theodillon-blog

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This is a text post with photos/link photos in it.

here's more. and another link, 

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More #halopeno artwork. #graphicdesign#inthewild #bagstuffer #haloburger Available #march 12th! #getemwhiletheyrehot

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I made a new desk!

A few studs, some MDF, white marine vinyl, and some brackets and I now have a pretty rad floating desk. I had my seamster bro, Chadwick J. Dillon (click that to view/purchase one of his sweet hoodies) custom-stitch the cover. It's real cool; good for the mouse, but white was a bad choice. The left end is supported by a bookshelf I cut down a bit, and the right floating end is supported by a pretty substantial undercarriage of 2 x 4s and L brackets. See, I had to have a second monitor, but once it came in I realized that my desk was not sufficient. This is my solution, and it actually opens up the room a lot, curving around for a lot of surface area with a rather small footprint.

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Jake looks good as #hansolo #thesofworks

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Click image for full-size.

Here is a panoramic photo I 'shopped of my closet, which I built. My room is in the attic of my modest bungalow in Flint, and as such I needed more storage space for clothes. (There was one weak closet that was nearly inaccessible in any convenient way, which I use only for dirty laundry.)

I cut a 13' wide hole in the knee wall (the wall that blocks the space between the roofline and the first floor's ceiling), and sunk in 36" of closet space. I insulated and then finished with plywood. I then built walls of walls of MDF (because the first time, I used something flimsier, and they wouldn't square), and added some shelves and sweet closet hardware from Ikea. Note the awesome pull-out pants hanger, as well as the extendible belt and jacket racks on the far left. I keep my Nike's and Puma's below, and my other shoes in the adjacent railing. Some people have argued that I should cover my closet in some way, like with doors or a curtain, but I feel like I keep it more organized when I can see it constantly.

This was a super fun and challenging project, and I learned a lot about woodworking and planning. It was totally worth it, as my room has never stayed cleaner longer. It's just fun to hang my stuff up and see it all as if it's on display, which it totally is.

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Magic Eye Magic

Click here for full size. 

This is a project I did for my Typography class last year. Kinda missed the point of the assignment: we were supposed to design something like a logo. What I heard was "show a word in a way that illustrates that word." With every project I like to try something I've never done before, so I chose the word "magic," and displayed it as a random-dot autostereogram, or Magic Eye. If you don't know how to see it, here are some instructions. And, if you're stereoblind, or lazy, here's what it would look like if you could see it. 

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CRAFT PUNK Helmet

Ok, to mark the debut of my new blog, I give you my Craft Punk helmet. It's made out of hella cardboard, papier-mache, hot glue, staples, spray paint, some black sparkly fabric, and a lot of time (love?). Made it for Halloween, and plan to use it again. Made some cool gloves, too. You can see them (along with my brother's silver-domed iteration) in action here. 

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Here's a card I made for my grandmother, who is recovering from surgery.

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New direction...

Ok, I've come to the realization that my crafts and handiwork are an important aspect of my whole deal. I design everything I can: my house, my clothes, my music collection, you know? With this in mind I've decided to make this blog dedicated to my handmade goods and projects.

Introducing: Craft Punk Discovery!

I'm just going to start looking around for different examples of my design sense paired with my desire to learn and to make and to try new things. So keep coming back, as I've made tons of little (and big) things here and there and everywhere, really. Enjoy! ��

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WEBFONTS

Ok, another cool thing about which I learned today is webfonts. I'm a huge fan of typography, and I've always felt as though the internet is restrictive in that way. Buuuuut, of course, Google to the rescue. At google.com/webfonts, you can choose between hundreds of fonts (and like 80% are way decent, some even have multiple styles), which they host on their servers, to which you can just link in your html. That way, the viewer's computer need not have the font, and neither does mine as the designer! It's way nicer than worrying about line heights and page breaks and whatever in the event that the font is unavailable. Again, this benefits mobile devices, which likely have limited fonts as well, but can read code with ease.     

