About page for keaggy.com
i am keaggy.com



myself

Name: Bill Keaggy

Official tagline: “Collector, maker and breaker of things.™”

i am keaggy.com

Site slogan: “The enemy of sloth is progress.”

Contact me: I set up a simple email contact form to cut down on spam. If you're the media, go ahead and use the form to get in touch with me — I will get back to you surprisingly quickly.

Borned: Youngstown, Ohio, USA, 1971

Growed up: Columbiana, Ohio, USA

Schooled: Ohio University, School of Visual Communication, Athens, Ohio, USA

Degree: BFA 1995, Picture Editing and Page Design

Live: Saint Louis, Missouri, USA

Worked: I've done everything from magazine design to information design to web design to photo editing...
•: 2007: Knowledge and Content Manager, XPLANE
• 2004-2007: Features Photo Editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• 1999-2004: Founding Partner, Creative Director, Brand Manager, Product Manager, Interactive Manager, BizDev, Blogger, Interior Decorator, Tech Services, Designosaur, etc. at XPLANE
• 1996-1999: Design Director of POSTnet.com (now STLtoday.com), the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's web site; Page Designer/Graphic Artist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• 1995-1996: Design Director of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Sunday Magazine
• 1993-1995: Art Director of insideOUT Magazine

Family: Married to the wonderful Diane, with a super-duper son named Liam and a beautiful daughter named Sorena (links require passwords)

My dad: Can fix anything and has what may be the largest private collection of Reddy Kilowatt memorabilia on this planet

My mom: All-around great mom; makes the best creamed chicken on toast this planet has ever seen

Related famousness: Phil Keaggy (amazing guitarist, lives in Nashville), John Henry Kagi (guerilla abolitionist, killed at Harper's Ferry)

Fun: Design, photography, collecting, family, bikes, books, people falling down, bowling, horseshoes, teh Intar-Web, vegetable gardening, etc...

Music facts: I always listen to Dropkick Murphys or Drive-By Truckers while mowing the lawn; I always listen to the Cult's “Love” on the first sunny day that smells like Spring; I once listened to Swervedriver's 8-minute song “Duress” 16 times in a row while working at XPLANE (and I'd do it again) and I can, and do, listen to the Doves amd Midlake every single day

Food: Sandwiches, sushi, avocado, cheese, corn dogs, pizza, pizza rolls, tacos, beef stew, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Wasabi coated green peas, Mexican

Beverages: Milk, Pinot Noir, Tawny Port, sake, Cinzano Bianco, Madeira, Mendota Springs, Yogu Time (melon), Vernor's Ginger Ale, Squirt, Fuze, chamomile tea, green teas, Schlafly No. 15

Favorite bars: The Upstairs Lounge, Venice Cafe, Saratoga Lanes, Missouri Bar & Grill (in St. Louis, Missouri); The Union, The Smiling Skull, Tony's (in Athens, Ohio)

College housemates: Adam L, Adam J, Mark, Idris, Josh, Janie, Kevin, Gary

Hardware: Macintosh, bitch.

Bikes: MTN: GT Outback Cannondale F7, BMX: S&M NG Holmes, OLD: Western Flyer

'Zines: Atomic Circle of Chaos (ACC), HBI, Graphic Laxative, BullWinkle

Obsessive: Other peoples' grocery lists, photography, the Web, back alleys, cheap old cameras, rocks shaped like shoes, dirt, the woods, things found in the street, Sifnos, sandwiches, sushi & sake, cheap antique malls, dirty flea markets, everything-must-go estate sales



my projects

Authoring: I wrote a book about found shopping lists based on The Grocery List Collection for HOW Books (psssst... you can order it on Amazon or get it at a surprising number of bookstores! It's called Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found and was published by HOW Books.)

Authoring^2: A book based on my 50 Sad Chairs project was published in March 2008, released by the weird and wonderful folks at BlueQ, and available at finer novelty shops and, of course, Amazon.

