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August 18, 2016 - Comments Off on Auriel Multi-System Home Control

Auriel Multi-System Home Control

Multi-system management for the Niles Auriel multi-room audio app.
Built for simplicity, security, and automated login.
auriel-secure1

This feature simplifies the ability to connect to multiple systems. Instead of forcing the user to navigate to a "remote" or "local" system, the app simply finds all saved systems. We added a passcode feature, enabled per system. Fully responsive, all elements lay out correctly on phones, tablets, and in the desktop viewer.

Tapping the gear icons slides out "Security" and "Add" buttons out, and activates "Edit."

August 18, 2016 - Comments Off on ELAN Intercom Icons

ELAN Intercom Icons

Icons for Intercom feature.
Devices. Small and large touchpanels, groups, iPad, iPhone, Android, Mac, and PC.

intercom_icons-labels_03

Functions. Video chat; Audio chat; Broadcast to all stations; Monitor.

elan-intercom-functions

August 17, 2016 - Comments Off on BlueBOLT remote power management

BlueBOLT remote power management

bluebolt-mobile1

Panamax and Furman power conditioners can be controlled remotely, and programmed to reboot routers, report power conditions, and power-cycle racks of connected equipment. "Contractor" units can control a chain of multiple sequencers.

contractor-2

Any new UI had to fit into the existing visual framework, but I did introduce multi-line outlet names, cute powered outlet faces, and meters to replace the dials used for older products. The meters echo the ID of the hardware, and are easier to draw.

New devices have new features and configurations, needing new UI and UX solutions. One switch controls three outlets, one of which is on the front of the unit. We devised a new way of grouping outlets visually, and labeled the location.

m4000pro-banks1

UI realignment and battery drain icon for F1500-PRO. 

f1500-redesign1

Consistent Device info across all screens (Name, Device, MAC, IP, etc)
Device Admin settings (sequence delays, etc).

bluebolt-vt4315pro-admin3

August 16, 2016 - Comments Off on Core Brands B2B Portal

Core Brands B2B Portal

$100M company becomes an e-commerce company.

store-cart-open

Until my team launched the B2B Portal last year, Core Brands customers and reps would email, phone, or fax their orders in. Now, well over half the targeted customer segment orders through the Portal.

Designed and mocked up the initial high fidelity design.

  • Walk-throughs were used to refine the microinteractions.
  • Mockups illustrated each feature in the spec document.

I designed new features, which were developed in sprints by the remote team.
- Customer Account - See terms, brands, accrued rebates, etc.
- Compare - you can directly compare up to three products.
- Quick Pad - you can paste an order right into the Cart.
- Customer Types - Each sales channel sees a customized homepage.
- Employee Purchase Program - 9,500 Nortek employees can now shop on the Portal.

"Compare" feature shows all features and specs for chosen products:
compare-dropdown_search-maybe

"Compare" micro-interaction when adding more than 3 products:
compare-remove-02

Responsive design; different layouts at different breakpoints:
store-employee-top-mobile

August 14, 2016 - Comments Off on Pricelist Redesign

Pricelist Redesign

The new price lists are automated and accurate, saving hours of time for Core Brands staff and for our customers. Automating the lists gave the Marketing Director 60% more time to spend on marketing, instead of price lists.

New Pricelists

The old price lists were hand-rolled Excel files, often six months or more out of date. The lists showed product by SKU, with an arbitrary "Level" pricing.

The new price lists are customer-first. Each customer sees their exact price, not an approximation, and only items they can buy. New price lists include customer info and date, reinforcing the custom nature of the list.

Customers can generate a new price list any time they like. Each type of list has appropriate info and layout: PDF, CSV, International, MSRP, Price Policy.

August 13, 2016 - Comments Off on Invoice Redesign

Invoice Redesign

Existing invoices were a mishmash of legacy forms.

invoice-xxxCore Brands' forms and invoices had come from different systems, and were legacies of the original several companies. The invoices were hard to read, and were missing key pieces of information, which led to costs - customer calls, hand-filing bad forms.

The new forms can be read by humans. Branding is now consistent, and the layout is consistent. All forms have the important elements in the top right corner. Each field in the template pulls data automatically from the order field in Netsuite.

A new design for all transaction forms.

This project covered all outgoing forms: Invoices, Pro Forma Invoices for international customers, Sales Order Acknowledgements, Shipping Confirmations, Credit Memos, Cash Sales, Return Authorizations.

August 11, 2013 - Comments Off on Bike Tire Pressure App

Bike Tire Pressure App

The app is on Google Play

My compatriots at Edison Gauss and I updated the flow and visuals for our Tire Pressure App.

It tells you the optimum pressure for road  bike tires, based on your weight, tire width, and bicycle geometry.

This overlay shows the list of bikes. The free version lets you make two bikes, the paid version as many as you want (we know you have seven). In the future, this screen may show pressures, as a quick reference.

If you Add a New Bike, it will clone your selected one. Most people have slight variations of the same bike, just like they do jackets, so it's a convenience.

This is the Quickbeam, showing pressure, with me weighing 245.

In the app, you input the width, choose the style of bike (different bike geometries have different fore/aft weight distributions), and tell the app how wide your tires are. It does the math for you, with an equation that fits against measured tire drop.

If you're pumping 25mm tires up to the sidewall recommended pressure of 120/120, you're over inflating the front, and under inflating the rear.

You're unlikely to over-inflate 60mm tires!

April 22, 2013 - Comments Off on Soda jerks

Soda jerks

Soda jerks by BikeTinker
Soda jerks, a photo by BikeTinker on Flickr.

It's a little daunting that my Flickr life is so bike centric, that a great shot gets ignored, since it isn't of a bicycle. I just need to join photo groups, I guess,
And this is a great shot. Sony NEX, with a supercheap CCTV lens, at the Ice Cream Bar in SF.
Ironically, they are asking for support for their plan to put a mini-park out front, to replace a parking spot. Visit on a Saturday afternoon. If you aren't ready to kick an old lady in the crotch to get a spot within five blocks... Seriously, just walk there. From Cathedral Hill, maybe.

April 22, 2013 - Comments Off on ID Card Painting

Elizabeth. At the time, she was Liz, and I was Phil. Times change, people grow. Or just learn to stand up for who they already are.

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April 9, 2013 - Comments Off on Forcing a login to unsubscribe is Fail

Forcing a login to unsubscribe is Fail

I subscribe to a LOT of newsletters. I pretty much sign up for whatever comes around, because I want to see how people are presenting themselves through email. Sometimes I get tired of a certain channel, or I just wholesale cut back on newsletters.

Recently I've noticed a couple of services make me log in to unsubscribe from emails. This is for them.

