The Pixel District

‘

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert.

Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Eventually, all men, and their empires, no matter how great. Will fall.

Continue Reading

A few months ago, i saw a tweet from @mayhemstudios talking about some new headphones he’d gotten. From a company called “Siege Audio”, so i clicked the link, as i was in the market for some.

A few moments later, i tweeted about said headphones mentioning that “i was in the market for some new ones, and that these looked interesting”

BAM! i was hit with a tweet from @siege telling me they could hook me up. Did i mention i love twitter?

So i bought some, i got a launch discount on them, but i paid for shipping to the UK, so i paid just as much as anyone who bought them in the US, maybe even more.

The general consensus? they are amazing.

I wanted to give it a few weeks before i reviewed them so that i could let the initial novelty wear off so i could give them a proper review, so here it is:

Continue Reading

I finally did a quick redesign for daniel-matthews.com, and i think it looks pretty snazzy it’s my first experience designing with a strict grid, and it really does make it easier.

I’ve also added short URLs to this site so you can share the posts easier, you’ll find them in the top right corner of each post page.

Continue Reading

I was lucky enough to be included in a post about where 30 designers (including myself) are when they are most inspired.

I wish i hadn’t answered so honestly now, and to be honest i’m quite embarrassed about my answer, but hey! at least i told the truth, no matter how weird:

‘

I find that inspiration tends to strike whenever I least expect it, whenever I’m away from a computer or as far away from a pen and paper as possible! Which usually means that I forget my best ideas. Thankfully since I got an iPhone, the number of forgotten brainwaves have decreased.

Prior to that though, my secondary place of inspiration was when seated on the toilet! I don’t know why, but it’s the place I seem to think most clearly. I usually bound down the bathroom stairs with a million ideas for whatever I’m working on, after washing my hands of  course!

Thanks Gavin, for letting me be a small part of a post that is filled with inspirational and brilliant designers.

Continue Reading

I’ve just noticed this article from Tim Van Damme, about how the experiences of your childhood shape who you are.

I wanted to mention this because i’ve been through similar. I’ve suffered some pretty horrific bullying, and i think that’s why i spent so many hours indoors playing with Frontpage, figuring out how things work.

If it wasn’t for those bullies i wouldn’t have the knowledge to persue something that i’ve come to love.

Continue Reading

I’ve just found out how to remove the gloss from your apple webclip icon on the iPhone. I think it makes it stand out so much better.

Continue Reading

So the past couple of days have both sapped confidence from me with regard to my University work and re-ignited confidence that i could end up doing something i love.

Demoralization

It’s hard, to watch videos of awesome people like Cabel Sasser talking about how they designed and built coda, and the guy is so enthusiastic and entertaining about it that i can only deduce that he loves what he does.

It’s also hard to look at awesome pictures of places to work like Realmac software, such a nice office and they’ve got a kickass team to match their awesome products and awesome office.

And by “it’s hard” i mean it’s hard to go back working on my silly little projects in my little student bedroom, and Adobe Director…

‘

<rant> THE MOST MUTHAFUCKING ANCIENT AND STUPID AND AWKWARD APPLICATION IN THE EXISTENCE OF MAN, AND ALL COPIES SHOULD BE GATHERED IN ONE PLACE AND BURNT WHILE PEOPLE SING SONGS OF REJOICE </rant>

…that look like crap (so far) and are not the focus of my future. So why the hell should i have to do them? a poor choice of degree on my part i suppose, and i know that when the focus of my degree shifts to web design next year, i’ll probably complain a whole lot more about that and being sick of doing it.

On The Flipside…

I finally managed to get started looking at some iPhone development, and as a result, managed to get started on my first app idea. I’m not going to mention it at all on here, as it’s still in it’s infancy, and could easily be stolen, and made infinitely better, by someone cleverer than myself.

But as you can see, i have the basic version up and running in the simulator, it’s the one with the white icon. Not that it’s hard to do, but still… come on, give me some credit

And also, the new iPhone version of this site is live, try visiting it now using your apple handheld of choice. I didn’t totally work this up from scratch, it was a tweaked version of the ContentRobot iWPhone plugin and theme. But thanks to them, my site is nicely optimised for mobile reading.

In Conclusion

I love how, so far, my family has been supportive of the initial idea of creating something that i can hopefully sell for money but i suppose they would be.

I hope to get round to (being able to afford) and read this book at some point in the near future, to help me along. I’m glad that my course is winding to an end, even though i don’t really know how i’ll be catching up the work from when i was ill, and i also don’t really care if i accomplish much this summer, all i want to do is expand my mind a little bit, learn some new stuff, and maybe get a little bit fitter.

Unfortunately (sarcasm) this means i will have to invest in an iPhone, oh dear.

Continue Reading

I just knocked these up for my own personal use but thought i might as well share them. It’s just the basic UCL leaves logo but optimised for OS X folders/applications. I’ve also included a PNG file for anybody who wants to use it for windows/linux or anything else.

The scaled down versions show small, one leaf icons instead of the full thing as it looks daft:

Download Now:

University Of Cumbria Logos
(Zip format, includes ICNS, Folder & PNG)

Continue Reading

10.) Cut and paste. Pretty much guaranteed, people have been bitching and whining non stop, and it seems fairly obvious and simple to implement in an elegant way, so Apple will probably do it. They Added It

9.) MMS support. Might happen, they may just add the support to “attach” photos and video to text messages and suchlike, simple add in functionality rather than adding a full MMS app. They Added It

8.) A shared sandbox. The iPhone kinda has this already, a base filesystem that stores photos and any application can get at. If they could expand this to documents, the possibilities are endless. They Added Peer To Peer? But no sandbox.

7.) Some background functionality. I think background apps are unlikely today, and i think that push notifications will be demoed but not be functionally available until after the launch of 3.0. Push Notifications Were Added

6.) Wireless stereo. This will only happen if the hardware playing the music is Apple approved. DRMed similarly to the new shuffle headphones. Bluetooth Stereo Happened

5.) Better power management. Hell yes, this is what me and a certain @hiabowman were talking about. This is what made me take the current model back, that and a lack of cash Nothing was mentioned

4.) Better home screen customization. Don’t think this will happen, apple has a thing for making you keep things that you don’t really need. Spotlight was added, looks like more pages are available

3.) Video recording (and a better photo app). I think this is a certainty, kevin rose has said that qik has an official app store app coming, so we’re pretty much guaranteed this. Not Even Mentioned

2.) Tethering. I don’t think that this will happen, not in the UK anyway. There are too many “mobile broadband” packages flying around. Phil Schiller Said That They ARE Integrating It Into 3.0

1.) Breaking the AT&T (/02UK) agreement. I’ve heard that Orange might be getting the iPhone too here in the UK, so a bit of healthy competition shouldn’t hurt anyone. Nothing Mentioned

But i guess we’ll find out at 5pm

Make this post Readable

Continue Reading

Before i get on with this post, let me just say how excited i am that “Colour” is spelled the correct, english way in the band’s title…

Anyway, i’ve been listening to this album for a few days now, and i wanted to write a post about it because, to be honest, it’s amazing.

Continue Reading