Jump to Content

About Flush

Flush cleanses the mind and scoops up any crappy (as well as those genuinely good) graphic design ideas, notes, and thoughts.

Redirected

You were redirected from:
http://ivanwlam.com/blog/flush/2008/02/flash-experiments-portal-auto-rounding.html
because WordPress couldn't locate the exact page that you were looking for. Perhaps you may find it on this archive page. For more information about the redirect, you may visit here. Also, remember to update your bookmark!

To remove this message, click here.

« Older Entries

/Flush/2008/02

On this page:

/Flush/2008/02/27

If Designers Were Worshipped Like Pop Stars

Here’s an idea that I’m interested in exploring (at least right now): how would an admirer of a designer express his or her obsession with the designer? How would a “fan site” look like? Would it be like MySpace, or would it be like the cheesy, over-designed fan sites you see for musicians and actors? Would there be links like “gallery,” and “media,” and “tour”?

If I were to have a fan site for a designer I really like, the designer would have to have Stefan Sagmeister, no doubt. (A semi-distant second would be Josef Müller-Brockmann.) The site would be well-designed, of course, and it would reflect Sagmeister’s style, though I’m not sure what it is exactly. I would imagine, though, that it would involve a lot more organic forms: handwriting and fruits come to mind.

The typography must be unique, whether it’s digital or handwritten. As is everything else. It would probably be about the experience of the site that reminds viewers of Sagmeister; it couldn’t be a boring grid of text in Verdana or Georgia and straight photography that doesn’t evoke any personal connections.

I haven’t thought much about this (I just thought of the idea less than an hour ago), but I’m interested in other people’s ideas for “designer fan sites.” It would be even cooler if someone actually built it!

Flush.

Posted

27 February 2008

Tags:

, , , , , ,

Comments:

No Comments Yet »

/Flush/2008/02/25

Flash Experiments Portal: Auto Rounding Width et al

Flash Portal Screenshot

I’ve been taking care of other aspects of my life for the past week or so, and today I was able to spend some time to continue building my Flash Experiments Portal. Honestly, I did not expect something that looks this simple to take so long. But I think that it’s a design worth pursuing, partly because in the process, I’ve learned some stuff in JavaScript that it made me realize that I have a love-hate relationship with JavaScript, just like with ActionScript and Kinko’s.

The image above may not look that different from the one before, but I’ve added many features, all of which are exclusively in JavaScript and would still function like before if JavaScript is turned off or is not available in the browser.

First, I made all the “frames” fit to the length of the text but also rounded them up to the next frame. If I had just left it at auto, the frames would not end at the grid lines, which defeats the purpose of having the grid.

Then, I added up all the lengths of the frames in each row and determine the minimum page width I need to display all the frames in their own row. If I didn’t specify the page width, the frames would actually start floating/stacking under the layer names. That doesn’t happen in Flash, of course; I just used the float trick to make it look like Flash, but it certain doesn’t behave it like it.

Finally, I made the boxes where the layer names go have a fixed position so that as you scroll to the right for more frames (if the row of frames goes longer than the page width), the left side stays there like in Flash.

I spent a good chunk of the day working on this locally, and it seemed to work fine in Firefox and Opera, with a little bit of glitch in Opera that I fixed relatively quickly. But when I uploaded it to the site, Opera seemed to have completely ignored my JS, so now I have to figure out what’s happening there. And IE has the same situation as last time. Inconsistencies with paddings, margins, and border widths among browsers are a pain.

Nonetheless, I made real progress today, especially in my JavaScript skills. I’ve become more comfortable with arrays and for loops now. Scripting is so powerful; I can’t wait to learn all the other kinds.

Flush.

