The roof is awesome! There are 2 pool tables, a “W” shaped hot tub, a big screen TV, a bangin’ sound system, a massive patio with deck chairs, and a BBQ. The down side? #1) No alcohol allowed at anytime #2) The roof closes at 10:30. #3) I can’t buzz friends into my building past 11:30 at night.

This is insane in my opinion … remember those kids you went to school with (or maybe you were one of these kids) with parents that didn’t let them eat sugar? Remember when you’d steal money from your parents and go buy candy – those kids would lose their shit … they’d destroy those 3 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in like 2 seconds, and chances are those kids are overweight adults now. Saying “NO” and putting a curfew on anything results in the complete opposite of what you’re trying to accomplish … because when you try and impose the attitude “NEVER” you only create chaos.

So, you wanna party up on the roof all day and stay past the curfew – no problem, we’ve already figured that one out.

Mission 1: Drinking alcohol during the day.
There are only a few vital steps to this and a couple of nice to have’s. Your best option is to drink white wine (thanks to my buddy David Look for proving this fact last week). Bring up an ice cube tray with ice, your bottle of wine, and a water glass. The key is a see through glass – the sheer ballsy-ness of this gesture basically dares anyone to call you out while at the same time making them feel like losers. Put the ice in your glass, if there’s a security guard around wait until they go check out the babes in the hot tub, then fill up your cup. Use a small enough glass so the ice makes the white wine look pale and no one knows the wiser.

Wanna drink a beer, a little trickier but not much. Bring up your cans (better for disposal) along with a non see through glass. Fill up your glass, let the foam go down and keep an active glass – by which I mean never really leave it in one spot for too long … take a drink, put it back down in another spot … take a drink, put it by your foot … just be a moving target, an active drinker.

A very, very nice to have is a female member of your crew … if you want a mixed drink keep your booze in her bag. Stash the bag in the women’s bathroom. When you need a refill of your Dirty Martini, Manhattan, Old Fashioned, Cosmo or whatever just ask your lovely friend to please go mix you another – key to this approach, supply your bartender with free drinks. And why does this work? Because 99% of the security staff or people that say shit are Men.

Mission 2: Accessing the roof past the 10:30 curfew.
When the developers designed the roof top there’s no way they weren’t thinking, “This place is gonna be an amazing place to have drinks in the summer!” Then the Strata decides to get involved and decide to lower the iron curtain at 10:30. I guess it’s time to go to bed for most of these people that seem to not enjoy having any fun and want to impose their attitudes on the rest of us. Though I must say there are 2 or 3 people on the Strata I’ve encountered that seemed awesome, maybe they just need to speak up.

Anyway, enough with that tangent and on to the instructions. It’s quite simple really … at about 10:20 stash anything you want to keep up there (don’t worry about stashing everything you can go back up and down later, just worry about the heavy stuff – like the keg of beer). Nominate one member of your party to stay, someone who’s unnoticeable, and the rest of you go down to your apartment. If and when the security guard comes to do their rounds have your avant-garde buddy keep out of their sight. Once 10:30 hits the elevator no longer goes to the top floor … unless summoned by someone on the top floor. So wait until about 10:40, text your buddy on the roof that you’re in an elevator, then have them call the elevator to the 42nd floor. Eventually you’ll make it back up there and be free to hang out until you feel like going home.

Mission 3: Buzzing people in after 11:30.
Unfortunately for this there is no solution -yet. That’s right, if you want to come over to my place to visit you can’t buzz my front door. You have to phone or text me when you’re down there and I have to come down and let you in. Again, my frustration for the Strata is raging. It seems most (cuz as I said before I know there a couple people on the strata that are equally as bummed as I am about their take on Martial Law) of the rule-makers are afraid of life. I moved to Gastown and live in Vancouver because I love the city … it seems these people are afraid of Vancouver and even more so of Gastown. Hey, if you think some crackhead is gonna sneak in the front door and come to your apartment and kill you move to Coquitlam!

