Wednesday 23 February 2011

Research Assignment Multipost

Hi guys !
It's been a long long long time !
I've had this post saved as a draft for like MONTHS so there it is, for your eyes only :-)
So, what's new ?
Well there's been 2 new versions of the website online since last time.
Crazy, I KNOW, right !?




V.2.0
The 1st 1 featuring a full visual layout !
v.2.0 permalink

So that was alright.
But still far from complete, and is used a mockup for the loading bar also ...



V.2.1
That's the current version so just go the website's homepage.
I don't think I'm gonna post a permalink but next time I post an update it will have a working archive and U'll B able 2 go check out how it used to look in that way ... maybe.
I'll work it out.
V.2.1 has a portfolio !
And that's it ...

Far from complete, work in progress, U kno the drill.
But yet again 1 step closer 2 some kind of finished product, so ... yay !



In the process of creating all that stuff, I used a couple of features in Flash I had never used before ... I did ! For example, I used scenes, which I experimented with in this silly exercise. Also, in the process of creating all that Flash material, I realized that, sometimes, Flash is just ... beautiful ... wooow ...
Lastly, I kinda wrapped my porftolio up in a couple of days but I was gonna do something a bit more in the style of Alex Cherry's website, which is very good so go check it out pplez.



Overshadowed by Gorillaz

I realized just how much Kong influenced not only the Haunted House but even my current website project the other day. I think I got the basic idea of sharing data and having a database-centered website from them, check out these screenshots :

The inventory has a quick link facility that lets you access each band member's personal computer at all times



Within the studio, each one is located in its owner's bedroom ... somewhere



And they let you view & sometimes download stuff ! Imaged-based content monstly but it's still what the basic concept is, it's where I got it from.
So yeah, Gorillaz ... what would I do without them :-)
Good inspiration in any case, many thanks !



Technology what's your fuckin' problem !?
I've been harassed by technology lately ... Laptop went berserk, I mentioned that, but then I also got some techies to recover data on an old hard drive that I thought I could have used (some of it) for research but it's not gonna happen 'cause it's all around the place (it got sorted by extension ... flippin' gr8). There was that problem with that USB that got wiped by the Macs as well, and that happened again but on my whole hard drive, not like I lost a lot but I don't like wasting my time or doing the same thing twice so FUCK YOU MACS !
There, I said it, I feel better now ...



What's up with the warning pattern ?
Well quite frankly I'm not too sure ! Thou the main idea of my website (aka overall layout of the homepage) has not changed since I drew the 1st concept last summer, it evolved and mutated a bit.
Now each page has a bit of that pattern and is developped around it, not just the homepage !
I think it adds something to it, it does not only denote danger, rather constant evolution and refining in this case, it's a work in progress, being built ... I think it works in this sense too ...

Anyways I've tried to track down the origins of this pattern and I got 2 possibilities :

-It could come from the website I did in Grade 10. It's been taken offline sadly but the homepage used to look like this (that's the French & English homepages put side to side to compare). I mainly built it from cool stuff (*what I used to find cool at the time, in 10th Grade, you all know what that would be :-D ... no you don't ? Ahm, yes you do -you asked for it !-) I found on Google back then and thou I do not know if I included this one pattern for sure, because I did not quite finish the whole website there were still quite a couple of pages left under construction with this dude and that dude on there, so that could be where it all started.

-It could also come from a project I did when I was working at the Nail Bar. They had very very horrid handmade signs, especially one on the front door (pretty bad) with the opening times, but also one on the toilet door that said "staff only". For the one on te front door, there was nothing to do, I redesigned it from scratch and I'm pretty sure it still stands sits there to this day 'cause it was pretty kick ass ! But thou the one on the toilet door was bad (felt tip pen fades over time ... expecially when it's pink) the typography was still quite cool so I just printed the warning pattern around it and then more or less copied the typography by hand inside of it. The idea was to let the customers understand that they should NOT use the loo in a way that makes it clear but that's not too authoritarian. I think it worked rather well. Anyways there's the pattern I came up with. It might just be where the idea originated ... but then it feels as thou I had it in my head way before that (it was in the Frankenpad). So I got no idea really ...



Online applications inventory
"How much Flash crap do I have online ?", you ask ?
Well, "Lots", I answer ...
Like that much:
Haunted House
v.1
v.2
v.3.1

Testers
UI Template
Children Experiment 1
Children Experiment 3
Children Experiment 6
AddChild Loop
Devil & Angel
Gif Tester
BooGhost

Exercises
1-Regular Tree
1-Red Tree
1-Colourful Tree

2-Domo

3-Random

Website
v.1.0 raw
v.1.0 HTML

v.0 raw
v.0 HTML

v.0.0 raw
v.0.0 HTML

v.1.1
v.0.1
v.1.2
v.2.0
v.2.1 (/most up to date)




DJ's roots
DJ right ? The main comic character who represents me back then I was a really frustrated teenager walking around High School with hugh headphones glued to my ears (unlike DJ I didn't have hooves or screenwiper-shaped eyes thou ... just so U kno), the dude in green at the top of this port. I started drawing him in High School in my then Artbook (G11-12). Matter of fact, this is the 1st comic in The Chronicles of DJ. Right anyways, so I started drawing him back then but I was mostly influenced by a blogger called Mad~Monkey. She was really cool, drawing a lot of Gorillaz fan art, and she had a blog but it was taken offline ! And then I lost her trail ... And now incredibly, in the frame of my research, I've found it back ! So behold the true dark (and kinda Emo, sorry in advance for that) origins of DJ : Bad blog 1 Mad blog 2 Mad blog 3 !