Maybe you think it will keep me from unsubscribing, maybe it's just the way your "community-management" package works. As the visitor / email recipient / unsubscriber, I don't remotely care why I'm being horribly inconvenienced:

  • After clicking the "unsubscribe" button, I'm taken to a login page.
  • The password to the site I never visit doesn't work. Twice.
  • I click the "password help" button, and get a reset link in my email.
  • I click it, create a new password, type it in again, and (hopefully) am logged in.
  • Sometimes I have to actually log in after creating the password.
  • There's no "unsubscribe" button to be seen.
  • I go back to my email and click the "unsubscribe" button on the original email newsletter.
  • I'm Unsubscribed! Yay! Sixty-five button presses later.
  • I send a snarky support email to the site in question. And write a snarky blog post.

See what happened there? Now I HATE you.

You should make unsubscribing easy and painless, especially if you are a charity that relies on the goodwill of strangers. Don't make me think you're a graceless, desperate, selfish clod who is bad at the internet.

 

July 4, 2012 - Comments Off on Bike Silhouettes

Bike Silhouettes

Bike icons for the Tire Pressure App I'm finishing up with Edison-Gauss. Raleigh Superbe utility bike, Rene Herse randonneur, Speedvagen race bike, Pereira longtail custom. One of the E.g. programmers owns the Pereira longtail. I think the Randonneur could have wider tires, but I'm happy the cargo bike's tires look like Schwalbe Big Apples. As they should.

June 28, 2012 - Comments Off on A good UI designer is lazy and stupid

A good UI designer is lazy and stupid

A headhunter asked me "why do you think you're a good UI designer?"

Instead of saying, "because I've spent a dozen years constantly figuring out how to make complicated software accessible to normal people," I said what I really thought: "I'm a good UI designer because I'm lazy and stupid, and will rage-quit anything that isn't easier than cracking open a beer."

Hmm. Discretion might well be the better part of valor.

June 28, 2012 - Comments Off on Bike Tire Pressue Android App

Bike Tire Pressue Android App

My friends and I are made an Android app for tire pressure. It gives you the best tire pressure for your bike, based on your weight and tire width (hint, fatter tires and skinnier you are both better options). I didn't do any coding, or UI design - I just insisted on it happening, and made the icon and bike silhouettes.

May 29, 2012 - Comments Off on Black Twig Media

Black Twig Media

I took a few liberties with the way a redwing blackbird wing actually looks, since I wanted the overall feel to be more like the bird itself. I tweaked the capitals a bit, especially the "T."

May 26, 2012 - Comments Off on DTS Overland logo and door graphic

DTS Overland logo and door graphic

DTS Overland is a backcountry tour company in Bend, OR. DTS Overland Tours and Adventures, LLC.

I drew each element on a separate sheet of paper for ease of layout in the computer. It's all vectorized in Illustrator and laid out in Photoshop. The door graphic will go on coyote tan Land Cruisers, and the main logo (with the FJ80) will go on everything else: tee shirts, flyers, and children (if they stand still long enough).

May 14, 2012 - Comments Off on Mobile Shopping Template

Mobile Shopping Template

We are designing and building a mobile template for our ~200 toy store clients. There are some constraints to making it fit in an existing system, but also advantages.

This is the gray version, but the front-end developer built the system with the "less" CSS preprocessor, so he can control the color palette and button corner radius by changing a couple numbers. This will let us offer optional customizing for the members that want the mobile site to complement their main site better.

Home Page

Important info for mobile visitors: location, phone and hours. Content displays in a "drawer" below that level of icons. This is all HTML and CSS, but styled to look like an app.

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Browse Page

The shopping pages have smaller store info buttons (hours, location, phone). The logo pane shrinks to allow room for the 'cart checkout' button and cart summary at the top of the screen.

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Product Details

Multiple thumbnails display, and can be tapped or dragged to change. When you hit "Add To Cart," the button changes to "Checkout Now," and the drawer opens so you can change quantity. (This is the state shown) The cart summary updates in real time when you change the quantity.

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Prototype on the iPhone

The interface is running and working, but the actual content isn't hooked up yet.

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May 9, 2012 - Comments Off on Toy Phone Icon

Toy Phone Icon

For the mobile templates we're building, I tried out some 'toy store' specific icons, but generic ones made more sense for the budget and timeframe.

Vector illustration in Photoshop. The face is done with layer effects to get the 'inset' look. It helps the face read better at tiny sizes, too.

May 2, 2012 - Comments Off on Mobile “Toy Filter” UI Design process

Mobile “Toy Filter” UI Design process

I know I'm not the only one who does UI design this way:

  • Sticky notes.
  • A white board.
  • A programmer.

I draw the UI bits on sticky notes, we discuss the needs and potential problems, and move the sticky notes around on a board.

something's added to the cart!

Below is our existing "Toy Filter" laid out for the new mobile template for our e-commerce toy store system. It's a reskinning of existing code, with no new features (a requirement of getting the mobile site built and pushed to 200+ sites quickly). At the top is the 'Search' icon; Shopper's 'Cart' contents (number of products and dollar amount); 'Checkout' icon.

drop-down filter for mobile e-com toy search

When you tap the Search icon, a search box slides out, with options to refine your search and display the results. I think it's more usable than the layout we have on the desktop sites (which I didn't design).

  • Search Box
  • Filter by: Category, Brand, Price
  • Sort by: (Name, Price, etc)
  • FIND TOYS button.

We ended up with four pages with sticky notes laid out, one each for the Homepage, category Browse Page, Product Details page, and Checkout. I asked the programmer if he wanted me to mock them up in Balsamiq, and he said, "No, I've got it all right here."

 

April 28, 2012 - Comments Off on Tire Pressure Widget

Tire Pressure Widget

On my Bike Tinker blog, I have a Google Doc for calculating optimal tire pressure.  This is the web widget I designed to replace that. It is much easier to use, and I won't have to maintain it at all.

Tire Pressure widget is so much more manageable than the Google Doc

It gets a fair amount of traffic, and people often delete or damage the functions. Some people add features, like "trailers," or "kg/bar" conversions, which is cool, but managing the document is tedious, and usability could be better. If usability was optimal, then people wouldn't break it, right?

The next step will be a mobile app that allows for saving multiple bikes. Maybe it can talk to Cyclemeter to show performance changes at different pressures...

April 27, 2012 - Comments Off on Smithsonian Coins Website

Smithsonian Coins Website

I designed this Legendary Coins and Currency site for Mediatrope in the Fall of 2005. It was very cool to work with the people at the Smithsonian - any time I wasn't certain of how something would work, and did the design equivalent of hand waving, they'd ask about exactly that. Smart clients are almost as good as smart co-workers.

There was a lot going on on this (mostly Flash) design - home page, collections page, coin page, coin INSPECTION page, and a game educational activity. Plus the HTML and printable pages. The timeframe was insane, and was the second time I'd worked 24 hours straight for someone. I also designed the stylized logo/site name.

