I recently to be able to help build a new info site for Adbase, a ~200 page product resource for my FTJ.
Aug 3
Michel Gondry sketched my portrait based on a digital photo I emailed him along with $20 via paypal. I guess he was pretty backlogged – it took him so long to get to mine (#2262) that I had all but forgotten about it by the time it arrived in the mail. Awesome!
May 3
Check out this bizarre doorway on Bloor st. near Ossington in Toronto. I must have walked by a hundred times without really taking a second glance. What on earth could it be?
853 Bloor West, Toronto
Flickr user pinkmoose has a pic of the same doorway, asking the same question. Other than pinkmoose’s photo and mine, google has never heard of such a thing, so I imagine it’s just an art project. Or a torture chamber.
Cool!
Last week we launched an info site for Found Folios, a new photography sourcebook set to hit the market with its first issue this September. Found’s books are unique in that they’re published monthly rather than once a year and each issue targets a specific market segment. Traditional creative sourcebooks are bulky annual monoliths (think: yellow pages of photographers) that make these sleek, targeted books look like an attractive new option for the industry.
I’m a big fan of Oxygen Design’s minimal, typography-oriented design featuring big, bold headlines and dramatic use of whitespace. While we were building this site I came across Smashing Magazine’s Top 10 web design trends in 2009, and realized that FoundFolios.com scores a 5/10. Is the glass half empty or half full? Either way, the effect is nicely realized and sets a terse, clear voice for the brand.
Stephen DeMarsh and I just launched a new website for Change for the Environment, a cool new environmental charity aiming to raise some funds for tree planting. So far they have a bunch of retail partners in Toronto, Trenton and Belleville who have either agreed to host dropoff spots or have worked directly with CFTE on this worthy project.
My part of building the site was to create xhtml/css markup matching Stephen’s designs, build an interactive map to plot the various donation locations and integrate a WordPress blog into the core of the site. I used the the Google Maps API to build an entirely JavaScript map application and location database, complete with pagination, IP-based geolocation, search geocoding and distance sorting.
Jan 11
So I just completed my first week as a full-time software developer at Adbase, and I think it’s going pretty well. Adbase sells a database of marketing contacts to photographers and illustrators. They have been filling this niche for a little over a decade, and seem like a fairly solid fixture in the industry. My role is to squash bugs and develop new features in their database and web application tiers.
Jan 10
Marketing communications wiz Lindsay Renwick has created her own blog, where she plans to discuss the finer points of writing for that field. I know from experience Lindsay’s uniquely effective writing style, and I’m eager to hear what she has to say about the subject.
We used a free WordPress theme (Cutline by Chris Pearson) and a handful of community WordPress plugins. Easy as pie!
Dec 17
A few weeks back I was asked to rebuild The Fremantle Corporation’s website in a way that would make it easy for staff members to make changes to the online product catalog. After comparing the usual suspects (WordPress, Joomla! Drupal) and factoring in my own experience on previous projects, we decided that Drupal’s unique mix of growing popularity and powerful administration tools made for a winning combination.
I got to work migrating the page content and coding an xhtml/css Drupal theme to present it all.
Dec 15
There comes a time at the end of every hardware lease when you have to send your beloved toy back to the nice folks you were borrowing it from. In my case, Dell will be receiving a package this week containing my Inspiron 9300 (17″ bohemuth) workstation. I don’t think Dell needs to know about my personal finances, downloading habits or photos of my family so I decided to wipe the disk.
My buddy Jon and I shot this video back in October at a high-school on Shaw street in Toronto. A security guard came by while we were shooting and told us we had to stop because the school would be liable if we got hurt. But he eventually caved and let us finish the shoot. Plus, I think he was just jealous of the sweet dunks.