Mark Bult Design: San Francisco, CA, Established 1988

Web design and development for small and large business, e-commerce, b2b, b2c, SAAS, and community websites. User experience design and usability testing.


Thursday, April 29, 2004

Palo Alto is so bi(pedal)

Only in Palo Alto. Today I was only slightly surprised, but mightily amused, to see three bikes cross the road today at a crossing, and one was a recumbent, and one was a pennyfarthing (y'know, those really old-fashioned ones with the enormous front wheel).

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Damn.

Well, it's 1:38am.

Thank bog Earth Day is over

April is always a tough month. Tons of Acterra work to do: Earth Day newsletter, Earth Day website, tons of events to add to the EcoCalendar, the Business Environmental Awards, the Decadent Dinner, the Earth Day Forum, and 742 bloody other things I gotta do. All in 20 hours a week. Hmm...yeah, that's very realistic. Nonprofits exist in an altered state.

Ohmygod

I can't believe I'm going to get to bed before 1am for the first time in about 2 million years...

Saturday, April 24, 2004

Cita

Here's me first pass of Carmencita. I'm working on a bezier version (10-point-word for geeks who know what that means) that'll look a lot better, but this is a colorized version based on my initial pencil sketch. I think I'll call her character Cita.

This one's obviously Bishop-influenced.

Friday, April 23, 2004

Not sure if this is a good sign or a bad sign

I think it's a good sign that two of my ex-girlfriends had lunch together the other day and later reported to me that they had decided to form a committee with three objectives: A) convincing me to quit my job, B) convincing me to move to SF, and C) to get me laid.

I pointed out that there was a really easy way to fulfill the third item, but they both politely declined.

As disappointing as that was (but hardly surprising), I'm at least gratified that they both still think highly enough of me that they want to help me get laid. I guess that's a good sign. Of course, neither one has called with any blind dates, and they both said they're not intending to schedule another meeting of their little cabal, so I'm becoming skeptical of the whole plan. Dammit.

Hmmm...

I just know that everyone's gonna say she has bigger boobs than that...

I blame Ynnej

I blame Ynnej and Chris Bishop for the amount of time I wasted drawing comic characters based (loosely) on people I know. I blame Ynnej because her supremo-slacking powers bring out my own slacker tendencies, and Chris Bishop because I farging love his art, and his paintings inspired me a month ago to finally draw a picture of Carmen that actually looked like Carmen. Okay, this isn't it here, but I'm going to colorize it and put it up eventually too.

But I thought I'd colorize Ynnej last night (okay, at about 4am), so here is my first pass. I still need to work on the face a bit: change the eyes a tad, make the lips much smaller (Ynnej, has anyone told you lately that you have very small lips?), and alter the shape of the face a little. But other than that, I like it. Of course, it won't look anything like Ynnej to her Hampshire friends. But you mokes'll just have to trust me; that's what she looked like at 15yo.

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Girl power

Yes, it's true, Ynnej has remembered how to be a girl. She even possesses girl clothes again. Well, one sock and most of her underwear, anyway. But this self-portrait is an obvious indication that she's once again regaining awareness that girlness is next to godliness.

Thursday, April 15, 2004

Big, I mean REALLY BIG possibilities...

Okay, even though I've been able to do the same thing with Photoshop and Quark XPress since about 1988, I gotta admit that Rasterbator is pretty cool. It puts creation of gigantic coarse-halftone posters in the hands of the people. I have both a huge blank wall and a huge blank storefront window. Ahhh...so many possibilities...

How to do Flash well

This is a very cool interactive Flash website about the renovation of a sustainably-built cabin into a year-round home. It's got sound, motion graphics, user interaction. Very well done. This is the sort of Flash site I aspire to. Now all I need is about three spare months and someone to pay me to do it. hmmm....

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Holy crap this totally rules

This is some really amazing animation and some incredibly funny shit.

So you think you can play the harmonica

Hey Ynnej, are you as kick-ass as this white boy?

Who says PC users aren't creative?

I'm about as Mac-partisan as it gets, but this impresses even me.

Whatever happened to the Chipmunks?

I don't think you'll see this on VH1...

Sunday, April 11, 2004

Warning: Blogging while drunk may be hazardous to your reputation

Okay, well I'm not really drunk, but a couple hours ago I certainly was (but I reserve the right to blame any typos on inebriation...for example, I have no idea how to spell 'inebriation', and interestingly enough, the Blogger spellchecker flagged 'blogging' and 'for' [?!] but not "inebriation', so I'm gonna say it's correctly spelled).

So Will and Olya came over after contra dancing ('contradancing'? i dunno) and we walked a block away to the slightly sketchy bar called Fred's, and had a pitcher and shots of whiskey. The latter of which definitely sent me over. Good thing we walked that one block to Fred's...

And then we came back and talked late into the night about Russia (where Olya is moving in a month) and looked at pictures of weird looking vegetables and fruits (Saxton rules), and then looked at Ynnej's latest GCC, which I am waiting for her to update...

Friday, April 09, 2004

The floobie of it all

Some people doubt that "floobie" is all that it's cracked up to be. Surely, these poor, misguided individuals must be pitied. Yet it is neither satisfactory nor friendly to simply look down on their pitiable lives. One must educate these peurile waifs. One must bring them up!

Do a good deed today. Make it a point, next time you're in your friend's room, to floobie along to the music. If there's no music on, strategically enthuse, "Boy, it sure would be a lot more comfortable for me to take my shirt off if there was some music on right now."

Then, as the notes of [insert musician's name here] lilt through the air, simply start humming along.

"Hmmm, hmm hmm hmmmm hummmmm hummm... La de da... hmmm hmm hmm hmm hmmmmmmm hummmmmmm..." and then, when your friend -- the poor pitable one who needs to be elevated to the level of those of us who are privy to the next-to-godliness of floobie -- is just beginning to register how annoying your humming is, insert a subtle "floobie, floobie doobie do" into the lyric.

Ka-flam! It'll be like the End of Days�. The world will rend itself apart and a bright light will open up from the sky and your friend will be bathed in the brilliance of floobie. No more will his/her/its lowly life be empty and devoid of purpose, for the sheer oneness of floobie willl have shined upon him/her/it. Surely this will be a new day on Earth.

Please copy and paste this into every communication for the next 3.14 years.

And what makes you think ka-flam is not a word?