Back in late 1997, Gabo Mendoza single handedly changed the course of interactive communication forever when he unleashed Gabocorp.com (archive removed!) upon an unsuspecting design world. Flash had been around for a short time, but nobody had ever built an entire site with it. In fact, I’m not sure anyone had even thought to…except for Gabo Mendoza.

If you were designing back then, I’m sure you remember Gabocorp. TechRadar lists it as one of the 20 websites that changed the world – right up there with Wikipedia and YouTube. My team and I were working with Authorware, Director, and After Effects in those days, so Gabocorp’s super-smooth vector goodness blew our minds. I mean, it blew everyone’s mind. We wanted Flash. Badly.

By January of 1998, we finally convinced our manager to order a copy of Flash 2. When it arrived, my dear friend Tim Sisco and I huddled around my PC and began to play. We naturally tried to build something similar to Gabocorp, and spent about 30 minutes making what was basically a Flash doodle (turn your speakers on and see below). Don’t get me wrong, it’s horrible – but this new platform had set us free. Tweening from color to color, mixing multiple audio tracks on the fly, and running things full screen felt like magic. It was crazy. The world would soon grow tired of Flash sites, but you gotta give Gabocorp credit for propelling the Internet several giant steps forward.

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Last Friday I spoke on the social networking panel at the Charleston Green Business Expo. It was part of the Charleston Green Fair, where I also exhibited for Go Green Charleston. I always love having a chance to talk social media with excited people. I like to remind everyone that listening to an audience is probably more important than broadcasting to them. Listening really works, and can help you make smarter decisions.

I used these slides for an eight minute into on listening. I’m not sure how well they hold up without me ranting, but here they are nevertheless:

Things are still getting back to normal after an inspirational trip to the 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, TX. I spent 4 amazing days learning, talking, and building relationships with my fellow social media hipster doofus web geeks – oh yeah!

I got my photos uploaded to Flickr last night, so I went ahead and made an Animoto clip for the photostream impaired (music by Lake Trout). Enjoy!

The boys and I have been spending our late-afternoon grungy time on Wild Horse Island, the uninhabited plot of land just behind our house on Foster Creek. We’ve been busy mapping the terrain, blasting battle droids, cleaning up trash, and generally having a romping good time. With attractions like the Temple of Vines, Lonely Palm Trail, and the uncharted wild interior, I’m wagering our adventures our only beginning. 

Today I had my camera slung over my shoulder, so while the boys were taking on an entire division of droids, I  captured some of the textures on the island. The diversity was amazing for such a small area, yet the palette was noticeably consistent. Here are a few slices from the survey:

The parking meters around here are such a drag – all gray and utilitarian…like a grumpy uncle. But the meters in Montréal have flair, and flaunt it even on cloudy days. They are cheery, and literally smile for loonies and toonies.

Ahh, another vintage odd-shaped children’s book – and only 29 cents! I found this morsel in the same stack as my Golden Shape Books, and it’s got a whole different vibe and style. This is probably because it was published in 1970, and was printed in the Netherlands (so how did I end up with it in Indiana?). It seems rather rare, as Google is only returning 10 results.*

*UPDATE: Now I’m the #1 result. Nice.

Each March for the last few years, I’ve been throwing down with some of the best designers in amazing PhotoShop battle modeled after the NCAA basketball tournament. I looooooves me some PhotoShop tennis, and adding a format like this makes it extra fine.

This happens over in The Arena at Flashkit.com, where the rest of the year you’ll find typical PhotoShop tennis-style battles happening. The regulars are incredible designers, and this tournament brings out their best.

A pool of 32 entries is seeded into a bracket by reputation, and designers share stock and go head-to-head in a battle of PhotoShop skills. The community members vote on each pairing, and after 4 elimination rounds, the final pairing competes to become the champ. Bragging rights and mad respect are the bounty, but the experience is always where it’s at.

These are my images from round one and two…not even close to my normal output and I pretty much got routed. So as usual, I was in way over my head (I’m 6-4 overall), but that’s what makes it…um, educational!

You can see some of my past March Madness entries here and here, and a couple of other battle images here and here.

While searching for a particular Dr. Seuss book the other day, I noticed there was a wide range of colors on the bindings. Inspired by chotda’s rainbow bookshelves, I quickly threw the Seussian volumes into their proper ROYGBV order (I left all the white ones on the right). Not a mind-blowing display, but Coop liked it!

I just finished two small viral marketing, spare time projects…

WhereIsClem.com is a user-generated site featuring stories about Clem the traveling gnome. This Clemson garden gnome really gets around, as photos have already been posted from Toronto and NYC. Rumor has it the site will officially launch at the October 6th home game against Virginia Tech. So if you get a shot of Clem, be sure to register and share with other Tiger fans.

ILoveMeebee.com was part of a massive disinformation campaign culminating with the release of an employee intranet. The site allows visitors to register and share stories about meebee. It had good traffic, but little participation.

