Curve Agency Holding Page design

This is a design in progress for Curve Agency.

Show your love on Dribbble if you like it!

Anyway, I spent a few hours hunting around and found that Twitter is the best place to go if you want one “now!” rather than waiting around indefinitely for an invite.  That’s what I did, and as soon as I got my Dribbble invite, I immediately got to work uploading a handful of designs.  Here’s a snaphshot of my Dribbble profile page.

Peter McClory Dribble profile (June 2011)

I like the way the Dribbble community works, and the site has a really clean, minimal feel.  Plus, there are a lot of very talented individuals who inspire and motivate me to push myself and the Curve team a bit further when it comes down to designing for our clients and internal projects.

A large ‘artwork’ that is purportedly the largest collaborative painting in the world.

It is free to look at and you have to register (for free) to add your own graffiti to it – because that is essentially what it is – a giant digital graffiti wall.

You are given a couple of levels of zoom to get a broader overview of a segment of the wall, but the facility to look at the wall as a whole is not yet possible.

As you can see, at first glance there seems to be no method to the madness that is, on first appearance, a quagmire of colour, shapes, swearwords, some minor advertising and a whole load of dicks.

However, as you explore this growing world of visual craziness, panning around, or literally typing in a ‘North x West’ location, you will find many interesting collaborations and naratives.

For example, a street that itself is a collaborative drawing, with buildings, cars and things drawn and changed by different people who are only connected through the drawing.

It is a fine example of a wide range of different people communicating with each other through purely visual imagery, bar a few slang words.

Have a look at webcanvas here »

In Mario, the abstracted design and clarity of the platform elements were most definitely a form of art. Even more so now, knowing the ridiculous (compared to present day) restrictions on what was possible graphically. The blue skies and clumpy clouds puffing by; the jolly Italian plumber, Mario; the lumpy green abstract trees and bushes; the cutely designed enemies; the colourful changes of scenery.

Part of the appeal of the gameplay was down to how well Nintendo managed to fine-tune the control of the character – using just a crosspad with A and B buttons. Inertia and momentum was all believable and worked well with the character animations. Something many developers strive for in platform games.

A lot of this was down to the accurate way in which Mario interacted with environmental elements, the pixel-perfect collision detection ensured that players would feel in total control when precision was needed to navigate through some of the more difficult areas.

It was also a blissful experience punching those little blocks of bricks and watching them crumble into the air, sometimes revealing useful items that could help Mario along his way.

The sound was equally legendary – In fact it would be interesting to run a poll to find out who doesn’t know the theme music. It was composed by Koji Kondo, and considered a representation for video game music in general.

There is a website which has pieced together all the levels from Super Mario Bros, you can download them as large images which are like maps of each area. Visit the Super Mario Level maps site here.

It is easy to say that the best thing about this game is its simplicity, after all, all that the player needs to do is draw a series of lines for the “dude” to sled down. However, getting the lines in the right place to ensure the little bob-hatted character does not crash and burn on one of your ambitious vertical creations is itself an exercise in advanced geometry.

The new version of the game will make some additions to the old minimalist style, including tools for drawing straighter lines and additional graphics. There will also be add-ons allowing for some puzzle game play. However, the core of the game will stick close to its creator’s initial concept of the game as a ‘toy’ – something which players can while away the rainy hours tinkering with, perfecting the ultimate loop-the-loop round the inside of a volcano or a shark’s eyeball, wherever fancy and imagination lead.

The original game was developed by Boštjan Cadež, a Slovenian university student, as an illustration class project and has now given rise to over 23,000 YouTube videos, varying from the simple to the astoundingly intricate. The comments posted on these videos are an interesting reflection of the status of game play in society.

Whereas in a pure artistic context, the diligence and time labour invested in the graphics on some of these videos would be acclaimed, the reaction of a substantial number of viewers here is just to ask, “don’t you have anything better to do with your time?” And yet, videos made by Tech Dawg, who is perhaps the most renowned of these artistic “geeks”, have had up to seven times more viewings than there were visitors to London’s Tate Britain gallery in the whole of 2006.

It is interesting to ponder on how far society still has to travel before it will find itself more at ease with the variety of new means of artistic expression which have come into being in the last twenty years.