I do enjoy living in the Woodwards building, Nester’s is super convenient, JJ Bean is great, the amenities are awesome, most of the people I’ve met are amazing, and it’s a great part of town to live in. Despite the Gestapo Strata and the seemingly never ending issues with the elevator, hot water, or internet – it’s awesome, and I trust it will only get better.

See you on the roof!

It took me a while to embrace this new connectivity. Maybe I had to overcome my own shyness before I just accepted that I could reach out to people who were creating work that I respected, or people that were doing interesting things I wanted to support. The following is a quick list of some of my encounters – and some people doing cool stuff you should check out.

Studio Too Good

My website is Way Too Good … so when Studio Too Good was brought to my attention I obvious took notice and laughed at the coincidental names. I looked through their work and was immediately inspired! Their client list is crazy legit (Comme des Garcon … whaaaat!!!) and their work is unique. I sent them an email (probably with some half-thought out poor joke having to due with our domain names) and a few days later I received a reply from one Faye Too Good … obviously you can see the humour in this and I don’t need to point it out.

The Official Manufacturing Company

I just discovered these guys this week. They’re a few ex Wieden+Kennedy bros out of Portland and their work is fresh … fresh in a classic way. With clients such as The Ace Hotel, Stumptown, Nike, and Weights & Pulleys I think they’re having a pretty good time – and you can see it in the quality of work they produce.

I sent them an email a few days ago just sayin’ I like the direction they were going and I promptly received a reply saying thanks and that I was “true blue”. The absurd nature of the reply put a smile on my face. Anyway, check out some of their work.

Lesley Moore

Lesley Moore is a design studio based out of Amsterdam. A few years ago I saw some of their work (The VOID piece) in a Grafik Magazine and had to check out more. The name of their studio is a play on the saying “Less Is More” and I think it’s really quite intelligent. I did a post on my old site/my old blog and I guess they have Google Alerts set up because I received a nice email thanking me for the kind words. Since my old blog is gone I thought I’d mention them again and I recommend you poke around their site – in particular the Logo Machine project they did I think was very original.

Them Thangs

Justin Blyth’s Them Thangs image collection is probably what led me to start my Visual Stimulation project. I was looking at sites like FFFFOUND and then I stumbled across Them Thangs and was like, “Instead of keeping all these images on my computer, why don’t I do this too???” It was just too simple.

Sometime in 2009 I went to check out if Justin had posted any new images but was greeted with an image of a tombstone and some RIP text explaining that the site was down cuz his traffic had become too high that the price of maintaining wasn’t affordable without funding. I sent Justin an email throwing some of my support behind what he was doing and expressing how much I thought his situation sucked. The next day I heard back from him, it was a very kind and appreciative email. I mentioned that I do web stuff and we briefly spoke about possibly collaborating on a redesign of his site or Them Thangs. Neither of things have materialized … yet (actually, the link to Them Thangs is the newly built site) but that’s really of no consequence – we’re both busy.

Justin Blyth

Serial Cut

I can remember how I came across Serial Cut’s website or became familiar with their work but I was instantly a fan. The site they currently have up is actually the 2nd iteration I’m aware of since following the work they’ve been making.

What’s the “Reach Out” story here? Well, there is none, I haven’t tried to contact them but I wanted to share their work because I find it exceptionally stimulating … and who knows, maybe I’ll hear back from them.

Adobe is launching CS5 in the next little while and they have a countdown on their site. I love this sort of thing and from what I’ve seen of the new Photoshop it’s insane!

I think they missed the mark just a little bit with the countdown they made on their site: http://cs5launch.adobe.com/ instead of using transparent png’s to mask the background image they used numbers that have the knock out effect incorporated. It’s subtle but it’s these subtle sophistications that make a difference.

So I made the above countdown as an example of what I think they should have done … it’s reusing the same code from my Formula One Grand Prix countdown but the CSS for the images is a little bit different.

“There seems to be too many things going on.”

“All those colours are crazy.”

“Portfolio websites should be simple and show your work.”

“It’s hard to read some of the pages.”

“I don’t get it.”

