As many of you know, I've been pushing the animation side of my business, and it's been growing rapidly. Here is a demo reel showing some of my projects:
Showing posts with label Argos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Argos. Show all posts
Monday, September 1, 2014
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Happy Halloween
During my copious spare time I made a Halloween card using Tumult Hype that uses HTML5, CSS, and Javascript to create an animation. I did all of the drawing on my iPad 3 using Procreate, then transferred them as .PSD files to my Dropbox account and exported the layers as separate PNG files. The load time is a little long, perhaps I over-reached.
The software allows for a lot more interactivity than I put into it. The only real 'easter eggs' are a mailto: link on the credits, the Play Again button and clicking on the mask reveals the intruders face. The next time I do one of these I'll concentrate more on the interactivity than the animation, and try to use more JPEGs than PNG files. I have this idea for a Thanksgiving themed arcade...
Since the load time was getting too long, I ditched the sound and went with captions and 'sound effect text' like in a comic. I'm not sure it was the best choice. Again, lesson learned.
I don't know how to host the HTML5 version of it here, so the link above will have to do. I was able to do a video screen capture of it and post that to Youtube, so I'll link to that here:
Anyway, have a Happy Halloween!
The software allows for a lot more interactivity than I put into it. The only real 'easter eggs' are a mailto: link on the credits, the Play Again button and clicking on the mask reveals the intruders face. The next time I do one of these I'll concentrate more on the interactivity than the animation, and try to use more JPEGs than PNG files. I have this idea for a Thanksgiving themed arcade...
Since the load time was getting too long, I ditched the sound and went with captions and 'sound effect text' like in a comic. I'm not sure it was the best choice. Again, lesson learned.
I don't know how to host the HTML5 version of it here, so the link above will have to do. I was able to do a video screen capture of it and post that to Youtube, so I'll link to that here:
Thursday, August 29, 2013
New Whiteboard Video
I recently finished a Whiteboard Video for the Greensboro Partnership, for their State of the Community luncheon. It explains their efforts to transform the local economy through promoting entrepreneurship with various programs. This also marks the first big collaboration between Joel Bennett and myself since I bought Argos.
I'll let the video speak for itself:
That really is my big hairy mitt doing the drawing. I used Blender to do all the video editing and special effects. Sort of overkill, but it does speak to the versatility of the program.
I took HD (1080) video of myself drawing, with a bizarre contraption made out of leftover Octanorm in an office at the Nussbaum center, then sped it up. I have over 50GB of real-time video, which I will most likely be deleting. Sort of a shame, since that means the .blend file will be largely useless without them.
I'll let the video speak for itself:
That really is my big hairy mitt doing the drawing. I used Blender to do all the video editing and special effects. Sort of overkill, but it does speak to the versatility of the program.
I took HD (1080) video of myself drawing, with a bizarre contraption made out of leftover Octanorm in an office at the Nussbaum center, then sped it up. I have over 50GB of real-time video, which I will most likely be deleting. Sort of a shame, since that means the .blend file will be largely useless without them.
Friday, May 3, 2013
Cadillac renderings
Here is a recent 3D model. They will eventually be greatly transformed to use in a story that I want to make about post-apolcalyptic rodents, but that's for another post.
These were made entirely in Blender, and the model was done entirely by me. The outdoor shot is from the warehouse parking lot where I store exhibit materials for clients. I modeled it in 3D and 'projected' the photo onto it to create the textures.
These were made entirely in Blender, and the model was done entirely by me. The outdoor shot is from the warehouse parking lot where I store exhibit materials for clients. I modeled it in 3D and 'projected' the photo onto it to create the textures.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Getting Busy
After a three month lull, it now seems that everyone and their brother wants me to do some work for them. It's not just my existing clients, either. I have people literally calling me up out of the blue. After the famine, I'm faced with the feast side of the problem - how can I keep all my clients (old and new) happy?