I did get disc after disc (remember getting stuff on discs?) of high-res coin art which was pretty cool. Beautiful stuff, and interesting stories. That shell on "Legends of the Human Spirit" was scrip issued by a motel owner in 1933 whose name was Charles Williamson. Possibly a long-lost great uncle? I like to think so.

coin page

This is the overview page. If I were to redo this site, I would change the  layout of this page to differentiate it from the coin pages.

And... you can look at the coins (or shell) up close.

See? Charles V. Williamson.

April 22, 2012 - Comments Off on Find a Font online

Find a Font online

What the Font vs What Font Is

I've been using What the Font for several years to find fonts for graphics my clients send me. "We have a logo, but it's a tiny jpeg." I rebuild (vectorize) clients' logos pretty regularly, since even resizing for the web can make them blurry.

Today I downloaded some iPhone and Android template PSDs, and saw a new "font finder" website at whatfontis.com. Curious, I tested it with a pair of jpegs I used last week to find a font. I'm sticking to WhatTheFont.com

Font-finding Tests

1. JPG one:

What The Font: Pre-loaded the correlating letters, lots of errors and split-images (drag them over each other to combine). Showed five fonts*, none of which were correct. Fail, but I didn't have to work too hard to know it had failed - see below.

What Font Is: Failed to load image. Repeatedly. Fail.

2. JPG two (inverted for clarity):

What The Font: Pre-loaded the matching characters, 90% correct. Showed me 5 fonts, with the correct one first. The next four were all the same font with different names. Win.

What Font Is: Didn't pre-load correlating letters; lots of split images. Showed 100 fonts, none of which were correct, starting with "Duck Duck No. 2" and "Cooper Black." Cooper Black, I tell you! Hard Fail.

Summary

WhattheFont processed both my images, gave me short lists, and found the font.
WhatFontIs only processed one image, gave me a giant list of bad matches, did not find the font.

What The Font has a funny name. "What the FONT?!
WhatFontIs
has an anti-grammatical name that would work if it was on an Italian TLD (ie: "whatfontis.it")

* WhatTheFont allows linkable results. Useful for blog posts, and presenting options to clients. Links EXPIRE quickly.
What Font Is
has no linkability, But I can save the list of 100 wrong fonts to my account, if I had one... No thanks.

 

April 21, 2012 - Comments Off on iPad Bike Bag

iPad Bike Bag

The bag I want to make. by BikeTinker
The bag I want to make., a photo by BikeTinker on Flickr.

My concept for a bicycle handlebar bag that can mount an iPad in the lid for maps, cue sheets, phone calls and videography (the right-angle camera periscope is the interesting idea here).

You'll see these. It's such a good idea (I think), that someone's making a prototype right now. I should cancel my meeting tomorrow and do it myself...

I drew this with Sketchbook Pro, my new favorite toy.

April 19, 2012 - Comments Off on pufferbellies

pufferbellies

I love it when you give a client a design and they make it NICER. Erin at Pufferbellies Toy Store is a great photographer, and makes her own slides for the homepage. I like checking in on her site, because the homepage looks GOOD.

April 16, 2012 - Comments Off on Toyota Landcruiser sketch

Toyota Landcruiser sketch

Title by BikeTinker

Working out an idea for a Backcountry Tour company logo.

Sketchbook Pro is pretty cool, and I like the Targus stylus I bought to replace the Griffin. I didn't like the short barrel of the Griffin, and it only lasted three days with an 11 year old playing Fruit Ninja before the tip tore badly.

April 13, 2012 - Comments Off on MFG DB Status List

MFG DB Status List

The company I work for provides a SAAS e-commerce web system to the toy industry.

This is my initial mock-up of the "thick" view of a tool to show our members and manufacturing partners the status of every toy brand in our Import Database*. There will be a "thin" view, with one row per manufacturer, and an "Open" view as well, that shows all manufacturer-provided info.

The "Request" button helps us prioritize the processing, there are hooks for direct marketing from manufacturers to retailers, and a link to the relationship-building product we have in development.

Upload date, most recent year of release, request button

 

*We pre-process toy data so our members can Import the products into their sites with a click. We are building a tool to clearly show which lines are up-to-date, and allow our subscribers to "Request" an update to a line. With the number of manufacturers, and the volume of data we get, we prioritize on what our members need. The lines with the most requests go into the processing queue first.

April 4, 2012 - Comments Off on 35mm film in a 120 camera (sprocket holes)

35mm film in a 120 camera (sprocket holes)

I used to make "sprocket hole" photos, by running 35mm film through a 120 camera. I invented it, but you see it everywhere now. If you can prove you made one of these images before 1992, I'll give you a framed picture of Angelina in Edinburgh. Anyway, this is the method I used, and may use again. The impetus was the usual, "poverty begets invention" story: my 35mm camera broke right after I bought 100 feet of 35mm film. I had no money, a lot of film, and a 120 Ciroflex camera I'd bought at the Sausalito Flea Market for $12. "I bet I can use this stuff to make some photographs... otherwise, I fail the class."

sprocketparts by BikeTinkersprocketparts, a photo by BikeTinker on Flickr.

Cut down the 120 film spool right at each ‘window.’ Slice the 35mm spool at the ‘step.’ Everything fits perfectly, to let you put two 35mm spools into a 120 camera. One empty, one full.

sprocketrolls by BikeTinkerThe whole operation can be done with a pocket knife. It’s like the Civil War all over again, but with fewer maggots, and more sprocket-hole pictures.

 

sprocketrolls, a photo by BikeTinker on Flickr.

April 1, 2012 - Comments Off on Anaïs Mitchell at the Wildwood Hotel

Anaïs Mitchell at the Wildwood Hotel

This was so good. My friend Peter did the artwork for Anais' Hadestown album. Here she is playing down the road from me, at a cool and funky venue. I got to chat with Anaïs about Peter, and bought the new album. It was a moving and elegant show, in front of about 40 people at the Wildwood Hotel.

I love how people would quiet down and listen as Anaïs got into each song. This is Neil Young's "For the Turnstiles," and "Goodnight Irene," the encore songs. The Nex and the vintage Zeiss lens did a good job with the low light.

Katie at the Wildwood offers a room for a night or two, in exchange for a set in the bar. Coming through Portland? Want a day off from the road? Give her a call.

March 3, 2012 - Comments Off on My Usability Philosophy

My Usability Philosophy

Edward Tufte's books on information design and Donald Norman's books on usability continue to influence me. When I first read it, "The Design of Everyday Things" explained the principles behind things I had noticed all my life. "Why do I pull this door when it clearly says push?" Because it has a handle on this side, and handles are for pulling. I continually read articles and discussions on usability and information design but these are what got me looking at the world this way, and they are still the sources I go back to. I also like Steve Krug's book "Don't Make Me Think," which is worth it for the title alone.

