Brandon Moeller

Houston History Magazine site launches

Today, the WordPress-based website for the Houston History Magazine launched, which represents a significant redesign for an interesting magazine that traces the history of Houston through the lens of special issues that focus on pivotal issues.

The new Houston History Magazine website

My role in this project was to advise and consult the small staff of the academic magazine of what tool to use for the job, what services they need to acquire and suggest a template that would give the magazine an engaging look. I was also responsible for designing the Past Issues archive page in the new WordPress system – previously it was designed as a three-column table. I was also responsible for installing WordPress and maintaining its installations, and customizing it for the needs of the magazine.

The new Past Issues archive page improves the usability of the previous page by inserting links to full-issue PDFs on the index, so readers can easily download them without opening each issue page. The design also breaks out of the previous three column table, allowing the elements to float left of each other, allowing for continued backward and forward compatibility with web trends and layout. If/when the design ever changes again, these elements will naturally flow to fit the size of their container.

We chose WordPress because of my familiarity with it and its ongoing maturity as a user-friendly CMS that works best with time-oriented publications.

We chose hosting the WordPress custom installation on GoDaddy because the company offered affordable web hosting with an interface that the magazine’s staff was familiar with. Hosting the system on a third party’s web server was necessary because the college does not have all the required pieces of a modern web environment in the same place, and is currently in a period of transition. Hosting the site on GoDaddy provides stability now, with the option to transfer the database of information to the college web server later.

We chose the BluePrint Magazine WP 1.0 theme, designed by Dany Duchaine of DDStudios, because it allows for a sophisticated look and an engaging featured image slideshow on the homepage.

BluePrint Magazine theme — This is the original design of the BluePrint magazine, which I altered to fit the needs of the Houston History Magazine.

Bradley’s Art and Frame site launches

Today, I launched a website for Bradley’s Art and Frame, a frame shop located in west Houston that has served customers for more than 40 years.

The site was built using WordPress as a content management system, to allow Bradley’s staff to make updates to the content and post news items.

At launch, the site’s features include:

A custom theme
Custom header designs
Customized menu
Six jQuery javascript-based image slideshows
24 pages and a 3 news posts
A randomized “testimonials” sidebar graphic
Facebook integration
A sign-up form for the Bradley’s newsletter

I worked with Bradley’s Art and Frame co-owner Pat Bradley to develop the site. She provided the content and most of the photos, and I designed the website and customized WordPress for her business’ unique needs.

I’m most proud of the following design elements:

Bradleys header designs — With mostly provided art and photography, I created header banner images and modified the WordPress system so that Bradley's employees could easily switch out the banners depending on the season.

css3 box — This sidebar on the What We Do page is stylized with CSS3 to a create rounded borders and a drop shadow to make the menu items stand out prominently on this page.

For years, Bradley's Art and Frame has been highlighting what its customers have custom framed in its newsletter's You Framed a What article. To publish the feature on the Bradley's website, I was asked to desgin a page that would display each piece of art and when users move their mouse over it, it enlarges to show detail. I found a jQuery-based javascript and customized it to perform this requested function, and I think it turned out great.

Bradleys staff — I designed this page to tell readers about the Bradley's staff. Also pictured is the randomized testimonial widget graphic in the sidebar, featuring Casey, the Bradley's four-legged family member and Certified Master Shop Greeter.

Psychology professor studies committed couples

Today, a story I wrote about Psychology professor Julia Babcock was published to the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences website.

The story is part of the ongoing Faculty Spotlight series. I also took the photo of Dr. Babcock that accompanies the story.

Faculty Spotlight: Julia Babcock — A faculty spotlight article I wrote about Dr. Julia Babcock.

Here is the first two graphs from the article:

Psychology professor Dr. Julia Babcock said she wishes she knew how to end domestic violence; for the past 13 years she has researched and instructed courses about the subject at UH. As co-director of The Center for Couples Therapy, she guides graduate students in the process of assessing couples who may be at risk, and Babcock believes that what lawmakers are currently doing is not working.

“I wish I knew how to end domestic violence,” Babcock said. “I think the answer is a lot of education and prevention. We’ve done some research to show that the existing treatments that we have that are often mandated by the states aren’t very effective. I’m beginning to think that early intervention and prevention is maybe the way to go. That means intervening with at-risk couples early on … I think that those kinds of interventions that decrease harmful fights are also likely to decrease and prevent domestic violence.”