All of the above statements have been said to me regarding my website – this website. I’d like you to remember them as I’ll be addressing each of them in this attempt at explaining my work and discussing my inspiration.

On December 9th, 2009 Meredith Carr mentioned that Liam Gillick was doing an artist talk at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and suggested we go. Liam Gillick’s name rang a bell but I couldn’t quite place where I’d heard it first. I did know that he’d recently been commissioned by The Fairmont Hotel to create a public art piece for their new Waterfront location in Vancouver but I was certain I’d heard or read about him earlier.

The work Liam Gillick created for The Fairmont is a text-based piece that repeats: “Lying on top of a building the clouds looked no nearer than when I was lying on the street.”

Around the same time I had made a plan to redesign my portfolio site. I’d been conceptualizing, planning, and thinking about the direction I wanted to take, how I wanted to present my work and, more importantly, how I wanted to present myself. As an Interactive Creative and Front End Developer my online presence is what I do. It represents me and what I bring to a company and is therefore extremely important. The portfolio site I had up at the time was made in 2 days out of necessity and had no concept and didn’t reflect the uniqueness of what I do.

I knew I wanted my website to be intuitive, clear, and easy to use … those are pretty standard goals. I also knew I wanted my site to have an evolutionary aspect, a sense of change, a feeling of a willingness to not be in total control but was struggling with how I would do so.

I’m at the point in my career where I’m removed enough from my college learning that I can recognize that my design won’t change the world (but it can make it better). I’m aware my design style isn’t better than everyone else’s  and I’m able to identify my strengths and weaknesses. My strength’s are conceptualization, interaction design, art direction, and front end development. I’m mature enough to admit that though I am competent at visual design and have solid typographic skills there are people that are faster, better, and enjoy visual design more than I do. I know there are people that get as much satisfaction from creating imagery, developing colour palettes, and bringing web concept to life as I do when I create a clever interface or think of a fresh way for a User to accomplish what they’re trying to do. In hopes of completing this train of thought I’ll end with this: I’m at the point in my personal development where I admit that there are a lot of people that can come up with ideas that are just as good or better than mine, but it’s where these ideas overlap that greatness happens.

Prior to deciding to re-conceptualize, redesign, and redevelop my website I’d been working on my understanding of colour. I’m excited by colours, I enjoy using them but felt that it was one of my weaker areas and knew I had no mastery over it. I’d read a lot of Josef Albers, specifically “Interaction of Color” and felt that I was improving my understanding.

Liam Gillick is a professor at Columbia University in New York City as well as an established and recognized artist. To quote Dr. Caoimhin Mac Giolla Leith, “Gillick’s practice to date has encompassed a wide range of media and activities (including sculpture, writing, architectural and graphic design, film, and music) as well as various critical and curatorial projects, his work as a whole is also marked by a fondness for diversions and distractions, tangents and evasions.” Central to this multidimensional practice is the artist’s ongoing research of past and present evaluations of the aesthetics of social systems with a focus on modes of production rather than consumption. His work focuses on capitalism, current forms of social organization, and social volatility and the possibilities that instability offers. Through his own writings and the use of specific materials in his artworks, Gillick examines how the built world carries traces of social, political and economic systems”

As I listened to Gillick speak I soon discovered that a lot of what he was saying and a lot of what he had done were answers to questions I had started to ask of my work, of the world, and of myself (granted in a much less refined manner than Gillick due to his extensive pursuit and exploration in these arenas). My acceptance of my own limitations and my desire to focus on my strengths in the interactive space coincided with the production methods of Liam Gillick’s work. Gillick’s work is primarily fabricated, constructed, and/or assembled by people other than himself. Our world – today’s world consists of specialists and once a person embraces this fact the level of work that is attainable is increased. I felt that my thoughts and realizations about myself and my desire to work with people that have unique abilities that balanced out my own were in sync with Liam Gillick’s practice and what he was saying.

Works such “Literally” wouldn’t be possible unless embracing modern production techniques that require a specialized skill set and knowledge that extends beyond the Artists ability.

Liam Gillick addressed the fact that he didn’t create most of his final products by hand which I felt proved his reasoning that the concept, the work is the idea – not the construction.

