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Hot and Not-Quite-Ready
The Brief, Sordid Reign of ’70s Rock Legend UFO Let’s try something here. Here’s a song called “Hot and Ready,” by the band UFO. Give it a listen. If this doesn’t rock your ass off—if you’re thinking, “Ehhh, maybe, I’m not sure”—then go back to nursing your IPA and nodding along to the Mountain […]
Cubs Create a Theocracy
Chicagoist October 26, 2011 AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogas At the count of three, let’s all take one last collective breath to enjoy The Theo. Breathe it in, people. Breathe deep. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Man, that felt good, didn’t it? It really did. Wow. But hey, you can’t blame us Cubs fans for living in a near-post-coital reverie […]
How Much ‘Halloween’ Can One Man Take?
October 30, 2001 Joel Reese Daily Herald Staff Writer Every year, right around this time, I start to get a little freaked out. A twig snaps behind me and I jump into the nearest tree. A shutter bangs against a house and I’m a quivering wreck. A car door slams… well, you get the idea. […]
Why I Hate the White Sox
ChicagoSide September 14, 2012 EDITOR’S NOTE: As part of our ongoing Cubs/Sox deliberations, we asked two of our favorite fans to go head to head. You’re welcome. Joel Reese begins, and Tony Fitzpatrick responds. OK, so the White Sox are fighting for a playoff spot, while my beloved Cubs will be lucky to avoid a 100-loss […]
Trade Starlin Castro Now
Chicago Side July 18, 2013 It’s been easy to blast Starlin Castro lately. He committed a jaw-dropping seven errors over a recent 11-game span. His batting average in June was .167, and his average for the season is a woeful .243. He was recently “given a night off” to get his act together. But I […]
Chicago Cubs Win It All! (In 2016)
This article for ChicagoSide was kind of a wish-fulfillment type of thing. I may have gone a little off the deep end with Baez’s stats, otherwise I still feel pretty good about this. Also: This video gets me. Every time. Pat Hughes: Hello everybody, Chicago Cubs baseball is on the air! From beautiful Wrigley Field in […]
Et Tu, U2?
City Talk May 10, 2001 By Joel Reese Once, the Irish quartet lit an unforgettable fire inside the writer. Now, he finds he can live with or without them. The five of us — each hungover, pasty, and glum — sat in the cramped rental car wending our way through the Scottish highlands. It was […]
The Chicago Matadors: A Look Back
Losing Weight March 8, 2013 By Joel Reese This reminiscence about the Chicago Matadors for ChicagoSide was the first oral history I’ve ever written. It was a lot of fun to do, but I thought it was also poignant — these ample men got to taste the sweet nectar of fame… and then it was gone. […]
If We Ran the IRS
Time Out Chicago April 14, 2004 By Joel Reese [pdfjs-viewer url=https://www.joelcreese.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/If-we-ran-IRS.pdf viewer_height=700]
Rock Monster
Time Out Chicago July 21, 2004 By Joel Reese [pdfjs-viewer url=https://www.joelcreese.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Rock-Monster-Time-Out.pdf viewer_height=700]
Copywrights and Wrongs
Time Out Chicago July 28, 2004 By Joel Reese [pdfjs-viewer url=https://www.joelcreese.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Copyrights-and-Wrongs-Time-Out.pdf viewer_height=700]
Enlivant Assisted Living Site
Wrote or edited virtually entire website for national assisted-living website. Interviewed stakeholders, did extensive research, and worked closely with strategists, designers, content managers, and UX specialists to create an entirely new site. Content included brand descriptions, long-form articles about assisted living, and posts about each individual facility.
Allstate Teen Driver Project
For this Webby-Award–winning project, I worked closely with stakeholders, designers, and UX specialists to create a stylized slate of games. This entertaining work produced a record-breaking level of engagement for Allstate, and a prestigious award for Acquity Group.
Allstate Site Copy
Wrote copy for several pages on Allstate’s website, including renter’s, landlord, and condo policies. Worked with stakeholders, designers, and UX specialists to create complicated House & Home section from ground up. Because coverage varied from state to state, helped create varying pages for different states. House & Home Page
MSA Safety Products
Helped world-renowned safety company completely overhaul their website. Collaborated with UX specialists and designers to create engaging-yet-professional site. Writing ranged from technical product descriptions to long-form content about MSA’s 100-year history. Cairns N5A New Yorker Leather Fire Helmet MSA Company History
Avery-Dennison Copy
Worked with Fortune 500 material-science company to conceptualize, write, and revise technical copy for their redesigned corporate website. Content work also included SEO specialization.
Toyota/Lexus
Worked with a national team of designers, project managers, and UX specialists on the Toyota/Lexus leasing experience. The emails were designed to help customers through the lease-end process and encourage them to buy a new Toyota/Lexus after their contract ended.
Pep Boys emails
Wrote weekly emails based on stakeholder documentation and interviews. Crafted subject lines, wrote headlines and copy, and worked closely with an art director to determine the overall feel of emails.