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IS THIS PUSHY?

So, my website is live. www.theodillon.com Check it out. I think it's pretty cool. It's fully responsive, so it can shrink to mobile and does not distort on giant cinema screens. It has animated scrolling, it's all one page, and I'm using FancyBox for the galleries (also responsive).

I show it to my brother, who for some reason has a 2011 HP laptop running Internet Explorer 8, and it turns out my website does not work on anything less than IE9. I mean, it works, and you can see my work, but none of the backgrounds are right and none of the pictures are visible; it looks like garbage. So what I'm thinking is, in addition to (ugh) reworking a lot of my site (it's mainly images, and I like them the way they are), I'd also perform a little public service. Here's the pitch, in the form of a pop-up window (Javascript modal):

"My website has detected that you're using a slightly outdated browser (Internet Explorer 8 or below). You might not realize it, but you're not getting everything the internet has to offer. Newer browsers are faster, too.

I recommend: download Google chrome 'here.' 

But, if you are afraid to try something new, or you just like your Internet Explorer, at least download the latest version 'here.'

Or, you can ignore all of this and see my website your way 'here.'"

Is that pushy? Because really I'm just a control freak and hate the idea of not knowing exactly what my potential audience might see. At the same time, though, I want to let people know that they're not getting the best out of the internet, and it costs nothing to upgrade. Is that so wrong, or too pedantic, or obsessive? Lemme know.   

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Branding and UI Design

Branding means creating a lasting image of your brand in the consumer or potential consumer. In my career, my brand will be my name. I want it to be synonymous with quality and tastefulness, as well as a proven knowledge of creative and successful marketing techniques. I want to be able to put my name on something and add value to it. For me, this means creating a positive first impression followed by an impressive and varied portfolio. But, people need to get there. To facilitate this, my business cards and marketing materials feature a QR code pointing to my website, not only to display technical prowess and cutting-edge implementations (even to those unfamiliar with the technology) but also to make it effortless for those with a smartphone. 

When someone eventually arrives at my site, I want them to be drawn in, not turned away. That is where interface design is important. The best interface is no interface, so it has to be simple. Links need to be obvious and navigation needs to be intuitive. I hate when I get to a website and have to figure it out to use it. For this reason, I'm using a single-page site, requiring no navigation aside from scrolling up and down, and I'm even making that more obvious by easing the scroll to give a visual cue to the user as to where he or she is on the page. Another way I've considered the user (especially mobile) is by making my site completely responsive to the user's viewport, making it unnecessary to zoom in or resize the browser, ever. Even if they do, it responds.

These extra touches are what I plan to incorporate in all of my projects, enhancing user experiences and reinforcing the thoughtful nature of my brand, Theo Dillon. If potential clients can see what I'm doing for me, they'll hopefully want it for themselves, as well.    

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CSS3 and HTML5

In thinking about my portfolio site, I have been worrying a lot about mobile accessibility and bandwidth space. I want everyone to experience my site the way I intended it, quickly. Fortunately, CSS3 is already widely accepted and in use, and HTML5 is coming up quickly, already employed by the best browsers. Both of these upgrades make coding easier and use less resources and data.

CSS3 helps in this respect in that it allows for elements to be styled (rounded, shadowed, transformed) in ways that before required an image, or many images to replicate. When I designed my first complicated site (my narrative, "Ken-doll" site), I only knew how to use java to make rollover effects, which required images of each action, and loads of programming for the scripting and swapping of each element. These things waste my time and waste people's data plans, but are unnecessary with CSS3. Another cool thing is that it makes typography more accessible by allowing webfonts: typefaces hosted on a website's server that load when the site loads. 

