Future/past
Future/Past: Adobe Illustrator CS6 loading graphic tweaked. CS6 being used because CC subscription became too expensive. Funny thing is, the ye olde app runs butter smooth on my 12″ MacBook where as CC was a bit jerky.
Past and present
Found this bookmark digging around at the parent’s place, from the TS (Theosophical Society) Bookshop in Melbourne. Circa a long time ago, but poignant today as ever.
Hygge
Hygge. In a considered change of plans, we’re still in Minnesota. For the last week and a half we’ve been visiting with our good mates Chip & Sloane (and two childerbeasts) which has been wonderful. The last few days in particular, staying with mates’ parents up on Lake Melissa. Bliss would a good word to explain the last few days, and homely and loved are words to describe our stay in Minnesota so far. All good things must come to an end.
Poetic Systems
You know those times when things just seem to work out? When things sort of coincide with eery timing? When you start to believe something “happened for a reason”? Yep. This. I’m happy to announce that as of Monday, I’ll be wielding my Wacom pen full-time as part of Houston digital agency Poetic Systems. I’ll be stepping in as designer and resident Aussie. I’ll be working on mobile applications, websites, branding, and a bunch of other pixely stuff, as well as dispelling — or solidifying — myths about life down under, and the trials and tribulations of keeping kangaroos as pets.
Skillz to absolutely crush the billz
I’m on the hunt for a design job in Houston. While looking at positions advertised online this morning I came across a job ad with a detailed list of job requirements (a good sign), with the title “Graphic Designer / Web Developer / Design Department Mgr”, or “a bit of everything” (a bad sign). Below is the list of skills this advertiser needs. Emphasis added is mine. Web Developer: Ability to code, build websites from scratch, overhaul existing sites, build forms, manage shopping cart, develop web solutions and work with databases.
A blind date with Workhorse, Spindletop, and Cite
Last Tuesday I had the pleasure of popping in to the launch of Issue #91 of Cite Magazine with my good friend Sam. He’d found the magazine recently, enjoyed it, signed up to be a member of the Rice Design Alliance (who publish the magazine), learned of the launch through the member mailing list, and asked if I’d like to come along. Being design-related, I said YES. (Side note, Sam is not a designer, he’s an eye surgeon. True story.) Neither of us knew anyone, but we went anyway.
Digital me
Moving to a new city means meeting many, many new people. Meeting new people often means exchanging phone numbers and email address (I’m not on Facebizzle). In Malaysia, I had to whip up some DIY business cards for KL Design Week which worked a treat[1. Well, kinda: some people didn’t get that the cards flipped up to reveal new information, and instead tried to open the fold up completely. As a UX guy, this annoyed me, but I stuck with it because it generally worked for the intended purpose.].
An improvement to Apple’s Preview app
This is a screengrab of the PDF viewing options in Apple’s Preview app. It’s how you view a PDF on screen: as a single page, one at a time; as two pages side-by-side like a book, or continuous scroll where as you scroll through the pages, the next page slides into view below the current page, in a continuous line of pages. I can’t help but think the keyboard shortcuts for these can be improved. Consider this: Single page ⌘1 Two Pages ⌘2 Continuous Scroll ⌘3 Why?
The spike
Years ago, I read a book called “The Spike“. It describes future technologies and theorises on what the modern world might be like in the future based on then-current (in the 90s) technology. One concept that really stuck with me was nanotechnology and what the book describes as “the goop pool”. In a nutshell, the goop pool is a pool of loose carbon atoms which can clone anything you throw into it: You throw in a chair, nanobots deconstruct it atom by atom while recording the process, then rebuild the exact chair from the carbon atoms in the pool.