I'm working on a new website for Joel Greenwald's construction company called Grun·Built. In about 20 minutes I've put together a very rudimentary splash-page featuring some resizing full-screen imagery to showcase some of his work. Check it out and check back in about a month's time, we'll have some more content up for people to see as well as some details on Joel's amazing work with HGTV's Curb Appeal this past January. 120319
Grun·Built
I'm working on a new website for Joel Greenwald's construction company called Grun·Built. In about 20 minutes I've put together a very rudimentary splash-page featuring some resizing full-screen imagery to showcase some of his work. Check it out and check back in about a month's time, we'll have some more content up for people to see as well as some details on Joel's amazing work with HGTV's Curb Appeal this past January. 120222
How to Tie a Tie
Many people find it difficult to follow instructions because they cannot understand the components of the product. This kind of frustration can be eliminated if a designer identifies and shows the different parts of a product clearly. In this project I was asked to explain an object by identifying and showing its parts effectively and by producing clear and concise instructions as to the function of the product.
I was to bring to class an item which meets the following requirements:
- The object should consist of a minimum of 5 parts (can be detachable or non-detachable) and each part should have a name.
- It should be portable and no larger than 10” x 10” x 10” for easy portability!
- It should be available for study during and outside class time (avoid exotic and expensive items).
- It should require only 5 steps to describe how to use the object or how to put it together.
My Approach
The drawings and the descriptions work in tandem. To be concise and accurate, they need the accompaniment of each other. There is immediate complexity due to intertwining loops of the tie ribbon, this in turn creates many lines and shapes in the illustrations. To assist in the illustrations and instruction, the left side and right side of the tie will be separated by different colour so as to differentiate the two sides. There will also be two shades, a front (light) shade and a back (dark) shade of each colour to also assist in differentiating the wrapping of the tie. The overall impression is one of formality, including patterns, colours and typography associated with sophistication.111213
WordPress injection attack, JavaScript code disables site.
The other day I found this piece of code in many of my JavaScript files on a WordPress installation I had running. This code disabled my website, but I was more curious how the code was injected to every JavaScript file that I had running for the various plugins and scripts I made for the website. If anyone has any knowledge about injection attacks and is running some code scanning, be sure to look for parts of this in your files:
Bad JavaScript Code [PDF]
111014
My Steve Jobs Tribute
I did this digital tablet drawing of Steve Jobs for a class project in school. I spent quite a bit of time huddled over my Wacom Cintiq trying to reference draw this portrait, and it just goes to show you that Steve Jobs had an influence my life not just in the products his company Apple produced, but also in my projects I produced as well.
110429
ProgressivePower Brand Guide
Here are a few snapshots of the brand guide I created for my fictitious electric utility company for Graphic Design 4 class at OCAD University.
Brand guides are often much more detailed and unpacked - this was what was due for this course however.
Interested in seeing more? Download the full Brand Guide in PDF format here.
110427
Illustrator Outline Problem
About a month ago, a classmate of mine had pointed out that illustrator sometimes had a mysterious hairline around shapes of objects, even when there wasn’t a border or outline defined on the shape. Furthermore, this outline when exported out into raster format, retained and translated that outline into the pixels of the image!
See the following image close up to see what is happening. Also described here some six years ago but with no solution.
Well as you can see in the image, the problem has to do with the CYMK specifically, and the depth of the colour values for not only K, but cyan, yellow and magenta as well.
For some reason illustrator puts a thin outline around the image.
I really don't know know if this was planned by Adobe, but I do know how to fix it - simply Set all CMYK values to 100%, or if you want, set all of the values of C, M & Y to those of the background colour, and let the K (black) fill the rest of the shape as the black normally.
110408
Celedays Calendar
Here’s a project I worked on for my Typography 4: Expressive Type class.
The concept revolves around a calendar, “.. [it may be] a usable calendar or one that simply incorporates the elements that one associates with a ‘calendar’. I.E. numbers, the months, times, days, seasons etc. It’s all about carving up, distribution and categorization of ‘TIME’…”
My calendar distributes time by day, with the topic of holidays as a focus. The names of the holidays were collected at random from polling various people on Facebook asking them for one new holiday celebration per month, I call “Cele-days”.
The poll was conducted through my personal alias Facebook page (Something Interactive), where I created a simple Facebook App that used Google Docs as an embedded online form to collect information with, and also ensuring that anyone filling out the form needn’t leave Facebook.
I pitched the project on the Facebook page with this headline copy:
What if the Canadian Government realized the citizens of Canada work extremely hard and proposed to offer twelve new statutory holidays, one per month. They’ve temporarily named them celebration days (“Celedays”). In time these Celedays will need a more fitting name based on contemporary importance. What name would you recommend for each month’s new Celeday? Please share your reasoning for naming that day.
Once I collected all of the responses, I eliminated the duplicates and created random filler days. Finally, the resulting output was coded and put online here in this presentation. If down the road I feel like want to revisit this, I can easily take the days and resort them, change the display functionality and restyle them easily.
In the first minutes of showcasing this to the public, I noticed that people immediately scroll to the Celeday that coincides with their birthday, how interesting and fun!!
