New Site Design Up and Running

22nd September, 2009

So finally I’ve switched my website to the new design, with a hefty number of new bits and pieces being added so you’ll have to bear with me for a little while as things get sorted out. Some of the bigger changes include integrating twitter (for which I have had an unused account for years) as a sort of microblogging tool, separating my university work from my professional portfolio and integrating a ‘Related Posts’ system which I have had in mind for a long time but have only just discovered a brilliant plugin that does all the hard work for me.

Above is a shot of a couple of the images I’ve produced for new site features.

You can find that related posts plugin at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/similar-posts/. Another plugin by the same authors is one that shows a list of the most recent posts. In the old design I had this functionality hardcoded into the theme footer but now it can be done with a single line of PHP.

New SRJM Logo Design

14th September, 2009

I’ve started work on a new logo design for myself:

New Site Design Underway

30th August, 2009

I have actually been slowly working on this (slowly being a bit of an understatement) for a while but keep having to put it off for other commitments. Usually this means I get a bit of time when I’m tired and not up to doing much else and a stint on Fallout III is only going to make things worse.

However here are a couple more screenshots of a general basic layout and more button-y bits since the last lot of menu icons!

Other plans include a bigger better blog post preview image, related posts links, using the excerpt field of posts and some form of proper search function that includes AJAX-ed suggestions.

Marathon Sketch Upload to Flickr

19th August, 2009

I’ve scanned and uploaded a whole load of things I had intended to for quite a while. This is because I had my scanner out to scan a sketch for the new site’s header image:

Among some pretty random old stuff, there were also a couple of concept sketches for my recent Final Year Project:

Website menu buttons in vector:

And a quick scribble of an idea for the idat menu button:

Wine Website Design Samples

5th August, 2009

Here is a better sample of the graphics I have been working on after studying a number of sites suggested by the client as to the style they are looking for.

Individual vine leaf vector graphics:

New Site Icons

20th July, 2009

A couple of preview screenshots of some of the vector icons I’ve been producing for the new website design:

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Turned Wood

4th May, 2009

I decided to take a quick shot as a preview of the turned banksia nut wood before further processing. The material of the first one (bottom) was too soft to produce my modified bullet shape design, so I reverted to the simpler shape for the second nut.

The two banksia nuts turned into the handle shape.

The next stage will be to hollow out the centre of the handle to allow light and wires through.

Banksia Nut Wood

25th April, 2009

So here is the wood I have nearly finally decided to make my actual physical interface from. Aside from the massively intriguing aesthetic nature of the wood, I feel that it draws attention to the physicality of the interface and fits in with a plan to emphasise the human-computer connection by allowing me to create a piece that emanates light from its core when interacted with. Essentially the holes could be illuminated from the inside and glow to indicate the level of connection between the user and the computer.

Image from axminster.co.uk