The Idea

We built the application around a dynamic grid that allows users to scroll and swipe between different weeks and subjects. Once the user selects a subject he gets detail info and the ability to access Google Maps(for navigation). Another feature is that the application is able to detect lunchtimes. During lunchtimes the user can get a selection of restaurants located nearby his current position.

A technical note is that our apps are created with Appcelerator Titanium and we have the apps running on our own iPads. It’s also built around an API developed by CARET (the company I’m working at).

Presentation

This morning we had a presentation for all the members at CARET. Fingers crossed because there is realistic chance that we are allowed to work on this application until it’s ready for an AppStore publish.

The Internship at CARET

My internship started on monday and we’re already chasing a deadline. I really like the project I’m working on at the moment, our task is to create an interactive timetabling iPad app for the University of Cambridge. We’re divided into two teams, each team contains one Devine student and one MCT student. As a Devine student I’m responsible for the design and the usability / user-experience of the application while the MCT students do the development.

The days feel long but I already like working more than studying because everything I do makes more sense and I like working in a professional environment. We start everyday with a little meeting (called a Scrum meeting) where we discuss our current progress and plans for the upcoming day. The first days I felt a bit uncanny at the office but I’m getting more productive every day and my workspace already feels like home. I’m sitting next to the coffee machine so that’s another plus.

Credits to my colleagues for the friendly welcome and to Bert (our mentor) for guiding us!

 

 

For the last two weeks I’ve been working together with Benoit Nolens, Maarten De Roeck and Joni Van Bogaert. Our goal was to create a multi-touch portfolio application that is very adjustable and transparent. The application is dynamic and all the content is added with a simple CMS. The application is built for touchscreens but almost all the gestures can be done on Apple trackpads.

Last year I went to Berlin with some friends and instead of using my Canon I took my handy-cam (a Sony HDR-CX115) with me to shoot some random pictures of our trip. It took me a while but I finally found some time to put the footage into something descent. Credits to Thomas Heylen for helping me with the editing and of course to my friends for being great entertainment.

The assignment was to create a digital magazine optimized for touch devices/tablets (for example the iPad) and it’s quite unthinkable but the magazine is created with Adobe Flash using Air 2.0 (still in beta) and the Flex 4 framework.

Our Idea

The idea behind our magazine is literally “Awesome stuff” this can be gadgets like the iPhone but also transportation like exclusive cars, or cool extravagant  collectables that attract our and probably your attention.

Our assignment contains 2 applications, the first one is a “magazine reader”, literally the application were people can buy, download and read our magazines. The second part is a CMS (content management system) in which the editors could create and publish new issues of the magazine. Both applications are quite complex because we wanted to make both applications usable without internet connection.

The Reader

We wanted to create something stylish/minimal with a simple but usable interface, our goal was to make it look “expensive” so the user gets a luxury feeling while reading it.  Each issue features 3 categories: Explored, Interview and Collected and a different set of templates (grids in which the content is ordered).

The magazine has some dynamic features like adding comments and sharing articles over Facebook and Twitter.

The CMS

The CMS is focused on usability and efficiency. Editors can build pages from scratch using a set of templates. A small little menu called the “Media Inspector” helps them adding images and video. Pages can be sorted and edited, when a user presses publish a zipped version of the magazine gets uploaded and the reader will automatically detect all the new magazines available.

During the week I spend my days at a student apartment in Kortrijk, I live there practically together with 4 very good friends. We all study Digital Design And Media and being a part of such a solid group has some nice advantages. We share creativity,ideas and it’s the perfect working environment.

Our own place

A few months ago we started thinking about our own place on the web and finally after long nights of talking,discussing and preparations we released our own blog. You can find it at http://www.bunkercrew.be. The design is made by Thomas Heylen who gathered a lot of experience with WordPress during the last months.

Last week we had our first school trip of the year, our destination was the famous capital of Holland: Amsterdam. I was in Amsterdam before but for not much longer than 2 hours and the only thing that I could remember were drugs,prostitution and some aggressive dudes. Anyway I tried to leave the past behind and give Amsterdam a second chance.

Jordaan district

Like always I was companied by a solid group of friends. Our trip was divided in two parts, first we had a small tour around “Jordaan” which is a district in Amsterdam. In the 17th century this district housed the working class but today it’s one of the most expensive places to live. Jordaan is famous for it’s typical houses,courtyards and it’s traditional music. I loved this place, it felt less commercial and it was really picturesque (like walking inside a postcard). The Jordaan became the excellent place to start the day and I really enjoyed drinking espresso by the riverside.

Did you see what God just did to us?

After the nice and picturesque Jordaan we headed to the city center. While walking trough Amsterdam I sometimes felt like being in Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas. I don’t like drugs, I hate the smell of marihuana and the influence it has on people. The main problem is that drugs are a prominent element trough the city. It felt like there were more coffee shops than bars and the smell of marihuana is everywhere. All the souvenir shops have a big assortment of seeds and drug related objects and the tourism is for a huge part based on drugs.

An other thing I noticed is that the people in Amsterdam have a lot more temperament and I sometimes felt a little unwelcome for example, I was refreshing myself in the bathroom of a bar and a furious guy started bashing the door after lets say 30 seconds.

After all

A day is much too short for a city like Amsterdam, I could have easily spend another one cause I felt like rushing from place to place all the time. I also feel like I have been in the wrong places cause people constantly say good things about Amsterdam and I feel like I have missed the special places (except the Jordaan district off course).

Another feeling I have is that Amsterdam is living too much up to its own cliches (drugs and prostitution).  Overall Amsterdam was fun, the atmosphere was great but this city is nothing for me and I enjoyed Rotterdam a lot more.

New technology creates new opportunities and my favorite technology trend from the recent years is definitely multi-touch. We all got familier with it since the release of the iPhone and right now you can buy 56″ displays supporting it.

The second part of our Darwin project is creating a multi-touch application that gives users an interactive way of browsing through the different publications from Charles Darwin. I did the graphics and Joni Van Bogaert created a nice flow/demo in After Effects.

World War II is the most documented event in recent history and I have always been interested in films, series and documentaires dealing with this subject. My favorite World War II serie (although it feels more like a long film) is Band Of Brothers. Simply because it’s a genius mix of great visuals, strong characters and great storytelling.

And now 9 long years after the release of Band Of Brothers HBO releases a new miniserie called “The Pacific”. It’s not a sequel but a whole new serie based on the American war against the Japanese empire.

I only had a small glimp of the first episode but I was really impressed by the title sequence wich is a combination of chalk animation and video.

“Sometimes you just have to start from scratch…” My new project consists of doing a redesign for http://darwin-online.co.uk this website is the most widely used resource on Charles Darwin with around 100 million hits since 2006.

The site itself is really big and it’s definitely one of the most challenging projects I have been working on so far. There are thousands of pages that should become attractive and the overall usability should improve a lot. We are also focussing on creating a better user experience using jQuery(javascript library) and Ajax.

I am lucky that I don’t have to do this project on my own, Joni Van Bogaert is joining me on this one.  We started creating basic sketches and wireframes and right now we are quite satisfied about our first mockup.

I used a lot of textures: paper,plaster,leather and illustrations from the grandmaster himself.

I think this project is quite interesting so I am planning to write weekly updates about the projects status. I hope to finish the mockups this week so we can start working on the XHTML/css part.