I'm not dead, just been busy

I have been working full time as a Graphic Designer/Animator/Video Producer/Web Programmer/etc. for a little over a year now, and I have not been able to share much of what I have been working on. Well, recently I have been given a little more creative freedom to work on some Web/Programming stuff, so I thought I would take some time out to share a snippit with you all :)

Speed Demon - eBay Store Template
This is a single eBay template, that carries some of the theme and branding from the main website over to eBay. Single .html file with all styling and Javascript done in line.

Speed Demon - Website
This is a responsive single page website, using html5 and css3, so it will change format to fit screen size and orientation dynamically. It is broken down to sections and mostly all information and links are optimized for search engines.

Stay tuned for some more stuff. I have a few CSS3 and HTML5 tricks up my sleeve that I can't wait to share with you all soon. 

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Dreams of life on the other side...

I have been working part time as a Graphic Designer / IT guy and going to school full time for Application Development. Life has been a bit busy for a while now, and this being the last full two weeks of classes, it is also a tiny bit stressful. On the upside, I am working a job that gives me full creative freedom within reason, and I get to use one heck of a military grade computer while doing so. I do plan on showing some of my work there as soon as it is released, so you are just going to have to be patient a little longer.

I have also been donating my artistic and technical talents still at Frontline Community in Grand Rapids, and things there are also smooth sailing, in fact, this is the first church I have found that doesn't make an overly bureaucratic mess out of suggestions towards artistic direction and visualizing the message. Nice place, you should visit sometime ;) Anyways, I have a few pieces here that I can show from past / current series and a couple proposals for future series... (Will be adding more soon)



After this semester of school is over, my Wife and I plan on doing a role switching exercise, and she is going to be putting work on hold while I will be working full time for Rev-X Products and starting my own personal projects in app development. This will not be easy, since I have pretty much played the role of a stay/work at home Dad for almost three years, but I have all the faith in the world that this will work out for the best for all people involved, and this is where dreaming of life on the other side comes to play. What if this actually works, what if this can actually help us afford to spend time with each other more as a family.

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Until then, this is Untitled

I have spent the past days trying to think of a good blog post, and nothing cool came to mind at all. I went through tech projects, art projects, and even an invention or two, nothing! But then I remembered what an awesome week I have had so far, not much to complain about at all.

I started work on a new clients site, got that first down payment, then I also received a check from a back owed client, so that was nice too, not much, but together I was able to pay a little towards rent and pick up one gift each for the kids. This year we picked a gift that has the potential to offer gaming, learning, and communication... but that will end up becoming a whole other post on it's own.

The wife cooked the entire Thanksgiving meal by herself this year, and I didn't even realize till the next day that I didn't have a single complaint about it, it turned out pretty awesome! (That, and I didn't have anything to do with it this year), just awesome! There were also an assortment of baked goodies too, from Pumpkin pie, to some kind of Spice Cake and even cookies. She went all out this year and it turned out awesome.

My mother came over, and we spent plenty of time playing games and socializing. There was even a spy game in there I think, found the to-do list from my little spy... Just not sure why finding Willow is so far down the list :) Overall, it was a good week spent with the family, so there are never any complaints about that. I did plenty of art and even some music in between. I'll update my post later with a live recording of a song I'm working on.

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Forced downtime... again

I have been busy lately, so please forgive me for the lack of posts recently. For starters, I have almost no work on the table, three projects in limbo, just waiting for a green light, and a tiny trickle of gas and cigarette money coming from one web client. So I have a bit of downtime. This doesn't mean that I haven't been bust cold calling businesses or answering requests for websites and graphics work off the web though, I keep myself pretty busy, just in things that don't generate immediate income.

I started taking out some time to make some animated backgrounds for my Church's projectors during the songs. Some... less psychedelic ones perhaps ;) Here is a playlist of a good portion of the animations. I am willing to donate high resolution animations for any religious organization that may want it, otherwise, I think I will ask for a donation.



I also got a little flame under my butt on music too, trying to make a couple new songs and a couple remixes of things I hear here and there. Here is a little taste of one song I'm working on recently:


As usual, I'm always up to something, so keep posted for updates on what I'm up to next.

Thanks ;)

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One down, three to go!

