If you look closely at the photo below, beneath the Lego is a huge hunk of office equipment, which is my old trusty laser printer. It's a Brother HL-2030 and I probably bought it about six years ago.

I use it mostly for printing stuff that never goes beyond my office, so when the drum (number one consumable) started acting up a few years ago, it didn't matter to me that the prints were going a bit 'spotty' and 'dirty'. 

The toner (consumable number two) was still good so at least the prints were somewhat legible (again, as long as I can read it, it was good enough for me).

So now, the day has arrived when not only is the drum completely bunched, but the toner is now starting to act up, the last dying raspy breath of an office equipment consumable. When the toner light stays on, I have to jiggle the toner cartridge to reset the printer to beat some more prints out of it.

Paperless office

I have been in a lot of offices and I think the paperless office is a complete fantasy. I always need a printer located nearby, whether it's to print the list of twenty changes emailed to me by a client or to print out invoices to send to clients or even to print out invoices sent to me, for my upcoming tax return, I really need a printer.

I started looking around for both a drum and toner and it turns out that even though I only spent about eighty euros buying the printer in the first place (including drum and toner), to buy a replacement toner will cost the same again and a replacement drum will cost the same again!

So to revive my printer, I have to spend twice the amount I bought the printer for. The real joke? I can buy the updated version of the same printer, complete with toner and drum, for the same price as I originally bought the printer .

I completely understand the whole concept of the manufacturer making profit off consumables rather than the machine, it helps lower the initial cost of investment for the consumer, which suits me fine. What I don't understand is how a company can look at it's product range and consumables range and not see the obvious issue with one, of two, consumables costing the same as a new machine with consumables included.

A brief digression

What should also be noted is their weak excuse for this 'interesting' pricing structure. Usually a new printer comes with a toner and drum included. But they are usually a lower yield than the ones bought afresh, ie the included toner yields 2000 prints, whilst the bought toner yields 2500 prints. The reality is that it has taken me, like any other normal consumer, years, to go through 2000 prints. This will still not motivate me to go purchase a new set of consumables for this printer.

What next?

Unfortunately I need a printer, and soon. At the very least, I'd go purchase the same printer again and bring my old printer to the recycling centre. Perhaps some overly-eager person will pluck it from oblivion and try resurrect it- "it's a free printer (FREE!), all it needs is a new toner cartridge..."

Yes, enjoy that lemon.

I'm definitely swaying more towards this HP laser printer, simply because it's wireless. The toner cartridge is reasonable priced and I don't think I need to buy a separate drum unit.

I'm hopeful that the printer will last longer than the toner, so it's actually more economical to simply buy a new toner cartridge, but that definitely remains to be seen. 

Before I decided to do a new complete logo redesign for Pixelcode, I decided last summer to redo my website Pixelcode.ie, starting late in June 2010.

I began working on a revamp of the site that I already had, which quickly began to highlight the shortcomings of my initial logo and which ultimately lead to a logo redesign late in the year.

For the sake of posterity, the screenshot to the right is the example layout with a quickly assembled ‘further revision’ of my initial logo- I simply carried the pixellated text across. I hovered over this design for a long time; it’d be easier to carry the refined logo across and fit the design to the content that was on the site at the time.

In the end, that realisation that the logo was a large part of the problem kept coming forward and finally I had to put the website to one side and concentrate on working on a better logo and better branding, and then attack the website.

This story continues in a non-linear fashion in these past four blog posts. I must disclose that I actually restarted working on website designs during the rebranding until I realised how much of an act of sheer folly that was. An in-process design is on the left.

So after I finishing rebranding, I set back to work on some designs. I initially used a sketch-Illustrator process to work out the aesthetics of logos, background colours, gutters, padding, margins, placed images, layout of items, such as portfolio badges, etcetera. Cue a static-image equivalent of a movie montage, the collage.

After much fiddling around, I had an idea of how I wanted the site to look, but I was tired of using Illustrator so I decided to start work in HTML. I would normally try layer a site with textures and shadows to create depth, but for this project I actually wanted a simpler aesthetic. I am constantly telling clients that creating a website does not happen in a fixed-period of time, and that the work is finished once the website launches, so I am taking this approach for pixelcode.ie. The design is going to be constantly refined over time.