Someone recently asked me, point blank, what would it take for me to close down Argos (and work for someone full time). I'd never really looked at it that way, never phrased that question in my head. But it's an important question. Am I content to continue on with my own business, or do I want to be part of a larger team. There are several considerations here:
Security - I know, I know. Security is an illusion. Even assuming everyone is playing fair, things might not work out with an employer, or the employer could go under. If I were to turn my back on my existing clients, they would find someone to replace me - and if I went back later, it would be nearly impossible to reopen those doors. For all its risks, Argos is mine. It would take an awful lot of money or some guarantee of severance pay, or some ownership in the new company to make that part of it worthwhile. I've had clients call back after two years of complete silence, ready to start up a stalled project. But if I closed the doors, all that would be gone. Things might be different if I could bring the clients with me, say to a new design agency in exchange for some share of the business, but in this case that wouldn't work.
Stability - The main drawback to having a one man company is that when things go up and down, I go up and down with it. These last three months have been absolutely terrible for the company, and I've had to dip into savings more than I wanted to. A steady paycheck is damn attractive at times. Knowing that I get two weeks of vacation (which would be two weeks more than I took in the first eight years of running Argos), that my insurance is covered, and my tax withholding is taken care of. Just knowing that I'm going to have x amount of money at the end of every month. It's really appealing.
Fewer Hats - I know that working at a small company, you have to do multiple jobs. If I'm hired for graphics, and there's a juicy new client opportunity, everyone throws together to get new sales materials together, or helps pack widgets for a deadline, or fixes the printer, or just picks up slack when someone else is sick. But that's nothing compared to doing it all yourself. Not just the work, but the administrative stuff. Entering all the expenses and reconciling the bank statements. Filing the monthly and quarterly forms for every little thing. Doing any and all sales, coming up with marketing campaigns without someone to bounce ideas off of. I have always felt that I'm being held back by my weakest points (sales) rather than being supported by my strongest (design). With a team of people, you all get lifted by your strengths, not held down by your weaknesses.
Being Social - This might not seem that important, but working by yourself is very isolating. I tend to have good rapport with my clients (one actually used to work for me, another I have dinner with on a regular basis). But there's still this me/them wall, and it's not just in my head. When I'm working at a client's office, there inevitably comes a time when they are talking about stuff that I'm not really invited into. I'm not one of them. It's subtle, but it lingers. Even in other parts of my life, I find I don't ask for help because I know I'm alone. I even write a blog for an audience of one.
Potential Earnings - Someone once told me that no employer will ever pay you enough to retire young, because it's in their best interest to keep you hungry. I have no real interest in retiring young, but you get the point. Given the last three months of no work, and the preceding two years of less and less work, it's hard to keep in mind that being on my own has higher potential earnings than working for someone else. But the emphasis here is on 'potential'. This one I think is a wash, really. Frankly I've never really been in it for the money.
So what are you in it for? - One of the key things I like about working for myself is that each project brings new problems to solve. I'm almost never asked to do the same thing twice (or it's something small, like an illustration). Sure, there are repeatable elements, but I can guarantee that if I was working for a big company, I would have almost no web design experience, no database experience, I wouldn't know anything about JavaScript or possibly even 3D rendering. I certainly wouldn't have learned how to drive a forklift, or weld tube steel. I like being a jack of all trades. I enjoy being able to solve problems in new areas. It's hard to imagine working for someone else and getting that level of creative freedom.
As tempting as it is to throw my hands in the air and say 'give me a paycheck, take away the red tape, and constantly variable income," I find that I just can't do it. Not at this point. Certainly not just when things seem to be looking up. If they had asked in the middle of December, my answer might have been 'a steady paycheck'. But I know I would have regretted such a decision.
So my answer to the original question is simply, 'I can't think of anything.' But that just leaves me where I started. Now my task is to craft some sort of agreement with clients who can give me just a little stability, in exchange for some earning potential. It's going to be a tricky balancing act, and might need to be revisited as things come and go. But I think it's best for my long term stress levels and sanity.
