Illustration-Twirl tool

Was playing with illustrator and I found a new tool in Illustrator CS3. It's called Twirl tool. It's twirl whatever vector object it acts upon. See below image for the location of it.


After playing with it for some time did this vector art.

Playing with Illustrator is real fun. The vector graphics are cool.

illustration

An illustration I did sometimes back. Were that's not a sarcastic one as it's not having a head. I wanted to myself but I'm very weak in drawing faces so didn't put up anything there.

Maps

Recently I started playing with map api available online. There are different service providers for this maps like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Nasa, and many more. So I just thought of some ideas that can be used with map. I have been messing around with them since last few days. Though haven't developed any cool stuff got to know the nitty gritty of their working. Now with this knowledge I think take it forward to build some cool applications on top of it.
Well this becomes my part time activity. I would like to do something good in it. I'm totally into it right now.

My portfolio

It's been quite some time since I updated my portfolio with recent works and projects.
Do visit and comment. >>

Young creativity - media strikes

Just few weeks before I got to visit my friends place. A maid servant comes to prepare food at his home. Her young kid scribbled on newspaper and left it. And I happened to notice it. Couldn't help taking photos of it and publish. Well they are exclusively copyrighted :-)
Take a look.













The thought process of that small kid aptly represents the outer world. It can be clearly seen that the small child perceives the world much clearly than we think.
The first image shows what he must have seen on TV, a cricket match and he mentions the names of the teams too. In the second image the scribbles of red color shows his technologically advanced thoughts when he draws a camera in the hand of a person standing in the balcony peeping into other persons room. Doesn't that recall of some breaking news on "Aaj Tak" or similar news channel. During my last project it came out very clearly that viewers of this group largely see such programmes which induces excitement in them. Though they are relatively of no good use they bring drama and after all they are real life which makes them even more exciting. These viewers see these type of (aaj tak, ndtv india etc.) TV news programmes exclusively made to create hype of certain thing and get engaged.
The result is before us. Though I haven't asked the child about the origin of these drawings, it is definite that they are the results of what he must have been watching on TV.

Goal - directed Design

Some take away points from Alan Cooper presentation at UICONF

Good design is
Ethical
Purposeful
Pragmatic
Elegant

Goal directed Design
Goals drive a person's actions.
Tasks are things a person does in order to accomplish his goals.

Too many designers and usability professionals focus on simplifying tasks rather than accomplishing goals.

Common goals that can be assumed for a user
Don't look stupid
Get an adequate amount of work done
Don't make any big mistakes
Have fun

Goal-directed methodology
Research the domain
Model the users
Envision the solution
Refine the behavior
Support development

While interviewing look for goals as well as tasks
look around for
understanding of general work environment
clues to tasks they haven't mentioned
evidence of inadequate systems
hints at task frequency or priority

New template

Always wanted to have my blog stretch along the width of the window to give more space to my posts, otherwise looking squeezed in little area. So this is it.

Void created in Design

Void was created in Design world when Prof. R K Joshi an eminent typographer from India passed away on 4th Feb 2008. R K Joshi is a well known name in the field of Indian typography nationally as well as Internationally. He gave a new perspective to Indian typography and script by designing and developing a software called Vinyas to design Indian fonts. I am lucky to have heard him during ICOGRADA design week last year.

Illustration by Biju

Time to zero in

I have been wandering through the jungles of ideas since last few months for my final degree project. And today it seems that I have kinda zeroed in on few. Coming few days are going to see tornado effects settling down. :-p