Pagewaiter, LLC

Wonderful Life Clothing’s Wonderful Redesign

Jason Mosley — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 17:08:46 +0000

I have worked with Wonderful Life Clothing for almost a year now helping them out with online promotions and technology. This latest redesign as shown how much we have both grown in that year.

Then…

When I first designed the website Matt Gondek, owner of WL clothing, and I didn’t really know what we wanted to do. Since the brand was so new we didn’t really have a direction we wanted to go for the design of the site.

When I created version 1.0 of the site I just took the colors and design elements from the shirts themselves. Doing this, I created a bright neon website that at the time fit the brand.

At that time we also didn’t know what features we would need one the site so we kind just though things together as we needed them. I usually don’t like to do that, but sometimes you just have to get the website up before you can see what you need.

Building the site on WordPress made it so we could add features, as we needed them. Also since all the content for the site was going to be in a database, a future redesign would not be a big deal.

Now…

Now a year later, Matt, Mick Neal (marketing guru for WL Clothing), and I have a better idea of what we needed.

The redesign took a day of brainstorming (talking over a few beers and bar napkins) and about two days to get it executed. The reason for the quick turn around time was after a year we know what worked and what didn’t on the site. We also knew what customers expected and what the brand needed to be.

WordPress made is possible to launch a website quickly, allow it to evolve, and then morph in to a beautiful butterfly. That’s the great thing about the Internet, you can always change with the times.

Work in Progress

Jason Mosley — Mon, 16 May 2011 02:30:08 +0000

Now that I got a few projects off my to do list I started work on the big Pagewaiter update! I still have a lot to get done but in the meantime if you see any glaring spelling or grammar mistakes please contact me and let me know. Everyone should know that I am not a fantastic speller and I haven’t given my copyeditor friends a chance to look the site over yet.

I am mainly trying to get all my notes and scribbles up on the website first, then I will give it a good once over.

There are two large projects on my horizon so I am looking to get this site done before the end of the week. Stay tune for more updates!

Big Plans on the Horizon

Jason Mosley — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:58:44 +0000

Talk about neglecting a blog, its been almost 9 months since I updated my professional blog. I am about to make a few big changes that will make sure that never happens again.

First I am going to give the site a quick design facelift. Then I am going to reorganize my services and portfolio. Lastly, I am going to start updating the blog weekly.

In the past few months since I last updated, I have been gathering more freelance work. I guess what I am trying to say is, I feel this site has outgrown its personal blog status. The new redesign is going to help market the services and knowledge that Pagewaiter (not I alone) can bring to the table. The biggest changes is, Pagewaiter will be referred to as a “we” and not longer and “I”.

I often work with more than just myself to complete a project and I think it’s about time this site reflects that.

Here is a taste to hold you over: Pagewaiter, is going to be your sources for taking on the ever-changing world of online media. From publishing to distribution, we can help you every step of the way.

My plan is to have the new site launched by the end of April 2011.

Social media and blogging have been filling up my plate

Jason Mosley — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:43:07 +0000

I am sure you heard someone say the phrase: “I have a lot on my plate right now.”

Well today after looking at my personal blog and realizing that I have done what I tell my clients to never do, which is neglect or blog. I thought it would be the perfect time to tell you what’s been keeping me busy.

What’s on my plate?

Managing Wonderful Life’s online brand – A few months ago I told you out a website I made for them. Well now I am also handling their online presence. This is a lot of work since it entails keeping the blog updated, interacting with Facebook, Twitter, and keeping up with customer service via email. It takes up a large chunk of my plate at the moment.
Updating my various blogs – Even though this blog was neglected doesn’t mean that my other blogs were. Trying to keep my Bacon, iPhone gaming, and Startup blogs with fresh content is a lot of work.
Managing my own online brand – With keeping my sites updated, it also means I have to keep my online presence for each site updated too.
Freelancing – This takes priority over my personal projects so when you see one of my blogs start to post less frequently, it’s probably because I have an exciting new project.
Event Planning – This time of year I put my event planners hat on and plan the biggest bacon event in Pittsburgh called Bacon Bash. It takes a lot of work to put on a great event. Every year it gets a little easier.

There’s always room for more bacon.

I am always getting better at what I do so I can eventually start to add new things to my plate all the time. For Example I now have keeping my social networks updated down to science so I could add managing Wonderful Life brand to my plate without overcrowding it. The same can go for updating and writing blog content too.

So don’t read this post and think, “Wow this guy is so busy how could he do anything more.” I can always find time to work on freelance projects. Plus I am always getting more efficient as I gain more projects to take on and complete.

Wonderful Life Clothing – a Step out of my Design Comfort Zone

Jason Mosley — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:45:52 +0000

Wonderful Life Clothing (WL) is a brand co-founded by a long time friend of mine, Matt Gondek. He is known for creating some of the coolest band shirts. If you in to new hardcore music, chances are you own or have seen a shirt design by him. So when he asked me to design his new clothing brands website I gladly took the job.

It was a chance for me to take my design skills and style in a new direction. Since this was a hip clothing brand I would have to use colors and design elements that fit in with the artist featured on the site. I had to step out of my comfort zone for this one.

I usually design very clean and simple websites that use safe colors. The reason I do this is I usually design blogs which want to reach a wide audience. This means you want to keep things simple, so you don’t scare anyone off with hot pink text on a black background.

With the help of Matt and Brain (the other 1/2 of the brand) I felt that I really created something they and their customers can enjoy visiting. Since WL has a younger audience I was able to get away with using bright vivid colors in the layout. This allowed me to have a lot of fun with my treatment of page titles and the navigation on the site.

