My New Portfolio
I’m looking to start doing some freelance design work and/or find a full-time web design position, so I figured it was time I built a legitimate portfolio website. I had an awesome time designing it and I learned a lot about jQuery and Ajax along the way. Anyways, check it out!
If you know anyone that needs some work done or is looking to hire a web designer, please do pass along my site. I’d much appreciate it. Thanks!
My Blog’s Personality
I just ran my website through Typealyzer, a tool that calculates your Myers-Briggs Type Indicator based on the content of your blog. According to the website, “When all features, words and sentences, are statistically analyzed, Typealyzer is able to guess which personality type the text represents.”
I assume it’s only analyzing the front page, so it might not be very reliable. However, at the time of submitting my site, the homepage was filled with content that is extremely reflective of my writing style and interests: a science/tech/futurist-related essay, an article related to the design of this website, a post about a movie trailer, and a few short blurbs regarding some of my photographs.
After a few seconds, Typealyzer declared the author of this blog (me) to be an INTP: Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving. Considering that this website is in many ways the digitized contents of my brain, I wasn’t surprised that Typealyzer was spot on. I Googled INTP and found this: Portrait of an INTP. INTPs are called the “Thinkers,” and I’ve extracted a few of the descriptions that I found to be very accurate, as if they were written just for me.
- INTPs live in the world of theoretical possibilities. They see everything in terms of how it could be improved, or what it could be turned into.
- They seek clarity in everything, and are therefore driven to build knowledge.
- They love new ideas, and become very excited over abstractions and theories. They love to discuss these concepts with others. They may seem “dreamy” and distant to others, because they spend a lot of time inside their minds musing over theories.
- The INTP is likely to be very shy when it comes to meeting new people. On the other hand, the INTP is very self-confident and gregarious around people they know well, or when discussing theories which they fully understand.
- The INTP is usually very independent, unconventional, and original. They are not likely to place much value on traditional goals such as popularity and security.
Typealyzer also drew up this visual analysis that shows the parts of the brain that were dominant during writing.
Again, quite accurate, particularly the almost 50/50 division between practical and idealist. Anyways, give Typealyzer a try. I’m curious if it works as well for anyone else.
The Alphabet, According to Safari
I’m a Safari user. I really can’t stand Firefox’s UI, and while its plugins supply a great deal of added functionality, I much prefer the simplicity of Safari’s Cupertino-bred interface.
Safari has gotten to know me quite well so that now, when I want to head to one of my favorite websites, I simply click inside the address bar, tap a letter, and hit “Return.” About 95% of the time it predicts exactly where I want to go.
Here, ladies and gents, is the alphabet according to Safari:
- A adampolselli.com
- B boston.com/bigpicture
- C cnn.com
- D digg.com
- E expressionengine.com
- F facebook.com
- G gmail.com
- H hulu.com
- I imdb.com
- J jasonsantamaria.com
- K kottke.org
- L login.facebook.com
- M mail.google.com
- N notcot.org
- O Nothing here that I visit often.
- P psfk.com
- Q questionablecharacters.com
- R rottentomatoes.com
- S search.twitter.com
- T thegarmentor.com
- U uncrate.com
- V veer.com
- W weather.com
- X xkcd.com
- Y youtube.com
- Z zshare.net
So what can you learn about me from this list? Probably not much that you don’t already know. I check Gmail and Facebook way too much. I enjoy streaming video and blogs about design, fashion, technology, and ideas. I seek out movie details and reviews, as well as leaked music downloads. I’m constantly debugging ExpressionEngine and wondering what kind of weather next week will bring. And, finally, I have an aversion to domain names that begin with the letter “O.”
So, what’s the alphabet according to your browser?
I have no issue with family entertainment, but Mom… Dad… there’s a reason they put Vegas far from the civilized world in the middle of a desert. IT’S BECAUSE NORMAL PEOPLE DO NOT BEHAVE LIKE THIS.
People leave their lives when they get to Vegas, they transform into tremendous assholes. It’s hard to read that sentence without thinking I’m somehow predisposed to not like these people, but I do… because I’m one of them… as regularly as humanly possible.
Vegas is Sin City. It’s an delectable adventure designed to swallow you whole and then spit you out in a haze of smoke and a a stench of booze. When Vegas is done with you, you’ll be broke, exhausted, and reeking of strippers.
Hell yes.
Via the Rands Vegas System
Rands wrote this more than six years ago, but it still rings true.
In two weeks, my best friend Stephanie is coming to visit me in San Francisco—which, by the way, is incredible so far—and then we are headed to Vegas for the weekend. A lot of people don’t get it, but we love the place. Once we stayed for four nights straight and decided that it was too much fun for one sitting. However, anything less than four nights is, as Rands describes it, a “delectable adventure.”
The Mirage is our destination, Olives is where we’ll stop for lunch, and Tryst and Tao are THEE clubs to make “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” come true. Can’t wait!
New Digs & A New Project
Two weeks ago tomorrow, I flew to San Francisco with my mother, neither of us having ever stepped foot in the City by the Bay. We landed in the morning, looked at three apartments by sun down, and the following day I was signing a lease.
The Road to San Francisco
I studied film at the University of Michigan, and for a long time it was my plan to move to Los Angeles. No explanation needed. Having visited the city often, however, I decided that the sprawling urban metropolis that is L.A. wasn’t for me. The city where you need a car wasn’t going to accommodate my desire to sell my own.
I next turned my attention towards the Big Apple. I had visited dozens of times and knew that I loved it, plus I already had a few friends living there (always a bonus when moving somewhere new). Long story short, I thought I had secured an apartment, then BAM! It was a scam. I only lost $50, so I was more relieved than disappointed. However, it forced me to take a step back and reassess my direction.
