2nd January 2010

After several months of searching I have found a job! And as an architect, no less. I’m now an “Associate” (read Junior Architect) at Daniel Frisch Architecture. We’re located in Midtown Manhattan, which is wonderful because it not only means that I get to go into the city every day but it also means that it has become economical to purchase the monthly unlimited MetroCard. We’re also only a few blocks South of Central Park which will be nice in the summer.

I’ve been there for about a month now and I’m really enjoying it. I just missed buildings so much before and now I work on details and models and document sets all day. Ahh.

If you want to see what the office has built, please take a look at http://www.danielfrisch.com

5th October 2009

I am now a resident of Brooklyn, NY!  After months of living at my parent’s house in Michigan I have relocated to beautiful Williamsburg.  I already feel more creative and productive just from being able to walk down a city street in the morning to get coffee and a bagel.

So, friends come visit me!  New York design firms hire me!  To quote my Grandma, “Here I am! What would you like me to do?”

9th September 2009

After fiddling with the technical side of the rollovers yesterday I decided I didn’t like the visual side of the rollovers.  So, I’ve changed the look of the category index pages.  I think they’re quite fetching now.

In other news, I made some corn fritters for lunch that were delicious.  Although I guess this is true of most things that have been fried.  Still, yum!

8th September 2009

I’ve made a few more “under the hood” changes recently – mostly geared towards speeding up the rollovers, which have been bothering me.  At first I was using Dreamweaver’s default Javascript for rollovers which, fyi, is ridiculously inefficient and makes your html a huge mess.  Second attempt was using a jquery plugin to define a “rollover” class for the links (cleaner but still slow).  And now, finally, I have come around to using sprites for the navigation.  Sprites work by simply moving a background image instead of swapping it out.  You have one image file with both states of your rollover and use the css to define what part of the image is showing when.  It is speedy and also requires fewer image files, so less clutter.

Hooray for a:hover!

17th August 2009

I intend for this site to be mostly a professional sort of site but dedicated to artistic pursuits. I am starting on a new project, one that may or may not be of interest to anyone but myself. But what is a personal blog for if not self-involvement?

I generally suck at cooking. I have actually forgotten to stir Kraft Mac & Cheese before and ruined it. But, I am sick of eating Ramen noodles and then suffering for it. So, I am going to learn to not suck at cooking. My first guide on this subject is Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, which bills itself as a “more hip” Joy of Cooking. So far, I’m impressed. He makes me feel like I can manage.

My first attempt was Coconut Rice, which seemed straightforward but tasty. After about ten minutes of waiting for the rice to boil on medium heat however, it occurred to me that the phrase “bring to a boil” might mean that I should increase the heat instead of staring at a tepid bath of coconut milk, hoping. The final product tasted like coconut but felt like, well, not entirely cooked rice. Mostly but not entirely.

So to salvage the effort I am trying to turn it into rice pudding by adding milk and 1/2 a cup of sugar and some cinnamon to the leftovers. Wish me luck.

14th August 2009

I have updated the graphic design section to include some professional work done for and through Equilibrium Creative, LLC.

The first of these projects is a series of email distributed ads for Chevy dealerships.  The second is a promotional website and brochure for Equilibrium.

I’m pretty excited to have both of these projects up because I feel like it is a good beginning to building my portfolio outside of the context of school projects.

13th August 2009

I recently completed a website for Equilibrium Creative at http://time4eq.com

Equilibrium is a creative marketing consultancy with some pretty major clients (like GE, American Family Insurance, Ford, etc.)  It was a fun website to do because it’s essentially a portfolio website but with some added functionality.  I also completed a brochure for them recently which adapts the look of the site to a print format.

Also completed within the past few months, a site for my friend Jud Coveyou at http://judcoveyou.com

Jud’s site showcases a large number of paintings, prints, and drawings that is still only a very small portion of this talented man’s work.  Jud’s work is beautiful; he has long been interested in portraiture and composition and exhibits a deft hand at both.

12th August 2009

Hello visitors and friends!

I have long wanted to add a news section to this website but only recently had the time to do so.  Ahh, the benefits of graduation.  I plan on posting updates here whenever I update the work on my site so if you’ve been checking my site every so often and happen to use a feed reader, I encourage you to add this feed for notifications.

If you are new to my site, welcome.  I hope that you’ll take a look around and enjoy my work.