Population Control

So, my blank canvas (the basic design) was set up in HTML and I began populating the pages. A lot of stuff was brought over from the previous site but the following are some of the more significant changes-

I rewrote my Portfolio section, removing a lot of stuff I put in originally, which, in use, were pretty impractical and almost stopped me from updating the Portfolio (never a good thing).

I had a fairly text-heavy and involved Services page for both web design and contract design, but I stripped that back to a single page comprising of both- there was too much information but I will revisit and refine this at a later date, for sure.

The Newsblog remained pretty much the same as before, but I am planning on updating the Admin area with my newer blogging engine that I wrote for this site, allowing me luxuries such as pre-post previews.

I really simplified the Request for Proposal form, renaming it ‘Work with Us’. It’s so much easier when clients provide some basic information about a prospective project, a simpler form will hopefully encourage that participation.

Subtleties

A lot of the visual subtleties that I added are really very subtle. I decided to ‘sink’ the main logo using some inner glow, rather than have it floating above. 

I also used a lot of flat colours throughout the site- the background was flat red (#e12828), the content area was flat white (#ffffff), I used a light green background to highlight (#e3f6ee). Very close to the end, I knew I needed to do something more, so I chucked a checkerboard pattern (very subtle. Of course) onto all areas and I am happy to report it worked in many areas. On the left is a screenshot of the contact form where I put lots of different checkerboard patterns to use.

So, what now?

I still have lots to do, but on many levels. I have a few areas of the actual website that I want to develop further such as more case studies of past work and the services page. There are also areas of the site that are tied to separate projects that will come in their own time, for example, the Shop- it will use The Bleed Edge to take sales, but only after a redesign of The Bleed Edge (currently under way).

All of this work is exceptionally time-consuming. As anyone who has worked on their own project knows, being judge, jury and executioner all at the one time can lead to delays and conflicts along the way. I also always have a steady supply of client work to keep me very busy, something I am thankful and grateful for, so this kind of work usually gets done in my limited free time.

I do have a feeling though, that this won’t be the last blog post I write on this iteration of pixelcode.ie, but in the meantime, check out Pixelcode.ie and let me know what you think!

I’m so excited. I’ve actually got my art done for the upcoming Athy Art Group exhibition ahead of time! Well, what I really mean is that it’s not the night before (or morning of) the pieces are due to be hung. 

Thankfully I have a great framer who doesn’t need a huge amount of time to frame them. I always leave this stuff to the last minute and she does a brilliant job in the absolute minimum of time. For this I am eternally grateful.

I decided to do a combination of a hand-painted background colour wash with a screen printed design on top. I like the juxtaposition of rough, hand-done paint with sharp symmetrical designs. I did between three and four variation for each of the four designs. The photo above is showing the final four that I think I’ll be entering into the exhibition. I’ll make the final decision tonight before I drop them off to the framer.

A little hiatus turned into a large hiatus. Client work has gotten a lot busier in the last six weeks, leaving me with little time to finish the updates to both Pixelcode.ie and thebleededge.com. Both are coming soon, real soon.

In the meantime, there have been a few things of note, namely-

• Dribbble- Thanks to Liam Burke (@burkie) for sending me an invite to Dribbble, allowing me to post pieces of work which I am currently working on. The collage of images above are from my Dribbble account. Now I have to figure out the best way to stick Dribbble updates on this website automagically.
• PictureS- My father has taken to blogging like a duck to water. An accomplished oil painter, graphic designer, photographer and videographer has plenty of quality content to contribute- check out his YouTube tutorials here. I'll have to go update my About page shortly.
• JoyceByrne.ie- My wife has been taking portrait photographs for quite a while now, we finished her new website a few months ago, complete with gallery and blog. Do check it out.
• Athy Art Group Annual Exhibition- next week the Athy Art Group hosts their 33rd Annual Art Exhibition in Athy. As chairperson, I have a list as long as my arm, of tasks to complete before next Tuesday. I also have to complete my own art to exhibit.

I'll be back sooner rather than later (I hope) with a new blog post/tutorial, which is half-finished.

Like so many things.

 

I've had to take a little hiatus from blogging as I'm scrambling to finish the latest version of the Pixelcode website. All my writing time is taken up with website content. As I'm sure anyone who has had to write promotional copy about their own business will tell you, it's not an easy job. In fact, it can be a nightmare at times.

I'm hoping to do a tutorial as my next post, you should follow me on Twitter or subscribe to the RSS feed to be kept informed of new posts.