Maytag and Whirlpool
For this long-term project at Leo Burnett’s digital agency ARC Worldwide, I worked closely with a team of content strategists and project managers to concept and rewrite the product copy for the entire line of Maytag and Whirlpool appliances. We analyzed client-provided personas and stakeholder interviews to ensure the copy fit the brands’ specific voice […]
Dekuyper Occasions
iCrossing completely revamped the website for DeKuyper (an offshoot of Beam). The new site encouraged users to celebrate the smaller moments of life with a cocktail, with events ranging from buying new shoes to throwing a housewarming party. I helped brainstorm moments worth celebrating, finding drinks that matched the occasion, and giving these drinks fun, […]
Fruitwater
This new Coca-Cola product (from the same people who brought you VitaminWater and SmartWater) wanted a smart, pithy voice throughout the entire site. Using sparse stakeholder notes and little else, I worked closely with the PM and designer to craft all of the content for the site and ensure it aligned with the design. Site […]
My Quasi-Experience with Hee Seop Choi
[pdfjs-viewer url=https://www.joelcreese.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Hee-Seop-Choi-Chicago-magazine.pdf viewer_height=700]
Rizzo Rizzo Rizzo
ChicagoSide Sports By Joel Reese July 2, 2012 When Anthony Rizzo made his major-league debut at Wrigley Field last week, #RizzOMG became a popular hashtag, and internet comedians fired their best shots. Tweets included: One wiseguy on Facebook wrote, “I hope I don’t get burned by the flames shooting from the wheels when his chariot descends […]
Harley-Davidson RISEN Custom Paint Job
[pdfjs-viewer url=https://www.joelcreese.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Harley-copy-Risen.pdf viewer_height=700]
Rock T-Shirts
[pdfjs-viewer url=https://www.joelcreese.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Rock-shirts-Time-Out-Chicago.pdf]
Stranger in a Strange Spa
A Visit to King Spa, the 24-Hour Korean Mega-Sauna Amidst 34,000 square feet of steam, tubs, scrubs, and gemstones, one man sweats it out. Chicago Magazine, February 2014 BY JOEL REESE I’m no spa devotee—someone getting all up in my business with a jasmine-scented loofah doesn’t exactly entice me. But then there’s King Spa & […]
Dependence Day
Details magazine August 1997 It’s a beautiful house, it’s loaded with food, and it’s virtually rent-free. There’s only one catch: Your parents still live there. JOEL REESE explain show to survive moving back home. It was a perfectly reasonable decision at the time. I was twenty-eight, broke, a reporter at a small newspaper in rural California with […]
Clear and Present Anger
Thirty minutes with a surly Harrison Ford By JOEL REESE Chicago Daily Herald Staff Writer July 18, 2002 Harrison Ford is not happy to see us. We are six Chicago-area journalists who are about to have an audience with one of the world’s biggest movie stars. We are sitting in a business suite in the […]
Down and Out
Originally published in the December 1995 issue of Texas Monthly magazine, this story was later anthologized in The Best American Sports Writing of 1996. If you want to read an abridged version of this story, you can find it here on Deadspin. I was immensely flattered by the comments there. _________________________________ GOLDEN RICHARDS HAD been my hero for eighteen […]
Taking a Ride
Hit the Road with Chicago’s Craziest Bicycling Subculture On an unseasonably cold Saturday morning in May, the sunlight is still thin and the streets of Evanston are nearly empty, aside from the occasional bleary-eyed dog walker or jogger. But inside the Starbucks on Dempster, 20 wide-awake cyclists are engaging in their weekly preride ritual. Sipping coffee, […]
Sky’s the Limit
One day when I was the Features Editor at Time Out Chicago, I got a call from Wilco’s publicist: She wanted a cover story on the band and promised an “exclusive.” In the end, I got 45 minutes with Jeff Tweedy and some phone time with Wilco’s guitarist Nels Cline and bassist John Stirratt. I also tracked down former […]
In Defense of Clark the Cub
In Defense of Clark the Cub ChicagoSide Sports January 14, 2014 Cubs fans, you are embarrassing me. And you’re really pissing me off, too. It’s not because you’re drunk, or you’re wearing your hat sideways to show off your Sigma Chi neck tattoo, or you’re chatting with your so-awesome BFF about a sorority reunion in the […]
Beyond the Pale
By Joel Reese Chicago Daily Herald Staff Writer February 26, 2004 People with albinism are often portrayed as oddballs, freaks and — oddly — murderers in movies. Is this dramatic license, or a tired stereotype? _____________________________________________________________________ Here’s a hypothetical Saturday afternoon in the life of Dan Lee, who suffers from albinism. Let’s say Lee, a Mount […]
Wildfire
Point Reyes Light Oct. 5, 1995 By Joel Reese An illegal, unattended campfire on Mount Vision sparked a massive wildfire this week that continues to sweep along Inverness Ridge and has raged to the sea, destroying 45 houses and damaging 12 others. Virtually half the Paradise Ranch Estates subdivision was consumed by flames Tuesday, […]
King for a Day
What Happens When You Heckle Chicago Fans at a Blackhawks Game The United Center is full of savages, ready to rip an outsider to shreds. Right? Chicago Magazine, April 2014 BY JOEL REESE Certain things used to be strictly forbidden in the Chicago sports world. You didn’t hold on to the other team’s homer in the […]
Tall Tales of the City
Before you start believing everything you hear, check out our guide to Chicago’s most infamous urban legends. By TOC Staff, edited by Joel Reese It never fails: Go to a party, and someone will begin a story, “I swear I heard that…” or “My friend’s cousin’s sister told me.…” Some of these tales are true, […]
51 Things You’ll Never Hear a Chicagoan Say
Utter any of these sentences in public and risk being called out as a faux Chicagoan. Consider yourself warned. By Joel Reese Mon, Mar 31, 2014 This list ran on Time Out Chicago’s website and garnered 150,000 pageviews and counting. It set the site’s record for single-day unique views, was discussed on several Chicago radio stations, […]
Pardon my dust
This website is, clearly, a work in progress. It will be beautiful soon. For now, it contains some of my previous work and my resume (to the right).