The Humble Blog

Doodlesplatter: a Jon Burgerman Blogography

It all started with a tweet from professional doodler, Jon Burgerman:

Are there any budding Word Press skin-makers out there up for some fun?”

3:19 PM Apr 30th from web

@jonburgerman We’d be game for pimping a wordpress theme!

4:43 PM Apr 30th from web in reply to jonburgerman

That one tweet led to a direct message which led to various emails. One week later we were awarded our dream project; the design and build of a custom WordPress site which would act as an online “artkive” or living “blogography” of Jon Burgerman’s work. The concept of Doodlesplatter is the brainchild of Jeremy Brautman.

Jeremy Brautman, former editor of ToyCyte, was writing about Jon Burgerman A LOT. A toy here, a T-shirt there, but certainly something every single week. He became very interested in the variety of “canvases” open to today’s artists, and began to dig around. In an attempt to keep ToyCyte a balanced blog, he held back and ended up with a surplus of bookmarked bits. Eventually, Jeremy decided to start Doodlesplatter as a separate, dedicated Jon Burgerman blogography.

“The internet is permanent in many ways, yet ephemeral in others. Things sell out, pictures are removed, sites fade away, links get broken… There’s also a lot of art out there that’s not meant to last forever. Maybe it gets lost or worn out or removed or eaten up.” Jeremy Brautman

Doodlesplatter was born out of a desire to present a complete “artkive” of Jon’s work. With just a few clicks, you’ll see Jon illustrate that any surface can be a canvas. Whether you’re sick on a plane, Airplane Vomit Bag, or stuck in the rain, Umbrella Collab with SIZE?, Jon’s doodles are there to cheer you.

Objective:

Doodlesplatter was an extremely successful blog but it needed to better reflect the character of Jon Burgerman’s (colourful) work and, perhaps more importantly, translate that “any surface can be a canvas” in a cohesive, user-friendly manner. The greatest challenge was the need to catalogue hundreds of Jon’s creations across an ever-increasing variety of medium (with new additions coming into play frequently) to serve as a living “artkive” whilst remaining mindful of the user experience.

Solution:

We created a highly visual site with a real emphasis on the Jon Burgerman brand identity. Utilising the versatility of the WordPress platform, custom features and modifications to plug-ins were developed to create a unique and engaging site with usability being a high priority, for both Jeremy and users. Jeremy can simply and quickly update information on the site himself and visitors are welcomed with a stylish yet fun site that depicts the character for which Jon Burgerman’s has become renowned. Custom relationship management (CRM) tools were also implemented, allowing Jeremy to maximise communication with users, monitor performance and track results.

Launch Campaign:

Both the pre-launch teaser campaign and the official launch were promoted online via the increasingly popular social media technology, Twitter. Social media promotion was a highly appropriate online marketing tool for this project. Twitter provided direct access and exposure to large communities of art, design, toy and Jon Burgerman fans as well as bloggers and journalists alike all familiar and well versed with blogs, a fun and interactive method to build a Doodlesplatter following providing them the opportunity to get up-to-date information on the project’s progress and become part of its community ahead of time and finally, by means of recognition given that via Twitter we landed our dream project!

Result:

Following the launch, the website was an immediate, overwhelming success. From a few hundred visits per month, visitor traffic increased tenfold, resulting in substantial exposure and press opportunities.

Doodlesplatter, was (is) a dream project for many reasons: an open creative brief for the design, an opportunity to demonstrate the pure versatility of the WordPress platform and a chance to defy perception by showcasing a customised blog. And if that weren’t enough, we got to work with two very creative, inspiring and incredibly talented guys and play with doodles for days on end!

The Geek Speak

Key technologies used: Wordpress, PHP, mySQL, XHTML, CSS.

Want the latest Doodlesplatter news?

Follow Doodlesplatter on Twitter or subscribe to the Doodlesplatter RSS feed for the latest Burgerman news.

New Doodlesplatter Features

What with Jeremy developing niche “artkiving” ideas, Jon continually creating an array of new work and our desire to keep the site fresh and relevant amidst advancing technology, Doodlesplatter is a completely organic website! New features and updates will happen regularly so be sure to check back soon!

All that remains to be said is… Jon Burgerman has a posse. That posse is legion. And please, never under estimate the value of the humble blog.