Recently in Newsletters Category

Another monthly newsletter for the Alabama Chapter of the Sierra Club done. We've been doing these for over 3 years now. This year, we started printing every other month and putting the alternate month online as a pdf before sending out an email. Last month, we discovered that the mailing company we'd been using was closing (immediately) due to the economic downturn. We're reevaluating exactly what to do--possibly electronic only every month. If that's the case, I'll be redesigning the newsletter. Have to see.

But a good one. Paint is going up in two of our rooms! The colors are looking amazing (well, only the lighter color so far, but still looking great. A very light bluish green on the upper portion of our walls and ceiling.

Lots of work done over the weekend--worked most of the weekend on a website for Tyler Eaton and I'm waiting on a response from that.

Finalized a newsletter for Alzheimer's of Central Alabama, sent an email out to 780 friends of Your Town Alabama, made a couple of small changes to the Alabama Front Porches website (mainly adding an entry to the "Off the Porch" blog), wrapped up a newsletter for American Mining Insurance Company and several other projects. Good, solid start to the week.

Well, honestly, I've been a bit lax on updating my blog of late. I've really got to get back into the habit of the thing. I'm working on it. I have been really busy for the last couple of weeks. I've finally finished the annual report I do for the Alabama Association of Resource Conservation and Development Councils (RC&D). I've been updating my Your Town Alabama blog, my Alabama Front Porches Blog and created another blog for others to post to called "Off the Porch," tied to the Alabama Front Porches website project.

I'm in the process of redesigning a website for Tyler Eaton Court Reporters--still a work in progress, but I did the old site as well. I'm getting ready to do some heavy lifting on the AIA Birmingham website: just lots of updates and an upcoming newsletter. I've been pretty busy getting the Bromberg's website situated--an old client that I lost to a big agency several years ago (though I didn't do their website in those days) that has just returned! Lots to do. (Oh, and I'm totally addicted to Facebook and Flickr.)

Well, I've officially been overwhelmed this week with work. I try very hard to avoid working after 5 p.m., but sometimes I manage to work a little late--I tend to make up for it by working, as I am this morning, early and on the weekend. I completed a complete redesign for American Mining Insurance Company's online newsletter,  www.americanmining.com/newsletter/, I just completed my 38th (I think) Alabama Sierra Club newsletter, I've just about finished an annual report for the Alabama Association of RC&D Councils, I started working on a new client website, brombergs.com and, well, I guess the list just seems to go on and on.  I'm very pleased with the masthead I created for American Mining's online newsletter, though. We went through several revisions, but the end one really turned out best. Here it is:

This week has been pretty busy, including last weekend. I sat down to work up the January 2009 issue of the Alabama Sierran that I do each month only to discover some unforeseen problems with my new laptop. Really not so much a problem with the laptop as it was a problem with an older version of QuarkXpress I've been using to design the newsletters and much of the other print work I do. It just wouldn't work with the new Mac operating system. After about 2 hours and 20 crashes, I read up on it and discovered that it really wouldn't work. Thus, a forced migration to an admittedly better program, Adobe InDesign. All is better now, but it did force me to recreate the newsletter and start recreating an annual report I do each year. Anyway, I'm off to Centerville, Alabama this morning to talk with the Bibb County folks about tourism and their upcoming website. Here's what the Alabama Sierran turned out like:

One of the monthly newsletters I work on: The Alabama Sierran. I did the first newsletter for the Alabama Chapter of the Sierra Club in January 2006 and have done one each month since then. This is an 8 page tabloid-size newsletter printed on recycled newsprint. You can download the full newsletter at alabama.sierraclub.org. In addition to working on this newsletter, I just finished an online newsletter for Birmingham, Alabama based CGH Insurance Group (www.cghinsurance.com/newsletter). And, perhaps most fun right now, I'm working on a website on tourism--particularly historical and ecological--in Bibb County, Alabama. I'm developing it almost entirely in Movable Type (using a little Dreamweaver to help me handle the CSS stylesheets). Pretty interesting stuff. Not that far along yet, but I've built the shell: www.bibbtourism.com. Other than that, just the usual blog updates at Your Town Alabama and Alabama's Front Porches.

This newsletter is one that I do only about 2 times each year. It is a pretty good sized newsletter with lots of input, so it takes a while to complete: very pleased with this issue, both design-wise and content-wise. We managed to add in more reference, teaching-oriented information into this issue than ever before (at least since I've been doing the newsletter--and that's been about 5 years).

Seems as though the first week of the month is always filled with work on newsletters. This month (October) is no exception. I'm about halfway through a newsletter for Alzheimer's of Central Alabama, getting started on a newsletter for the AIA of Birmingham and trying to plan the newsletter for American Mining. I've also got to start thinking--probably not until next week--about the newsletter for the Sierra Club. And that doesn't even even begin to consider the blogs that I'm working on constantly for Your Town Alabama and the Southwest Alabama Tourism (with the University of Alabama). Those aren't really newsletters, but in a lot of ways they really are. Oh well, back to work! 

