Off for a couple weeks.
Here’s a doodle from my sketchbook. Apologies for the morbid theme. As a character, I always thought that General Grievous was pretty cool. Largely a robot, he has a hint of humanity and thus, some ultimate weakness. It stands to reason that he would be a significant foe to the Jedi, he has the advantages of an automaton, balanced with the reason/unreasonable qualities of a mortal. I think it’s his wheezing voice that really drives home his credibility as a character; clearly a powerful leader with some obvious frailty.

Gridiron software is a local Ottawa company that has recently released “Flow”. It is a self described “Workflow Management” tool for creative professionals. Basically, its a utility that runs while you are plodding away at your day to day tasks in whatever creative application. Every time you make a change in a file, it takes a snapshot of the file state. Essentially it acts like a big brother, keeping track of everything you do in the course of a creative task. (more…)

Non-designers are always amazed when I explain the concept of “one in ten” for my business plan. Its quite simple.

• For every 10 “potential leads” I get; one will turn into a qualified client. For the record, a “qualified” client is one that is; a. reasonable in their expectations, b. interesting, c. meets with some of the contraints for the type of work I like to do.
• For every 10 qualified clients I get; one will actually sign a contract. For the most part, this is anyone who is unfazed by my fees and is genuinely enthusiastic about their project.
• For every 10 signed jobs I get; one will actually proceed to a point where the design is fully developed. The best clients here are those motivated by deadlines, product releases or impending life changes.
• For every 10 designs that go that far; one will be built.

So if my math is correct… (more…)

I was showing my son Google Street View, which was recently unveiled in Canada. Like every other geek in Canada, I immediately navigated to my house to see if I got caught outside in my bathrobe. Unlikely, since I’m sure I would remember the combination of being outside in my bathrobe and having the Google car go by. Turns out it was a dull, early spring, daytime photo of my street. My son, not picking up on the fact that it was evening (and now dark out), immediately asked to zoom into the house to see if he could catch us looking at the computer (and by extension…looking at Google Street View).  It was this 8 year old’s expectation of technology that really blew my mind. It wasn’t a miracle enough that this corporation took sequential photos of every street in North America ( and most of Europe), but here, he expected the photos to be in real time and infinitely detailed. Now, I’m sure that feature will show up in the next couple months, but until then I’d like to postulate on some of the reasons why Street View is so compelling. (more…)

There was a lot of drama this week regarding the “public feedback” sessions for this notorious Ottawa project. Opinion wise, I’ve been on the fence, mostly because its not in my part of town and the project seems much too preliminary for anyone to be getting too concerned. That being said, I have gone on the record to say that; “The best citizens of this town can hope for is a Native land claim to be filed.” I said this in jest, but it now appears to be one of the only ways to derail this train wreck.

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