Le blogs: I have published xBlog (ISSN 1543-7477) since Nov 1999 and bBlog (ISSN 1543-7485) since Dec 2000 (and I do several other weblogs of varying import)

Sharing: Fipilele user #63 [this is good]

Links: I archive lots and lots of them at del.icio.us/bk

Blogger: My profile, #3149

Flickr: Some of my photos

Technorati: My Technorati Profile

Coming up: Major events at my Upcoming

Just happened: Little things at my Twitter

News: Although I hardly post at MetaFilter, I still like it: User #728 (old account: #98)

People: And while I don't really use Facebook or LinkedIn at all, if I know you I'll probably reciprocate an add

Music: I finally started tracking my listening habits with Last.fm — and I made you a muxtape

Books: And I finally started tracking my reading habits with Goodreads (and here's my author profile)

Swap: I participated in the 3rd 20 Things swap

Swap^2: I also did Badge Swap 2003

Compete: I won playing the 4th match of Photoshop Tennis — now called Layer Tennis — back in 2001

Coudaled: I was the Guest Editor for June 2007 over at the magnificent Coudal Partners web site

MoOM: While we're talking about the Coudal crew, I am a proud supporter and Board Member of the Museum of Online Museums and an executive producer for their film 72°.

Reflective: I've submitted a few pictures to The Mirror Project

Clicked: JPG Magazine published a photo I took of Diane: Johnson's Shut-Ins

Clacked: The Morning News gave me the email interview treatment (I really should've put more effort into that)

Read: I have been interviewed by The Washington Post about weblogs, by The New York Times about my grocery list collection and by the Wall Street Journal about lists in general

Write: I wrote an opinion column on weblogs for Network World back in 2002

Radio: I've been interviewed about my projects quite a few times on NPR, CBC, Sirius, Australian Public Radio, Japanese radio and on at least 50 other stations around the country.

Periodicled: My projects have been featured in these publications too: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Advertising Age, The L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Detroit Free Press, Tampa Tribune, The Riverfront Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Cincinnati Enquirer, USA Today, The Guardian, The Mirror, The Sydney Morning Herald, Baltimore City Paper, Bon Appetit, Family Circle, Bizarre Magazine, Metropolis, HOW Magazine, Forbes, Advertising Age, Fast Company, Business 2.0, The Business Journal, MacWorld, Online Learning, eLearningPost, International Education Daily, Invert, BMX Plus!, The Morning News, JPG Magazine, k10k, Factsheet 5, Bookpage, many other daily newspapers, some magazines, a bunch of radio stations and some other media you probably have never heard of...

Published: My personal projects and/or my professional work has been recognized in these books:
Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 2nd Ed
The Weblog Handbook
Who Let the Blogs Out?: A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Weblogs
No One Cares What You Had For Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog
Self-Promotion Online
What Is Web Design?
Advertising and Promotion, 6th Ed
Technical Communication, 6th Ed
Network Security Illustrated
SPD's 39th Publication Design Annual
TRASH
Riot Grrrl: Revolution Girl Style Now!
• Oh, and hey, did I mention that I wrote books based on The Grocery List Collection and 50 Sad Chairs?

More published: The work that my colleagues at XPLANE have done has been mentioned in these books:
Magazine Design That Works
Marketing Genius
Marketing Playbook: The Manual for Growing Organizations
Selling to the Old Brain
The Networking Survival Guide

Yay-hoo!: I've been a Yahoo! Pick of the Week, a Yahoo! Pick of the Year, a USA Today Hot Site and a few other things that would make my mom proud

Me-Fi!: I've been Me-Fi'd probably 10 times now (and Farked and Boing Boing'd, but no /.)

Oh-no!: But even Memepool thinks I'm a “wacko”

Oh-yeah!: At least Val Casey says my grocery list collection is “what the web is really all about:” a “quintessential site

IA: There is very little info about me at iawiki.net/BillKeaggy

Wiki: But two of my projects are cited in Wikipedia: grocery lists and XPLANE's xBlog

Huzzah: A site that Jeff Lash and I built at XPLANE was chosen as Forbes Best of the Web

Wuzzah: An information graphic that Casey Conroy and I designed for Wired Magazine at XPLANE was chosen for the SPJ's 39th Publication Design Annual

Feed: AIGA Austin publishes my xBlog design feed on their home page

Look: I was photographed by Bobbi Fabian for her book project about people who live in a place other than the area where they were born (I'm two over, two down from top left — taken down near the Mississippi riverfront)

about this here web site

This web site is a collection of visual indiscretions. It serves no purpose and despite what you may think, it does not waste a lot of my time — just yours. Here's a full site index.

I like photography, design, music, adventure, the WWW, bowling, books, bikes and collecting things. It could be argued that I am only good at collecting things, but the others are a lot of fun too.

