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.

There's an App for that

I have an iPhone, and an iPad, and I like them very much. I just got back from the first business trip I've ever been on without a laptop; I used the iPad and iPhone instead. There was only one thing I couldn't do during the trip, and I might have been able to, but I didn't know how. Anyway, my point is: the new wave of iOS devices are making an impact in how I do business, surf the web, read books, watch Netflix, etc.

One of the apps I downloaded on my phone was the Fly Delta app, which lets you check in to your flight, check status, including gate changes, on the fly. You can even use the screen of your phone as the scannable boarding pass. One thing it doesn't have is maps of airports, so if you wanted to see how close Gate A4 and Gate T61 are, you're out of luck. But no problem, I can get those on the web for the most part. And of course it only works for Delta flights.

There seems to be apps for just about everything, and I'm beginning to wonder if that's a dangerous trend. The one thing I didn't do, for example, because I didn't have an app for it: that doesn't make sense. You shouldn't need apps for every little thing. Apps are small and focussed, but that focus may be too insulating. It makes the entire experience more of a 'black box' than it should be.

You probably won't see too many 'big' apps. I think Bento might be the leading edge of apps where you control how you work. It's a database app from Filemaker that allows you to define the fields of your database, and how those fields collect data, from the iOS device. I use it to track expenses and time for projects. Every other app doesn't give you that flexibility - you can't modify the workflow that they present.

I'm not a big expert on apps, I own maybe three dozen or so. But they consistently feel like very closed environments, compared to a desktop, and until more start opening up like Bento, I'm not sure how well they will ever replace laptops.

New website for Argos

I've made a new website for Argos Designs. It's very graphics heavy, but that's kind of what I make my living with, so, what else is new. I may rearrange it a little, put all the work pages together under one subhead or something like that. I'm still not sure if I want an 'About' page or a specific 'Contact' page. We'll see.

I will probably move it over from the .net address where it is now (my 'test site') to the .com site by this weekend.

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.

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.

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.

Disappointment

There have been two instances where a friend of mine disappointed me seriously enough to make me step back from the friendship, and they both involved cheating on a significant other. I've been trying to work out my own reactions to them and the situations they created.

In the first case, they were boyfriend and girlfriend, and he cheated on her with a mutual friend. I couldn't wrap my head around that - cheating seems like the stupidest thing in the world to me. I don't think he wanted to keep his old girlfriend and new girlfriend at the same time. He just got in a situation where he fell in love with someone else and didn't have the guts to break it off with his girlfriend first. I was pissed at him for a couple of years, but as time went by I got over it. He married the new girlfriend, they're doing okay and have a kid. The old girlfriend moved on and married as well (also with a kid). And if learned anything from Hollywood it's "All's well that ends well." When I lost touch with him years ago, life got real busy with careers, and it's only now that we are back in touch.

The other situation was a married couple. Two married couples, in fact. That right there sets it on a whole other level. There are oaths, promises unto death, that were discarded. And as far as I could see, the cheaters were content to keep on having this relationship indefinitely, betraying their spouses till death do they part. Both of their spouses suspected, and eventually they were discovered incontrovertibly. Cue screaming, bad blood, and lawyers.

Now, if they had fallen in love, gotten divorces from their spouses, and remarried, I would have been weirded out by it but I would have learned to live with it. At most I would have felt awkward around them. But the way things panned out, it literally shattered our group of friends. Even now, some ten years later, I still only see people from the other side at accidental meetings or funerals.

Even that doesn't get to the heart of why I just can't get past it; why I still can't entirely forgive them.

The fact is I saw what was happening. We all saw what was happening. And we didn't stop it. I clearly recall a moment when I felt like screaming at the two to stop messing around and do the right thing, and the moment passed. It is my most shameful memory. I can probably come up with some reasons why I didn't actively intervene, some reasonable excuses, but it doesn't change the fact that I failed. I failed in how I think a friend should act. I participated in that betrayal. I can't forgive myself for that, how can I forgive them?