It can be argued that Nintendo has somewhat ripped off Apple when it comes to design and asthetics. Everything is very simple and clean almost to the point of being sterile (as in the hospital, not the inability to bear children). However, one disturbing trend seems to be their boxes. Not the fronts, mind you, but rather the backs. Join me as I go through a box design from every generation of Nintendo console (save N64) and grade them on design.
Continue reading The De-evolution of Nintendo Box Asses
After a month of crazy coding and hard work, I unveil to the world dxprog media! dxprog media is, for all intents and purposes, just a front for myself and my work.
Speaking of my work, be sure to check out the brand new portfolio section. It's a little sparse now, but I will be filling it out with all my best work over the next few days. I encourage you to re-check out my motion graphics projects there as they are encoded in much higher quality than the YouTube versions (and it's the only place you'll be able to see the corrected Crayola Commercial) . Also, you get to use my snazzy new video player (written entirely in Flex).
Of course, the blog got a couple needed updates as well. Down at the bottom of the page you'll notice page navigation. This is across the board for general viewing, viewing tags, and the archives. Another thing to get the page treatment was the entry comments. There's only really one entry that can benefit from this update right now, but I hope to gain some more viewers by shifting my posts more towards industry related topics and some tutorials. Originally I was going to intersperse tweets between the posts but decided ultimately against it.
So, there it is. The site looks more awesome than ever and I'm hoping to bring some new sweet, juicy content to everybody. So, bookmark the site or add the feed to your favorite RSS reader and prepare for a new era of dxprog!
It is the eve of the beginning of my PHP/MySQL class. Of course, we should all know by now that CMS programming is child's play for me. However, seeing as my final project for this class is a CMS with front end, I'm taking this opportunity to redesign stuff, and by stuff I mean everthing (even beyond the site itself). Some things to expect from the next iteration:
If my rebrand goes as well as I hope, I shouldn't be updating the design for some time. Geez, we haven't heard that before, have we?
Having been sitting through web dev classes lately it's hard not to get the itch to start screwing around with stuff. However, instead of doing a complete redesign I've decided to just improve the functionality. First off, you'll notice that the main content stuff is much wider now. Very tasty. Even tastier than that, though, is how the side bars are now organized. Using the awesomeness of jQuery I am able to conveniently place everything in one column without sacrificing functionality or cluttering stuff up. Well, there it is.
It seems that since I began school this blog has gotten more and more deserted. I was reading through old entries last night and I feel that things may be beginning to get empty. So, here I am once again poring forth my soul into the void that is known as the internet.
Last month ended my two month journey that was motion graphics. I am sad to have to leave these classes as I seem to have found my calling in mograph. To be frank, I had way too much fun and I probably created my best work ever in those two months. Of course, just because I'm not in the class doesn't mean I won't be dropping it and forgetting about it. No, I plan on doing small projects through out school that I can dump into my demo reel down. Even now I am working on a small advertisement for a friend. After that, there's a Dockers "make your commercial and have it aired on TV" contest that I'm thinking of entering. The more I can get my work out there, the more chance I have of going immediately into the industry after I graduate.
But enough dwelling on the past (or the future), and let us reflect on the present. This month I have probably what is going to be the easiest class off all time: web development. For anybody who doesn't know me personally, I've been involved in web dev for going on eight years. All that YPN stuff and what not. Of course, for those of us who are already fluent in web dev they're going to try to get us to use modern and clean coding practices (tableless design, emphasis on CSS, etc). Oh, wait. I already do all that. I feel like a jerk talking about this class like it's useless crap, but it's really not their fault. However, I don't want to be talked down to as if I know nothing or am new to the whole web stuff. As with most technologies I've taught myself, I not only learn forwards, but backwards as well. I'm well versed in tricks of old as well as new. Alright, enough of that borderline ego stroking.
My other class, which I haven't actually attended yet, is, or will be, developmental psychology. I really don't know what this class has in store for me, but at the very least it should be more interesting than web dev.
Today, I got to get my feet wet in the field of game testing. EA's Tiburon division, which develops most of their sports titles, resides just seven small miles from my house. Once or twice a month they bring people in to do a couple hours of game beta testing in exchange for a free game. I've been on the mailing list since December after Ian Cummings, lead director of the Madden series, put in a recommendation for me after reading my Rock Band drums post. Of course, that was for a full-time job doing game testing, but being a full-time student as well these two hours sessions were the next best thing. But, I digress.
Anyways, I got to go to the EA building, which I must say is very, very nice looking. I even got to sign a non-disclosure agreement that forbids me from telling anybody what I played or what I saw. Kind of cool, actually. I will say, I enjoyed what I played and the best part of all is I obtained myself a free copy of Command & Conquer 3 for PC. I haven't actually installed or tried the game yet, but I'll probably post something when I do.
Well, I suppose that about wraps things up for now. I'll be putting up a post about my final project for motion graphics soon (currently waiting on something). Oh, and for all those tiny little updates be sure to check out my Twitter account. I've also placed a convenient little box above the RSS feeds that shows my latest tweet. Until next time, keep your staplers running.