Someone recently asked me, point blank, what would it take for me to close down Argos (and work for someone full time). I'd never really looked at it that way, never phrased that question in my head. But it's an important question. Am I content to continue on with my own business, or do I want to be part of a larger team. There are several considerations here:
Security - I know, I know. Security is an illusion. Even assuming everyone is playing fair, things might not work out with an employer, or the employer could go under. If I were to turn my back on my existing clients, they would find someone to replace me - and if I went back later, it would be nearly impossible to reopen those doors. For all its risks, Argos is mine. It would take an awful lot of money or some guarantee of severance pay, or some ownership in the new company to make that part of it worthwhile. I've had clients call back after two years of complete silence, ready to start up a stalled project. But if I closed the doors, all that would be gone. Things might be different if I could bring the clients with me, say to a new design agency in exchange for some share of the business, but in this case that wouldn't work.
Stability - The main drawback to having a one man company is that when things go up and down, I go up and down with it. These last three months have been absolutely terrible for the company, and I've had to dip into savings more than I wanted to. A steady paycheck is damn attractive at times. Knowing that I get two weeks of vacation (which would be two weeks more than I took in the first eight years of running Argos), that my insurance is covered, and my tax withholding is taken care of. Just knowing that I'm going to have x amount of money at the end of every month. It's really appealing.
Fewer Hats - I know that working at a small company, you have to do multiple jobs. If I'm hired for graphics, and there's a juicy new client opportunity, everyone throws together to get new sales materials together, or helps pack widgets for a deadline, or fixes the printer, or just picks up slack when someone else is sick. But that's nothing compared to doing it all yourself. Not just the work, but the administrative stuff. Entering all the expenses and reconciling the bank statements. Filing the monthly and quarterly forms for every little thing. Doing any and all sales, coming up with marketing campaigns without someone to bounce ideas off of. I have always felt that I'm being held back by my weakest points (sales) rather than being supported by my strongest (design). With a team of people, you all get lifted by your strengths, not held down by your weaknesses.
Being Social - This might not seem that important, but working by yourself is very isolating. I tend to have good rapport with my clients (one actually used to work for me, another I have dinner with on a regular basis). But there's still this me/them wall, and it's not just in my head. When I'm working at a client's office, there inevitably comes a time when they are talking about stuff that I'm not really invited into. I'm not one of them. It's subtle, but it lingers. Even in other parts of my life, I find I don't ask for help because I know I'm alone. I even write a blog for an audience of one.
Potential Earnings - Someone once told me that no employer will ever pay you enough to retire young, because it's in their best interest to keep you hungry. I have no real interest in retiring young, but you get the point. Given the last three months of no work, and the preceding two years of less and less work, it's hard to keep in mind that being on my own has higher potential earnings than working for someone else. But the emphasis here is on 'potential'. This one I think is a wash, really. Frankly I've never really been in it for the money.
So what are you in it for? - One of the key things I like about working for myself is that each project brings new problems to solve. I'm almost never asked to do the same thing twice (or it's something small, like an illustration). Sure, there are repeatable elements, but I can guarantee that if I was working for a big company, I would have almost no web design experience, no database experience, I wouldn't know anything about JavaScript or possibly even 3D rendering. I certainly wouldn't have learned how to drive a forklift, or weld tube steel. I like being a jack of all trades. I enjoy being able to solve problems in new areas. It's hard to imagine working for someone else and getting that level of creative freedom.
As tempting as it is to throw my hands in the air and say 'give me a paycheck, take away the red tape, and constantly variable income," I find that I just can't do it. Not at this point. Certainly not just when things seem to be looking up. If they had asked in the middle of December, my answer might have been 'a steady paycheck'. But I know I would have regretted such a decision.
