Daily Archives: March 22, 2007

Keep up with spring fashion (and Bonnie)

March 22, 20073:10 p.m.

Bonnie_4
Too bad there’s no human-made device or fossil fuel that spins off as much energy as Bonnie Bing. She’s truly a marvel. One of the more amazing feats to behold is how Bonnie coordinates the always-spiffy spring, fall and holiday fashion sections for The Eagle.

Today, you can find the results of her work in the spring fashion section in the newspaper and on our web site. More than a month ago, Bonnie began brainstorming with our extraordinary page designer (and filmmaker in his spare time) Rod Pocowatchit to come up with a section that combines traditional photographs with hand-drawn illustration. Take a look at Rod’s video to see how he did it.

Photographer Mike Hutmacher’s photos were the starting point, and will give you a good idea of what to look for in spring fashion trends. (You can see Mike’s full professional portolio here.)

Coordinating this project is a daunting feat. Take a look at Bonnie’s recipe for how to create a fabulous fashion section.

And keep in mind that at the same time, she’s juggling other responsibilities for the paper and a multitude of civic commitments. (The photo above, via my Treo, is Bonnie charging across The Eagle’s parking lot after a planning meeting for "The Wichita Eagle Divine Makeover" event she coordinates with Dress for Success.)

Go, Bon, go. Nice work on the spring fashion coverage.

– Sherry

By Sherry Chisenhall | Filed under News content | Comments Off

We’ve moved

March 22, 20079:53 a.m.

At 10 a.m. this morning, Kansas.com moved. We’re hoping you didn’t notice.

For weeks, our staff here in Wichita and a host of folks at McClatchy Interactive, our parent company’s online division, have been re-creating Kansas.com in a new computer system. Each of about 160 standing pages of the site had to be re-created from scratch on new servers, using powerful new software that we in Wichita were introduced to just last month.

The result — we hope — is a relatively seamless transition. Most of the pages of the new site have been designed to be nearly the same as they were in the old one. A few things have moved, though, and a few things have been discontinued. If you think something is missing, we encourage you to look again. It may just be at a different spot on the page, or it may have gained a new title or position in the navigation menus on the left side of the page.

But, if you can’t find something, let us know. It might have been overlooked. Indeed, if you find anything wrong with the new site — a broken link, garbled pages, forms that don’t work — don’t hesitate to tell us. We’ve set up the e-mail address fixit@wichitaeagle.com to collect your reports of problems with the new site. You can also use the site’s feedback form.

Although we’ve designed the new site to look just like the old one, we expect our new system to soon make possible a host of new things that you’ll find useful or entertaining or both. We expect, too, to find ways to make the site easier to navigate and even more interactive than it is now. In a few short years, WE Blog and our discussion boards have become fantastic communities where Kansans can connect on a host of topics. We’re certain there are dozens of other communities waiting to be created.

If you have some ideas about that, or the future of Kansas.com in general, we’d love to hear them. We invite you to discuss your ideas in the comments below.

— Nick Jungman, senior editor for interactive, and the Kansas.com team

By Sherry Chisenhall | Filed under Web/Tech | Comments