Krop – Creative Database

There’s a lot of simple ‘build yourself an online portfolio with minimum fuss’ sites out there, such as Behance and Carbonmade. But new kid on the block is Creative Database by the design jobs site Krop.

I must say, out of all the one’s I’ve tried, this is definitely the easiest to add your own content and the most pleasurable to view a finished profile. Sadly the free version only lets you upload 10 images, for unlimited uploads you’ve got to pay $10 a month…

I’ve made a quick (free) page for myself here, but you should check out a pro user with lots of images to see how the scroll bars and image previews really make it a pleasure to use.

Would be nice if they had some way of browsing/filtering all the current users to discover peoples work, maybe that’s coming once they’ve got a few people registered.

Sign yourself up and start making your portfolio here »

Via: k10k.

Cookie & Paul do America

Ihaven’t been blogging much of late and I haven’t been sleeping much either… But that’s all going to change because this is an amazing post and after I finish writing it I’m going to bed! I’ve been editing my video documentary of our successful completion of the CDT. So clear a couple of hours and check out my site – Cookie & Paul do America, use the links on the bottom to navigate between sections. If you haven’t been keeping up – The Continental Divide Trail is a 3000 mile walk from Mexico to Canada along the Rockie Mountains, we did it this year in five and a half mouths from May to October, it was epic.

It’s mostly set to music that I feel fits the mood of the section, with a little bit of chat in between. Nicky noted that most of the songs come from the 1970’s which seems quite fitting because as we make our way across America out beards get longer and longer (it’s a tradition or an old charter or something), eventually we look like we are in the 1970’s! The last finishing touch was to add in the Indiana Jones style map sequences the give each section a bit of context. Thanks to Google maps new terrian view for providing an excellent map source for me the screen grab and five million steps for plotting the route on to it :)

When I get back and finish up a few outstanding bits and pieces, I’m planning to hire a cinema/pub with a projector and have a big screening (and piss up). I’ll let you know details when I sort them out.

Well Merry Christmas internet folk, I’m off, I’ll be back in London and bloggin’ in the new year, have a good one.

Colorado section of the CDT

Hot on the heals of last weeks New Mexico section, here’s the highlights of the Colorado. Set to the beat of Rock and Roll, Part 2 by Gary Glitter (no comments about kiddy fiddling please).

As you’ll gather from the video, the defining aspect of Colorado was probably the snow. When we entered Colorado and crossed the San Juan Mountains (in June) you could barely follow any kind of footpath. It was mostly buried deep under snow so the map and compass were always at hand taking bearings and working out where over the next ridge we were supposed to aim. We had days where we’d hardly step foot on bare earth all day and it was a strugle to find anywhere to pitch our tent on the evening. But as June turned into July things started to melt and there was a bit more grass to laze about on at lunchtime, but this caused it’s own problems of water logged ground and swollen streams to cross…

Our favourite section of Colorado was the San Juan Mountains, you might notice a couple of extra people in the video – that’s Boston & Cubby, two fellow CDT’ers we helped through the start of this tricky section. It’s probably worth noting me & Paul were the only people out of the 11 northbounders to complete the San Juan’s, everyone else took the Creede cutoff. But probably the best singular highlight was climbing Mount Elbert, which is the highest mountain on the Continental Divide. The long panorama towards the end of the video is the awe-inspiring view from the top. But also for me, my girlfriend Nicky came out halway and walked with us for 2 weeks (we had to slow down a bit for her).

We had our best Steak of the CDT here, it was at the Back Street Steakhouse in Grand Lake. (probably our most expensive meal too…)

About a third of the way in there’s a shot of me in the tent during a lighting storm. This was probably the scaryest moment on the CDT, lightening was hitting the ground every 10-15 seconds and all round us in every direction… After crouching down in the trees for a while, we decided we couldn’t bare the sight of it anymore and had to just get in the tent, close and eyes and hope that we waked up in the morning! Well we did :) and we were at the Wyoming border a few days later, the halfway point of the CDT.

Get your Christmas Cheat Sheets

Imade these last year and they went down a storm, so here’s the new updated 2008 versions. What the hell is a Christmas cheat sheet? Well it’s my answer to age old problem of buying clothes for your better half at Christmas time. Get your boyfriend/girlfriend to fill in a one of these cheat sheets with their vital stats, then go out shopping with confidence that you’ll buy the right size and they’ll fit come Christmas day.

Dowload:
• Crispy clean pdf versions here: Girls & Boys
• Or get the more soulful jpg version here: Girls & Boys.