So my answer to the original question is simply, 'I can't think of anything.' But that just leaves me where I started. Now my task is to craft some sort of agreement with clients who can give me just a little stability, in exchange for some earning potential. It's going to be a tricky balancing act, and might need to be revisited as things come and go. But I think it's best for my long term stress levels and sanity.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Confidentiality
I've been looking back through a lot of work I've been doing and I've realized a lot of it is under a seal of confidentiality. That's really kind of annoying, since some of my better work can't be made public for a certain amount of time.
But on the other hand, it encourages me to do my own projects, like the trike renderings. I've always had a tendency to go my own way with things, anyway. Now I have a handy justification.
But on the other hand, it encourages me to do my own projects, like the trike renderings. I've always had a tendency to go my own way with things, anyway. Now I have a handy justification.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Further with Blender
As with a number of things in Blender, it seems simple in retrospect, but there are so many features in the program that it's easy to get lost.
If it weren't for the freely available tutorials online, I would have given up on the program long ago. Now my familiarity with it is starting to get to a usable level. I'm wondering if I should make a tutorial on the model, give back to the community. Well, let me finish the animation I'm working on first.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Test animation
This is actually a little old at this point, but I thought I'd throw this up there. I've mentioned before about playing around with Blender 3D, and this is a test animation I did to see if I could get a client interested. I had redrawn the logo that you can see on the spray can, and thought they might want to see it actually 'come to life'. So far no nibbles. You can see it a little larger by looking at it on YouTube.
Friday, August 5, 2011
All your database are belonging to us
There's a very different sort of project I've been working on fairly steadily for about a year, on and off. I haven't brought it up here or really spoken about it much at all because I figured it had very little to do with design, but I've changed my mind on that score: it represents design on a number of levels: interface, printed output, and work-process.
It's a database for a client who manufactures a gazillion little plastic parts. The database started as a way for me to stay organized when laying out their catalog. Then I realized that with Filemaker I could use the database to generate PDF files of the catalog information, put it in some InDesign formatting, and be done with it. The next time the catalog came out, all I'd have to do is modify the database, re-output, and there you go. I even gave them the database so they could update it themselves, and from there it started to grow in complexity and function. Now it is used in providing quotes, costing for parts, phone orders, etc., and they are going to roll it out to a web based store.
I'm mentioning all of this for two reasons: It's my primary project right now, and it illustrates one of my favorite types of client relationships, the slow build. It starts with a simple organizational method for one small project and branched out into so much more. It allows me to become very familiar with the business of the client, so I can make better decisions and recommendations for them. It also lets me look like something of a miracle worker when I can make the computer do a lot of the figuring and complex relationship tracking that was driving them up a wall.
I've used Filemaker to help run my business for years, tracking time, materials, and invoicing. I'm very fluent and comfortable with it, but it never really occurred to me to sell that skill set, and yet it is what is keeping gas in the tank as I write this. If lessons are to be learned from it, it is don't be afraid to try new things, and play to your own strengths.
The client is very happy with the work I've done, and they keep asking for me to make the database do more things, which is a godsend in this tight economy. And lastly it meets one of my favorite definitions of good design: It all seems obvious in retrospect.
It's a database for a client who manufactures a gazillion little plastic parts. The database started as a way for me to stay organized when laying out their catalog. Then I realized that with Filemaker I could use the database to generate PDF files of the catalog information, put it in some InDesign formatting, and be done with it. The next time the catalog came out, all I'd have to do is modify the database, re-output, and there you go. I even gave them the database so they could update it themselves, and from there it started to grow in complexity and function. Now it is used in providing quotes, costing for parts, phone orders, etc., and they are going to roll it out to a web based store.
I'm mentioning all of this for two reasons: It's my primary project right now, and it illustrates one of my favorite types of client relationships, the slow build. It starts with a simple organizational method for one small project and branched out into so much more. It allows me to become very familiar with the business of the client, so I can make better decisions and recommendations for them. It also lets me look like something of a miracle worker when I can make the computer do a lot of the figuring and complex relationship tracking that was driving them up a wall.
