I Love Valve and the games it produces
Evey since I completed the first Team Lethal website and really got into counterstrike I have always amired Valve. They are a great software company and always seem to come up with extremely catchy trailers and teasers. They seem to sink an enormous amount of time and effort into some things, which shows in their work.
Portal - Still Alive typography from Trickster on Vimeo.
I want to thank an old friend for putting this out there for me to find. Nice one. It’s good to see others inspired by Valve like I have been over the years and making something of it. Well done to Trickster over at noobsgonewild.org for this one.
More Team Lethal updates
I am almost complete my first AIR application. Well I should it’s ready for a beta release. I hope to have it published by this Tuesday. It will be the first time I release and AIR application and it would be nice to see how the community receives it. I am looking forward to updating and maintaining it.
I have also created a custom desktop wallpaper for the group and will be releasing a new wallpaper every couple of days till I get bored with it and make something else. I am hoping to create enough for people to make their own and provide the community with resources to start producing videos and flash animations etc. We will see were it goes. I’ll post on Tuesday when I release the application.
JQuery Questionnaire
In the midst of picking up some freelance work before my move out west I built a custom questionnaire page using JQuery. The goal behind this was to enhance usability while providing user feedback. This questionnaire is aimed at potential clients to get a good sense of what it is they are looking for. It is also a test to see if they are ready to devote the time, money and effort it takes to build and deploy a proper website. Check out the questionnaire if you would like and give me some feedback.
A trip worth remembering
I am finalizing the website of my great trip across America. My fiancee Samantha and I drove in our Honda civic from Philadelphia PA to San Diego CA in 11 days. I put together a photo album and a blog regarding our trip. You can visit both by going to http://www.losergeekdesign.com/westward
Take a look around and let us know what you think of our journey in the blog. Both pieces will be updated on a weekly basis, or as often as we take photos or have stories that we want to share with you. We hop you enjoy our lives as much as we do.
Jessica & Jessica Photography
For the photographers Jessica Notargiacomo and Jessica Latos I have started some ideas for their proposed website and publication material. They are both very talented individuals and bring a very bold and strong sense of work with them. I realy want to try and get this across with the website. I wanted the design to be solid yet very playful at just the right moments. For all their seriousness, what makes Jess and Jess’s photography so astounding is there ability to capture the humanity of the moment. I want this to be present in the movement and organization of the website.
I was also asked to design a business card for the two as well as a logo. They are still deciding on a name so the process has been slightly slow, but it will be good in the long run. As with most things in life, good things take time and I feel this will show itself through this website and its publication materials that will accompany it. This will be a flash based website that will also utilize Slideshowpro as the managing aspect of the photo gallery itself. This will allow Jess and Jess to update, manage and maintain their website with ease.
Redwoods Documentary Website
I had the exceptional experience of working with Benjamin Greene from the Redwoods Documentary 2008. I will be putting together the new version of the website this weekend now that I am some what settled into my new place in San Diego.
Overall the site came together very well thanks to the great photography provided and clear vision of what was desired. There are still some touch up changes to make. The proposed design above was a little to commercial for what the whole purpose was. The group expressed that the early, “visit the redwoods” mentality was the wrong direction and after a quick thought I had agreed. Simplification and more of a landscape approach is the desired effect with this design. To demonstrate the content and the imagery at the same time was a small challenge but it turned out to be a great one in this design.
I am happy with the outcome of this design, as simple as it is. It still took a bit of time moving things around to get the proportions and desired effect, but it paid off in the end. I hope you all take some time to share your comments and suggestions with me on this one.
Please make sure to visit the website of Redwoods Documentary 2008
Team Lethal Updates
In the going on 6 years that I have been playing and working with the Online Gaming group Team Lethal I am happy to say I have finally found a middle ground. This design has been floating around for 3 years and I am happy to say it is finally becoming a well made beast.
You can also see that I finally found a base design for Simple Machines Forum that I liked. I started tweaking and moding it to fit the Team Lethal atmosphere and over appearance. The base design was by DzinerStudio and many thanks to them for putting this out there.
When Do We Take IE 6 Off Life Support?
Over the weekend, as I was doing some work and testing some code, I asked myself a question that I constantly ask myself. Why am I still taking the time to code IE6 specific fixes and hacks into my work? I do all of my work on a MacBook Pro, downside number one. I used to have a PC desktop as well, and still do, but I simply do not have the room to setup my old school CRT.
Inspiration through hatred
Inspiration through hatred.
I’ll start this one by saying hate is a strong word. I mean strong in a sense that it has many meanings and can be stretched in many directions. When I mention inspiration through I mean it in a tough love kind of way. The idea that you like something so much that you hate it, it makes you angry how good it is. I really like because it means to me that it has stirred a very real emotion from you, something good design should do.
Over the last few weeks I have felt profound anger at myself because of my lack of creativity lately. I have been trying to break this a bit with doing a little bit of something creative everyday, even if its only for ten minutes or so. How do the rest of you deal with this? What types of activities inspire your creativity?
I have found that my current creative inspiration has been design blogs and local art showings in Philadelphia. I see what other people are creating and get angry that I’m not doing it and it helps motivate me to get something done. I still think I need to find a happier way of inspiring myself but for now, anger and hatred will do.
Haroldville Discovered!
It has been a few months in the making but I have finally published the first version of Haroldville, the website about Harold the Lunch Monster. It is not much as of yet but there are many plans for this site to expand and become more interactive over the course of time.
This website, as much as a marketing piece and e-commerce site as it is, will become a playground for not only myself but the users as well. Its currently built in AS2 but I will be porting it over to AS3 and starting to test the waters of user interactivity in terms of navigation and usability.
If you get a chance check it out and let me know what you think at www.onesandzerosfashions.com. When your done go ahead and check out the ETSY storefront located at onesandzerosfashions.etsy.com.