HTML5, which is not yet universal but soon will be, takes it even farther. The canvas element allows for on-the-fly image rendering without a plug-in, making graphs and charts and images without scripting anything. Secondly, HTML5 adds pays much-needed attention to video, also removing the necessity for a plugin (like Flash). This is especially useful, I think, for mobile applications. Currently when I click on a YouTube link on my iPhone, it forces my YouTube app to open. With HTML5, it will be native to the browser, like images are now. In the same vein, the new code will allow for offline applications. This means that, on your iPhone, you could use Safari instead of an App, keeping everything in one window, and not consuming data.

HTML5 can also deliver extremely location-specific content, using GPS and wifi locations instead of IP addresses, which aren't very accurate and can easily be subverted, for whatever reason.

I am already using both of these new codes for my web projects, and it only gets better. With Muse coming out, I think this web design thing is going to be pretty cool.  

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FIA field trip

Last week, my beautiful girlfriend accompanied me to   the Flint Institute of Arts for a field trip. The Institute's main gallery is currently exhibiting the (humongous body of) work of Jerry Pinkney. Pretty "nice" stuff. Not exactly my style, in that the subject matter leans a bit toward the banal, but his drawing is lively and impeccable, and his brushwork is representational, yet impressionistic. Been done. It's kind of like the Beatles, to me: Yeah, it's good, and, admittedly, it's the basis for everything I'm currently into, but it's old, and I've heard it.  

We went through all of the galleries, and, as you might now guess, I gravitate more toward the contemporary. My favorite piece in the whole place is a giant 65 year-old man's head, that when viewed from the front looks like he's right in front of you, presumably making a weird grandpa noise. Evan Penny uses a surreal form of hyper-realism in sculpture form to provoke thoughts on image and identity in the modern world. 

Although I've been through the galleries there many times, there was a piece I'd not (remembered having) seen before. My lovely assistant (gf) pointed out a wonderful work by John Toerreano about 18 feet up on the wall between two galleries. Figures she'd catch it, too, given that its a collection of multi-colored diamonds with inset pearls and shiny stuff. 

Overall it was a good time. Sometimes I get wrapped up in the (detestable) minutia of Flint and forget that there are a few spots worth exploring. The FIA is most certainly one of them. Plus, if you go to a college in Flint, it's free. Check it out.

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This is my new design blog.

This is something I learned today. It will feature design work by myself and others, as well as musings and ruminations on design in general, and maybe even a tutorial or walkthrough when warranted. This blog will be mainly a test in editing for me, as I can tend to run a bit long, which, I find, is not conducive to blogging. Spoiler alert: this went long, despite my best intentions.  

I'm going to start by explaining my theory on design in general, and how it pertains to the web. Sometimes, when I'm laying out a project of sketching out thumbnails, I feel like I am not simply creating with my own mind, but rather channelling a higher design power. It's almost as if I had nothing to do with it aside from discovering it. There is this perfect design dimension parallel to ours that is perpetually but timidly poking through, giving us hints and sparks of inspiration and options. In this way, I feel as though the task of the designer is to constantly learn and absorb and reconstitue all that he or she can gather, and stay vigilant and attentive to the whispers of the design deities.

Design for me even goes so far as to replace religion and spirituality. I think therefore I am, you know? Even if we're living in The Matrix, and all of our thoughts are illusions, they're still thoughts. There is existence, and therefore there is not nothing. Even the universe, which is said to be constantly expanding, is expanding into something, even if it's what we would call "nothing." Similarly, if there were a God, He would have to be governed by the same laws and math. There would ultimately be something bigger, infinitely, just as there must be infinite smallness. (You can always go half the distance between two points.) In this way I believe that "God" is not that which we know, but that which we do not. "God" is the anomaly, the spark, the inspiration, the ability of all things to outweigh the sum of their parts, even human brains. To combine free will and predestination, our choices do ripple into the future, but everything that happens had to happen that way, or else it wouldn't have.

There you go. That explains that. I guess? I don't know, email me if you don't get it. 

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This is my medium face.