As a quick side note, it was at this point halfway through the talk that I remembered that I’d first read about Liam Gillick two years earlier in Nicolas Bourriaud’s book “Post-Production” which I recommend to anyone.

Gillick continued to talk about his relationships with some of the people that had created his work. Specifically he recalled a man that was asking him about his colour choices. This man went on to express his own thoughts on Liam Gillick’s process and colour selection only to be answered by Gillick with, “actually I sort of just pick the colours like you would in Photoshop. I don’t put much thought into them at all.”

This blew my mind. Was he saying that his work that I liked the most due to it’s form, it’s vibrancy, and it’s extreme use of colour were just picked at random like ink dropping colours in Photoshop? Yep, he did say that, and went on to explain that he didn’t really understand colour but was excited by it – just as I was. At this point I remember my mind racing, I was listening to an artist whom I respected and even better I was relating with. Thoughts began forming in my head about randomness, about a lack of control, and then Liam Gillick started talking about the work he did for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

This piece is my favorite work by Liam Gillick, I think it’s beautiful, visually stimulating, and exceptionally well crafted. It’s this work that I’ve used as the inspiration for my website. Using Photoshop I cut about 30 of the most interesting panels from this image and wrote some PHP that randomly chooses one as an overlay for each of the thumbnails on the homepage of my site.

To be honest, after listening to Liam Gillick speak for a couple hours I feel I have an understanding of what his work is about – not a complete understanding but an idea. There are a lot of things that I don’t understand but still like … for example my friend Cameron Reed’s music Babe Rainbow I don’t get but I like, my friends Matthew Robertson’s and Wesley Cameron’s Until We Have A Helicopter Curatorial Project I don’t get – but I love. So to the people that have said, “I don’t get it” regarding my site – that’s ok, maybe it might make a little more sense now but maybe not: that’s ok.

The idea of randomness had been formulating in my head before listening to Liam Gillick speak but afterward I had an idea for the colours of my website to randomly generate on each visit of every page. Press refresh right now and you’ll see this … using javascript I’ve coded my site to pick colours at random. Thus achieving my goal of creating a site that is evolutionary and has a lack of control. The results are always a surprise … sometimes the combination’s are interesting, sometimes the combination’s are bad – I’m ok with that. I believe it represents the progress of my work and the growth of my creative thought process – I’m not sure where it’s going but it’s evolving and I’m constantly refining it.

To anyone that has said, “Your website hurts my eyes.” or “All those colours are crazy.” Thank you, I think you’ve confirmed my intentions and validated my efforts yet missed the point. I believe that your portfolio site is where you should push yourself, you should stretch your concepts and not be afraid to take chances or even fail. Moreover any company I work for or with I hope would be striving to create authentic, inventive, and exceptional work.

Liam Gillick also spoke for a bit about the work he made for the Venice Bienalle that was deemed failure. The concept of the work was interesting and the final product was well constructed but the overall impression was weak. Gillick spoke humorously about the work and sort of inferred that failure is a part of creating and that he knew that it wasn’t his best.

The piece at the German Pavilion featured a cat that would talk – a silly idea. The night before the show Gillick realized something needed to be done so he shoved a piece of paper in it’s mouth. This did little to reconcile the many issues with the work.

I also accept failure or the possibility of failure as part of my process. I take as many precautions to avoid failure and would be very wary about making any decisions that would doom a project but I am willing to discuss and propose such ideas. So to the people that have said, “It’s hard to read some of the pages.” or “There seems to be too many things going on.” I say, maybe … maybe sometimes it’s hard to read and maybe sometimes it’s not. Maybe sometimes there are too many things going on and maybe sometimes there aren’t … it’s a chance I decided to take.