Happy shopping! Here’s a preview of the boys version:

New Portfolio – Vague.ly

Well I’ve found a use for that .ly domain I bought the other day, say hello to Vague.ly interesting work by Cookie. I hurriedly created a portfolio section on Made in England before I went on my big walk, which I’ve been updating since I got back. But because it’s based on a blog’s chronological CMS backend it’s a bit of a chore to browse through and find stuff I want to show people in a interview…

So I decided to look for another portfolio platform, previously I’ve used carbonmade, it’s dead easy to use but a bit restrictive with what you can do make it look like. Then I found Indexhibit, created by Daniel Eatock & Jeffery Vaska, which for my purposes is not far off perfect. First off I wanted to customise the CSS as the standard Eatock theme was a tad bland for my liking. I didn’t code the CSS for Made in England, that was my mate Nico, but I have learned a few bits here and there while trying to tweak it. Luckily Indexhibit is so simple that with a little bit looking how Nico had done it and a good deal of trial and error, I manged to get vague.ly looking ship shape in less than a day. Uploading content is a piece of piss too, in just two days I’ve got the bulk of the work done, still more to come though.

Also the reason I’m doing this is because I’m looking for work, I’m a pretty handy Illustrator as well as working in the digital industry for the past 10 years as Designer/Art Director. If you like my stuff and want to team up, you can reach me here: cookie {at} made-in-england.org

Here’s a screen grab of Indexhibit’s backend:

Indexhibit

Weekly Desktop Part 39

Iusually start my posts about weekly desktops by apologising for the missing my weekly target, well this is no different, I’ve not posted a desktop since April! This Monster Desktop isn’t knew though, I found it randomly on my hard disk yesterday, makes a pretty cool desktop though ;) Download it here »

I’m Looking for Work

Looking for Work?

I‘ve been haemorrhaging money for the past 6 months, it’s about time I got a job again! So if you are in need of any design or illustration help then lets team up! I’m interested in hearing about fulltime or freelance work, but to be honest I only really want to work within walking distance of Shoreditch or from home, can’t stand the commute!

I’ve worked in a variety of roles in the digital industry for the past 10 years, I’d like to think there’s not much I don’t know about all aspects of web design, advertising and marketing. That doesn’t mean to say I only do online, I’d say I specialise in all kinds of visual & creative stuff. I’m not the sort of person that likes to work on concepts that are nailed down already or follow strict design guidelines, but I am the sort of person that likes to live and breathe a project and invest and good amount of myself into it. I feel my work is a bit like a performance and you’re only as good as your last show, I try to wring the very best out of myself each time.

• You can see examples of my Illustration work here.

• There’s some examples of Design work here.

Well if you think you might have some work for me, I’m available as of now, please get in touch at: cookie {at} made-in-england.org

Who’s the Drunkest?

Tomorrow is my last day at Poke and my last evening in England for the next 6 months or so… I like to leave in style, so I’ve planned a bit of a farewell drinking competition for tomorrow evening :)

Basically I’ve stripped down the much loved pastime of drinking into it’s 5 main skill groups – Buying booze, carrying booze, drinking booze, being pissed & getting the Drunkest. When all the scores are added up at the end of the evening, we’ll find out – Who’s the drunkest?

If the prospect of that wasn’t thrilling enough, the prize for the winner is custodial care of my personal pint mug which Pete keeps behind the bar of the Owl & Pussycat for me. It generates much envy from fellow patrons each week, and could almost certainly ‘get you laid’ ;)

If you want to see me off, I’ll be at the Owl & Pussycat on Redchurch Street from about 6pm. If you want to compete for the prize, or just for fun – download the score sheet here, print it out and bring it along with you. If you want to rehash the game for yourself, feel free to download the original Illustrator file here.

Made by Nico

You might of noticed I’ve been updating a few things round here, well I think I’ve finally got my blog looking and working just as I like it now. Still got a loads of work to add to the portfolio, will be adding new/old stuff each evening. Apologies to folk who subscribe to my RSS, I think my post dating of old work might be a bit annoying…

Anyhow, just wanted to give a big thank you to Nico Nuzzaci who built it for me. He’s made it super easy for me to update, it’s just the same as posting normal blog entries but to special hidden categories. I’m loving it :) The multi talented Nico not only designs and develops at Poke, but he’s also lead guitar in CRANK, rock on!

Also a pre-emptive nod to Knotty who’s trying to figure out how to get my Google maps widget working for our Continental Divide Trail walk shortly.

Weekly Desktop Part 38

I‘ve finished drawing all the Crank band members and have made a desktop of them rocking out. You get it in Green, Blue, Yellow or Orange, hope you like it. Remember you can also get each character individually here. I’m really enjoying doing all this Poke band stuff, mainly because it’s all nonsense and just a bit of fun, refreshing change to the world of corporate web design!

Hopefully I’ll have time to finish the comic book story of Professor Crankingstein and his monster cock and how that led to the bands creation! More soon…

Blue:

Yellow:

Orange: