Vroom Vroom...

I'm setting up my new business at the moment, as I'm currently in the middle of a redundancy process and need to get my head around "Life After Teletext", where I've been for 11 years, busily getting complacent and institutionalised.
Getting a similar job is pretty much out of the question (as in it's both unlikely and to be honest, probably undesirable) so I'm looking at freelancing more than anything - the skills and experience are there; but it's going to take a lot of hard work and persistence too.
There's some interesting projects that I'm aiming to pursue, primarily because they'd be things I'd love to do and would be brilliant if they worked out - but I'm also keeping my feet firmly on the ground and prepping to do my fair share of "grind" work too; the kind of thing of which the best you can say is that it "pays the bills..."

One of the major upsides to what I'm planning is that pretty much everything I can do on my Macs, but there's two things that have sadly meant I need to get Windows up and running...

One is that, as a web designer amongst other things, I really need to ensure that anything I build looks and works fine cross-platform, so I need to check it in PC browsers on a Windows OS. The other is that I bought a special application called "Business in a Box" which is basically an adaptable business and legal document resource. Had I wanted just the English version then there's a Mac one, but as I wanted the English AND Spanish combined edition it's got a bit more complicated, as it's not available for the Mac and requires a PC version that is a bespoke app that allows exports to standard "Office" formats.

So basically I've just had to shell out on the Business in a Box software, plus Office for PC, plus Windows for PC, plus Parallels to run the whole fat lot on top of the Mac OS.

This had better all be bloody worth it!!! It's yet another disappointment to my team too, who've been devastated by the sight of me buying project-planning and accounting software recently. By the way, the best project planning software for Mac is unarguably OmniPlan by the wonderful folks at Omni Group, who also produce OmniGraffle which is pretty much indispensable for things like sitempas and wireframing.

By the way, the new business is called Vroom Media.
There's a main information site here...
And a more detailed portfolio site here at Vroom Vroom...
Plus there's a page on Facebook here...

If you need some nifty design work doing, and you're a nice person and a prompt payer then get in touch ;-)

New El Canto Del Loco & Pere Tutusaus Websites

It's been a busy couple of days with me overhauling and relaunching a couple of my "pet project" sites. I won't call them "hobbies" as they're too important to me, and I felt that given the other rebuilds I'd done recently it'd be a great opportunity to carry on learning about Wordpress and PHP and CSS geekery by giving both sites a complete makeover and moving them from Blogger to my own domains and building them from the ground up with revised designs.

Here's how the new El Canto Del Loco website looks...



And this is how I've reworked the new Pere Tutusaus website, although I've left the branding more or less intact on this one, compared to the hefty redesign of the whole styling that I've done with the ECDL site...



I've also been working on a very cool idea that I've come up with which will also be a WP project; although it's huge by comparison, and also very secret squirrel, so I've got to try and stay excited about it for months yet while I mess around at refining and developing the idea and figuring out if there's any money in it!
Stay tuned...
And stay patient...

Luke Jackson - "Goodbye London" Video

I'm indebted to British-Canadian singer/songwriter Luke Jackson for dropping me a line about his new video "Goodbye London" which features not only a cracking song about the place where I live, but also a top piece of animation, mixing time lapse and stop-motion of London scenes with drawn characters and graffiti. The result is a belter of a video; charming but unsentimental, and completely evocative of the city.
Do pass it on, and if you want to find out more about Luke and his work, including "Goodbye London" and his new album "...And Then Some" you can do so here...

You can buy "...And Then Some" on iTunes by clicking here...

Deadline

Post-its... one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. Stop-motion... sublime in the right hands (Ray Harryhausen, Vision-On, Sledgehammer, Creature Comforts...)
Put them together - in the form of a senior Art & Design School project by Bang-​yao Liu and you have "Deadline", a wonderfully playful and imaginative take on procrastination and pressure.
Triffick :-)

Mac Keyboard Skull Shirt

Okay... Weird headline... Sounds a bit random stream of consciousness I know.
Sorry but couldn't think of a better 'short' way of putting it.

Think I may have to treat myself to one of these for the summer...
A funky t-shirt off the Red Bubble website - by a Brighton designer called Roger - featuring a skull made out of two sets of Mac keyboards.
The white keys come from an extended white Mac keyboard; the black keys were taken from the original iMac.
To check it out in full, or indeed to go buy it, you should click here...

Okay - since I started writing that, I succumbed to temptation and bought it.
Feel much better for doing so. You probably should too...


Spotted on Cult of Mac

Animals On The Underground

I had one of those random synaptic firings after I posted the piece on TFL's "Departure Boards" web tool - which reminded me of the excellent Animals On The Underground website.

If you've never encountered this, it's a bundle of fun - and something you too can have fun with if you have a copy of the Underground diagram and a pencil...
Basically people have found the shapes of all kinds of animals in the lines of the London Underground as they're displayed on Harry Beck's 'Diagram' - or 'map' as it's lazily referred to.
A few years back there were very few animals - I believe a guy called Paul Middlewick was the initiator of all this, but it seems to have blossomed more recently, and there's a whole page of them here...
And they've also got some cool merchandise, which helps fund IFAW.

Alvaro Bautista Grungy '09 Desktop Wallpaper

Even though I tend to stick away from my MotoGP geekdom and nerdity on this blog, there's times where it seems right to let the odd post slip through.
Like now...
I've just completed the first in a set of 2009 Alvaro Bautista desktop wallpapers which hopefully bring stylings and treatments on a big step from last year, whilst remaining stuffed with my basic design DNA.
The first one is now available for download, and comes in 1440x900 and 1280x800 widescreen options... A lush, deep and grungy treatment, finished off with a cracking action photo from the Japanese Grand Prix at Motegi, and a discreet rack of sponsor logos. I've tried to make the composition totally appropriate for both Mac and Windows desktop layouts.
Click here for the downloads...

Rendering My Arse...

Many thanks to 3D artist (see above) Chris for sending this on...

Cyril Highsmith Interview

These are some pages from the sketchbooks of typographer Cyril Highsmith, who's interviewed in the latest MyFonts.com Newsletter, online now here...

Talented guy, interesting thoughts, and some lovely examples of his craft.

Music From The Worm Farm

I've just finished designing a website for composer Keith Johnson for the fascinating "Music From The Worm Farm" project, a six month residency on a R&D project in the MRC Cell Biology Unit at University College London and funded by the Wellcome Trust.
The project aims to explore "the deep questions at the heart of both our interests are those that concern the brain and the body, what we think and what we do, and the mysterious middle ground between them."

The main website is here... and its ongoing journal/blog is here...

The project culminates in live performances of the work that comes out of the residency next year. What I've heard so far sounds terrific...