Storyboard for a Short Film on YouTube

This is something I worked on with some friends last year. They're due to start shooting it in May having secured some funding, so I popped it up on YouTube. I'm going to put up the trailer they made when I get my hands on it, and hopefully the finished short. It'll be interesting to see the page-to-screen process.
As for the storyboard, it was rattled out over a few meetings. The actual storyboard is here, but I fancied seeing how it read with transitions etc. I scanned each frame, put them together in Windows Moviemaker and dropped some music over it (Aphex Twin and Matrix soundtrack respectively!). It only took about half an hour and there's no dialogue but it really helped to see it moving, even in this limited way.
I'll be posting more about the film as it progresses.

Ur Dream Home in Eighty-Eight Pages!

I met Olga Magliocco, editor of Ur Dream Home last week, and as she gave me a complimentary copy of her magazine the least I could do was give her a plug on my blog!
The magazine has a great spread of features for those feathering their new nest, everything from bill-slashing solar heating to mortgage advice from the experts. It's an indispensible guide to dizzying field of making your home, as well as a really great read!

A six issue subscription is only €24 and for your convenience the subscription form is below. Just click the image to see the full size form (note: you might need to print it in landscape!)

You can contact Ur Dream Home on 091-762703 or email: subscriptions(at)urdreamhome(dot)ie.

23 Signs That You're Becoming a Design Geek

I found this list of design geekery and alarmingly found most of it highly amusing. I have been looking a little FFFFFF recently- I really must get out more.

The world of design can be a ruthless one; not only do you spend most of your time pondering and tweaking minute details that most people find insignificant – and most likely won't even notice – you also get lured into developing anti-social habits like font-spotting and source-code peeping.


Learn to spot the warning signs in time
– you know you're becoming a design geek when:

1. You giggle whenever you use the colors F0CCED, EFF0FF and 44DDDD
2. You’re in the sun and you look around for a Drop Shadow to sit under.
3. You give your relatives a lecture about color spaces and profiles when you email them your vacation photos.
4. Seing someone use Lens Flare or Comic Sans adversely affects your blood-pressure
5. You maintain a grid system for your refrigerator magnets.
6. You organise your CD collection according to the Pantone chart.
7. You sit at work for eight hours straight just looking at your monitor, waiting for a spark of inspiration that doesn't come.
8. You're up 'til 5am because you came up with the best idea ever while brushing your teeth.
9. The hottest dream you ever had was "Trace contour... Find Edges... Pinch... Extrude... Smudge Stick... Motion Blur.... Sprayed Strokes..."
10. You know Lorem Ipsum by heart.
11. Your kid knows Lorem Ipsum by heart.
12. The preschool teacher complains your child won't color inside or outside the lines – only indicate colors on a separate sheet.
13. Activating your entire font collection makes your computer crash – and you're running OSX.
14. You deliberately butcher your perfectly cross browser compatible site in IE by placing a “Too Cool for IE” banner on it.
15. You prefer a Layer Style of 50% Opacity (or less) on your wife’s Satin.
16. You spend $200 on a font for your personal website because "it's the only one where the lower-case g is just right..."
17. Looking at a menu make you go "hmmm, ITC Baskerville italic" rather than "mmmm, lunch!"
18. And when you finally order, you go for Layer Based Slices with Grain Texture...
19. You use words about fonts you dislike that other normal people reserve for fascist dictators and serial killers.
20. Apple+Z is the first thing that goes through your mind if you drop and break something.
21. You refer to colleagues as Strict, Transitional, Loose and the Future Unemployed.
22. You refer to your privates as "the Magic Wand".
23. You actually understand this post and pass it on to your friends.

Cheap Star Wars Costume

My suggestion for a mate that needs a space costume for a party in hurry. Sometimes I'm so lame I amaze myself.