These are the basic people-centric principles I try to keep in mind:

  1. Be clear. The layout and language should set and meet expectations.
    • Clarity is in the mind of the beholder. Is the proper information and action clear to your intended user?
  2. Be responsive. When someone does something, let them know it happened. Give feedback.
    • Tufte's idea of "the smallest effective difference" is appropriate for response cues as well as layout informational hierarchy.
  3. Be forgiving. If a person does the wrong thing, allow a graceful recovery.
    • We're building tools for people to use, not tests for them to fail.
  4. Be visually appropriate. Any design needs to reinforce the overall story you are telling.
    • The look and feel of the design sets the stage for the actions people will take.

I subscribe to the Nielsen/Norman newsletters (along with some 80,000 other people) for usability information on new devices, intranets, etc. The basic principles the Nielsen/Norman Group uncover in their studies seem to stay the same, even though the devices and uses change. In a recent newsletter, Jakob Nielsen said, "Technology changes quickly, but people's brains stay the same." As long as we're designing things for people, we should keep the same fundamentals in mind.

March 2, 2012 - Comments Off on Shipping Options setup

Shipping Options setup

"Shipping" was the number-one search term in our Help System.  Our e-commerce Shipping Options had been built upon for years, with no consistent design. Valuable new features were hidden among deprecated options, their natures obscured with ad hoc names and descriptions. As part of our Shipping cleanup, we redid the setup options.

Old Shipping Module List marked up for revision

This is the graphic I gave the developers, showing exactly what gets changed, along with new names and descriptions.

  • The red columns are not useful to our clients, and are slated for removal.
  • The green boxes show the new ordering. The new menu layout makes it clear.
  • The bubbles in the middle show the new, names and descriptions.

New Shipping Module List

Everything is simplified, and reordered for clarity. This will be wrapped in a tabbed interface that covers all shipping options (no more drop-down menus).

  • Unused modules and useless columns are removed
  • The “Enabled” icons become checkboxes, and the names now link directly to the configuration settings
  • Modules are grouped by similarity, from most to least used.

Frankly, "Custom" should go, and "Flex" and "ShipValue" might be better with descriptive names...

February 19, 2012 - Comments Off on Angenieux lens love at B&H Photo

Angenieux lens love at B&H Photo

I went to B&H Photo when I was in New York. It's a Mecca for photographers (funny simile), and I thought they might have a lenscap for the old P. Angenieux lens. The business end of the lens is very small, with a 44mm outside diameter, and I hadn't been able to find a lenscap to fit it.

I went up and got in line for the next available helper at the SLR counter, which is a row of maybe 25 clerks seated behind a counter that runs the length of the store. The store is half a city block. The person directly in front of me became available, and I explained that I wanted a lenscap that was much smaller than normal, and hard to find.

He said, in a light Eastern European accent, "For SLR?"

I said, "Yes, it's an Angenieux," and started to pull it out of my bag and unwrap the balaclava and cycling cap that was protecting it.

"I was afraid you were going to say that," he said, taking the lens. "You will never find a metal cap for this lens."

"Pinch-cap is fine," I said. The Angenieux caps I've seen on eBay are always about $90.

He rotated the barrel of the lens, racking it out, "Mm. That's actually pretty smooth."

I said, "It's a little beat-up, but it's a good lens. It takes nice pictures."

He looked at me. "Takes nice pictures." He paused, and I thought he was going to give me a lecture on photographers taking nice pictures, not lenses. Instead, he announced, very distinctly, "This is the best lens on the floor." It gave me a chill.

What? Behind him, I could see giant multi-thousand dollar Nikon lenses. This is B&H. It is filled with legendary lenses. This was the best lens on the floor? It turned out that the clerk was the biggest Angenieux fan in the entire world, and I had randomly walked up to him and pulled out one of his favorite lenses. He turned to the young woman next to him and said, "See this? This is the lens I was telling you about!"

Over the course of finding me a $12 plastic push-on cap, and getting it sent up from the basement ("have you ever seen that place? It is more impressive than the rest of the store put together"), he told me about the unique color properties of the Angenieux lenses (which I'd noticed), their semi-affordable c-mount movie camera lenses, and the Optimo lenses they now make. B&H can order them; they cost $20,000. He was pleased to see the Zeiss Biotar ("Bee-otar") on the Nex, and we talked about the new Sony 5N and 7. I want the 5N.

My little lens cap errand in New York made my day.

 

February 2, 2012 - Comments Off on Shipping Menu Cleanup

Shipping Menu Cleanup

Our e-commerce system was built on the Joomla CMS, and extended over several years, with added features fragmented over several menus and configuration panels. We are extending it, but can't rip it down and build from scratch, since 200 sites are using it for their businesses.

"Shipping" was by far the most-searched keyword in the Help System. First, I made the Shipping Help more findable, and then tackled the underlying problem - poor usability in the Shipping tools themselves. I consolidated the scattered, cluttered Shipping setup options into a single, self-explanatory menu.

Old Shipping Settings scattered over three menus

The "Shipping Menu" itself only had bad choices: four options, all to set up a deprecated shipping system that no one used.

Countries and Zones for shipping and selling to were under “Admin”

Some redundancies had been created during development of the International Shipping system, and never removed. The option to add countries and zones from the menu was dangerous clutter, since the pre-populated list of countries is exhaustive, and you can add a new country from the list itself, if needed.

The list of active and available Shipping Modules was under “Store”

Each module's settings (price breaks, etc) could be configured from the Shipping Module List, but they couldn't be activated. To do that, you needed to go to the "Admin > Configuration" panel!

New Consolidated Shipping Menu

All that fragmentation of function was re-presented in this short menu of four items. Everything under one roof, fewer bad options. Frankly, I'd drop "Custom Shippers" too, but I was outvoted by code-hoarders.

The Shipping Module List itself was also reorganized for clarity, with unused choices deleted and supported modules renamed.

January 1, 2012 - Comments Off on Sprocket Hole Photography

Sprocket Hole Photography

I invented this. It sounds rude, and no one will believe it, but I did. Modern sprocket hole photos are usually shot with a Holga, but I use a Ciroflex and a Mamiya. I have instructions for making the adapters in my Flickr stream.

Amy before she was a Taganashi; Porter College, 1991-ishholden chemers, Santa Cruz 1993

angelina in edinburgh; 1995St. Andrews castle 1995

Union and Fillmore, SF CA, 1995

Angelina reading, Petalum CA, 1998

 

 

 

December 31, 2011 - Comments Off on Registrars and host servers

Registrars and host servers

Non-technical people may not know that their domain name is separate from their hosting. This is a little diagram for those people.

How will people find me? (You might ask)

 

December 29, 2011 - Comments Off on Typewriter Man Sculpture

Typewriter Man Sculpture

Typewriter Man - sculpture with skeleton and typewriter

I made this from an electric typewriter and most of a plastic "Mr. Thrifty" anatomical skeleton. I traded it to my friend Sharon for a disturbing painting a long time ago.

