Below you'll be able to see the last 10 entries I've written. So, it'll make it simple to find something that was recently interesting.

For the older, but still interesting stuff, you can by all means filter your results below.

Freshly Served Results

1

Bryan and Jen in Japan

March.25th.2009 • 3:17AM 21 Comments

This is the story of a guy, his future wife and a dream. The dream was to someday visit the country that serves as the source of a lot of happiness for the couple. This is the story of the beginning of their journey there, and how you can follow along — if you wish. :)

If you’ve been following along for a while, you’ll already know that I’m a big fan of Japan and Japanese culture. While I was a bit of a casual fan in years past, it wasn’t until I met Jen that my exposure to all things Japan suddenly spiked. The culmination of that happens today, as we wait at Vancouver Airport for Air Canada 001 bound for Tokyo.

We’ve been looking forward to this trip for a long time. For a while we weren’t even sure if it was going to happen, but a ...

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2

Suit&tie

March.21st.2009 • 4:25PM 13 Comments

This is the story of a guy and a theme. It’s been quite a while since said guy worked on a theme for a certain blogging system. But a few guys approached him to create a theme suited for the business world. Challenged and renewed, said guy “presses” on.

A few months ago, word found its way to me that Adriaan Pienaar was looking for me to create a theme for his premium WordPress theme shop, WooThemes. To make a potentially long story short, it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that our paths finally aligned and I felt I was ready to take on the project.

Adii gave me the task of creating a business-style theme, which was a bit of a surprise since, to be honest, it took me a little bit of time to wrap my head around creating a “business-style” theme for a ...

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3

Zoomed

January.28th.2009 • 6:12PM 26 Comments

This is the story of a guy and a shortcut key. Said shortcut key is supposed to be used for accessibility, but sometimes said guy actually likes working with the mode on. If you don’t easily get motion sick, take a look if you’re not keen on trying it yourself.

Now for something completely different.

I have an addiction to using ⌘ + 8.

For the non-Mac amongst you, command + 8 is used to zoom into the screen. It’s an accessibility feature, but on those “off” days of mine, I enjoy working with it. Any normal person would think that it’s a bit nuts, and I’d have to agree with them. But hell, it’s fun. :)

So a few months ago, I decided to record a session, I just never got around to blogging about it. So enjoy, if you’re not prone to motion sickness.

For those ...

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4

"Geek" Motivation

January.21st.2009 • 1:45PM 8 Comments

This is the story of a guy and motivation. It’s hard for him to find any outside of working (and a good number of times while working). However, after finding the motivation to diet and keep dieting for almost three months, he’s found that a source of motivation can come from satisfying some basic designer geek urges.

We designers and developers are a special breed of person. Like artists, we’re creative, overly pensive, and our best work comes in spurts. On the other hand, we’re like factory workers, day in and day out, we have to work hard to generate a (semi-)constant output for long periods of time. It gets tiring, obviously. So when it comes to motivation outside of work, it’s a bit scarce, especially for somebody like me who has no life pours all of it into work1.

So what does this have to do with anything?

Well, let ...

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5

2009 Design Predictions

January.16th.2009 • 12:33PM 11 Comments

This is the story of a guy and and the new year. The new year is treating said guy well, but he’d thought he’d take some time to give you some of his predictions on what the coming year might look like for design. Oh, and here take this sarcasm pill before you read it.

I don’t have any. Go figure. So, surprise me. I like leaving things open ended.

Well, we live in a world of speculators, people who love to try and beat the market before anything’s actually happened. My hope for this year is to be surprised, again and again. Surprise the speculators and send the rumor mills packing. Try something new, like Canvas. Break out of that shell. Thrown on some CSS3 with a sprinkle of HTML5. Leave IE6 behind for good.

Oh, I can make one prediction though, albeit personal. You’ll be seeing those eggrolls soon ...

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6

2009? Bring It.

January.1st.2009 • 12:00AM 6 Comments

This is the story of a guy. A guy whose last 365 days could be equated to riding X for the first time at Six Flags Magic Mountain. It’s been hard, it’s been crazy and somehow it’s been fun. Now with 2009 around the corner, said guy can’t wait to see what’s in store.

It’s been a comeback year. It’s been a life-changing year. It’s been a historic year. It’s been a crazy year. It’s been a scary year.

Dan and I, during one of our many talks in the past, discussed the importance of this year and how next year will be even better. In some ways, it’s hard to tell that anything could be much better given our current global environment. In other ways, it’s already going to be better than the last.

But for Dan and I, we agreed that 2008 was a ...

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7

Archive for the Holidays

December.22nd.2008 • 7:02PM 8 Comments

This is the story of a guy and a tradition. Every year since 2004, said guy has released a few files from that year’s Photoshop archives for people to learn from. As 2008 starts coming to a close, it’s that time again to once again (albeit a little early) release an archive.

I was supposed to be on a plane today. That’ll mean I’ll miss spending Christmas with my family. But as one Elizabeth Gast said to me this morning,

[T]ime with family is always precious no matter what day you get there. Dec 25th is just a day - Christmas happens in the heart

There I sat after rescheduling my flight, stuck in the mindset that I should be on a plane. What usually happens when those moments occur is that I start working on things I wouldn’t normally work on. Too far removed to do any ...

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8

The First 30 Days

December.10th.2008 • 12:43PM 6 Comments

This is the story of a guy and a company. A month ago, (wow, really?) he announced the coming acquisition of his company. Since he thought it would be quite useless to open up a new blog for said company, he decided to write about things here.

I thought about starting a blog for Revyver for about, 5 minutes. After that I said “screw it,” it belongs here.

It’s been 30 days since the announcement I made about the future of Revyver. Congratulations have come and gone and it’s back to business as usual. Well, it’s a new business as usual. Even though I had already been working with Spectrum for a few months, it wasn’t until this past month that I felt that Revyver had truly gotten off the ground. Now for the news.

Let’s start with Spectrum.

On that ...

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9

Revyver to be Acquired

November.10th.2008 • 1:09PM 26 Comments

This is the story of a guy, his company and a dream. Since its inception, said guy’s company has always steered towards a path that would make dreams come true. Today’s dream was to be able to work on his own products. Today’s dream has come true.

You’re never prepared to write things like this. Today the announcement has finally hit the airwaves. SpectrumDNA, the company from Park City, Utah is acquiring Revyver.

Needless to say, both Jen and I are ecstatic. If you’ve been following the story thus far, you’ll have a good sense of what I was trying to mold Revyver into. For those that don’t, our goal was to create an environment where Jen and I could focus our energies on making products for people in markets close to our hearts. When I started Revyver two years ago, I ...

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10

Change and Withdrawal

November.4th.2008 • 10:58PM 18 Comments

This is the story of a guy and the future president of the United States. While said guy is completely elated that his candidate for president has won, he can’t help but feel some emptiness at the fact that the campaign is now over. Said guy bids goodbye to one of his favorite identities, ever.

(I’m going to keep this short. I’m fading quickly. :D)

After 21 months, the people have spoken, the person I wanted for President of the Untied States has been elected. I’m clearly ecstatic. However, as a designer, I can’t help but feel a bit empty. If President-Elect Obama has done nothing else, his campaign has inspired countless designers, you and I alike. He has run one of the most beautiful campaigns in our country’s history with one of the strongest identities of any candidate in history.

Every site that has come out of the ...

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