Dadds.com site design and update

The site I have been poring my hard work into lately is finally finished. And by the time this post goes live, the site will be live as well hopefully. The biggest part of this project was taking all the old info and updating it for newer devices and services. I implemented a payment portal, HTML5 slideshow, a kick butt content editor, and a couple easy ways to incorporate videos and slideshows easily. So let's start with a small before and after of the website. 

Home page

Here is the old homepage layout for Dadds.com 

And here is the new layout. We have minimized the focus on the page to the opening article, and replaced all the various banners and text info with a few dynamic modules that will automatically adjust to the article size. 

Limo-bus 25 page

Here is a sample of one of the pages on the old dadds.com. This page is about one of their limo-buses. The actual info did not start until you scrolled down a couple pages worth. 

This was fixed with the new design. All of the slides/pictures are contained in a basic slider that scrolls by its self every few seconds. 

Wedding Services Page

With this page, it was the same as all the others, laid out for one screen size, Gallery and videos took up most of the page, and the content was taking up a small part of it. 

With the slideshow implemented, and the modules around the content, we can see a good portion of the content right off the bat. This is a good thing here. 

Other Examples

Here are a few more examples for how the site looks now with a large resolution screen. This is how it would appear on 60% of the computers viewing it.

Mobile Phone Layout

Here are a few screens for how the site layout adjusts for mobile devices. These are what the view on a basic iPhone will look like. The only thing I'm not happy with on this view is that the pictures are still using a 650 width. If I use 100%, I get a slideshow the width of one row/module. So it is one or the other here :)

Mobile Tablet Layouts

When you view the site from a tablet, the format also shifts and you get a couple different content sizes depending on if the site is viewed in landscape or portrait mode. 

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All about Jenga

Yesterday was a bit of an odd day. It was planned out from the beginning, and most of it was executed to plan, with the exception of a few things. But the day started off on a bit of an odd note, and when I was explaining something to my wife, I used a reference to Jenga. Then later on that day, I had been doing something else, and I said it was like Jenga again. WTF? Why would I mention a game I haven't seen or played for years, twice in one day?

I spend the rest of my day doing my thing, then when my wife and I were talking about it later that night, we had both thought that if another Jenga something came into play later on that day, it has to be a sign for something. Well, the day went by, and we finished out all of our planned activities with minimal difficulty, then when I got to the relaxing part of my evening, I pulled out my iPad, and opened up Draw Something, and noticed i had one game that was my turn. I clicked the play button, and watched my friend guess my previous artistic rendering of a word, then it was my turn. And there the word was again, Jenga.

I cant seem to resist tempting fate sometimes, so I clicked on the word, and proceded to draw a Jenga game, then my iPad crashed, and the app closed. Before i could hit the send button. When I opened it back up, Jenga was not on the word list for that game. So I just picked a random word and did my best to depict it. The Jenga and the game crashing was my third sign, and it also explained what the sign was pointing to.

Earlier that week, I had been offered another contract position for a local company, and I was seriously considering taking their offer and balancing the work between them, and the company I am currently doing web work for. The prospect of doing both of those contracts would be great for our current financial abilities, but it would have also beeen a lot of work. Seeing as my Wife's current employer has adjusted her hours to allow her more work durring the week, this whole thing would have possibly come toppling down, just like a Jenga game.

The lesson here is that it doesnt matter how well i can do something, or how much money i can make doing so, because if I try to build my tower too high, using the same pieces I use as a foundation, things are likely to come crashing down with the slightest disruption. Do I really want to put myself in that position? Not really. I think I'll stick with my current pace, and when this job is done, I will take another offer.

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IDEA - Artprize Poster

The people over at Artprize.org released their pick for the 2012 Artprize poster, and many will agree with me when I say that it did not go over very well. The poll was over 75% against it. Coming from their perspective though, they only had a select few submissions for this years contest, so I'm sure the picking was slim.

As an artist in this town, I felt that I had to do my part to show what else Grand Rapids has to offer when it comes to art and poster design. So I have decided to design another poster, instead of being one of those artists that just complains about something and does nothing to better it. This poster really does have a 3D effect to it, and won't produce migraines.

Leave a comment if you like where this is going ☺

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Long weekend

I'm planning on starting my schedule change this upcoming week, which means that I will have worked a bit more than I am used to before I get a day off. So I am taking my time relaxing before I log into work tonight.

I hope to start work on one if my website ideas next week, still have to price out a hosting service that will work well for it. I've already decided to use a version of community builder for the user side of the site. Not sure if that is the best decision so far, we will see.

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