This was done by allowing simple data entry within posts and pages to specifically state titles, descriptions, and taglines along with automatically creating canonical URL’s and the like – taking both the stress out of running through your code and manually entering it where needed and also allowing it to be automated within a blog or wordpress CMS.

Unfortunately with the release of WordPress 3.0 the plugin was not allowing such SEO features within the new custom post types that masses had created. Thankfully the newest version of the package has been released (1.6.12.1) which is now fully compatible with custom post types. It can be downloaded here for those that are interested. Be sure to leave a donation to the creators if you’re pleased with its performance and the way it’s affected your blog/website!

The replenishment included a constantly visible contact form – which I love – as in my experience visiting websites I prefer to have a means of contact always available rather than being redirected to a contact page.

You will also notice the services page which clearly outlines the types of work I’m capable of offering and performing. A project development process outliner has also been included to give an idea of how the work is carried out.

Equally as important – the gallery is now loaded with images of past work to look at which loads neatly into the page using jQuery Colorbox allowing the arrow keys to cycle through the entire gallery. Please enjoy.

It’s been a long battle but I’m more than happy with how it’s turned out and look forward to continually blogging and updating my work. Success!

Something that caught my eye recently whilst bouncing around the net was a post on BuzzFeed by Elmar Burchia informing the world of the origin of the Firefox logo.

For those who are not aware of what Firefox is: it is in my humble oppinion, the best open-source web browser available for the web. In my experience it has just been more pleasant to use versus Internet Explorer and comes with a plethora of plugins available for download all over the internet due to being an open source application. I highly recommend anyone who does not already use Firefox to begin doing so now. It can be downloaded through the website located at http://www.mozilla.com/

The logo was created by Daniel Burka, a web designer currently living in San Francisco, California who used to be the creative director over at Digg up until October 2009. What struck me as interesting was where Daniel actually got his inspiration from for the logo.

The image listed in this post is a photograph of a page from a childhood bible of his depicting a man and a couple of foxes. Notice the correlation between the colour scheme of this image and that of the Firefox logo along with the design of the fox’s tail in the logo.

I found this as a some-what of a wake up call to realise that inspiration really can be found anywhere and there are no limits. I’m usually one to watch some nature documentaries, go for a long walk or spying advertising around the world to gain inspiration when its really needed but who would have thought that a simple illustration in a childhood bible would spark the infamous logo for Mozilla‘s Firefox.

Have any thoughts or know of any other interesting design origins? Feel free to post a comment below!

For our final animation for the Advanced 3D Imaging and Animation class at Uni, we had to create a short animation with a narrative that did not include any characters.

At first, this was a fairly withering task as when you first think of a narrative or an idea for an animated story you initially think of all these cool concepts that involve characters. The main reason we had to create it like this was because there simply wasn’t enough time left in the semester to go thoroughly go over character modeling and animation, let alone time to actually animate it along with all the other projects we had to do. Unfortunate, really.

So the approach I took was representing the transition or cross over from death to life. Correctly named, Rebirth, it’s an abstract representation of what is happening in someone’s mind right before death. Main symbolism in the piece being the daffodil which represents life or rebirth. I used electronic blips and beeps to represent hospital life support along with heavy breathing and a variation of what is suppose to be inner monologue of audible memories as well as actual spoken word in the subject’s location.

All the 3D animation was created in Maya 2009 and rendered out in Mental Ray. It was then composed in Adobe Premiere with sounds sourced from Flashkit and royalty free stock footage from various locations on the internet for the flashing overlays, which are meant to represent flash backs or memory glitches. The song, which contains most of the male voice audio, is Zoetrope Trailer by Lustmord.

I quite enjoy the unison between the dark feel of the audio combined with the light and beautiful scene that is created visually. I feel that is illustrates both the fear of the unknown with death but also the beauty of life itself and the creation of which.

Having said that, I felt it necessary to only in the last few months, head out and grab myself a copy of Halo 3 simply to have something to mingle with mates online with. Of course, with that Bungie then makes it compulsary for you to purchase more multiplayer maps in order to play particular servers. Cheers Bungie! Ok, no worries I didn’t mind that SO much considering I managed to score a copy from a Hong Kong seller on eBay for $2.95 plus postage. Awesome deal. But… hang on. Yep new Halo game coming out now, better get onto that too.

Sweet, so let’s head out and grab myself a copy of Halo 3: ODST, simply because, you guessed it, there was such a hype already and.. well.. in order to play a few casual games online with my mates I’m pretty well required to have what ever games they’re into. It seems Halo takes the cake every time these days.

Turns out, something I wasn’t aware of before purchasing Halo 3, the only real multiplayer component of ODST was a second disc which is just Halo 3‘s multiplayer. Not only that, but it comes pre-packed with every multiplayer map pack that I had bought extra (The Heroic Map Pack, The Legendary Map Pack, Cold Storage, The Mythic Map Pack) plus an additional three maps, Heretic, Longshore, and Citadel. Fool was I to not realise this beforehand.

Luckily, I managed to score (once again from another Hong Kong seller on eBay) ODST for $34.95 plus postage. Another awesome win. So maybe it kind of balanced itself out with the money spent. That said, was the game worth it?

I’m gonna say “Yeahhh.. kinda.” Giving the price I managed to get it for, if I hadn’t picked up Halo 3 it would be a definite “Hell yeah!”. To give the rundown, the first cinematic in the game did not impress me what so ever. The character models seemed stupidly rushed and same too with the dialogue. Not only did the characters faces look like a half eaten meat pie with dated animations, but it sounded as though I was listening to the voice actors straight from the studio. Where was the atmosphere, Bungie? Boy, was it a relief when the character’s slapped their visors on.

The game redeemed itself with me when I found myself thrown into the cock pit of an orbital drop pod streamlining for New Mombasa showing me just how cool it COULD be. Kudos, Bungie on this front, you did exceptionally well here. However a piece of me died inside once again when I jumped into the level and noticied a distinct lack of environmental sound and well… sound in general. To me, it felt as though I was playing a test version of the game that hadn’t had its audio polished off fully.

Now some may argue that it may have been because the version I received was from Hong Kong, but I assure you the only thing different is the box art and a colleague of mine also picked up on the same things with his Australian copy.

So campaign was a bit of a let down, feeling as though it was just a repolish of Halo 3 with the same set of fun being repeated over and over again. But… were the new multiplayer maps shipped with ODST enough to win me over?

I’m gonna say yes. I actually really enjoy the new maps after jumping in with a mate to give them a test run last night. Not only visually stunning along with brilliant level design, I could just be imagining this but I have a feeling the multiplayer disc actually runs in native 1080p resolution. I definitely noticed the picture seemed alot more defined, crisp and generally prettier than the Halo 3 disc. Hey, I could be wrong but ODST seems to run in 1080p so I can’t see why they wouldn’t bump the multiplayer disc up the same way to give players more of a reason to jump on the ODST bandwagon. Either way I noticed somethin’ sexy about it that I was definitely pleased with!