Which brings me to the final point I will conclude with: to the very few people that have commented, “Portfolio websites should be simple and show your work.” I could not disagree with you more – but I won’t try to change your mind or convince you otherwise. As I stated before, as an Interactive Creative, as an Interactive Designer, as an Interactive Developer … my portfolio is where I can try new things, it’s a place I can learn, it’s a place I can succeed or fail with no consequence. My portfolio is a place I’ve decided to take chances and see what happens. I believe anyone who is working in the interactive space should use their portfolio site to represent what they can do and what they’re about – so if you think websites should be simple and show your work, cool! I won’t argue with that, if you choose to use Indexhibit or a pre-built WordPress Theme and it works for you – that’s awesome! If you feel it represents your work that’s great … as well as becoming more mature with my work I’m also becoming more technology agnostic … instead of scoffing at the use of Flash or people that prefer to work on a PC I believe if it works for you and is the right decision or the correct technology for the problem then there is no reason not to do what works for you or the project.

Deciding to go to Liam Gillick’s artists talk with Meredith was a huge point in my year and helped me distill and define some of my thoughts. I’ve created this website and am happy and proud of it. I do recognize that Liam Gillick’s work is mainly conceptual then constructed or fabricated by a third party. I feel that this website is truly my own but there is a part of me that wonders whether Gillick has inadvertently inspired me to create one of his projects. This website is the closest to art that I’m willing to go – I’m extremely happy that I’m not an artist. I’m an Interactive Designer and am comfortable with the limitations and rules of the interactive space (screen resolution, user interaction options, business needs, hardware limitations etc.)- the freedom and chaos of the art space scares me. In any case, to have identified and related with a man with such an advanced manner of thinking and a body of great works – it’s cool with me either way.

Liam Gillick is represented by the Casey Kaplan Gallery

Read this excellent interview from Vancouver based art publication Fillip: It’s Interesting that You, with Your Values, Would Ask Me a Question Like This

I use WordPress to build a lot of the websites I make. It’s a great platform and after years of working with it I feel at home with it. My work flow creating sites with WordPress usually consists of 2 steps:

1) Functionality/Development
2) Concept/Design

Some people suggest finding a WordPress theme that’s close to what you are trying to create and build off of it. I disagree and find that taking that route usually results in unseen issues due to an unfamiliarity with the code. So I prefer to start developing and writing mark up from my own blank theme. This theme is a modified Sandbox theme. I’ve stripped it down further, created PHP includes for common elements, cleared the stylesheet (and added browser resets), changed most of the ID’s to Classes, and enhanced the functions.php file.

By using this theme it increases my productivity and ensures that the code that is written is used and is necessary. No need to have a bunch of code that is never executed.

Feel free to use this starting theme for you own projects and if you have any feedback, recommendations or comments feel free to email me!

Download here: Way Too Good Blank Theme.

Whether I have a new project/client or not I feel that learning & looking is paramount. My Google Reader and Twitter keep me abreast of the designers and design magazine/blogs I follow. I like to read about new techniques (both visual and technical) as well as look at hundreds of pictures everyday. You can see a documentation of the images I find inspiring or representative of my aesthetic in my Visual Stimulation project or my Flickr account.

When starting a new project I believe that listening is my best asset; listening follows observing which leads to communicating. I prefer to speak simply with co-workers or clients, avoiding getting too technical or throwing around unnecessary buzzwords. I go so far as ensuring the use of contractions to establish a sincere and personal tone.

I believe that the interactive design process begins with identifying the problem or defining the project/effort. By collecting as much information as possible at the beginning of a new project you equip yourself to the best of your abilities at an early phase. I like to start with a Creative Brief, a set list of questions I’ve developed that help me extract the information in a uniform and thorough manner.