Posted

25 February 2008

Tags:

, , , , , ,

Comments:

No Comments Yet »

/Flush/2008/02/23

Will As Script

Has anyone looked at a will as a conditions-heavy programming document? For example in ActionScript:


var bob; //testator
var joe;
var sue;
var sam;
var x=200000; monetary assets

if (!bob){
    joe=100000;
    sue=x-joe;

    if (!joe){
        joe-=100000;
        sue+=50000;
        sam=(x-joe)-sue;

        if (!sue){

                ...

I know I probably broke the script when i made joe=100000 but later conditioned that he doesn’t exist, but you get the idea. So many if’s.

Flush.

Posted

23 February 2008

Tags:

, , , ,

Comments:

No Comments Yet »

/Flush/2008/02/21

Give Peace A Chance

The peace symbol is 50 years old today.

I don’t usually do that thing where I post links to other people’s entries with no personal analysis, but I think other people are more knowledgeable about this than I am, and that I think it’s an always-important topic.

A little post on the peace symbol, via swissmiss: http://www.hossli.com/observations/2008/02/16/50-years-of-symbolic-peace/

The entry on the peace symbol on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_symbol Interesting how the peace symbol is designed.

Flush.

Posted

21 February 2008

Tags:

, , , ,

Comments:

1 Comment »

/Flush/2008/02/15

Flash Experiments Portal

Flash Portal screenshot, in progress

Worked on the Flash experiments portal today. Making something look like something else proved difficult, but I think that when one is done with it, satisfaction takes over.

I’m not done with it yet, though. I still have to:

  • Code it so the width of the frames on the timeline are determined by the length of the frame label, but still conform to the 8px widths of individual frames.
  • Make it work in IE 7 (grr.)
  • Make the arrows clickable to expand/collapse the folder (which I practiced in the web experiments section), and have the arrow and folder icons change accordingly.
  • Make it have auto horizontal scrolling instead of a defined body width.

At first, I wanted to make the portal Flash-based, but I figured that might be too crazy and not that accessible if people have slow connections or don’t have Flash Player installed. This is a fun alternative, I believe.

Flush.

Posted

15 February 2008

Tags:

, , , , ,

Comments:

No Comments Yet »

The Job Search Campaign

Does anyone else feel that looking for a job is a lot like being in a presidential campaign (not that I’ve been in a presidential campaign)? I mean, technically, they both have the same goal: to get the job. But they’re really different in terms of the number of employers you’re dealing with (the entire nation, or at least the voters).

However, one thing that I’ve noticed in looking for a regular job is that you have to sort of provide a platform from which you derive your answers at the job interview: what you believe in, what you think one should do in certain situations, etc.

While I’m talking about job interviews, I also want to make the connection that campaign speeches are like job interviews, except that you have a lot more interviews in a presidential campaign. And you need to know what words to use, and more importantly, what words to never mention.

Finally, but not final, calling people for references is like asking for endorsements. While you don’t need too much convincing when asking for references, it’s basically the same idea. You want, or actually you need people backing you up and saying that you can do the job.

Needless to say, being in the career that I plan to live my life on, I’m currently in a state of constantly thinking about job search. And with this year being an election year, I couldn’t help but take a few strategies from the candidates and personalize them for my job search. So we’ll see how that goes.

Flush.

Posted

15 February 2008

Tags:

, , , , , , , ,

Comments:

1 Comment »

/Flush/2008/02/14

Later, By Definition

“Later, by definition, will never come.”

Just something I thought of while briefly visiting Stefan Sameister’s “Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far” web site promoting the exhibition.

Flush.

Posted

14 February 2008

Tags:

, , ,

Comments:

No Comments Yet »

/Flush/2008/02/12

Transparency in the Sky

The layout of the site on transparency taped on the window with the sky in the background.

I want to try to something different. This is just an idea. If I’m sticking with this idea, I will clean up the type and the lines. I’m still thinking about making the coding and the interactivity work.

Flush.