I love this sticker found on my banana…I wish all branding were this easy.

I’m in a 4-way battle with some of my co-workers, and here is my volley from round two. I kind of rushed through it, but wanted to get it up here anyway.

I found this image while going through old project folders. I designed it as part of the first Roll Canvas mural over at flashkit.com. The Roll Canvas turned out to be an enriching experience, and a great chance to collaborate with designers of much greater ability. Check it out – I really think the final product is amazing.

This was a quick image I whipped up for a Flashkit.com Arena post.

In the endlessly creative world of Photoshop Tennis, a design battle can take many forms. Over at Flashkit.com, we’ve just completed Rollcanvas III. This impressive collaborative design is possible only in today’s web-enabled world, and I am proud to have contributed.

The Rollcanvas mural battle requires participants to build horizontally off the previous image, but with a catch: they can only see the last 100 pixels of the previous image. I know it sounds confusing, but a good explanation can be found here.

This is all very exciting, as everyone must wait until the end to see the full mural. At over 20,000 pixels long, it’s truly something you should go see.

Below is my contribution.

If you want to see more, you can also check out Rollcanvas I and Rollcanvas II.

Round 3 of Flashkit.com‘s March Madness Tournament kicked off with some brilliant stock, clearly reflected in the work that followed. My battle with Hybrid Inc. was hard fought, and the closest of all eight pairings. In the end, his piece pulled ahead and rightfully won the round.

My image is posted below, but you should really check out the amazing work in some of the other pairings.

The annual March Madness Tournament is in full swing over at Flashkit.com, and I barely squeaked into the round of sixteen with this entry. In a rematch with NJP3, the voting was neck and neck for 2 days – he certainly brought some skills. I was lucky to escape to round 3, where I’m up against yet another mighty foe. No time to rest!

Todd Hinchman, 1989.
Straightup wallride in Indianapolis.

As great as this wallride is, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the deck art while processing the shot. Drawing on your griptape is a trend that, for the most part, ended with the 80s. However, through the wonders of modern technology we can obsess over Todd’s deepest teenage thoughts. His favorite bands (including our own, “Subject to Change”), girlfriend’s name, and even personal mantra are all on display for the world to see. Now, where are my paint pens…

In a world where photoshopping is acceptable verb usage, transparent photography loses a little bit of its magic. Though I suppose it’s hard to look at some and not think it’s marginally cool.

It’s simple to do. First pick a decent subject – a refrigerator, car hood, computer case – then place your camera in a stationary position. A tripod works best. Then take two photos; one of your subject closed, and one with it open. Some simple layering in PhotoShop will complete the composite. Peek-a-boo!

Last year I read an article about the Adobe offices, and I saw something immediately worth recreating. I’m not taking credit for the idea, but rather making it easily accessible to you good people – so don’t go all CODE ELMO on me. Just print, hang, and repeat.

–> Printable Hi Resolution Version <–

I made this a couple years ago while doing some PhotoShop tutorial work. As a first and only effort, the quality is lacking. I wanted to share it here for its cultural significance, albeit a shallow, trendy kind of significance.
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This sketch was done in March of 1991 while visiting my friend Ian at Arizona State University. There’s nothing remarkable about it, other than it being 15 years old already!

A sampling style band logo from nearly ten years ago.

I was going through and old stash in the attic, and came across something I hadn’t thought about in years: a CD long box. I had forgotten how big they were, and how much area was devoted to artwork. I remember hanging them in my locker like tiny posters, and on my bedroom wall like hunting trophies. I’m not sure how this “Axis: Bold as Love” box made it into my permanent storage, but I’m stoked to have it.

Long boxes encased CDs during most of the 1980′s, and were eventually phased out during the eco-friendly 1990′s. Now some of the only web references to this lost format are on eBay. While researching this post, I had assumed the boxes were used for security purposes. However, they were actually used to accommodate the 12″ deep record displays common in stores at the time.

Long live the long box!

Ever since my friend Ian was forced to attend ‘gang counseling’ for his work around Indianapolis, I’ve respected the cultural tightrope that graffiti artists walk. Tagging walls incessantly with scribbled initials and symbols is one thing, but thought-provoking social graffiti is another.

Graffiti artist Banksy took his vacation, and craft, to the Palestinian side of the Israel’s infamous separation wall. His inspired pieces offer a glimpse into the power of positive social graffiti – plus they’re just so cool.

Banksy in the West Bank

Our favorite usability expert, Jacob Nielsen, has published his top ten design mistakes for blogs. And while Jacob seems off his rocker a lot of the time, he is incredibly lucid when it comes to simple design issues like this. Below is a quick list of the ten – click the above link for the full article.

- No Author Biographies
- No Author Photo
- Nondescript Posting Titles
- Links Don’t Say Where They Go
- Classic Hits are Buried
- The Calendar is the Only Navigation
- Irregular Publishing Frequency
- Mixing Topics
- Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
- Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service