Sent this one off to press on Thursday. As always, J.S. Printing does an amazingly fast job with newsprint. I submitted the newsletter just before 4 p.m. (their cutoff time) on Thursday and it is shipped Friday afternoon to the mail house for sorting and bulk mailing. Extremely fast.

The print quality (black and white only--the color version shown is for the web only) isn't extraordinary, but it is printed on recycled material for an extremely good price and at an amazing turnaround.

I'd suggest using them for any newsprint needs that require a quick turnaround at an extremely competitive price.

Now, I'm off to finish the Alzheimer's of Central Alabama Art Calendar (*Vance, are you reading?) before tomorrow.

Just wrapped up a newsletter for CGH Insurance Group (The CGH Insider). It is an online only newsletter. This marked the 53rd issue of the newsletter I've completed. For this issue, I went back and compiled the interviews I've done over the years--pretty standard stuff, but still... www.cghinsurance.com/newsletter/. I've also made a few corrections to the Tombigbee RC&D Council's website: www.tombigbeercd.com--more to come on that website in the next couple of weeks.

I'm about to finish my monthly newsletter for the Alabama Chapter of the Sierra Club (The Alabama Sierran). I'll be sending it to the printer tomorrow. I finished a postcard for Alzheimer's of Central Alabama last week, but, since I don't have anything else to post today, thought I'd toss it out here--very nice photos of some Alzheimer's patients--not taken by me... Now, back to working on the Alzheimer's art calendar.

This week is dedicated to wrapping up the remaining newsletters for August and the Alzheimer's calendar. Next week is all about Alabama tourism: a major redo of the Alabama Scenic Byways website (www.alabamabyways.org) along with some substantial work on a website for Bibb County and updates for the Alabama Front Porches website: www.alabamafrontporches.com.

Lots to do this week, but have gotten a few things behind me. I finished a quick brochure for Alabama Communities of Excellence last week. More work to do for them in the coming week.

Now, I'm wrapping up a web newsletter for the American Institute of Architects, Birmingham Chapter this afternoon. Tomorrow, I've really got to get going on the Alzheimer's calendar for 2009 before an afternoon meeting with my friend from ALZCA, Vance Holder.

Also on the agenda this week, the Bibb County tourism website, more preparation for the Alabama Byways Signage workshop and a quick update to the CGH Insurance Group website--it seems we broke it when moving it to another server (well, it didn't really break as much as get replaced with an older version).

There's always something, but tonight it is time for another sourdough pizza--last night's was extremely good, if I do say so. The new, wetter dough I'm experimenting with in my recipes seems to be making a difference with a more flavorful, more bubbly dough. Let's see what a night in the refrigerator will do for it!

Another newsletter for the Alabama Chapter of the Sierra Club. One of my favorite newsletter projects as I have the schedule for this newsletter down to a science.

Another newsletter completed for AIA Birmingham. Originally planned as a short newsletter, it grew a bit. Still much, much, much shorter than the Design Awards special edition last month. Overall, pretty pleased. We announced the completion of the redesign of the AIA website and I've been making small edits to the site to tighten up small issues (mainly spacing issues and wording changes). www.aiabham.org.

In addition to this newsletter/website, I've been working on completing the Aztec Construction website. We're still in the design phase, but think it is pretty much complete.

I'm working with the Alabama Department of Transportation and the Scenic Byways Advisory Council to set up a workshop at the end of August for all of Alabama's scenic byways. The workshop will be held in Birmingham (well, actually in Leeds, Alabama: Home of the Stagecoach Route Scenic Byway) at the Barber Motorsports Museum. Should be a great venue and will probably help make it even more attractive to folks! The workshop will last all day and we're bringing in several trainers from the National Scenic Byways Program to conduct the workshop. The basic premise of the workshop is on way finding and way showing as they relate to the byway traveler. The workshop will be particularly helpful to byway leaders around Alabama, but should prove useful to anyone interested in tourism in Alabama.

After a month of testing and review, the AIA Birmingham office's new website is up and running officially. There are a few holes to plug, but overall, pretty much complete. We finalized the website along with their June 2008 newsletter so members would get the new website along with the most current newsletter all at the same time.

The website turned out just as I had hoped, and, as best I can tell, everyone is very pleased with it.

www.aiabham.org

Also, completed the upload of the Alabama's Front Porches website, alabamasfrontporches.com, yesterday. It has a good many holes, but is substantially stronger than their previous website and built for expansion. Soon, it will have over 100 great attractions throughout the Black Belt. I'm getting ready for two trips next week--on Wednesday, I'm heading to Tuscaloosa to meet with some Appalachian Regional Commission folks to discuss potential scenic byways in the ARC portion of western Alabama. On Friday, I'm off to meet with the board of the Rural Heritage Center to discuss a possible website, marketing materials and to just give them a general overview of some tourism opportunities that they might be missing. Looking forward to that as well.