Charpie

Just launched! We’ve created a new site for Bethany Retirement Living!

Bethany, formerly Bethany Homes, contracted Charpie to freshen up their existing site. We wanted to create something more friendly and approachable and look toward the positive side of retirement living.

We also wanted to focus on the actual people residing at Bethany and shed them in a new light. There’s so many great stories within the Bethany community that we just couldn’t resist not telling them. So, the site will feature newly updated pictures and biographies of actual residents that will not only keep fresh content flowing but develop an entire library of great stories from the Bethany community.

Additional features include the ability to email residents, look for jobs and careers, apply for admission, and check out maps and details of all their locations.

The site was coded by Jason Hummel of Humjay!

Check it out at http://bethanynd.org.

We’re gone sandbagging for the floods in Fargo, ND until further notice.

Be sure to check out the latest experiences through Twitter’s search tool. Popular tags to search: #fargoflood, #flood09, #ndfloods, #redriver.

Matt Charpentier will be posting pics via Twitpic.

Stay strong!

I’ve got a design in the running to become the official t-shirt design of the upcoming February 12th event, Twestival!

Twestival is an event that will be held in over 180 cities across the world in an effort to raise money for Charity: Water. The Fargo Twestival will be held at Ristreto Coffee & Tea on February 12th from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm. Ristreto is a coffee and tea shop that also has a selection of beer, wine, edibles from the Green Market and pastries. Ristreto is located at 4150 40th Ave S in Fargo.

Charity:  Water is a non-profit initiative bringing clean water and basic sanitation into impoverished communities. They raise money to build freshwater wells and sanitation projects in developing nations, giving away 100% of the funds raised.

Also, Fargo’s own ‘The 404’ will be playing a rousing selection of tunes for your listening pleasure.

My design is number 10 of the 12 available to vote for (the one with the big birdie feeding the little birdie water). Check it out:

http://desiredhearts.com/twestival/

Vote! Vote! Vote!

This picture from our local paper shows a little piece of the shape downtown Fargo is in right now. Media was dubbing it “Death Storm 2008,” and many say the blizzard that rocked the midwest was aptly named. I say this is North Dakota and it’s winter. You were expecting something else?

The car I was in on Saturday night was pretty much directly below the arrow. Good times.

Photo by Carrie Snyder.

When designer denim and fashion boutique Luxe contacted me to create a new logo for them, I was faced with a challenge. The store catered to both young fashionable women from age 16 to more mature women with refined style up to age 55.

My initial designs always swayed one way or the other. I struggled to find a middle ground between young, fun and innocent and bold, sophisticated, yet not highbrow.

This is how this design was born. The custom Luxe typeface seems to have two personalities. That of a younger still emerging and developing style as depicted at the base of the word to another as you continue to scan up the logo and the initial personality becomes more defined and even refined as it appears to almost grow and lift off the surface.

Zip zing!

Finally, the iPhone has a true competitor. Introducing the Pomegranate NS08 smartphone. Yes, that’s right. Goodbye iPhone.

The NS08 includes a vivid touch screen, built in camera, email, full internet browsing capabilities, MP3 player and GPS navigation. Yeah, yeah. Boring, right? Well, those are just the basic features. The Pomegranate phone also has a built in projector for displaying large images whether it’s for a business meeting or simply a replacement for your plasma or LCD television you just bought. As if that wasn’t cool enough, try out it’s built in coffee brewer, electric razor, and harmonica.

Ok, by now you’ve gotta be thinking what you’re reading is ridiculous. As badly as we’d all love a mobile phone with a built in harmonica, the Pomegranate NS08 is actually part of a $300,000 campaign for Nova Scotia. The Canadian province has set out to get people to take a look at what they have to offer through some very non-traditional means. In my opinion, it’s very well put together. Whether you’re sifting through the site watching all it’s videos and downloading wallpaper or you simply click a link that takes you right to the kicker, you’re sure to get a chuckle. It may be the kind of chuckle that you give Uncle Larry after a really lame joke, but a chuckle nonetheless.

Regardless, good for them. I’d never actually looked into Nova Scotia, but this at least got me to further check out some of their material. I’ve heard they may be getting some bad remarks for spending over a quarter million in taxpayers’ money, but if you ask me, that money spent will have a lot more legs than if spent on traditional media.

We’re pleased to announce the launch of the new First and Deli site! We’ve pushed up a simple little one page design for your enjoyment. First and Deli, formerly Barbara’s First and Deli, is an outstanding place to grab some fresh grub in downtown Fargo. I frequent quite a bit and highly recommend the Combo sandwich on the garden vegetable bread. Their salads are great, too! What’s more? They deliver! Yippeeeeeeeee! I think you stop in, though. There’s usually a pretty good crowd around the lunch hour, and that’s always more fun.

If you’re on the Twitter bandwagon, check out www.twitter.com/firstanddeli for the soup of the day. We’ve incorporated Twitter into the site as well. We wanted to make it as easy as possible for First and Deli to update the soups on their site. Knowing they’d have to do it every day, we thought what better way to do it than with Twitter. So now, all they have to do is text the soups from their cell phone, and the First and Deli site will automatically style and update the graphic at the top of the page. Pretty nifty! And on top of it, fanatics like me get the soups delivered to our cell phones as well!

Enjoy!