Posted

12 February 2008

Tags:

, , , ,

Comments:

3 Comments »

/Flush/2008/02/11

What Am I Doing? (Feb 2008)

The Sims 2 obsession has faded (fortunately), and the words “portfolio,” “site,” and “job” have become the three most used terms in my daily mental query.

Live Site

The most significant thing that I’ve worked on this past month, I believe, was my site. On January 28 or 29, I suddenly had the motivation to start my web site with a “just do it” attitude, constructing it in public and requesting feedback. This process is moving along, and I’m glad I got started, not only because I’ve moved onto the next step, but also because it makes me realize how much work (and time) I need to put in to have a fully functional, content-rich, informative web site about me and my work. Therefore, I’ve decided to not wait anymore for this site to complete and move ahead to search for a side job.

Job and Sagmeister

Yesterday, I ordered a ticket to attend a now soldout lecture featuring Stefan Sagmeister in San Francisco on March 6. For those who don’t know (although I might have mentioned it here on Flush), Sagmeister has sort of been my hero ever since I’ve heard of him last year, when I was researching for my “Why Don’t We Care?” project. In any case, I made my first not-directly-related-to-portfolio,-site,-or-job purchase in a long time, under the condition that I get a job/side job before I go to the lecture. We’ll see how that will turn out.

Portfolio Review and Helvetica

Last Friday, a couple of my design friends and I met up to present and review our portfolios (By the way, Y.I. and T.P., the address to my main site has always been in the About sidebar). It was a very helpful experience for all of us, and I’m glad we did it. Somewhat sticking to the promise to myself, I unwrapped and watched Helvetica with my friends. Maybe it was the mentally highered expectation, but 1) I thought it was supposed to be longer, and 2) it was a different experience watching it with friends. I think caring about what others think of the film (which none of them had seen) distracted me from paying attention to the film. I shall watch it by myself next time, including the bonus material and take names and ideas for future reference.

Words Pondered

Here are a few things that I’ve been thinking about in the past month:

  • “Safe is Risky.” —Seth Godin
  • “Trying to look good limits my life.”—Stefan Sagmeister, from his Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far Series
  • “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” —William Shakespeare, from the wrapper of some chocolates my cousin-friend gave me for Christmas.
  • “Hope”
  • “Change”
  • “Honesty”
  • “Dreams”

Flush.

Posted

11 February 2008

Tags:

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Category:

What Am I Doing?

Comments:

No Comments Yet »

/Flush/2008/02/07

Why Don’t We Use a Chinky Font?

First screenshot of the msn page on Chinese New Year using a stereotypical Chinese font style.

Happy Chinese New Year to those who celebrate it! I didn’t plan on posting anything about Chinese New Year today until I saw this a few minutes ago.

Second screen shot of the msn page showing more examples of the font style.

I don’t want to seem ultra-sensitive or too politically correct or whatever, but really? This font? I’m not going to go too deep into it in this post, but it still needs to be mentioned.

My request is simply this: can we just not use this type of fonts? At least for sites like msn; I can see it (and I have seen it) being used on the Simpsons, but there’s a difference. And while I remember being fascinated by doing lettering like this in handmade school posters in middle school to show my roots, I have since known better that this more or less perpetuate the old stereotype of how Americans have thought of Chinese and Asians.

While it is a nicer version of the typefaces in this style (maybe just the “2008”), I still think it’s too much. If I had to think of a visual substitute right off the top of my head, I would suggest Optima. It’s a significant downgrade, but it still gives off that essence without jumping at your face.

Here’s my disclaimer on this post: While I am an Asian American, I do not represent all Asian Americans. I’m sure there are some who do not find this offensive at all, or that some don’t even care. But as someone who does care, I think this is not appropriate for institutions like msn, not anymore at this day and age. I’m speaking as someone who is concerned about this topic, because I feel that if I don’t say anything, no one else will.

Flush.

Posted

07 February 2008

Tags:

, , , , , , , ,

Comments:

No Comments Yet »
« Older Entries

/Flush/2008/02