I like to get mail. If you want to say hi, please feel free. I might write back.

 

presently, via twitter
(more)

this month
April 2008
On iTunes heavy rotation:Japanese Traditional Koto And Shakuhachi Music” by Satomi Saeki And Alcvin Takegawa Ramos
Just watched:The Simpsons Movie” (2/4*)
Just bought: Coda and VisualHub
Clicking on: YOUNGME - NOWME
Unanswered emails: 40+
Reading:Microcosmic God: Volume II: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon” by Theodore Sturgeon
Eating: At Sekisui
Drinking: Chocolate milk
Feeling nostalgic about: International travel
Looking forward to: Missilefits 2008
Not liking: How times flies
Wearing: New St. Louis Cardinals ball cap
Procrastinating: Moving years/1000s of old emails from Mail.app to Gmail (see "working on" from last month)
Song stuck in my head now:Lil Wallet Picture” by Richard Buckner
Admiring: Advice from Coudal on how to transition from client work to products
Want to be: Filmmaker
Wishing I knew more about: Making films
Working on: davegray.info
Listing: Rena's favorite foods, according to her
• Tofu
• Meat
• Bananas
• Cucumbers
last month
March 2008
On iTunes heavy rotation:Night Falls Over Kortedala” by Jens Lekman
Just watched:In the Valley of Elah” (4/4*)
Just bought: A bunch of house plants
Clicking on: Strange Maps
Unanswered emails: 25
Reading:Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson
Eating: Nutty Bars
Drinking: Schlafly No. 15
Feeling nostalgic about: HTML
Looking forward to: Spring kickball season
Not liking: Puking cats
Wearing: Flaming Lips t-shirt
Procrastinating: Promoting my new book: 50 SAD CHAIRS
Song stuck in my head now:Humble Daisy” by XTC
Admiring: This ashtray
Want to be: Warm, but not hot
Wishing I knew more about: The art of conversation
Working on: Moving years/1000s of old emails from Mail.app to Gmail
Listing: Sampling of pen names I used for music reviews in my old 'zine
• Bilk
• Billwinkle
• Bill Drit
• Billopotamus
• Bildo
• Bile
MONTHLY ARCHIVES >

links
Connected: I know (or have met or interacted with) these people, and they have web sites you can visit.
David Albers
Cliff Atkinson
Katherine Bish
Angie Buckley
Kieran Chapman
Ryan Coleman
Casey Conroy
Jim Coudal
Thomas Crone
Drew Crowley
Andrew Cutraro
Magda Diaz
Katy Hernandez Dorsey
Amanda Doyle
Bobbi Fabian
John Foster
Jerome Gaynor
Brad Graham
Dave Gray
Heath Harris
Matt Haughey
Matt Homann
Will Horton
Kevin Huizenga
Caroline Huth
Beth Jatcko
Ben Kaplan
Ben Kiel
Jeff Lash
Mark Lewman
Chuck Lindo
Huy R. Mach
Nick Main
Ted May
B.J. Merholz
Peter Merholz
Mike Reddy
Stephen Schenkenberg
Steven Fitzpatrick Smith
Mark Rupert
Todd Sines
Tippi Thole
Reggie Tidwell
Dilip Vishwanat
Alyssa Wei
Becca Young Williams
Brian Williamson
Jeff Wilson
Peat Wollaeger
Dan Zettwoch

Unconnected: I don't *really* know these people, but they have web sites I like to visit.
Heather Armstrong
Andy Baio
Kate Bingaman-Burt
Rebecca Blood
Peter Bogaards
• The Boing Boing crew
Heather Champ
Rob Cockerham
Rafe Colburn
Daniel Eatock
Tina Roth Eisenberg
• The Fibre/30gms folks
Mark Friesen
Chris Glass
John Gruber
Joseph Holst
Andy Jenkins
Jason Kottke
Maggie Mason
Andrew Vande Moere
• The editors at printfetish
S. Abbas Raza
Claire Robertson
David Shrigley
Rex Sorgatz
Michael Stillwell
Greg Storey
Bill Streeter
Ben Tesch
Andre Torrez
Khoi Vinh
Garret Vreeland
Porous Walker
Toby Weiss
Douglas Wilson
Jeffrey Yamaguchi
• The 37 Signals fellas


i am keaggy.com