December 17, 2011 - Comments Off on bad photo retouched

bad photo retouched

My friend is selling his 1958 Rene Herse randonneur bicycle (Google it), and the only picture he had was taken inside his garage with his cell phone. Not a lot to work with, but I did figure out a super-fast way to eliminate garage-door handles.

before and after retouching

He did go ahead and take better pictures, if you're interested in the bike. The bike is sold - a reader of my blog bought it.

December 11, 2011 - Comments Off on Painting of an LED screw-mount light

Painting of an LED screw-mount light

This is an LED bulb you can use in a vintage dynamo-powered bicycle tail light.  So much easier than re-engineering modern LED circuits into the antique light housing! Just screw it in and ride away with a much brighter light. 10,000 hour lifespan and  a (short) standlight feature that stays on when you stop.

October 6, 2011 - Comments Off on medium poly 3D model

medium poly 3D model

This woman was modeled from scratch, starting with a single triangle. I followed a semi-famous tutorial, using my own drawings as the basis. She was roughly rigged for animation as a test for a branded pinball game for the PSP.

August 18, 2011 - Comments Off on Logo for Jim Minarck – fine woodworker

Logo for Jim Minarck – fine woodworker

Logo and business card for James Minarck, woodworker

Logo and business card for James Minarck, woodworker. (971) 241-6006

I drew the bit brace, and cleaned it up in Photoshop. The wood and metal echo Jim's work turning recycled metal and reclaimed wood into striking contemporary furniture. Red is his signature color. The M is an architectural confection made from two different Ms, and the pronunciation guide is just for fun. His name is easy to pronounce if you know how.

I love Jim's work. He made some small end tables out of sections of cedar telephone poles painted red. The tops are beautifully finished, and he left the aluminum tags and telephone markings nailed to the side.

July 18, 2011 - Comments Off on Toy Data Editor Window

Toy Data Editor Window

This is the Editor window for more control over products than the Inline Editor gives you.

This Editor Window overlays the Inline Editor in a lightbox when you choose an item to edit. You can add images, HTML descriptions, fine-tune pricing and discounts, age ranges, shipping over-rides and assign related products.

The help page is organized around giving people the Least They Need to Know, supported by Advanced explanations of each element and area. That way there's one page as a reference, no one is sorted into newb/expert user, and people get the idea it's an approachable process.

Basic Editor functions - large image

I have a cleaned-up layout ready to go, but implementation is queued behind locking down the new shared images, and moving all our clients to Cloudsites. Awesome technology courtesy of Kristopher Ives and Lucas Green.

June 18, 2011 - Comments Off on Database import tool

Database import tool

This tool presents the pre-processed product information we provide our members in a sortable, filterable way.

One click will bring a product into their site.

Toy data Import Tool - larger image

Newest items are at the top, which shows our clients that we've been busy on their behalf.

Columns to sort and filter by:

  •     Date (sort by Date, filter by Year) - The Importer is sorted by date by default, so you see the newest added products at the top.
  •     SKU (mfg prefix, + item number) - Filter by partial SKUs to get a range ("dj" in SKU and "Hotaling" in Brand shows all Djeco products).
  •     Product Name - Filter by partial name to see similar items. "Smen" in Product Name shows Smencils and Smens Pens, for example.
  •     Brand - Sort or Filter by manufacturer name.
  •     Category - Categories can be "mapped" to local site category names with the Import Mapping tool.
  •     UPC / ISBN / EAN (all in the same filter box) - UPC is the most common, ISBN is books, EAN is euro-UPC.

Kristopher Ives made this version of the Import Tool, based on his Inline Product Editor, Don Hays is the reason there's any data to import, and I made the help pages.

 

June 7, 2011 - Comments Off on Orthodontic animations

Orthodontic animations

These are SolidWorks models of the actual hinged brace, that I imported into 3DS Max and cleaned up. I set up about 15 shots with different braces and wires animating the teeth into position, and illustrating the tools and brackets. I built a reusable lighting rig with fill lights, catchlights, and cameras to ensure consistency between shots.

The braces are really high tech and cool. They're nickel-titanium ("NiTi") wires that want to return to their perfect arc shape, so they pull gently but constantly, fixing your teeth more quickly and with less pain.

Yes, I watched the video about 900 times, so I'm a total convert.

May 9, 2011 - Comments Off on Bike seat ram’s head

Bike seat ram’s head

I built this blatant ripoff of homage to Pablo Picasso's "Toro" out of the left over pieces of my Brooks saddle repair and a particularly scary pair of handlebars. It's posted on my Etsy store.

April 9, 2011 - Comments Off on What is it about stick figures that make you want to kill them?

What is it about stick figures that make you want to kill them?

stick figure sprints into a wall

My 10 year old son downloaded the free "Pivot" stick figure animation program, and I started playing with it this morning. This is my first go at using Pivot, but Max has been animating dramatic fight scenes with Halo guns and characters he created.

As soon as I started making a 'walk,' I turned it into a run, and then I had to smack him off the side of the frame. I kept making the bounces bigger, and for some reason the twitch at the end cracks me up.

March 9, 2011 - Comments Off on London Rinpoche

London Rinpoche

I have an idea for a music video about a 1979 British Mod who is also a Nepali rinpoche - the reincarnation of a Buddhist saint.

Set to this: Surf City by The 101ers, Joe Strummer's band before the Clash.


:00 A thin asian boy on a vespa turns into an English street of brick fronts and short steps.
He parks and runs up the steps to ring a doorbell.
He waits, agitated, but no one's home.
:20 He's in full mod drag - fancy clothes, nice shoes, overcoat.
Walking back to his scooter, he flashes out a kick at a trashcan.
He vrooms off.
:30 snogging in an alley, he fumbles at her breast.
She slaps his hand,
but kisses his hurt look away.
:37 He watches a double decker bus pull away from the curb.
:45 Lighting incense,
prayer flags on a London balcony.
:56 A prayer wheel spinning round fades to
Nepali characters painted on his Vespa wheels,
and he's riding again, through the countryside.
1:12 He's standing on a stone balustrade,
looking at the sea,
the wind whipping his air force parka.
1:30 He's throwing things into the sea.
Prayer wheels, stones,
1:40 He's walking with the girl,
and three skinheads in suspenders and boots approach.
She watches them defiantly,
but he turns his head in the parka hood so they can't see his face.
She's pale and English. He is not.
1:48 Tea in a cafe, just the two of them.
smiling
1:53 They're on the Vespa, she's behind him, arms around him.
She's standing on the same steps as the beginning.
Suitcases.
A black London taxi pulls away from the curb into traffic
He's riding.
2:04 He's standing on the beach, wind whips the foam off the storm waves
2:15 He's kneeling in red Tibetan/Nepali robes. Men in red robes are moving around, lighting candles.
2:28 The girl is in a library, a big book in front of her, with pictures of mountains and monasteries.
2:35 She opens a travel brochure with an airline ticket inside. One way to lukla nepal LUA.She stands up.

