2008 was a pretty big year for me. In the first quarter I led the relaunch of the Comedy Central and Big Think websites as Creative Director at Code and Theory. In March, after almost three years at Code and Theory, I started my own design and consulting company. My first client was Newsweek. By April, I was consulting full time on the Threat Meter project, utilizing Daylife technology to determine the “newsworthiness” of potential “threats.”
In the early summer, I released my first music album in five years, and I worked with xif and the Newsweek team to relaunch the site’s video experience with a custom 3-tier Brightcove player. In the late summer, we launched a beautiful iphone site (i.newsweek.com) which I think is a significantly better experience and is easier to navigate than the current version of Newsweek.com.
In October, after six months of independent consulting, I signed on as Creative Director of Newsweek Digital in the final stretch of the presidential campaign. On election night I was in the office, updating the electoral map as the results came in for each state in realtime. Since then, I’ve focused on growing the design team, rolling out a number of new site features (like the Signal or Noise poll on the homepage) and much-needed improvements, and planning for a complete site overhaul.
There’s a lot of work to be done and some big challenges ahead for 2009. But looking back, I can honestly say that I’m a lot happier than I was a year ago. Maybe this year, I’ll get to take a real vacation with my girl.