Once I’ve gathered as much information as I feel is available or appropriate I then proceed with designing the Information Architecture of the site/project. I feel that any steps skipped in the early stages of a project only tempt the fate of the later stages and can have huge and sometimes drastic effects. By defining the Information Architecture you ensure that both client/co-workers are on the same page of what the project will consist of. Also, it avoids confusing Users when they’re using the site/project or getting stuck at dead ends. I use Omnigraffle to design my Information Architecture documents. They end up looking something like this:

Following the Information Architecture I then proceed to Wireframes. Wireframes are documents the depict only where information will be presented on the page/screen. There are no visual/design elements or content involved. In my experience it’s slightly difficult to explain to clients that Wireframes are only a representation of the placement of information. Clear and simple communication effectively gets the message absorbed. I generally Wireframe the homepage as well as 2 to 3 of the major interior pages of a site/project. After that everything else seems to fall into place as a natural progression. Here’s an example of what my wireframe documents usually look like:

I embrace the agile methodology of design and development which means that I’m willing to work toward the final solution. I accept that everyone will try their best to define and work towards the best solution from the start but embrace the possibility of the final destination changing a few times along the way as new information or challenges or ideas arise. Despite all of the variables that are bound to occur from the start to the end of a project the next step in my process after Wireframes is the visual design. I use Photoshop to create non-functional graphical representations of the solution. These visual mock ups usually result in multi layered documents that require a high level of organization. Here’s an example of the layers panel for one of my mock ups:

The design process, as well as the Information Architecture & Wireframe steps, usually include a revision or two from the client to get it right. I’ve found that by communicating a specific number of acceptable revisions helps focus the project on advancement and progression. Once the visual design is clearly presented and agreed upon the development phase starts. Development generally takes as long as the first few phases combined. It’s the time when all of the conceptual and visual work is translated into standards compliant code. I have been using WordPress for years now and find that it’s a great solution for most websites. WordPress is a highly customizable CMS (Content Management System) that allows Users with sufficient accounts to log in and add or edit content very easily.

At regular intervals during the development phase the client or team will be presented with working versions of the site in it’s unfinished state to use/test/interact with to see if it’s intuitive and working as planned. If there are any suggested improvements or new concepts or ideas of functionality they will be considered and implemented upon mutual agreement.

I use GIT version control during the entire development phase. Version control allows you to keep track of your code changes and in the event of wrecking or losing a large part of code it makes it incredibly easy to go back to the point where the project still worked … another common version control platform I’m familiar with is Subversion or SVN.

Once the development phase is complete the data entry or content population phase can be done at the same time as debugging. During the debugging and content population phase the project is still subject to change albeit only if absolutely necessary – hopefully due to the planning and organization at the start of the project this is unnecessary at such an advanced stage.

Finally deployment is reached – this is where the ship is launched into the water. I prefer to start with a “soft launch” which means putting the project live but giving it a little while to be used by a select number of Users. These Users are encouraged to give feedback regarding their experiences and if any of the feedback will clearly improve the project then the development team will implement the appropriate changes. The final version of the project is then launched and announced to the word!

I probably look at thousands of pictures every week, the evidence is on my visual stimulation page. I saw a few intermission and end screens and immediately I was drawn to them. Mostly it’s the pointlessness of them, the need to cue the viewer (or we could say User) that the movie is over is completely unnecessary. It reminds me of when “Welcome” or “Splash Screens” were common place in web design. Welcome to our website … obviously it’s a website, I’m on my computer, I entered the URL or googled the name … pointless screens.

I strive for simplicity, I truly believe that simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication. These screens are beautiful, albeit unnecessary & I love them.

You can download this piece here: The End. I use it for my desktop background and my twitter background.

I wasn’t born here but I mostly came up here … and I love it here. A lot of people that live in Vancouver complain about how small it is, how the weather sucks, how we have no solid identity … I can’t really argue with much of that but it doesn’t invoke any negative feelings for my city. I can’t say I’d never leave Vancouver but I’m pretty sure I’d come back. It’s not until you leave Vancouver that you start appreciating what it is.

This type piece I created in my spare time, the visual concept came to me while I was driving through downtown. I know there are similar treatments to various things out there in the world but I haven’t seen anything to do with Vancouver like this and I felt it was appropriate. The typeface is Akzidenz Grotesk (one of my go to’s) and the colours are chosen along the colour wheel without too much discretion.

I believe that effective communication lies in the melding of ideals. I take my influences from original movements and styles and then add my individual interpretation. I believe that a designer’s reference and starting point is every bit as important as their ability.

Check out the Hearty Magazine site here: http://heartymagazine.com