March 2, 2011 - Comments Off on Donald Norman is meticulous and communicative

Donald Norman is meticulous and communicative

I get Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox newsletters on usability design (as everyone should). He invented cheap UX prototyping, and is partners with Donald Norman in the Neilsen/Norman group of usability consultants. Donald Norman wrote "The Design of Everyday Things," among other seminal works on creating things well for humans to use easily.

The other day I clicked a link from Jakob's newsletter, to a page on his Useit.com site, to a page on Donald's site about UX design for the iPad. Halfway down the page I tried to use a search box that didn't work. Figuring a usability site would want to fix a busted search box, I emailed the "contact" address to report problems, since it was the least I could do.

Reporting broken links on a valuable site really is the least you can do. It's like closing gates when hiking across someone else's land.

To my slight surprise, Donald Norman himself wrote back, and said it was an old page with a bad layout. "Yikes! I didn't realize Jakob had linked to that page!" To my greater surprise, he wrote back the next day, saying it was a bigger problem than he'd thought, but it was going to get fixed.

For me, it was a little like saying, "Hey, Tom Waits! Your shoe's untied," and him stopping me later to show me his new zippered boots.

 

February 20, 2011 - Comments Off on monkey golfer

monkey golfer

 

 

 

I had an idea for a comic (based on this craigslist rant) about a monkey with a jetpack who befriends random men and provides a secret identity and a jetpack. Cause all men desire three things: a jetpack, a secret identity as an action star, and a monkey. Possibly with his own jetpack.

Each story would be about a different guy and what happens to him with the jetpack and the secret badass identity. Then I was like "if I was that monkey, I'd just keep the jetpack and secret identities for myself."

The day after I drew this guy ("all right, spy monkey with a jetpack!"), I saw Space Chimps, which was truly awful featured like 20 minutes of jetpack-wearing monkeys.

Crud.

UPDATE: Someone approached me to use this as his logo. For money. I cleaned it up and vectored it and sent it off. Cool.

January 15, 2011 - Comments Off on evinrude machine mask SOLD

evinrude machine mask SOLD

Currently for sale on Etsy at the bargain price of $110 $197.00

This is one of three "Machine Masks" I've made by painting eyes on old metal things. There's a vacuum cleaner made up to look like an alien, this Evinrude gas can with scary eyes and a protruding tongue, and a Samurai adding machine that actually works. I have another gas can I'm turning into a suprised cyclops.

January 2, 2011 - Comments Off on Zeiss Jena Biotar 58/2.0 – Exakta lens drawing

Zeiss Jena Biotar 58/2.0 – Exakta lens drawing

A pencil study (with digital rectification) for a poster of old Zeiss lenses one can use with Olympus PEN Sony Nex cameras.

I've had this lens for a long time, and exposed a lot of film with it. It feels really natural to use it on a digital camera, and it made me realize that the lens makes the image. A camera is just a light-tight box.

Old manual prime lenses are great choices for newer large sensor LED digital cameras like micro four-thirds (m4/3) and the Sony Nex. Adapters are available for many lens mount standards, and most cost about $30 on eBay.

Legacy lenses act like longer lenses on digital cameras, because the sensors are smaller than a 35mm negative and cut a smaller rectangle out of the lens image. A micro 4/3 sensor is 1/4 the area of a 35mm negative, half as tall and half as wide, and effectively doubling the length of the lens. The Nex is about 1/2 the area of a 35mm frame, so its apparent magnification is 1.5, and a lens is equivalent to one half again as long, instead of double the length.

Because of that effect, 58mm Zeiss Biotar acts like a 116mm lens on the PEN, and like an 87mm lens on the Nex, which is a nice portrait length. The 75mm Biotar is a legendary lens, and goes for ~$800 on eBay. This little guy can usually be had for ~$50. The only lens I like better than this one on the Sony is the Angenieux 135.

December 19, 2010 - Comments Off on Toy store site designs – 4th Quarter 2010

Toy store site designs – 4th Quarter 2010

A Child's Delight in Marin and San Francisco; Anklebiters, Inc. in Marietta, GA; The Toy Center; Toy Station at School Crossing; Frog Pond Toys in Lake Oswego, OR; G. Whillikers; Imagination Toys and Shoes; Kaleidoscope Toys in Round Rock, TX; Over The Rainbow Toys in Anchorage, AK; The Learning Tree in Kansas; and Toy Town of Cadillac.

December 17, 2010 - Comments Off on toy industry web sites

toy industry web sites

Web site designs for independent toy manufacturers and service providers. Uncle Skunkle Toys (unique games), the Good Toy Group catalog, Wedgits (building toys), and Wild Creations (the frog in a box people).

December 7, 2010 - Comments Off on St. HST

St. HST

St. HST, originally uploaded by BikeTinker.

Hunter S. Thompson... saint.

I'm working on a series of prints of dead celebrities whose work I identify with. People who are not necessarily considered saintly, like Johnny Cash, Joe Strummer... and Hunter S. Thompson.

December 4, 2010 - Comments Off on Vintage Phil Wood bottom bracket

Vintage Phil Wood bottom bracket

Watercolor over pencil. I like this technique for the control I have, and the speed I can work at. Dirt Rag magazine commissioned it to promote their 20th anniversary in 2008. Twenty year old magazine, twenty year old bottom bracket, both legendary and long-lasting!

November 26, 2010 - Comments Off on Crosseye 3D photos for sculptures

Crosseye 3D photos for sculptures

This turned out pretty well using a short lens (35mm), and keeping the camera parallel to the piece.

Cross your eyes until you can bring the combined "middle" image into focus. I thought the cross-eye 3D images I've been seeing on Flickr would be perfect for communicating the physicality of sculpture on the internet.

I really like the effect - suddenly there's a tiny sculpture in your screen! You can get a similar effect by focusing past the images, but you need to switch the images to make them work. If you try the "long-view 3D" on this image, the door appears cut into the panel in a weird way.

November 21, 2010 - Comments Off on Cross-eye 3D for sculpture photos

Cross-eye 3D for sculpture photos

Cross your eyes to see the 3D

I've been amusing myself with my sculpture listings on Etsy by including one shot that shows some evidence of the photographic process - my shadow on the image, the camera taking the picture, etc. Some semi-random, semi-throwaway image to use up the fifth detail shot.

