Random Junk

After many months of deliberation, we’ve decided to totally rebrand Four Kitchens. It was a tough decision — there’s so much work that needs to be done — but we decided, in the end, that our firm needed a new look.

Our goals for the rebranding are:

• Identify Four Kitchens as a leading Drupal consulting firm.
• Raise awareness of our design skills and portfolio. (We’re not just scalability experts!)
• Create an iconic brand that associates the Four Kitchens with quality, respect, and community involvement.

Please check out our ideas below. Any feedback is welcome. We really need your help!

Four Kitchens logo: version 1

Inspiration: Building a website is like reading a book. First, you ride your fixed-gear bike to a locally owned, vegan bookstore and pick out something about World Trade Organization-sponsored coups. Then you turn the book over to see how much it costs. Finally, you pedal home — uphill — and buy it on Amazon in a hot minute.

We at Four Kitchens are devotees of the scrum method of development. When we celebrated the birthday of our Project Manager and Certified Scrum Master Shannon Hinshaw, we could think of nothing more appropriate than a SCRUM-ptious cake:

Task: Eat the cake (999 points)

Web Chef Aaron Stanush “mugs” for the camera. Get it?

Drupal themer extraordinaire Morten.dk, currently ranked #7 on Google for “king of Denmark”, has been bugging us for a Don’t Mess with Texas mug. Well, “bugging” may not be the right word. “Profanely demanding” is more appropriate.

Finding one was surprisingly difficult. While (lesser) cities like Dallas and Houston are lined with shops hawking rattlesnake heads and scorpions encased in plastic, there doesn’t seem to be much demand for Texas memorabilia in Austin.

Except at the airport, where you can find your name stamped on a fake Texas license plate or worn chunk of fencepost.

So, after scoring the great city of Austin for tacky crap, we proudly present Morten.dk’s Don’t Mess with Texas mug:

Morten.dk’s Don’t Mess with Texas mug

BarCampAustin 4 graphics have arrived, and they are totally rad. Congrats all around to the fine folks who made them happen.

DJ Dillo: BarCampAustin 4 logo

If you use an old USB scanner with a Mac, you’re probably unhappy with the out-of-date drivers offered by the manufacturer.

Recently, one of our clients wanted to install a stock ticker on her company’s website. It was a simple request; the only difficulty lay in finding a data feed of stock prices. After several hours of research, we found StockApplets.com, an online purveyor of Java-based stock ticker functions. We plunked down $50 and purchased an applet. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Why? Because StockApplets.com doesn’t provide a data feed. We requested a refund.

It’s an old question—if not a touch psuedo-scientific—but it points to a stark divide in human psychology: are you right-brained or left-brained?

Artists and scientists rarely share the same skin, and those who do are heralded as geniuses, eccentrics, or Renaissance Men Persons of Indeterminate Gender. This split is especially frustrating when working on the web, a sprawling medium that requires two very different talents: programming and design.

Corporate logos redesigned in Web 2.0 style

Brilliant. Kinda makes me wonder when the whole “web 2.0” thing will burn itself out. I mean, haven’t we collectively satisfied the web’s considerable thirst for shiny gradients and Trebuchet MS?