AAS students create nonprofit Pencil Project to aid Ghana youth

Today, a story I wrote was published on the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences website about two African American Studies students who have created a new non-profit organization to benefit schoolchildren in Ghana.

The story is part of the ongoing Student Spotlight series. I also took the photo that accompanies the story.

aas-crop450 — I interviewed Hannah McConn and Randryia Houston, two African American Studies students who started a non-profit group called The Pencil Project, for an article that appears on the college website.

Here are the first three graphs from the article:

It was a comment made by a school administrator in Ghana to a studying abroad group of UH African American Studies students that started it — the revelation that elementary school students in the African country drop out at an early age as a result of something as little as not having a pencil to do their work.

That single complaint frustrated Randryia Houston and Hannah McConn, two of the students who participated in the AAS Summer Study Abroad in Ghana trip that summer in 2009. A friend of theirs, Tiffany Lester — an English major and former president of the Resident Hall Association — came up with the idea that they should start a big school supply drive.

“When we got back, we were really frustrated,” McConn said. “We knew that we wanted to help the Ghanaian people in some way, but we didn’t really know how, and we kind of felt that as students, we didn’t have the means or revenue to do so in a huge way. So, she (Lester) suggested we just start with pencils.”

Bees!

On Sunday, a swarm of bees descended upon a small oak tree in our backyard.

I’ve never seen anything like this before.

These photos were taken from indoors, thanks to my camera’s 10X zoom. Whew.

Week Nineteen

Photos from the nineteenth week in the garden are up, spanning July 19-24, and have been tagged “Week Nineteen” in my Gardening 2010, Part Three album in my Picasa Web Albums. To see the original bed photos — in a slideshow from week to week — visit my Gardening 2010 photo album on Facebook.

This week, I captured a lot of wildlife in the backyard.

This, I believe, is the baby dove who was born in our backyard oak tree.

A moth hangs out on the carefree beauty rose

A Hungarian hot wax pepper plant given to me by Kim's Uncle Bennie

There's a ton of adolescent frogs back there, like this guy, who have grown up in the backyard. They hate it when I mow the lawn.

Roots keep your spirits up and over

On the title track of the new legendary Roots crew record How I Got Over, lead rapper Black Thought and guest mc Dice Raw sings — yes, sings — one of the most infectious and socially conscious choruses I’ve heard all year.

Out in the streets, where I grew up (How I got over)
The first thing they teach you is not to give a f- (How I got over)
That type of thinking will get you nowhere (somebody, somewhere)
Someone has to care

How you get over? Are we “running out of time out here”? The struggle is alive and well and the Next Movement is back to remind us of it with a 42-minute album that will keep your head checkin’ it and your soul questionin’.

But you’ll keep coming back to this title track, about these damn cold streets, where “every man is for himself” and this “warzone” — this endless war on our poor. “Where no body cares about you, only thing you’ve got is God.” After hearing it, you’ll be thankful for someone to worry about you.

With featured guests like Monsters of Folk, John Legend and Joanna Newsome, The Roots prove they’re more than just another late night house band — they’re great collaborators, making something more powerful than any one of them solo.

On “Dear God 2.0,” they loop Jim James and make a weak song shine — with a slower delivery and some rare-for-their-genre self introspection.

On “Right On,” Joanna Newsome gets “we should shine a light on” stuck in your head and it makes you want to go out and change the world.

On “Walk Alone,” Black Thought gets his “Charlie Parker on” and sing the blues.

And they’re still doing what they do best: keeping it positive with tracks like “Hustla” and “The Fire” and “rising out of the flames like a Phoenix,” like in “Doin’ it Again.”

Face it — I keep doing it well.
Doin’ it sans assistance
Just do it yourself
Doin’ it below the radar, we doin’ it stealth
Doin’ it again for Illadelph, yo who else?

These are songs that leave you proud to have overcome. That give you comfort for being among those who got over. You’ll be celebrating — and cerebrating — “The Fire.”

There’s something in your heart
And it’s in your eyes. It’s the fire. Inside ya.
Let it burn
You don’t say good luck.
You say don’t give up.

Word. You’ll be playing it again.