Today, is a good day (as Mudhoney sing along) for WiredPortfolio (http://www.wiredportfolio.com)
Wired World is proud to say that the new online shop is officially open, and is waiting for new friends!
You can check it here: http://wiredworldshop.com
Like it? Cool! Love it? Spread the word! Hate it? Go back to work!
And if you got some free time, play around and let me know what you think.
Enjoy!
Remember this post? Well, it seems like things are falling into place, and preparations for a EU online shop are beginning!
I am really excited about it, I hope you really like it.
But it’s still a secret, as there is no website yet only ideas, sketches and designs. Oh..! and a brand new logo plus navigation buttons for the online store!
I’ve been experimenting with Flex Design quite some time now on my own, so when I read that Matt Pearson is looking for a Flex Designer, I took a big breath and thought that it would be a great opportunity to do some commercial Flex Design work. I was really happy when Matt agreed to work with me, and I was ready for some skinning! I chose to use Illustrator for designing/developing the required set of Flex components and the whole process was smooth, without any problems. Overall I admit that I enjoyed Flex skinning, though to be honest I did find it time-consuming.
The client was Cauliflowers Cards and the required Flex application, a yearbook demo, can be seen live here.
Wired World has designed a few free graphics, so you can add them on your website and encourage people to follow you on Twitter. Just copy the image you prefer, upload it to your site and link to your Twitter profile.
Happy twittering!
Dig in the Ribs is a popular Tex-Mex restaurant in Brighton. When Vanessa first contacted me, the image of the restaurant was old-fashioned and the menus looked dull and outdated. When she asked me to design the Christmas menus, I was more than glad to create a colourful and fresh style for her. Later the new logo was developed, as well as business cards and promotional flyers. Finally, the Dig and the Ribs menus were designed and a new brand was born!
Geoff Lillemon and Anita Fontaine - Stop and Smell the Internet
Geoff Lillemon is a Netherlands based surrealist working in the net art movement and with long time collaborator Anita Fontaine, they are currently producing art projects and commercial exhales with award winning advertising agency Modernista! in Amsterdam. They talked about past/present work and we got to see Geoff reading a poem of his own…although their art may not be my cup of tea, I did enjoy their presentation. But if you ask me one more time, I wish I had chosen Seb’s session. Yep..Papervision seems to be more attractive at the time.
Doug McCune - Steal this code: Decompiling SWFs for fun and profit
The title says it all. Doug talked about tools, which are available to buy ( Sothink SWF Decompiler, Nemo 440, swfdump, abcdump.as, ActionScriptViewer) that allow the user to decompile a swf file. Of course it is not as easy as it sounds, as you do not get most local variable names, method parameter names and for loops turn into while loops. An interesting session, where he also talked about obfuscation, the process of making your source code intentionally horrible to read.
You can download the slides from his presentation here.
Carlo Blatz - How to be a webinnovator - Experience matters?
Carlo is the author of the first professional German book about Flash, and is known as one of the most dedicated Flash pioneers of the German Flash scene. In his session he talked about Innovation, while analysing the formula Innovation = Creativity * Risk Taking. He mentioned past work and present projects and he also talked about the Disney Method, which I had no previous knowledge. It is a quite inspiring and interesting brainstorming method, and I would strongly advise anyone to read this article. If you know German you could also read the Wikipedia article.
Mario Klingemann - Here be Pixels
Mario was a great speaker in FOTB 07 and I was not going to miss his session. Still I was getting a bit overloaded with information from the last two days, and manipulating pixels was not helping my case. But I gotta say it was an amazing session with an even more impressive speaker.
Jonathan Harris - The Art of Surveillance and Self-Exposure
Hmmm…I don’t remember any other session causing me such a headache before as this one did…Don’t misunderstand me though..Jonathan is an excellent speaker and his tools are really great. WordCount, 10×10 are only few of the projects he developed, and they are very inspiring. I also enjoyed the first half of his presentation…I found that “We feel fine” could be described as a great concept and the way it is presented quite unique.
As a friend of mine said “The tools were great but the work distinctly underwhelming”.
And I am not that convinced about the mind/heart part yet…Oh and yes..there are a few masterpieces online…don’t you think?!
No comments…Enjoy!
(Music By Goldfrapp, Lovely Head)
Day 2 started with a bit of headache, as last night, after James Patterson’s presentation, we all went to Audio club for drinks (hey there were only £1, thanks to John Davey!). That meant going back home around 2:30 am and missing the 9:oo presentation. No regrets though, as the morning schedule was quite technical for a designer.
After a strong coffee and recharging, here it goes :
Jeremy Thorp - Emergence
Jeremy’s session was definitely the right choice for me. He talked about emergence and it’s requirements, explaining further, the need for mobility, dynamic environments and the ability to distinguish between groups and individuals. He presented his work, including Variance and Plumage. I immediately fell in love with Plumage. It lets users enter a word into a search engine, which is linked to Flickr and as a result it grabs any image tagged with that word. Then it collects it’s colour information and the output is portrayed in feathers. The result is just amazing.
Carla Diana - Robots! The Interface Designer’s Holy Grail
What Carla did in her presentation, was making us jealous of her work. And that is designing a robot, the brainchild of Andrea Thomaz, working along with a team of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She talked about the process of designing S.A.M. , an emotionally expressive robot (complete with eyeballs, lips and moving ear/antenna pods) for which she is the lead industrial designer. Movement, human interaction, abstraction, emotion, animation were the basic issues she had to think about when designing the robot. Unfortunately I did not manage to take any photos on her session, as I was thinking “I just love her job!”.
Carla also talked about past work and her background. My favourite project has to be Repercussion, a collection of digital instruments.
Jam Session
This session was a great surprise to everyone. Joa Erbert, Andre Michelle, Carlos Ulloa, Ralph Hauwert, Keith Peters and Mario Klingeman, each one having only 10 minutes to present their experiments. As you can imagine, the room was full and I’m guessing one of the best sessions ever. Personal highlight was Joa Ebert. Joa started typing code for 10 minutes non-stop, and it was crazy!…I have never seen anyone typing code so fast before!
Tom Baker - Life in Cartoons (as seen on TV)
Being a flash animator this presentation was a great opportunity for me to see how Tom Baker works and experiments with animation. He talked about his background and his way up to where he is standing now, as a flash animator for the BAFTA-nominated Cartoon Network series Skatoony. An interesting session and I certainly enjoyed watching clips from the animated trailer for the PS3 game Heavenly Sword, his latest animation work.
GMUNK Bradley Grosh - GMUNKICKDOWN 08.9
Bradley Grosh is the Creative Head behind GMUNK, a one-man production house. His session involved presenting past and present projects, including motion graphics and strong visuals. A talented speaker and with a great sense of humour.
Robert Hodgin - The Best 8 to 12 Hours of my Life.
The Best 1 hour of my time at FOTB 08. Mind blowing visuals, impressive particle effects, incredible emotions! And it’s all made up by Processing.
If you never heard of Robert before, I would suggest visiting his blog as well as his Vimeo page.
Definitely the best way to end Day 2!