I really enjoyed working with these guys, and I plan to continue to improve their site as their needs for the website evolve. Things I could see adding in the future are ecommerce tools so they can sell shirts from the site directly, maybe a better way to organize the band/artist interviews once they get a few more under their belt, and eventually add some dynamic content on the sidebar.

Check out there new site and let me know what you think about it (design wise). Also be sure to check out their store and buy a few shirts. I really enjoy the different styles of each artist they used.

Dyslexia made me a Better Blogger

Jason Mosley — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 14:47:28 +0000

I am writing this post for two reasons:

I want to show that just because you have a reading “disability” (I am using quotes because I don’t think Dyslexia is a big deal, it just means you have to do things differently then everyone else) doesn’t mean you should limit yourself.
I don’t see or hear a lot of positive things about Dyslexia and I want to fix that.

Being a Dyslexic blogger does have its challenges since reading and spelling are not my strong points but having it is the reason I excel at it. It’s call the Dyslexic Advantage, a phrase coin by two doctors that study dyslexic children, and it describes the cognitive advantages dyslexic people have. These advantages are in tasks and occupations that require creative problem solving and big picture thinking. Dyslexics also have more drive and motivation to succeed since they have been challenged at every step of their life.

I know this to be true since anytime someone tells me I can’t do something, because I am Dyslexic, I must prove them wrong, like writing. I always enjoyed doing it but more than once in my life was told that I should just give up on it. They told me that people would never be able to read anything written by someone with poor grammar and bed spelling and no editor would take the time to help me.

Well thankfully there are a few nice editors out there and a few 1000 readers that can stand reading posts written by me.

My advantage was I wanted to succeed so I stuck with it. Sure I sometimes write unreadable posts because of never learning proper spelling and grammar. But it’s because I can clearly see the big picture I don’t let that stop me.

I just saw it as a miner set back and started to teach myself those skills buy using my favorite method, the just do it and see what happens method. I do this because my failures just make it easier for me to win the next time I try something. The more I write the faster I learn ways to get better at it. I can’t learn from a book or being lecture too, but I can learn buy just doing it and getting instant feedback, thanks to the internet via comments.

I guess what I am trying to say is, instead of saying “I can’t write and blogging is out of my reach”. I said, “I just going to do it and force myself to learn how to get better at it”.

I hear a lot of people without Dyslexia say they can’t write or they suck at it. I know that to be false, if you like writing and you want to write, then you can be great at it. You just need to do and keep at it. I am no award winning writer but it’s because I write prolifically that I am somewhat okay at it.

Just think what someone could do it they were not dyslexic and they used the same mentality I have. They could be the next bestselling author. But maybe its because they don’t have the Dyslexic Advantage and can’t see their hidden potential.

Advertisers Have Not Caught Up With the Real World

Jason Mosley — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:52:36 +0000

And because of this we lost one of the best internet radio stations, Woxy.com.

Today Woxy.com had to close its doors to do the fact that company that owned them couldn’t find sponsors or advertisers to make the station profitable. You can read the whole story at Cincinnati.com so I will not bore you with all the details. The story of Woxy is really interesting; I just wish it had a happier ending.

Why It Happened
I think the reason Woxy had to close its doors was not because of bad management or poor content. It was because the advertising world is still stuck on old media and display ads. It wasn’t till just recently that display advertising took off. But that just covers one part of online media, blogs. This does nothing for podcasts, videocasts, and streaming radio stations like Woxy.

Many popular podcasts are struggling because advertisers are trying to use display adverting to sell to their audiences. This doesn’t work and there missing a huge opportunity. A podcast has a captive audience that is not only listing, but chose to take the time to download what there listen to. This is powerful stuff.

You would think the ad world would eat this up. They could get their message heard by people that will not change the channel to something else. Also since most podcasts cover a niche, you can hand pick who hears your message. It seems like a no brainer.

The same goes for streaming internet radio stations and videocasts. They too give the same opportunity to the ad world to reach an audience they can’t reach with boring display advertising.

Why Change is Hard
I am not some big advertising genus so I am sure I am not the only person that realizes this. I think the reason the ad world is stuck on only using display advertising is because it’s so easy to track. Every impression, click, or sale can be neatly track in any analytics software. Showing you how effect your campaigns are. The ad world loves crunching numbers.

The thing about advertising on podcasts, streaming radio, and other forms of media is they are harder to track. Yes you can see how big the audience is, but it’s hard to track what action they take on your campaign.

The ad world hates risks and not having numbers to crunch.

What Can Be Done
Sadly as content creators this nothing we can really do. We just have to keep creating killer content and hope the old advertising world catches up to us. It took a while for them to figure out how to advertise on blogs so it’s going to be the same with podcasts and streams. I just hope we don’t lose anymore internet super stars while we wait.

More and more podcasts and streams are starting to find advertisers let help this is a growing trend.

Welcome to my new home for all things blogging

Jason Mosley — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:04:18 +0000

Over the past few years “Pagewaiter” has transformed many times. It started out as the name of my web hosting and design business. Then after the web hosting market got to competitive it trued in to a rarely updated portfolio site. It remained that way with versus designs for most of its life.

After getting a few speaking gigs to talk about blogging, and a few more design jobs. I decided to dust off my old Pagewaiter domain. I needed a place to share my ideas and show off my work. That way when I am talking to a class or a client I have something to refer them too. I used to just give people a list of websites I have done, but that seemed old fashion and out of touch.

Pagewaiter will be the online hub for all things Jason Mosley on the internet. My creations, designs, and services will be housed here. Will this be the final evolution for Pagewaiter? Probably not but we will just have to wait and see.