The trip down memory lane
I went digging around my old basement with my mother recently, we found a lot of my first grade notebooks and although for her the value is in it's content I was more struck by the design of the notebooks themselves. Of course I didn't really give too much attention to them as a kid, although I remember them having a sort of Pokemon "gotta catch 'em all" feel. I also found the folder for art class papers but that one was way too big to scan. I would love to know who designed these at the time because I am still fascinated by the sheer simplicity and effectiveness this design has. If anyone has a clue drop me an email. The green one for drawings is definitely my favorite and I will probably scan its contents at some point. They have some of my first drawings which were also very funny to look at. I found tons of more interesting stuff but I don't have the energy to scan it all now.
It's been more than a month since I updated the site and I was kinda hoping I'd avoid that issue, things have been rather busy and I can't complain really. I've passed my final exam and things are nicely moving along. I am starting to write the final dissertation paper on the topic of typography on the web. Something that I've explored quite a bit recently with this very site. It still pains me that I can't achieve bigger layout flexibility here without sacrificing the design elements. I might start to dig around and play with my CSS again if I get the free time. I'm also trying to get back on track with my drawings. The Wacom tablet I use has been gathering dust for quite some time now and I feel it's time to change that. It's a shame really that there have been a lot of projects I did after the last UWOG festival where I didn't really feel I have complete creative freedom. I have no one but myself to blame, I've turned down many simple design tasks simply because the person who wanted me to do something creative didn't have the money to pay for it. And although a lot of people will immediately discard such offers I now realize that by doing a simple flyer every now and then would have tapped into my creative potential a lot more than some cash from a website. And in the end I would have a nicer portfolio.
Speaking of websites I finished 2 recently. Nothing big really, another redesign of my mother's work place, http://www.bolnica-bistra.hr and another site for a dentist should be up in the next day or two http://www.dental-design.com.hr . It will be listed in the design section shortly. I am currently trying to find a workable model for the Progressive Tunes magazine project I am working on. Since most of the trance scene's labels sales have gone down not many of them have the money to invest in additional advertising and it seems that the project is bound to become another thing I do for free with the hopes of getting some money later on. I was also pretty happy to see the weather change and got to take out my Canon EOS 450d for a ride in the park. Still learning how to use it properly though. There's another gallery on the way soon.
Regarding videogames I've been quite busy as well, Played the Broken Sword remake for the Nintendo DS and even though I breezed through most of the familiar parts of the game there were still some nicely done new additions to the storyline and gameplay that kept me busy. Braid finally got released for the PC and I feel in love with it straight away. It's a perfect example of a videogame that does everything right. The music is amazing, the visuals are stunning and the gameplay is fun, inventive and no puzzle ever repeats itself. The difficulty is also amazingly done, I passed the entire game in one day and I felt very tempted to check GameFAQs on more than one occasion but I resisted it and completed everything by myself. I have also been following the Wii hacking scene pretty intensely and finished Monkey Island 3 on the Wii using scummVM. I think I've finished that game 500 times but it was fun doing it on another system after such a long period. I even forgot how awesome the music was. It's also fun to watch the entire homebrew scene develop a USB loader for the console and while playing around with it I realized that it wasn't really the fact that I could play copied games directly from a hard drive that got me going. It was the act of hacking the console itself and using it for something else that was fun.
There is a new mix coming as well, I've been really busy with mixing and not a day goes by without me mixing a few tracks. It's a good feeling to be into the scene again, I've grown so tired of the same cookie cutter ideas that a lot of full on artists have and so I went a bit outside the box and found some amazing new progressive music. I've never been a fan of the whole electro trend thing that gobbled up most of the scene in the last couple of years and although I'm still not a fan of trends this new minimal fad that's going on right now is something I enjoy a lot more. With that in mind I got a chance to play at the main floor of this year's Ozora festival which I'm looking forward to a lot. There is also one very exciting gig in 2010 that I can't wait to tell everyone about.
Oh and I'm really pissed off with how the Piratebay trial ended, I know it's just the start of a long ongoing battle but I was still hoping those guys wouldn't become martyrs. I wish them all the best
Posted on April 28th at 14:52 by Dovla Previous entry | Next entry
