Clients
4AD records, Blockbuster, Bob Jane, Cadbury, Citylink, Decca Music Group, Disney, DreamWorks, Gillette, Hungry Jack’s, Just Jeans,
Kodak, Lisa Gerrard, Melbourne Aquarium, Moccona, Mt Buller, Native Instruments, Optus, Powerade - Coca Cola, Pfizer, Pieter Bourke,
Players West, Polinia Bookshop, Pulse, Rate Saver, Red Nose Day, Rhinocort, Shell, Smithsonian Institution, Soma, Sony-Ericsson, Sony
Pictures, South Pacific Pictures, TAC, Touchstone Pictures, Tattersalls, Tattslotto, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Vegemite - Kraft
Foods, Virgin, Vodafone, Warner Brothers Pictures, Warner Brothers Records, White Sirens and “Where is”.
Vision
Immersion is everything: from the controls, user interface, characters,
environments, textures, lighting, sound design and music to marketing
and packaging. Consistency can be extremely hard to maintain. Multi-talented
individuals and well balanced teams are crucial to enable projects
to achieve their full potential.
Design is a language
Design without idea is as pointless as a conversation about nothing,
well nothing actually makes for a good conversation but this is not
the nothing I am talking about. I believe that design is not a tool
but a timeless reflection of the moment. For me a crystal clear understanding
of the product/message is one of the keys to timelessness.
I highly recommend joining or visiting AIGA www.aiga.org,
it is one of the better places that I came across that remains in flux
with the state of design.
User Interface
This is one of the areas of digital design I enjoy the most. Over the years
I've worked on many UI's, virtual instrument, game HUDs, menus, plugins,
buttons, icons and so on. The piece I am the most proud of is the one done
for Shell / Touch Corp. Extra so because even after four years, my GUI
is still in use completely unchanged. Probably because the design is completely
modular and data driven, making it easily configurable without sacrificing
any functionality. Most of all it is friendly and inviting, not to mention
baby easy to navigate.
I also enjoy
working on more adventurous UI designs, for example, the
menus on Lisa Gerrard’s website. There are always memory
and design limitations but it is these limitations that can
take an idea to wonderful places. In this particular case,
it had to animate and be about fifty KB and it was tied to
the separate java music player. This limitation is what pushed
me into object orientated programming, which changed the
way I think about coding forever. I was able to reuse the
exact code for deadcandance.com.
I find working with vector graphics very rewarding . Their
scalability and programmability make them perfect for multi
resolution interface design. Regrettably even with the amazing
input devises in use today most navigation system boil down
to: up, down and back text buttons.
One thing I
like to see in UI design is subtlety and continuation of
established art direction. With most products, the packaging
is the first point of contact for the user. As such, all
visual elements should flow from and expand upon this. A
well conceived art flow is a preparation for the journey
which the user is about to partake in. Usually the UI is
also the first time the user hears sound, thus, becoming
a bridge between the visuals and the music. Also, why can't
UI's use input pattern memory? After a while most menus become
nothing more then a tiresome and repetitive series of navigation.
Believe it or not UI design is something that keeps me awake
at night!
Graphic Design -
digital design, print, logos, posters,...
The gap between digital and traditional design is almost non-existent,
most printing presses are fully digital and hand/traditional printing
is turning into art. Many of my colleges do not agree but personally
I think this is the best way. Stretching my imagination into print is
something I enjoy immensely. With modern printing techniques, metallic
and varnish layering, also packaging and textiles are moving into uncharted
territories. Print on demand, it is all very promising; Books, Logos,
Covers, Posters, Flyers, Packaging, Ads, Corporate Identities and Apparels.
Over the years I have
worked in many areas of art design, but the work I am the most
proud of is the work I did with Lisa Gerrard. In this regard I
think I am the only person that recorded, engineered, mastered
and designed the artwork in the same project. It is an incredible
privilege to see the work unfold in myriad and exciting directions.
I remember getting visual ideas as I was recording or mastering.
Fittingly, the collaboration CD - Duality - comprised of two of
my painting (one in oils, the other in acrylics). Matching artwork
to music is one of my favorite tasks.
Most organizations rely on design to communicate
who they are, what they do and why they matter. It is often difficult
to successfully symbolize all these notions. If there's one thing
I know, it's that a collaborative team environment is essential
to arriving at a multifaceted and coherent concept. Factors that
are often overlooked are the power of mystery and the intelligence
of the user. Today, design is more complex then ever - marketing
surveys, globalization, target audience, brand targeting and so
on. It will never be easy to navigate that expanding minefield!
Digital Billboards
Mainly using digital displays, projection and similar techniques, which
allow animations and time scheduled advertisement rotations. I would
have to say that in most cases there are many limitations. It is not
easy to translate a 10 or 20 second film advertisement into a 2-5 seconds
digital billboard. This tends to leave the client and the designer not
completely satisfied but there are a few clients that understand the
concept and make it possible to arrive at an outstanding and memorable
advertising.
Webmedia For many years I co-directed a web hosting
and web-design company; FlowingNet. After much work, many lessons learned
and money made we decided to sell the company. Having worked on countless
websites front-end, backend and the middle in php, html, xml, flash,
java and so on I am still tickled when someone asks me to do their website
for $500 and they wanted to be like intel.com. In a few cases where friendship
grew I am still Webmaster, the oldest one coming up to its ten year anniversary. Texturing I am a highly experienced texture artist.
I made my first basic texture in 1988 on Sculpt 3D (Amiga). Texturing
and rendering techniques change rapidly and I always enjoy experimenting
with new ways to make things look better and to render faster.
Photography and Video Capturing Images is more than an art form.
Human faces, hand gestures and body mannerisms are so wonderfully complex,
even the best photographers and filmmakers struggle to capture a small
portion of it. The ever-developing technology will surpass film quality
in a few years. High Definition is finally here, games have surpassed
DVD quality! At the end of it all, images break all language and cultural
barriers, there is no substitute for a memorable image, it can transcend
a concept into a powerful icon.
3D Graphics I am proficient in various 3D applications
and procedures, including concepting, storyboarding, modeling, texturing,
rigging, animating, lighting and rendering. For the last few years, I
have primarily used 3D Studio Max, Mental Ray, Brazil r/s and Renderware.