As for Tech Dawg himself, readers may be interested to learn that he has by his own admission now gained full-time employment with inXile Entertainment, the production house responsible for bringing the game to the DS and Wii.

You can review some of his videos in hi-res, as well as getting to grips with the game itself, here: http://linerider.com/

Director 11 (full version) is available for pre-order on Adobe’s website for either $999 USD (£504.77 GBP as of today’s date 24th March 2008), or $1,639.81 USD (£828.38 GBP) for the same full commercial product. As far as I am concerned, this is an unfair distortion of trade. Why should Britons have to pay over 60% extra for the EXACT same product (including language in US-English) just because they aren’t American? Please, if anyone knows, tell me why?!

Play it online now in Internet Explorer or Firefox or whatever browser you have, and decide whether you think it’s a Halo-beater (if you know what that means).

Okay, it’s not really a next-gen blockbuster, nor does it have the most enthralling graphics, sound or gameplay but you have to give them at least one out of ten for making a free Google Easter video game. Java is required to play it – but it is quite likely you will already have it installed.

Google Easter Video Game » (Java must be enabled)

The publisher opts in by allowing the context-sensitive adverts to be displayed alongside their published content. If a visitor clicks on one of these adverts, then the publisher will get paid a percentage of the cost that the initial company paid.

Some of the top keywords and phrases which are said to pay larger than usual amounts are

Mesothelioma, Attorneys, Lawyers, Malignant, Pleural, Asbestos, Cancer, Symptoms, Peritoneal Mesothelioma, Trans Union, Lung Cancer, Search Engine Optimization, Mesothelioma Diagnosis, Home Equity Loans, Consolidate Loans, Debt, Register Domain, home equity line of credit, affiliate programs, refinance, payday loans, credit counseling, asbestos, cash loans, refinancing, credit, reports, making money on the internet, merchant account

It is interesting to see that the top paying advertisements are by and large either something to do with Mesothelioma, a form of cancer which is almost always caused by previous exposure to Asbestos. Then the next wave of high value adwords can easily be associated with financial problems – most likely a reflection of financial strains in the current global economy.

The websites we create are accessible and validated to the WC3 standards.

We use compliant CSS 2.1 and XHTML 1.0 for layout and design.

Let us help you communicate your ideas through the design process, let us tailor each step to suit your specific needs.

Refresh your existing website with a new design or upgrade to a customised Content Management System.

Our prices are always affordable.

Contact us for a free quote »

Some of our projects from the website portfolio.

The official Director 11 product release details will be revealed between 18th – 22nd February at GDC 2008 in San Francisco.

Updates to existing features in Director 11

Aggressive educational version for $99 and possible price-drop for the commercial package; improved workflow; dockable panels (thereby eliminating the ultimate need for a dual-screen setup); Script browser; improved paint window; DirectX 9 and Flash 9 support.

New features in Director 11

3D save feature; 3D displacement map filter; Windows Vista and Mac Intel support.

Less-positive points about Director 11

Havok engine discontinued; no updates to the 3D engine; no updates to the sound engine; no updates to the multi-user server.

There is also an amateur Flash video of the Director 11 talk available to watch here – be aware that unfortunately the sound quality is absolutely terrible…

Click here to download the Shockwave Player from Adobe

An interesting take on the delay from a renown Director guru, Dean Utian, is that

“Adobe inherited a product that was given little attention by Macromedia since the last update back in 2004. Even prior to MX 2004, some areas of the product features were being neglected. So, Adobe have found that it’s been a huge task to get Director back on track. They are putting resources into it. However, Director is very far behind where it should be and will take Adobe at least 2 versions to get it to the right level. D11 will hopefully be a starting point. Adobe have started talking about Director 12.”

Another interesting fact that crops up in the video clip is that there appears to have only been 14 people in the Director 11 development team! That does seem like a small number…

The one thing that agitates me about Director is the decreasing Shockwave Player install base, especially compared with the success that the Flash Player has had. Even though D11 won’t have the option to publish Movies into Flash, it would be very useful if Director 12 included this feature – but somehow I don’t think this will happen. Maybe a way round this would be to include the Shockwave player with the Flash player?

Either way, we’ll soon find out what the new features will be in D12.