8 comments |
All Things Digital launches!
When Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher wanted to expand the reach of their incredibly successful D Conference they came to Mule. Together we designed a site that showcases the kind of good, honest feedback that makes D successful in a way that’s accessible to many, many more.
With the help of Brian Oberkirch, Alex King and Adam Tow it just launched!
Go play with it. (Let me know if you find all the Easter eggs!)
Written by Mike Monteiro on April 25, 2007 with 1 comments |
All Things D: Launch Party
Photo by Adam Tow of Tow.com.
Monday night, the Mules headed over to the Computer History Museum in sunny Mountain View to celebrate the impending launch of All Things D. The design of this site was a fun project for us. Oh the stories we could tell! We’re under an NDA, so we won’t. Pity for you.
As seen in the photo above, we had a delightful time celebrating the launch with our colleagues. More chardonnay? Yes, please!
Written by Katie Spence on April 18, 2007 |
Chow Warms Gawker's Cold Cold Heart
Chow launched today and we couldn't help but be impressed by Gawker's review of the food-centric site. There was not one bit of snark present in the entire blog post. Which either means that Chow plied Gawker with lots of yummy snacks or Chow is getting the whole magazine-turned-web-portal thing right.
We choose to believe the latter. Our stance has nothing to do with the fact that we helped Chow's sister site, Chowhound with interaction design and consulted with CNET in the early days of its acquisition of CH. We just like to believe the best about websites. We're nifty like that.
From the review:
Imported pretty much whole cloth from its previous incarnation, Chowhound is now simplified and better organized for easier browsing and searching among the thousands of restaurant reviews, cuisine discussions, and so on.
Congratulations Chow and Chowhound! May you crush the Food Network!
Written by Katie Spence on September 18, 2006 |
Federated Media Launches
Federated Media launched their new site today. We're happy to have worked on that along with the fabulously talented and good-looking Andre Torrez, FM's VP of Technology.
Oh, and wait 'til you see the search engine. It's kinda good.
Written by Mike Monteiro on March 15, 2006 with 2 comments |
We Heart Prints
Amber Costley, the other member of the Mule Design Studio Arts & Crafts Department, and world's happiest goth, just kickstarted a good-looking blog where she compiles her favorite beautiful and affordable art prints.
we*heart*prints. Now go buy some art dammit.
Written by Mike Monteiro on February 28, 2006 |