Weblog for reading internet design.

I just spent 3 days looking at social networking sites. I acctually learned a lot from it. It’s something I never would have been able to do in school. It was exhastive, yet essential to the process.

I’m still trying to work out the swing of things. Adam pointed out that I’m being very cryptic, but I’ve got to be cautious or I’m in deep. I know I sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist right now, but I’m sure I’ll be able to explain in due time.

I’ll recap the fun/madness this weekend of the last few weeks, if I’m not busy, busy, busy.

It’s been a little hectic this quarter, my 8th quarter at Portfolio Center. I’ve been buried deep in work, and hadn’t had much excitement or room to breathe.

About two weeks ago, P.C. was asking to submit mini-books. I already had one put together from back in the day (about 5 months ago) when Mason asked me to put one together. The book came in handy when I had two offers in one week, taking the internship with the brilliant people at Armchair Media.

I sent in the book, and about a week later, I got a call from Crispin Porter + Bugolsky. They want me to spend 3 months in Boulder, Colorado for an internship. They were impressed with my interactive work. I guess Big Smelly Robot won them over, though that project is far from done. They also said that Hank said some good things about me. Who would have thought?

The catch: Not only will I be staying around P.C. an extra quarter (in spirit), I have to start in about a week and a half. My last day at Armchair is Thursday, and I’m leaving for Colorado Friday morning, with a brief stop in Texas. (It adds about 5 hours on to my time on the road, but I have to see the person that made this all possible.)

So, over the next few weeks, I will be chronicling my strange journey across three time-zones and tons of cows on the side of the road.

Today I started Armchair Media for my 3-month internship. I met the staff that I didn’t already meet Tuesday night at the going away party for George, Larry, and Witt.

I don’t think it’s going to take me very long at all to settle in. I’m really excited about what’s ahead.

The good people at Epidemik Coalition have set up an online customization store. You can mix and match your own colors on their popular Angelica T-Shirt. Get them while their hot. Then get one for your moms.

Today I completed the transfer of trilamb.org to my new server. Trilamb was my first website, and was what got me interested in design in the first place. I wish I still had the first few versions of the site. They would have given Mason a heart-attack. I’m going to ressurect it as a tribute to the wild times of college, and maybe more.

Well, I spent all my time last night tweeking this blog with CSS, and have once again failed to address more immediate matters at hand. I hope you enjoy it. More to follow…

I heard about Second Life from a podcast almost a year ago. I decided to check it out. Essentially, Second Life is a 3-D environment where your digital character can live, play, work, whatever you want to do. It’s an entire community in and of itself.

However, I haven’t been able to get on Second Life a lot due to general lack of time, and the inability of my computer to handle the processing and networking needs of the Second Life app. Still though, it’s an interesting way to meet people from all over the world.

There’s going to be a meeting at PC on Monday night to discuss Second Life, and I highly advise all of you to come:

Monday evening Joe Corr will be giving a seminar at Portfolio Center around the topic of Second Life. Joe has a unique perspective as he is someone who sees the opertunity for the platform but also understands it’s limitations. The session is free, open to the public and should be allot of fun.

Overview of Second Life By Joe Corr, Sr Interactive Developer IQ Interactive

“Second Life is not a game, it’s not the 3D web, and it’s not yet ready for prime time. It is laggy, visually and technologically unsophisticated, and full of questionable and controversial content. So why should you bother with it? Because it has emerged as the first realized virtual arena that tackles the legal, financial and ethical questions that will eventually cripple it’s competitors. You should know the history of SL, the creative opportunities it affords, the current legal and business possibilities, and it’s potential future.

Joe came to Georgia for the Interactive Design & Game Development MFA program at SCAD in Savannah in 2005 and currently calls Athens home. While in the low country, he worked with Evoca.com on their flash app, SCAD as their Flash/Backend developer, and presently at IQ Interactive as an Interactive Developer. His Second Life character (Freedom Polonsky) was born in 2005, and he’s very interested in the future of all 3D networked spaces as they relate to media, entertainment, information and education.”

Here’s me in Second Life:

I’m broke, but atleast I can fly.

When I went to L.A. last week, I had a roughly 5 hour plane ride from Atlanta. I’m not really good at flying, but I get more comfortable every time. I flew on Delta for the first time, and the best thing about the trip had to be these individual entertainment/information center.

The unit had Delta Radio, entire albums, live satellite T.V., and movies and games that you could purchase. But for me, the coolset thing was the flight information section that would tell you how much longer the flight is, current altitude, outside air temperature (-50º F), and as pictured above, a live map view of your location.

The unit itself was touch screen, and the UI design was fairly simple, but effective, except that some of the buttons sometimes turn the same color as the page headers, which are the same size as the buttons. But the idea and the functionality of these units are genius. One of the conversations I had with Kevin in L.A. was about travel, and how he has a free vacation for his family from his frequent flyer miles. The moral was to stick with one airline and keep those miles coming. And after encountering these displays, I would probably be inclined to stick with Delta, if I were the kind of person to hand out endorsments.

The freaky part about it, though, was turning past United 93 on A+E. That’s not really the kind of movie you want to watch on a plane.

And for all you huge nerds, check this:

Linux

I thought I had really bad jetlag, but it turns out that I have a cold. I’ve been absolutely miserable in the absolutely gorgeous weather.

Things are pretty quiet around Prologue, but it’s only quiet on the surface. Everyone is pretty much nose to the grindstone around here. I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to talk to people about their work, but I get to catch a glimpse over people’s shoulder’s every now and then, and I haven’t seen a single thing that isn’t gorgeous.

And if you were wondering, Keith, Kyle’s been on “vacation” this week, which means he’s not in the office. He had a meeting somewhere else at 11 this morning, and then he had to go speak at AIGA in San Diego, the same place Hank was speaking at earlier. It’s a small, small world.

But Kevin has been a great guy to learn from. I kept asking questions on the way to work, though we had to stop several times so he could answer calls and distribute information correctly. Kevin’s roll at Prologue is to bascially make sure the whole opperation runs smoothly. He’s involved with every project that runs through here, though he’s not always in the design process. His knowledge of the industry is uncanny, and I feel that just by talking to him, I’ve gained a lot of insite into what it’s really like.

And I don’t just mean about design. He’s had ups and downs in his life due in part to his passion for his work. It basically led to his divorce. He said that being married to another desinger is one of the greatest things in the world. And while his current job doesn’t allow for a lot of creative work, he talked to me about being able to actually make enough money to support you or your family, and how that might mean doing something different than you originally intend. I’ve always heard the flowery speach about doing what you love and other stuff they tell you in school, but the truth is you have to live. If you can make money doing what you love, that’s great.

After talking to Andrea and Kevin, I am getting more of a perspective on interactive design. Not a lot of people really know what’s going here at Prologue, and Andrea and Kevin don’t really know that much about interactive. It really is my passion. I love the idea of design that isn’t stagnant, that changes every time you look at it, that adapts to what you do.

Most of what happens at Prologue isn’t anything ground breaking, at least from my point of view. The stuff is killer, and totally brilliant, but I don’t really see any more signifigant advances in one way communication, other than getting it faster, at a higher resolution, and more realistic.

Exploring uncovered territory is what gets my blood flowing. I always seem to get bored by the same routine. I’m looking forward to getting my head back into the interactive mindset. This place is cool, but I’m thinking it wouldn’t really be the fit for me that I once thought it would be. It would still be cool.

And I think I saw Ricky Gervais getting coffee today.