New projects, methods and processes
Visit often to see the latest projects, case studies and to learn more about the methods and processes used to create graphic design pieces, websites and illustrations.
The Thief of Bagdad: Re-imagined by Shadoe Stevens
with the Music of Electric Light Orchestra
Poster for The Thief of Bagdad (1924)
Recently I spent 155 minutes watching an old silent film at the Seattle International Film Festival. I LOVED every minute.
The film tells the story of a thief, Ahmed (played by Douglas Fairbanks) who falls in love with a princess (Julanne Johnston). In order to win the hand of her in marriage, royal suitors are challenged to “find the rarest of treasures”. Ahmed, disguised as a prince goes through a series of mystical trials to find his treasure and in the process saves princess and the whole kingdom from the evil Prince of the Mongols.
This 1924 film was directed by Raoul Walsh and art directed by William Cameron Menzies. In the screening we watched, Orson Wells introduces the film and talks about the amazing scenery, costumes and effects created for this film. Flying carpets, flying horses, fiery caves and a fantastic underwater world required film makers to invent special effect techniques to create this magical film.
Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read
At the most recent Seattle WordPress Meetup, I won a door prize — this book, Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read by Scott McNulty.
The title of this book made me believe that this would be a book about creating more interesting and valuable content for WordPress Blogs. However, the real focus of this book is how to set up and manage a WordPress site. The book covers how to install WordPress; using the dashboard for basic site maintenance; creating blog posts and pages; using links, categories and tags; and working with plugins, widgets and themes.
Overall, Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read is a good introduction to WordPress. For someone who is starting their first WordPress blog/site and wants to become more familiar with the various features that WordPress offers, this would be a good book to start with. I know a few of my clients may want to read this book.
Adobe Browserlab
Screen shot of a current project, testing how the page appears in Safari 5.0 OSX
I’m loving this online tool, Adobe Browserlab which provides real-time screenshots of web pages for online cross-browser testing.
An important step in website production involves testing to make sure the website is appearing properly in various browsers and operating systems. Ideally to do this, you would have both a Mac and PC loaded up with various versions of the most popular browsers (or use a program similar to Parallels) that would allow for this type of testing. However, sometimes this set-up isn’t possible and Adobe Browserlab provides a great way to quickly test webpages to see how they looks in different browsers.
While Adobe Browserlab doesn’t show you how the website is functioning (it only gives you screenshots), it’s a great tool for checking sites as you are building them.