Freshening up MxMo
Fresh off cleaning up my own site for the first time in years, I was thinking it might be time to take a fresh look at Mixology Monday, especially considering that we’re now entering the third year of this monthly cocktail event.
Way back in April 2006, eight of us got together online to swap recipes and share experiences on cocktails with pastis. Now, we’re regularly drawing around 30 bloggers each month (including most of the original crew), and we’ve covered everything from aperitifs to winter warmers to cocktails that require careful supervision.
Not imagining this event would be so popular or go on so long, we started out on a fairly simple basis; I’ve moderated the sessions and kept the archives, and Darcy created a logo that we’ve updated each month as we’ve progressed. Recently, though, some of this has started to feel unwieldy, and I think it’d be a good idea to start our third year with a light facelift.
Here’s what I’m proposing:
A MxMo logo design contest - the folks who run The Session beer-blogging event and Wine Blogging Wednesdays have spiffy logos that stand up to the tests of time (their graphics are to the right for examples). It’d be great to have something that doesn’t need to be updated for each event, so we don’t have to bug Darcy every month to come up with a new graphic. The new logo can be inspired by the old one, or totally new — let’s see what you’ve got.
Entries should be PNG, GIF or JPG files, smaller than 20KB and with no dimension larger than 175px. Send entries to me by May 1, by either e-mail to paul [at] cocktailchronicles [dt] com, or by pasting a link for an image in the comments below. Once the entries are in, a winner will be selected by online voting, with polls open from May 2 through May 9; the winning logo will be announced here on May 10, and will make its debut for the May Mixology Monday on May 12.
Hosting that event is Trader Tiki, and his chosen theme is Rum. In recognition of this theme, and to help sweeten the contest pot, the winning designer will receive a hardcover copy of And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails
Second, since digging through my archives to find the Mixology Monday links and calendar has become a real pain in the ass, I’m taking a page from the wine bloggers and setting up an independent site that will be focused exclusively on Mixology Mondays; it’ll have links to past events, a calendar to upcoming events, and whatever other relevant stuff I can think of to put on there. This won’t be up until June, but by announcing it here it’ll give me the motivation to actually do it. Tentative URL is mixologymonday.net, which right now just bounces over to my site; if I can get the squatter (*cough* Jimmy *cough*) who snagged mixologymonday.com to give it up, I’ll host it there instead.
Anyway, onward with the third year of Mixology Monday. Thanks to everyone who’s helped and participated in the past — special thanks to Darcy for keeping up with the logo for so long — and let’s look ahead to mixing with rum in May.
Posts
Oh, boy! A contest, you say?
And, psst. A little monkey tells me that MxMo is not only being hosted by Trader Tiki, It also falls in direct proximity to Trader Tiki’s birthday.
If Jimmy doesn’t cough up the domain, I think we should boycott his site.
I like this idea. A new logo would help better promote the event and I’m not really that great at graphics anyway!
Great ideas!
I was just telling someone the other day that MXMO should have its own site to better promote the event and the participating bloggers.
They say great minds think alike…apparently one great mind and one addled brain can occasionally do the same.
You know…with a little programming, a dynamic logo could be created that would automatically generate the appropriate image based on the topic and a base-image…
I enthusiastically endorse the ides of a central site to coordinate MxMo!
And now off to contemplate my nave… logo!
You try to do a guy a favor and look what happens. Just to set the record straight, I forced Paul to come down to Alembic to negotiate the transfer of the domain name. I offered it to him for nothing, but we were unable to come to terms because he won’t answer my e-mails. I’m going to give the domain to Jeffrey Morgenthaler instead. At least he’ll talk to me.
Who are you and how did you get past my spam blocker?
And it’s only the good e-mails that I don’t respond to. I like to think them over while having a cocktail, then at some point I fall asleep and when I wake up a couple of days later, I’m thinking about pancakes. Saves me a lot of typing that way.
By forcing me to “come down to Alembic to negotiate transfer of the domain name,” Jimmy means “forced liquor down my throat at a bar, mentioned the domain, then accompanied me to WhiskyFest where he forced more liquor down my throat.” Jimmy’s a very forceful kinda guy, so it goes without saying that, somewhere between the Buffalo Trace table and the guys from Compass Box, that whole negotiating thing turned into a blur.
But now you’ve put me in a very difficult situation. Instead of just ignoring your e-mails, I have to ignore Jeffrey’s now, as well. Thanks a heap, cybersquatter.