Mobile office

One of the great things about being freelance is that you can work wherever you like! I have desk space in an office above one the best coffee houses in the south west, which is great, but i do spend a lot of time just working off the laptop downstairs in the shop. Its great as its vibey, has major caffeine aromours, and loads of interesting people to 'people watch'! Yesterday however, i decided to make the office a bit more mobile, and got in the car and drove to the top of a big hill that overlooks the town and severn estery. Pop the laptop open and have two hours (before the battery runs out) to breath in the surroundings and be creative. It worked well i think, as a new design appeared before my eyes. Still looking for a 'complete project from scratch' button for my mac however. As soon as the client accepts (here's hoping!) I'll post it up here for you to see. Right time to crack on. laters

live visual

Ok so ive been thinking a lot recently about trying to spend some time working on some new visuals, for live performances. I just saw some footage on youtube from the Gods Kitchen Urban Wave event in Poland - ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVZh7g_umIY&feature=related ) And loved the setup they had there! Its called the 'Boombox' and is a full on multimedia DJ set design for GK. It is totally awesome! So its thrown me full force into being a bit more creative and motivated, to actually try and pull something off. So watch this space peeps, its been a while, but Filtered VJs are back in town...

In Retrospect....

Yesterday i spent most of my afternoon helping a mate recover her work that had been accidentally deleted from her mac. I think it was probably one of those gut wrenching moments when she realised everything had gone, months of designs totaled in one off the cuff trash emptying, and that now dreaded paper crunching noise when its finished! But it got me thinking, although we were able to recover a lot of the files, it could have been a bad bad day, and although i know a bit about computers, even i dont back up as much as i should. Infact its probably months since i did. So moral of the story people, Don't wait till it all goes up poo creak (so to speak), get an external HD, and chuck all your stuff on it regularly! Infact do it now. do it. DOOOO ITTTT!

(note to self - read own blog and take own advice)

Sat in my local coffee house, sipping a pint of water..... go figure, the result of trying to detox and desperatly needing to get back into my gym schedule. Was looking through a few sites today to get some inspiration / ideas for a project im working on. Not that it releates at all to what im doing, but i really like this guys work at the moment - Gustavo Bokos - www.bockos.com in particular the project 101 images he's got on there. Quite thought provoking, and brilliantly done.

Reliving olden days

Well, today has started off all dreary and wet outside, so got in to the office, stuck on Spotify and made up a 'Hey Tim, remember when you were 16?' playlist. Now in my case this is mainly made up of old school indy tunes, some classics from Sleeper, Teenage Fanclub, Ocean Colour Scene, The Levellers, Ash and Mansun to name but a few. Certainly put a smile on my face, and with the aid of Chris' hard core coffee am now ready to take on the world! Bring it on!

More pretty pictures...

Have lots of bits to catch up on today, im working on a myspace design for a trance producer, things are going well with it, but i desperately need to pick up the pace! Almost done on the header design, and then the rest of it will fall into place.

I do enjoy designing and working in the dance music industry, you get to meet lots of interesting people, and work along side them, but i would love to push other areas of the business a bit further. Filtered orriginaly started doing live visuals in clubs, and id love to do more of that again. Vjing can be so creative, and definatly add and enhance any live performance. The unfortunate thing is theres so much crap out there, and a lot of DJs would rather nothing on the screens as they're fed up of bouncing logos, random cartoons and chuff like that. I totally understand that. But its a shame that it reflects badly on every other visual artists out there that are trying to do something better! but hey ho. So anyway, i think im going to try and put some things together and see what happens.

On another random note, weather is looking good today, hoping it will last till this evening, definitely feel a bbq, beer and a splash in the pool coming on!

Another day...

Ok time to crack on, Ive got a load of work to do, but struggling to get started today. Thought sitting downstairs at Blend Coffee Lounge would help, with all the hussle and bussle and coffee aromas, but even with the MBP on, PS open, my brain is struggling to start. Seems to be the story of my life at the moment. Ive got two myspace designs that i desperately need to finish, another one that needs tweaking and launching, and a load of new business that needs chasing and finalising. But i find myself sat here updating the blog! Motivation is what i need, i wish there were an app i could just download that would give me it! ha! one day one day.

I came across this website the other day, www.creatiu.com Its really quite good for an inspiration injection. Think i need to go and paruse for a bit, and then maybe motivation will come!

Launched a new myspace design the other day. this one actually was completed ages ago, but weve been waiting for the client to give the go ahead to launch it. Its for a record label in Germany called Tentigo, I quite like this one actually, simple but effective. Check it - www.myspace.com/tentigorecords Weve done another one for one of their artists that should be online soon as well, watch this space!


Laters