Andrews Distributing is one of the biggest beer distribution companies in Texas. When an organization delivers countless cases of beer to every type of restaurant, bar, and nightclub imaginable, it starts to notice some things. Andrews started to notice that every client they work with presented a unique experience for its patrons, ranging anywhere from overall atmosphere to the way it presents its menu and cuisine.

If this experience could be presented for food, why not for beer? By focusing on craftsmanship, aesthetics, and rich historical details, Andrews adopted a philosophy of turning beer into a “destination product” - the central part of an experience, rather than merely an auxiliary item.
Andrews and RD2 worked together to create Destination Beer - a repository of information on every beer carried in the Andrews Distributing lineup.

Different beers contain information on history, food pairings, brewing processes, and recommends several similar beers to the user that they might have never heard of otherwise. The site as a whole helps educate retailers on the beers they serve, allowing them to place more emphasis on their beer selection and presentation in their establishments.

We were able to match the information architecture developed by Eric and myself with striking design and a custom-built Ruby on Rails back-end to make Destination Beer a destination in and of itself.

Destination Beer is known around the office as “the best research project ever.”

Eric wanted to make sure his new MacBook Pro was safe from virii and other airborne bacteria.

I have yet to make it through a week without hearing a, “Hey! Check this out!” from Ronan. He’s always experimenting with new web-based applications and tools so normally I (politely and tactfully) pretend I didn’t hear him.

Last week, however, he had included some very nicely annotated screenshots in an email and I asked what kind of screen capture tool he had used. Turns out there’s a hot little beta called Skitch, currently invite-only, from the crew at plasq.

This app allows you to quickly and easily grab screenshots, camera shots, or import existing images/PDFs and annotate them quickly and easily with a small but well-chosen toolset - I love the arrows. Resizing and cropping is a breeze, although I’d love to see them allow user-entered dimensions rather than having to click and drag. The final image can be saved to your Skitch user account (think Flickr minus most of the features), dragged into any application, or saved out in a variety of formats including PDF, TIF, and SVG.

This last week I’ve used Skitch in quite a few ways:

• During a competitive analysis presentation, I was able to quickly grab screenshots, annotate them with arrows, and drag the shots directly into Keynote without having to save each one out individually (behind the scenes Skitch actually does save them temporarily as *.pict files, so there’s no quality issue when moving from Keynote to Powerpoint or vice versa).
• When responding with comments to an image, Skitch opened the PDF file and let me comment directly on it. The end result was a clear and easy-understandable response that took a fraction of the time it would have taken me via email.
• Omnigraffle Pro and Skitch make a great combination - wireframes saved out in SVG or PICT vector format can be opened directly in Skitch, which I find to be much faster for resizing, writing callouts, and general notes on the original images.

What I can’t describe in this post is how unbelievably slick Skitch is in every interaction. From the tool tips to resizing and anti-aliasing, each task feels responsive and tight. This is one application that has already made its way into my box o’ tricks and will stay there well after the beta period.

I’ve taken the last few months off from bicycle commuting due to injuries and moving into a new apartment. But I’m happy to say that I made the first ride to the office from my new location this morning - in 98% humidity.

There’s no “right” bike for commuting, personally I use a Redline Conquest cyclocross bike because it’s built tougher than a regular road bike and has a more relaxed geometry (luckily mine is green and not that horrible blue/white color!). The only modification I’ve made to it is throwing on a set of 23mm road slicks to replace the standard 35mm ‘cross tires. Although, the pavement on McCommas is in such poor condition that the wider, knobbier tires would have been much more comfortable: they ride at 70 PSI instead of 120 PSI like the slicks.

I carry my clothing, tools, and miscellaneous gear in a messenger bag although I’m hoping to upgrade it to a Chrome Metropolis in the very near future.

My old location was so far from the office that I would ride 9 miles to the DART station and then take the train all the way to downtown, after which I’d hop back on the bike and beat the train to the RD2 office.

Fortunately, my new apartment is so much closer that I could ride to the office in the same 9 miles and avoid the train completely. I decide to opt for safety, however, so my overall route is just a bit over 13.5 miles. I chose my new place based on its close proximity to White Rock Lake, and I definitely make use of it on my route. It’s very calming to look out over the water for a few miles and not have to worry too much about traffic; the road is only really used by other cyclists at that time in the morning.

There’s several good climbs on the way in, but once I hit the Katy Trail it’s smooth downhill sailing! I can’t wait to ride back home and tackle it all from the other direction.

We raided the fridge a few days ago in an attempt to come up with the worst drink possible. Citrus Smirnoff vodka and Miller Highlife were the only two alcoholic beverages we had at that particular point in time. Brandon mixed it up and I was volunteered to test it.

It’s April Fool’s and several RD2 employees are online finishing up client work for Sunday (this part is not a joke) so I figured I would share my favorite April Fool’s prank.

The Guardian, back in 1977, released a special report on the nation of San Serriffe located - that year - in the Indian Ocean. This nation consisted of two separate islands, Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. The capital city of Bodoni was once held in militaristic fashion by the General Pica, however democratic elections began in 1997.

The Flong are the primary inhabitants of San Serriffe, but it is also the home of European colonists known as the colons.

This particular article has been the basis for many other Guardian articles in the last 30 years. I wonder if the good people of San Serriffe finally got around to expanding that Arial airport of theirs.

Although we do work on weekends every once in a while, we decided to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day a little early this year at the office. With enough Guinness and Bass for plenty of Black and Tans, as well as some green shamrock cookies, we threw ourselves a little party this afternoon. After the creative team was done taking fancy pictures of the empty bottles, Mr. Rogers decided to chug a beer as Ronan filmed.

It should be noted that Griego, after having a two margarita lunch of his own, was very quick to call Brandon out for singing and making up words.