We have been working on a pretty amazing web site development for a while now. Local Chicago-area screen printing company Midwest Merch hired us on to develop a full-color t-shirt store for them. The purpose of the site is to allow bands to sell unique deigns on their site, MySpace and Facebook. Widgets for MySpace and Facebook are provided for the bands.

The folks at Midwest Merch, namely Dan and his father Paul Metiver, have been great to work will. We are excited to see Midwest Merch grow.

For the Midwest Merch site development, Matt Arbogast handled the front end design and identity development. Adam Penly developed the back end and store capabilities.

Visit www.midwestmerch.net to browse, purchase, and sell your custom, full-color shirts.

We are pleased to launch the site redesign for Chicago North Shore’s Kashian Bros Carpet and Flooring. The redesigned site officially launches just in time for Kashian Bros to celebrate their 100th anniversary as a floor supplier and cleaner in the North Shore/Evanston area.

As a web designer, I wanted to provide a sleak, friendly design that is easy to navigate. I incorporated a bit of XML-driven Flash on the main page to add some dynamics to the site. WordPress is used as the CMS. A custom theme was created and other customizations were done on the back end to provide the necessary client admin tools.

Doug and the rest of the Kashian Bros team have been great to work with. We are pleased to continue to work with them in their search engine optimization and online marketing ventures.

Visit the new Kashian Bros site: www.kashianbros.com

A List Apart just posted their 2009 web developer/designer survey. For anyone in the graphic design, web design, web development or SEO/SEM fields, I definitely encourage you to take it. It helps to compile some great statistics for our field.

We are pleased and excited to announce the launch of the new LBD Fine Art web site.

Esther Bloch is a creative and innovative fine art provider based out of Chicago. She approached Leadtooth wanting to more accurately represent her company through her logo, web site and marketing materials.

A rebranding was necessary, and the result is placed prominently on the page.

The focus of the new LBD Fine Art design was on subtle beauty, simplicity and spacing. Our goal was to present an admirable fine art consultant in a professional, unique and impressive manner. All were pleased with the results. We hope you enjoy the new site, as well as the impressive work that is showcased throughout it.

Print material designs to come!

http://www.lbdfineart.com

One of our favorite clients, XEX Hair Gallery is hosting it’s 5th annual holiday benefit and silent auction on December 18, 2009. The event will be held at the Hard Rock Cafe, 63 West Ontario Street, Chicago at 9 pm. It will feature a silent auction, raffles and prizes, as well as live music by The Gunshy (featuring a few of Leadtooth’s own!), Ever So Jake, The Furrells and Seeking Wonderland. The night will close out with a DJ.

All proceeds from this year’s benefit will go directly to Feeding America and The Greater Chicago Food Depository’s efforts to feed the hungry here in Chicago and around the US. Tickets can be purchased for a $10 donation and are available at www.xexchicago.com/holiday09.

Leadtooth is handling the design of promotional material (see the initial poster below), writing of press releases and other various tasks to help make this year’s benefit a successful one.

As my clients and most of those around me know, I am a touring musician when not working on web and print designs. It looks like the City of Chicago is looking to make major budget cuts to the free concerts and festivals held in our great city each year. A petition has been started to stop these budget cuts.

If you enjoy Blues Fest, Jazz Fest, the World Music Festival, SummerDance and Millennium Park concerts including Music Without Borders, Downtown Sound and much more, you’re encouraged to sign the petition below. City budget hearings have begun.

Sign the petition:
www.thepetitionsite.com/1/SaveChicagoMusic

We recently decided it was time to bring another dog into our little Logan Square apartment. We took a trip to Anti-Cruelty on my lady’s birthday and left a few hours with a new dog. Her name is Tess…actually, her official name is Texas Sheet Cake. You can ask about that if you’d like.

If you are looking for a dog, cat, rabbit or other animal for your home and live around Chicago, definitely give the Anti-Cruelty Society a visit first. Their staff is kind, courteous and very helpful. Their adoption fees are the best in the city from what we’ve found, and they make sure every dog is spayed or neutered before they go home. There are other great shelters around, but based on our great experience with Anti-Cruelty, we can’t help but recommend them.

Tess.