Somewhere in between getting scammed and signing the lease for my new apartment on Nob Hill, I decided that San Francisco was where I belonged. Big city: check. Temperate climate: check. Public transportation: check. Can I sell my car? Check. Friendly people: check. Check, check, check.
It had everything I was looking for, including a thriving tech industry, whose ranks I have chosen to join. I truly loved my film studies, but the Web is why I wake up in the morning, and Web design is most definitely my passion. My Dad always says, “Do what you love and the money will come,” so I am doing just that.
Here are a couple shots of my new place, where I’ll be taking over the online world of men’s fashion with my new project. (More on that below.) I make the move on September 4th. Can’t wait to finish setting things up.
New Project: The Garmentor
Having redesigned my personal site with much success–Jeff Croft called it “gorgeous” and Shaun Inman, master of minimalism in design, acknowledged “the minimalism and attention to typographic detail throughout”–I decided that it was time to begin a new project.
With age comes a sense of who you are, not only as a person, but also as a designer, and with the latest redesign of this website I felt that I had begun to hone my signature aesthetic. The Garmentor is not only the latest fruit of my passion, but another chance for me to excercise and establish my personal style as a Web designer.
The Garmentor, which will be published at TheGarmentor.com, is my attempt to remedy the lackluster state of men’s fashion on the Web.
Let’s face it. When it comes to fashion, men get screwed left and right. Men’s departments are a fraction of the size of those for the ladies, and the selection often leaves much to be desired. In catalogs, the first 90 pages are reserved for women and the last 10 (including the back cover, if we’re lucky) are for men. And while you’d expect the Internet, with its innate democratic values, to be a haven for men’s fashion, this isn’t the case. To this day, I haven’t come across a blog or online publication about men’s fashion that gives me what I’m looking for: content that is visually interesting, easily digestable, fun, and useful.
Uncrate does an okay job; however, their focus is too wide to do men’s fashion any real justice. To give credit where it’s due, Men.Style.com has some great content, including their “Hotlists” in which users can rate lists of, say, denim or aviators. Still, the website is cluttered, difficult to use, and too often comes off as just a money-grubbing extension of GQ and Details.
With The Garmentor, I want to fix everything that’s wrong with both of these websites, and others like them. I want users to have a visually arresting experience. I want to tell stories. I want to collaborate with other artists. I want visitors to come back not just for the content, but for the design. So far, I am on track to accomplish all of this.
I am working feverishly, spending many nights at the computer ’til 4, 5, and 6 AM. However, there is still much to be done. (There is always more to be done.)
My grandfather always says, “If you’re going to do it, do it right,” and I’m living by that motto with this project. It will launch when it launches, and when it does I will be the first to let all of you know.
Four Seasons
I drew these back in January 2005 when I first got my Wacom Sapphire. Digital painting’s not my forte or anything, but I wanted to practice using the tablet. It’s always fun to find old stuff like this buried in a folder somewhere. As you can see, I went a little bird crazy. Amateur.
Nine Point Oh, or Sangria
Holy crap, it’s finally up. I am very proud to introduce Version 9.0, a design that has been about two months in the making. At least 17 designs were scrapped in the process, including a few that made it all the way from scribble to Photoshop mock-up to fully-functional website. If you’d like, you can call her Sangria — the link colors remind me of oranges and red wine.
I wanted the site to be outfitted in a look that stays out of the way of the content, but is extremely designed at the same time. That’s what I feel I have achieved with Sangria. I realize that these days a lot of people remain within the confines of their feed reader, but I hope that the new design encourages them to pay the site a visit every so often.
A couple months ago, while brainstorming in my notebook, I jotted down phrases like “emphasis on beautiful typography,” “minimalism and lots of white space,” “let the content speak for itself.” After weeks of revising and perfecting the design, I feel that I have finally reached those goals. Taking advice from “Design is in the Details” over at A List Apart, I obsessed over every facet of the site, analyzing it at various times and in various settings, removing anything deemed unnecessary or superfluous. I am very happy with the results and can’t wait to start filling the site with fresh content.
I plan on writing a more detailed recap of the design process in the coming days, so keep an eye out. I learned so much over the last two months, and would love to share that knowledge with the rest of you.
If you guys come across any bugs or glitches, I’d greatly appreciate it if you left a note in the comments. On many occasions, I didn’t make it to bed until the sky had begun to brighten and my brain had started to fry, so I know there’s a mistake or two somewhere.
That’s all for now.
What is graphic design?
Here is my entry to Veerle’s What is Graphic Design Poster Competition. Needless to say, it’s best viewed at full size.
I was inspired by the idea, “graphic design speaks for itself.” What is graphic design? “I am graphic design,” speaks the design itself. I incorporated some very basic examples of graphic design, as well as references to measurement, placement, constraints, typography, and so forth.
For example, the “i” in the blue circle is a well-known product of graphic design, visually communicating the word information. The word graph in graphic was emphasized and altered to resemble a bar graph, which is another very basic example of graphic design. And, of course, there is the reference to a stop sign, with the red octagon surrounding the word sign in design. Sign, which has four letters and begins with an “s” just like the word stop, is not only a reference to a stop sign, but also an allusion to signs in general, for graphic design very often deals with the creation of signs and symbols that convey information or instructions.
Having used blue for the information sign and red for the stop sign, I chose green for the word graph. This completes the RGB color model, and helps convey the idea that graphic design is the combination of four essential elements — type, shapes, lines, and colors — to create complex and communicative art.
The design strictly adheres to a 50×50 pixel grid.
The competition ends on Friday, at which point Veerle will select twelve prize winners. So far, it has been great to see what other people have come up with. Best of luck to all!