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This week’s Wallpaper Wednesday is derived from my recent studies of Greek mythology. It was also an attempt to bring something to life totally by imagination while messing with the new Illustrator CS3. With a lot of client work swirling around, I find it difficult to draw what I want all the time. I have been trying to create a new cartoonish style to some of the things I am doing. This is being exercised by drawing a different item each day, just practicing different Illustrator techniques. The Satyr was one I did this morning and I decided he cannot be a true Satyr with out a woodland to make trouble in. So here you are folks, a little blue Satyr to frolic on your desktop. Enjoy! [tags]wallpaper wednesday, satyr, Greek Mythology, illustrator, blue, vector, wallpaper[/tags]

Are you ready for some football? With the season opener only 4 days away you know I was not going to let you all down. So here it is, an Eagles desktop wallpaper that should satisfy all those that bleed Green! Hopefully the Birds will find themselves on the winning end of this season. I am making no predictions but I have a feeling it is going to be a superb year. No. 5 is back in action and I am sure he and B. West will be cutting up defenses like surgeons. Good luck boys; give us a great season! I have been getting a lot of requests for sports wallpapers from friends all over. Those of you who have made requests to me personally should be receiving them with in the next week. For the rest of you I will be creating a sub-category just for sports teams once I have at least 10 of them done. This is a monumental undertaking so it may take me a while, rest assured i will work as fast as I can. [tags]wallpaper wednesday, Philadelphia Eagles, Philadelphia, Eagles, NFL, birds, wallpaper[/tags]

So this week I was a little inspired by a recent dream. I have been focused on new visualization techniques by drawing whole items in my head with the Illustrator interface. I start with a vision of the pen tool on the art board. As I begin to add anchors and edit handles a drawing begins to come to life on my mind’s “monitor”. As I near completion of each drawing, I am asleep and my dreams become incredibly vivid. I have been practicing my lucid dreaming and when I use my “drawing” visualization they become dramatically more intense. While drawing in my head last night I kept getting visions of eyes in the dark. When I started to dream, I was accompanied by an owl while walking through a unique array of architecture. The owl never spoke but in my dream I could hear his thoughts and he could hear mine. This was not like conversation, it was more literal, more primal, incredibly simplistic and spartan. He had no name and I cannot recall his color…but his eyes. His eyes were the way I could hear his voice. Once I looked in his eyes my dream became more intense, each glance back at my avian friend the dream twisted and changed. I was not sure if he was guiding me, or taunting me, either way I have had the thoughts of “The Owl of Minerva” from Roman mythology in my head all day. The influence of this became so strong that I had to draw a representation of this symbol my unconscious decided to bless me with. To come full circle the wallpaper, like all of my wallpapers, was created all in Illustrator which was the vehicle for the visions in the first place. [tags]wallpaper wednesday, Minerva, Roman Mythology, Illustrator, dream, eyes[/tags]

At the request of Belkin this wallpaper has been removed from public view. Sorry Belkin fans but that is just the way it is.

Okay peeps, it is 11pm WEDNESDAY and I raced the clock to get this week’s edition of Wallpaper Wednesday. It’s all about the Philadelphia Phillies! After the clutch home run by Aaron Rowand last night, I could not let the energy pass and decided right then and there that there clearly not enough Phils wallpapers out there! The remedy for that my friends…2,304,000 pixles of Philadelphia sports goodness. Enjoy! [tags]wallpaper wednesday, philadelphia, phillies[/tags]

Okay so this week I was late on the Wallpaper Wednesday. I was having way too much fun with some of my Independents Hall coworkers, and a well soaked concert in the rain with Hall and Oates. Better late than never right? With the spirit of the July 4th holiday and the upcoming BlogPhiladelphia conference I decided to do a IndyHall based wallpaper displaying our slightly improved logo, which now sports a gritty version of Independence Hall! Enjoy all! [tags]independents hall, wallpaper wednesday, coworking[/tags]

In an effort to get myself to contribute more to the site, I have started Wallpaper Wednesday; a weekly installment where I place a new desktop wallpaper up for public download. This week we kick it off with an idea given to me by Bart Mroz. Apparently Bart had purchased a particular t-shirt with this theme and I decided to make my own. I have not seen the t-shirt but if this looks anything like it, I can assure you it is entirely coincidental. Enjoy!

Earlier today I did my first podcast with PhillyTIP, the blog dedicated to technology in Philadelphia. It was a fantastic experience. Ken, Bart and Alex have become regular collaborators with me in various projects, and I was really flattered that they wanted to sit me down for a chat. You can listen and download the podcast at PhillyTip.com [tags] Philly, Philadelphia, technology, development, PhillyTIP[/tags]

Now that the web is evolving into a more application driven, social platform; interface and information design is more of a factor than it ever was before. As designers we have a responsibility to help our developer counterparts translate their web apps into concisely designed GUI’s that allow the user to interact with a site in the most efficient way possible. To achieve this, web designers must be able to at least understand the ins and outs of CSS/XHTML and understand the basics of most web development languages like PHP and Ruby. The days of passing off a sliced up Photoshop file are far behind, we now need to consider typography, information structure and usability in web design. These items cannot be addressed with just a pretty Photoshop file; they must be addressed within the code, as we work side by side with a developer. Understanding the language and methodology of our developer friends augments our ability to assist them in delivering a more usable, more beautiful web. My insistence in writing my own CSS, forces me to work closely with the developer, and get a good understanding of the site or application they are building. This becomes a winning relationship because now we are co-working, not handing off responsibility until it is the other one’s turn. It gives the developer a better premonition of the final product, allowing him to catch flaws and make adjustments to his app more efficiently than before. In return the designer gains a familiarity with the overall workings of a site, and how it performs the requests of the users, therefore allowing us to compensate for confusing design, and poor user experience. It just works better this way. Those looking to make the leap between print and web design can find nothing but advantage in learning how to code CSS / XHTML. Resources are abundant and in most cases you can be designing CSS based sites in one night. Like everything, practice will help you improve your coding and eventually change the way you design web sites — for the better I promise you. On the other hand, if you have been a so-called “web” designer that turns their nose up at web code, you may want to seriously reconsider. I am not saying that every designer should run out and learn every web language they can, but it cannot hurt. CSS/XHTML should be second nature for any web designer and if you don’t know it…well…you really cannot say you are a web designer. Calling yourself a web designer and not knowing how to code CSS is as bad as calling yourself a graphic designer and only using CorelDRAW! This post is pretty much a rant, a call to arms if you will. I am hoping to promote a better coworking relationship between designers, and developers. There is no O’Reilly book for color theory, or typography or even for layout. We need to be that for our dev colleagues, we need to direct them visually as much as they direct us functionality. This leads us all to the same goal, designing the best experience for our audience. [tags]independents hall, coworking, CSS, XHTML, web design[/tags]

So instead of going back out and making sweet love to a few pints of Guinness, I decided to take a little stroll in the Vector Park! The site is a creative use of various Flash animations and algorithms that create an artistic world of interaction. There are three sections of the park each with its own interactive environments, and quips. The second section kept me occupied for at least 45 minutes! Although it seems like some of the interactions are over, there is much more to them, so do not be so quick to move on if one of them seems boring. This one is definitely in the bookmarks and may just become one of my regular walks in the Park!