For my Machine Mask Alien, I did a "crosseye 3D" shot, where I moved the tripod about four inches to the right, between shots. To see the image, you unfocus your eyes, concentrating on getting a phantom 'third' image to float in between the two images you see. In a very chi gung way, focus on that image, without forcing it. If you relax and concentrate enough at the same time, the center image should solidify into a three-dimensional (looking) image.

Cross your eyes to see the 3D

I moved the camera between shots, marking the floor where the tripod legs were, and then a spot four inches over for the other "eye." It seemed to work okay, but I've seen more striking 3D effects with this. I think that moving the camera more, or using a shorter lens might exaggerate the effect. This was shot with the zoom set at 70mm, and moving the camera about 4". I think it may help to NOT turn the camera toward the object, too, but I'll have to experiment.

As if you didn't notice... I did the same thing with the 3D glasses I made. If you create the third middle image by looking past the glasses (parallel 3D), they appear to flip over, at least for me.

November 19, 2010 - Comments Off on Cat Painting on a dictionary page

Cat Painting on a dictionary page

ozark-dictionary-page, originally uploaded by BikeTinker.

My son wanted me to make him a drawing or a painting. He's 10, and very very focused on stick figure battles as fine art, but likes my drawings okay, too. Since I wasn't that interested in drawing him an epic battle scene, and I make my stick figures "too fat," I thought I'd draw him a cat.

I did a preliminary sketch of a cat, flat orange and cartoony, using a photo of our old cat Ozark as a reference. "Oh, that's cute, Max likes cats." For the final painting on the dictionary page, though, I actually painted the actual cat. This cat was a hellion, but slept on Max's bed every night, and was just really sweet to him. He loved Ozark, and whenever we get too effusive in praising our current cats, Pippa and Penny, Max will always point out how cute Ozark was, or sweet, or brave.

Then we'll talk about what a shit he was, too.

The page has the words "unpredictable," and "unpopular," which amuses us. He made our dog's life hell. She was scared to pass him in the hall. He rode another Lab around the yard, claws dug in, while she yelped in fear, then sat behind the sliding glass door and smacked it with his paw whenever she came close. He had orange DANGER stickers on his folder at every vet he ever went to. I would offer to hold him for his shots or examinations, and the vets assistants would say, "no, I don't think that's necessary," and then five minutes later they'd say, "Mr. Williamson, can you come hold your cat?"

Oddly, every vet we took him to (we're pretty loyal, so it was only like 5 vets in the 14 years we had him from abandoned 5 week old sickly kitten to crotchety old geezer), had someone working there with the exact same cat: Orange tabby, super-sweet to them, but at war with the rest of the world. Ozark.

November 16, 2010 - Comments Off on Photographing sculptures

Photographing sculptures

A photograph of a sculpture is not the sculpture.

I try to shoot my portfolio images in RAW format, because jpegs from my camera tend toward the blue and cold. Using the RAW importer in Photoshop lets me choose the white point, which controls the color of the image.

To get the most out of an image, I open two versions in Photoshop: a warm and a cool. I stack the layers, adjust for contrast, and use the warm image for the piece, and the cool for the background. This creates tension, and makes the background recede and the object come forward.

The lighting is flat (I shot this on a covered porch on an overcast Oregon day), and the RAW and the JPG images are both soft, low contrast pictures.

To increase the contrast and sharpness, and make the image more appealing, I layered a warm and cool image together. I played with the Blend Modes, setting a copy of the image to "Hard Light" to bring in more contrast.

The thumbnail images show the layers and settings. From the bottom-most layer:

  1. COOL image as the background layer.
  2. WARM image above it, set to Hard Light, at 90%. It has a layer mask to show only the box.
  3. WARM layer copy, including mask, set to Lighten, at 34%.
  4. A Curves layer, with a simple "S" curve.

Save the large, layered PSD file, and save flat copies at web-resolution.. Later, you can go back and shut off the mask on the "Lighten" layer, or tweak the Curves, and save another copy. Non-destructive photo editing is good.

This "Workbox" sculpture is for sale in my Etsy shop.

November 2, 2010 - Comments Off on PlayStation2 demo disc interface design- “Louvers”

PlayStation2 demo disc interface design- “Louvers”

playstation2 kiosk "louvers" interfaceThis interface got used on a LOT of Sony products, with different background color and transition effects. Jampacks, Kiosks, WalMart-only Jampacks, Official PlayStation Magazine demo discs.

The programmer, Avery Lodato, built it so that the production artist could choose the center point of the cropped-in vertical slice, so they always looked good. As the Art Director, I was happy, and the Sony Product Managers were happy with the way their property was presented. Genius.

October 31, 2010 - Comments Off on anime secretary

anime secretary

This painted and cut-out gouache on paper character goes with a Machine Mask sculpture I made from an old adding machine.

My Machine Mask sculptures are cast-off objects of the Industrial Age (vacuum cleaners, gas cans, adding machines) that I paint eyes on to create tribal masks.

October 20, 2010 - Comments Off on advergame for the PS2

advergame for the PS2

PlayStation2 demo disc loading screen game.

Destroy the MTV logo before it crushes you... or the demo loads.

October 20, 2010 - Comments Off on Game Concept Art

Game Concept Art

Concept sketches for game demos and a PlayStation2 environmental interface.

Concept art for...

  • a PSP side-scroller called "Wren 66" where you fly your way through the vast and hostile mining infrastructure of Mars with a tiny jetfighter.
  • a game using an exercise bike to control your flying avatar in a networked social arena.
  • a roleplaying game called Stone Lords where you battle evil mind-controlling shape-shifters in flying cities.
  • "Zero Hour," where you had to use construction machinery to clear a path for "the bomb truck."
  • The first PlayStation2 demo disc interface.

October 20, 2010 - Comments Off on Maya – comic heroine

Maya – comic heroine

I developed this character, which was used for a demo of an interactive comic for the PlayStation2. I plotted the comic, designed the characters and drew the storyboards.

More art from this project here: PS2 Interactive Comic.

It was a pretty cool project, using 3D scenes in the PlayStation2 to tell a comic story. There were pages and panels, effects and animation. "Choose your own adventure" choices threaded through the story.

The Plot

The story opens with a young woman, Maya, making her way across the still-hot scene of a futuristic battlefield. She has, until recently, been a privileged engineering student at the elite technical college that was the focus of the short-lived war.

While stripping parts from a personnel carrier, she is attacked by a suit of mechanized armor. The body within is dead, but the combat programming will attack anything that moves. With the help of a "Spirit Cat," a holographic blue animal guide, she defeats the armor. After removing the mummified corpse inside, she repairs it for her own use.

She can now cover more ground and protect herself from the broken war machines she encounters. The spirit cat disappears, in the way that they do.

She repairs the suit's long-range sensors and communication gear, and picks up distress signals from the mountains around the plain. A young soldier, about her age, has been badly wounded in an attack on his base. He can't move far, and has bouts of confusion and disorientation. His situation gives her a destination, and his base is stocked with food and water, with defenses that might be repairable.

