After a lot of ribbing based on my original diagram and my highly limited carpentry skills, the master of wood helped (helped?) build the monolith. Yes people… it is finally constructed. Now it is up to me to finish. Now it is up to me to achieve the finished product. It had to be scaled down due to the size of the materials, of which I am extremely grateful to Damian for donating.

I went to Home Depot again yesterday for supplies and yes, will be heading out again today for more. This is insane… I am insane. I had to leave it in the back of my truck last night and this time, it was not stolen. But this mo-fo is heavier than I expected!

I’m not one to give up, but I am that guy that gets inspired by the crush.

People have given me money toward the project. I very much appreciate all the kind support from my local community, but almost all of those donations were eaten up by the overhead of the 2 events. I orchestrated it well, but there was not enough people generated to make it all fiscally successful.

I found about 2 online fund-raising sources for artists and tried Kickstarter.Com but failed to communicate the scope of the project on a level people would appreciate. Seems that talking about was inspirational enough for a lot of people. For some people theywere just happy someone from the community was doing something new.

My partner on this project was the super-brain that was going to make it interactive. The plan was amazing. It can still happen, but probably not this year.

It was designed to be something special, because I was using the 2001: A space odyssey and 2010 as the inspiration because it is 2010 after all.

Well, as it turns out all my art pieces have landed in the dirt and not the playa dust which is a huge disapointment.

1. The sticker was turned down*
2. The WDYDWYD art piece looked like amateur crap when I finished
3. Monotropolis was a beautiful piece that I could not get enough support on….

Sad as it is… it is what it is. I have been working in the last year to prove myself as an artist. All the people I tried proving myself too have been supportive in my local community, but I have to prove it to myself first.

*got an email from Marian Goodell from Burning Man this week who gave me a very nice compliment on my design. When her and her team reviewed the entries they were anonymous. Mine was cool… but I bet they got something awesome. I’ll see what they chose in 30…

I have asked fellow designers and people in the industry to take a look at my site – for what I was hoping for – some real critical feedback and got nothing back.

I have actually begged for feedback. …and nothing.

The sites you see were checked in Explorer, FireFox, Safari and Chrome. The layouts look good in all of them. 1 minor problem with Firefox, but am working on it though it is – very minor.

Feedback for any creative person is vital. Critical feedback is great. A blast to the face is not feedback; nor does it provide details as to what you are seeing versus what I am seeing.

At the client’s house he was using Explorer 8; the same or close to the Browser I check it with from my office. I can see an error in the site from my computer, but it is in a Javascript that has something to do with flash in the framework of the WordPress theme I customized. An answer is still looming.

It’s a big project but I am already assembling the pieces. This fundraiser is important so I can get the funds needed to make and deliver this bad boy to Burning Man on time. My partner on this project, Tom Walters, says he has much of the guts already.

I found the framework and the skin of the project. It’s amazing how simple the project is in my head… where it all starts… but I have to be real and know I need to get Buzay!

One of the things on the previous version I had a problem with was that the menu was making less sense than I was comfrotable with. Navigation is everything on a site. SEO is important, but if someone cannot find anything that makes sense it all unravels.

Now I am going to work in showing work a little better too.

So you know the story, ol’ Red is hopping down the path and stops in front of the Bear’s house and smells the pourage. But she is distracted by a fifth wheel for sale and can sleep 8 people. It’s been to Yosemite 6 times.  WHAT??? That pourage smelled good, but this billboard made her forget about visiting the house so she kept going where she was eaten by the 3 pigs.

What’s the point? Recently I talked to a couple of clients who had a service to sell and as we discussed what the web site was about, he noted he wanted to sell his motorcycle on the front page. Which let to an RV he also wanted to sell. My advice – save those for eBay. Keep your story consistent.

Another case in point: A young woman approached me saying she needed a web site. One service was massage, but the other was gardening… my immediate thought was these were two different stories. I recommended having two different web sites.

Any web site should be engaging, otherwise people will leave. As a designer and a User Experience trained professional I can only make recommendations, but the person with the checkbook will make the ultimate decision. Eventually the Bounce Rate will begin telling it’s own story.

One client has an 80% bounce rate and for reasons he knows about. Is he willing to change, no. One client has a 26% bounce rate, should anything change. Hell no.

The point is that en engaging story will bring people back, and that really is the key. Search engines have become smarter and much more sophisticated in how they make their rankings so the old tricks really do not work. Bottom line… offer people what they need and be engaging. Keep the story consistent and not convoluted.

What do you think? I added my kilt designs to this site… should I have?

Here I am advising clients to work  the social networks while I have been neglecting my own! Shame on me.

So I pose the question for those who might answer, “for reals?” My twitter pov shows me every-one’s point of view for the best articles out there or directing people to their own blogs. Are we just feeding each other? Is this ultimately the goal?

I saw one posting that caught my eye on Twitter today: “The Dudes Blog“. Having a sense of curiosity and half expecting the blog of a 45 yer old car enthusiast. Instead it was a designer touting his blog on design. …uhm I think…. still not sure after visiting it again. But with the mentioning of being a MAC snob and touting CS5 I’ll conclude he is a designer of some kind.

But I digress, how much is this social network hooey working. Well, it got me to check out The Dude’s Blog and visit Razvan’s Twitter profile. It got me to scan for the latest Smashing Magazine articles and more. So I conclude, it’s pretty good. Go viral!