I've used Filemaker to help run my business for years, tracking time, materials, and invoicing. I'm very fluent and comfortable with it, but it never really occurred to me to sell that skill set, and yet it is what is keeping gas in the tank as I write this. If lessons are to be learned from it, it is don't be afraid to try new things, and play to your own strengths.
The client is very happy with the work I've done, and they keep asking for me to make the database do more things, which is a godsend in this tight economy. And lastly it meets one of my favorite definitions of good design: It all seems obvious in retrospect.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
New website for Argos
I will probably move it over from the .net address where it is now (my 'test site') to the .com site by this weekend.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Recent work
I've been trying my hand at Blender and this is a test render. It's a little dark and the model is far from finished. I'm trying also to figure out some rigging to make it an animatable model, to show the vehicle moving and banking in turns, doors opening, that sort of thing.Texture wise there are a lot of missing details, obviously, so I need to decide when it's actually finished.
I've also uploaded an animation to YouTube, but I'm not sure why the colors look so weird.
(Edit 8-9-11) I've re-uploaded that animation, now the colors work.
I've also uploaded an animation to YouTube, but I'm not sure why the colors look so weird.
(Edit 8-9-11) I've re-uploaded that animation, now the colors work.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Old job, new tricks
You know, while I've been working on the Argos website, I've been thinking: Gee, there's a lot of good stuff we've worked on over the years, where can I put that so people can find it.Well the website is one obvious choice, but this blog is underused as well, and there are links back and forth. I'm thinking I should put some of the other projects that didn't quite make it to the main slideshows of the web page and put them here.
Like this one, which is a map for Northgate mall. It was a backlit display about 4 feet across with removeable text areas for updating listings. For several years I had to drive out to Northgate something like twice a year to update them. I think they're doing it all in house now, or have moved to digital displays.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
I've been playing around with a Template program for CMS called Artisteer that seems like a cool investment. This is a thumbnail of my first attempt. I can tell it's going to need a lot of work - the layout is too busy, and of course it's got the word TRIAL watermarked all over it. I think I'm going to go ahead and get the software. It's cheaper than figuring out CSS and XHTML, or hiring someone who already knows it.
One thing is for sure - it will pave the way for a lot of really crappy graphic design, the same way desktop publishing in the eighties opened up printing to people who should probably not be doing layouts.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Working from home
I've been working at home for a little over a year now, and I can tell you it is a mixed bag. On the one hand, you can't beat the convenience of being able to work whenever you want. However, it takes a great deal of self-control to get anything done, because the number of distractions is potentially limitless. Also, it is difficult to separate church and state, as it were.
It's also difficult to work on personal projects with a clear conscience. It used to be that I could work on Argos projects at the office and do personal stuff at home. Now they are the same place and for some reason it makes me feel hesitant to actually do anything - like I'm stealing time from the company.
Which is both true and false at a very basic level.
Right now there is no particularly viable option for working out of the house, but I'm still trying.
Edit - 9/1/11 - I've started using a VPN software to log into a client's remote server to update their Filemaker database. That means I can do basic changes and maintenance from home without making the fifteen minute drive to their office. It's really cool, but it seems to only exacerbate the whole isolation issue.
It's also difficult to work on personal projects with a clear conscience. It used to be that I could work on Argos projects at the office and do personal stuff at home. Now they are the same place and for some reason it makes me feel hesitant to actually do anything - like I'm stealing time from the company.
Which is both true and false at a very basic level.
Right now there is no particularly viable option for working out of the house, but I'm still trying.
Edit - 9/1/11 - I've started using a VPN software to log into a client's remote server to update their Filemaker database. That means I can do basic changes and maintenance from home without making the fifteen minute drive to their office. It's really cool, but it seems to only exacerbate the whole isolation issue.
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