Maya starts to bond with this him, as she makes her way towards his position. Right after they admit to really liking each other, she's attacked, and his base comes under fire. She can hear heavy guns on his end, and communication is cut off. She hurries on, desperate.

She reaches the base at the narrow end of a steep wooded valley. It's empty, though, with no sign of her soldier, and it appears abandoned rather than overrun. As she's standing in the empty base, she receives communication contact from her injured soldier again. He admits he tricked her.

He isn't really a soldier, and he was only at the base briefly, a few weeks before. He is, in fact, the artificial combat intelligence built into her own suit. He's been right next to her the whole time, and he isn't even human. She freaks out.

She disables the suit, strips it off in a panic, and locks it behind the hardened blast doors of the abandoned base. She sits the concrete landing apron in front of the bunker, as far from the suit as she can get. Looking over the valley to the plain she just fought her way across, she trys to make sense of the last week of her life. What was a lie? What was real?

She doesn't hear the suit's sirens trying to warn her as large airships move silently up the valley to capture her...

October 16, 2010 - Comments Off on Busy with bikes

Busy with bikes

This has been a great bike week.

Bicycle Times and Dirt Rag sent me to the Oregon Handmade Bike Show

Thusday, Friday and Saturday events

Also:

September 25, 2010 - Comments Off on Roadster – multi-resolution vector graphics

Roadster – multi-resolution vector graphics

A vector tracing of a pencil sketch, saved out of Photoshop at different sizes by changing the Image Size in the "Save for Web" export.

September 23, 2010 - Comments Off on Print catalogs and brochures

Print catalogs and brochures

Several issues of the McMinnville Parks Department schedule of classes, and a trifold brochure and a map. This is here as an example of working in InDesign and Illustrator under production deadlines.

Lots of detail work, and a workflow that allows for a printed catalog of black and white TIFFs, and an online PDF with color images.

The issue was also distributed as a web PDF "flipbook"

September 22, 2010 - Comments Off on watercolor sketches

watercolor sketches

 

September 20, 2010 - Comments Off on Character design and story boards

Character design and story boards

Maya pinup with a giant slide rule sword

At LifeLike, we put together a demo of an interactive comic book for the PlayStation2. I designed the characters and the plot, and drew the storyboards. The scenes were built in 3D to match my layouts.

 

 

 

September 15, 2010 - Comments Off on Toy store web sites

Toy store web sites

September 9, 2010 - Comments Off on Alliance/Freightliner print pieces

Alliance/Freightliner print pieces

August 30, 2010 - Comments Off on Prayer Machines

Prayer Machines

August 28, 2010 - Comments Off on LifeLike logo and collateral

LifeLike logo and collateral

LifeLike logo - alpha channel from an articulated 3D model

August 27, 2010 - Comments Off on Toy Store websites

Toy Store websites

August 21, 2010 - Comments Off on Demo Disc interfaces

Demo Disc interfaces

kiosk 2.6

August 21, 2010 - Comments Off on workbox fantastic tandem bicycle

workbox fantastic tandem bicycle

A sculpture of a tandem bicycle that hinges in the middle. Each rider drives one wheel, for dual-drive traction. It also allows much shorter drivetrains and a freer pedaling style for each rider.

My own design. In theory it should work!

This image was used as an editorial illustration in Bicycle Times.

August 20, 2010 - Comments Off on New Queer Militia Insignia

New Queer Militia Insignia

new Insignia of the Queer Militia

I made the vector silhouette of the AK-47. Someone already had big pink gun graphics for sale, so I went another direction. Tee shirts and embroidered patches.

August 19, 2010 - Comments Off on Drawings on Dictionary pages – sold

Drawings on Dictionary pages – sold

August 18, 2010 - Comments Off on Over-the top toy store designs

Over-the top toy store designs

Over the top. I work with a very talented programmer who, all too often, says "you can really get away with things for toy store websites you can't really do for anyone else..." Partly he means "Dang, dude, you can do crazy bad things!" and partly he means "Comic Sans? Really?"

Boing! JP's Toy Shop;  BeBeep a Toy Shop; Franklin's Toys; Kid's Center; Kidoodle's

August 18, 2010 - Comments Off on Self-portrait ID card paintings

Self-portrait ID card paintings

philip - huge ID card, originally uploaded by Philip Williamson.

I paint portraits of people's ID cards. It started out on a whim, but I've done a fair number of them now. I like that they're almost sculptures (I made this 6 foot oil on linen painting with rounded corners), and the undertow of this being the State's view of you. And I think people like little things made big.

August 16, 2010 - Comments Off on Biamp Audia Flex 3D model

Biamp Audia Flex 3D model

This is a switching unit I modeled for a Biamp instructional video, using 3DS Max and Illustrator. I also had a real thing to pick up and study, which is pretty unusual.

August 16, 2010 - Comments Off on Logos for local businesses

Logos for local businesses


August 16, 2010 - Comments Off on Paintings – ID Cards

Paintings – ID Cards

I've made a number of paintings of ID cards. Personal impersonal portraits of your official self. I've changed the numbers and addresses for these images.
Sizes range from 4" to 6', in watercolor or oil.

 

August 16, 2010 - Comments Off on Dirt Rag magazine illustrations

Dirt Rag magazine illustrations

Dirt Rag paradise cycles illustration for Last Chance For Gas

August 16, 2010 - Comments Off on Scrap-a-Latte Logo, punchcards, and gift certificates

Scrap-a-Latte Logo, punchcards, and gift certificates

August 15, 2010 - Comments Off on PlayStation Kiosk 2.6

PlayStation Kiosk 2.6

Motion comp for one of the last PlayStation2 game demo Kiosks. You may have seen it, or a variant, on a PS2 kiosk. I designed it to feel like you were flying over towers, and they would reach up toward you. When you stopped flying, the demo on top of the chosen tower would fill the screen.

3DS Max, Photoshop, AfterEffects, PlayStation2 dev gear, proprietary 3D export plugins.

August 13, 2010 - Comments Off on Bike Birds

Bike Birds

July 4, 2010 - Comments Off on ‘Workbox’ Sculptures

‘Workbox’ Sculptures

These assemblage sculptures are very simple - wood and metal. A downspout, a monkey wrench, or a vacuum tube from a radio transmitter, they are the most distilled-down assemblages I've ever made.

I like the serendipity that simple rules can lead to, like the metal downspout exactly fitting inside the box. These three are for sale on Etsy.


assemblage sculpture

assemblage sculpture on Etsy


February 26, 2010 - Comments Off on PlayStation Pack-In 7

PlayStation Pack-In 7

This was the first demo disc I ever designed, and I see it was the first PlayStation disc a lot of people ever got. Someone else captured it and put it on Youtube, and for all its crude chunkiness, it makes me happy to see.