Sketchbook update
New sketchbook stuff ... yay ! There's a couple of things there, jsut check them out.
Page 1, Page 2, Page spread



Updated title graphics

Before
After

I KNOW, I wowzered in my trousers when I saw this too !
I'm glad we share the same feeling ... so touching !



Aaaand well that's it for today !
What ? Well why yes indeed, as it turns out, I got other stuff to do I shall get on with too !
Sooo I'll be in touch.
Soon.
... enough.

Take care peoplez :-) !

Friday 4 February 2011

WTF & Fixed

Wow !
So much stuff, so much emotion !
There's been quite a bit happening during this week :




-my PC crashed and is damaged, will have 2 get repaired by the Dell pple.
(it started acging weird on tuesday last week) It mostly slows me down for my other module. It's OK now 'cause I got the files but it's worrying me 'cause I mean, poor Neo :-( & I can't really work from home anymore 4 now AUUUUUUUGH !

-my USB got wiped and I almost lost all of this week's worth of data !
That was right today (on Thursday). Luckily somehow as it turns out I had backed up everything for this module on the Macs yesterday ... that was damn lucky ! So I only lost stuff that's irrelevant 2 this module ... phew !

-I found out that I'll only be able to have one webpage with FastHost (I bought my domain from them) until I decide to buy their webspace and pay monthly (as I'm using the Uni server 2 host stuff 4 now). FUCK THAT (for now anyways) ! So up until finances get sorted out a bit (like that's gonna happen lulz) I'll just work within the same Flash App insteadda redirecting to separate webpages, which is what I was planning on doing on the 1st place 4 the 1st draft anyways but then I'm not 2 sure if I still wanna use different webpages 4 the final ... I'll see.

-I finished stuff !
Old Placeholder page v.2 <<<permalink>>> (a bit bugged)
New Placeholder page <<permalink>>>
New Loading page mockup ! <<permalink>>>

So the current website that's online is the New Placeholder page ("Menu3"/"1stMockup_49"), next : the Homepage :-D

Also I been helping Sir Angrew with his pixel idea thingy (it's fair in a way 'cause his stuff insired me 2 use glow on the new Placeholder, & 4 what follows) and I stumbled upon that old friend :

Paul Robertson !

Genuis dude, working with pixels mainly, it's good inspiration for both my modules.
He's got a very very special style thou, so I warn U if U're gonna click the link, but real cool still in my opinion.
He works with a couple of friends and they have a couple of websites and things all over the place (it's a bit confusing to find what you're after, actually ... ), so there's a couple of inspiring thingies related to Paul Robertson I'm a link 2 now 'cause it might just inspire me in the future :

Interactive Flash App by Paul, pretty interesting codewise
 
Animation by Paul, involves murder

Animation by Paul, involves ... well you'll see !

MechaFetus homepage, nice simple design

MechaFetus blog, lots of ideas in there

Persona's blog, nice simple layout (buttons on left side)

PantsOnPete blog, nice title image

Except for PantsOnPete (he's a friend of the GreasyMoose) they're all Paul Robertson-related people.

Also last link, totally unrelated to all the above but Elena shared that awesome link earlier on ...
It's very awesome !
I just like how it's animated together, very simple yet super effective !
So ye ... enough links 4 2day !

I guess you could say that Paul Robertson & co's stuff is a bit disturbing, but I like it :-)
Because there's a lot of stuff on there and that it's not all relevant to this module I added the other links I had to a post on my other blog, check it out for more stuff on Paul Robertson.

Well bye for not and be back soon with more stuff, YAYZIES, ciao !

Tuesday 1 February 2011

My baby's beautiful :-D !

Hello !
And zOMG !
My website's online :-D !

Well not like it's finished obviously but I've got a neat little placeholder page that says "Coming soon" :-D
Go check it out !!! --- (Flash app permalink)

OK so I have 2 give credits 2 pplez on this 1 :

-1st of all the dear Sir Angrew who gave me the idea to put a placeholder page on the 1st place, check his out. Cheers pal !
-And then I stole some URL request code from here as well as some HTML alignment code from there, it was very useful ! That alignment was more of a challenge than I expected but I made it in the end :-D



Very good news, very good news indeed !
We skipped a step or 2 thou, also I said last time that I'd get onto the actual pages mockups next, but the design of the buttons took me a long time ! The ones presented on the website are the very finals with a little label ("HOME", "DESIGN", "ART", etc.) appearing under each icon when U mouse over it, there's a file with the very same icons w/o the labels, it lets U switch between a white & black background too.
I came up with everything myself, including the colours which were a big part of it, I chose each hue so each icon is clearly visible on both a white and a black background, I like the result.

Now if you can't get enough of that sweet icon creating process click the image below for the entire icon development process ...

That is all for today !

More exciting updates soon !

Ciao !