Alright. My blog posts have been either negatively focused and/or so spread out that I want to give away something I’ve been using for years. Three very basic paper photoshop brushes.

I made these simply by crumpling up some boring office paper and scanning them. That’s it.

and…

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When Gavin and I launched his website I remember saying to myself “no one in their right mind would steal this site”. I said this even after my own site had been ripped off five times.

Let me run Gavin Castleton’s site by you in case you’re new:

We busted our chops to make this completely original. Special.

We think it is pretty cool, and clearly James “Triple Threat” Choma at Iceburg Productions in Florida thought so too. From his portfolio description for SouthsideTattoo.net

If you are looking for a unique website, this is one to check out! This client said that they were interested in Vampires and Skulls to showcase their tattoo shop. Using Jquery tools we were able to build this unique side-scrolling website, complete with a Lightbox photo gallery.

Have a look:

"By" Iceburg Productions

While I luckily can’t claim responsibility for the vampires and skulls I will give myself props for the “unique website” part. Graphics aside: Gavin and I spent months making his site an original experience to complement his very original new album Home. Sure some of my graphics/css are still being used, but the framework/layout/concept that was labored over (with some freely available javascript mind you) is very much intact.

But they blew it: the two halves of gavincastleton.com are clearly symbolic. Divided. A split-screen. Sure it is fine to slide back and forth and look to look at a totally sweet piercing, but where is the heart behind that? Gavin’s got it. Literally.

Let’s compare “inner” pages:

and

Through the wonder of Google (gavincastleton.com search) I found that page titles on the iframe popups hadn’t been changed from GavinCastleton.com: http://www.southsidetattoos.net/faqs/piercing-q3.html. It is amazing that laziness in THEFT (keep in mind, you’re already way lazy for stealing someone’s work in the first place) caused me to find out about this. Just like it did for Optimum Design.

Should I start building my sites in Flash again? Should people stop being lazy and completely unethical? Neither one of those is going to happen, but something has to. I’m not sure I can handle the theft of another design.

There’s a chance that i might actually blog more. From a phone.

Blackout: I love it, but I’m setting it free…

As much as I fear seeing this font pop up in unexpected places, I’m equally excited about that same concept. For the time-being, this font (and corresponding files) will remain on sursly.com (and only there). As I develop Blackout further I will update this post and link to the latest version (wherever it may be), but for the time being: get it while it’s hottt

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This one stings a bit.

Luckily my design wasn’t stolen (that would make the 6th time this year) but everything else was: including my Google Analytics code. And maybe that is why it stings a bit, because I saw “optimum design” in my keywords report (for a few months now) but thought nothing of it. I shrugged it off because I also saw “movie bird poo makes boy invisible” in my keywords too…

But back to NYC-based Optimum Design & Consulting. Given their “design” I’m wishing they had copied my graphics, too, but oh well. Several people that I’ve shown this too have noticed that the site has a rather large blurb (under “resources”) on copyrighting. Here’s the opening paragraph:

“In today’s tough business climate, there has been a disturbing trend among professionals in the commercial visual arts to sidestep the issue of copyrights. In part, designers and illustrators are becoming reluctant to raise the issue of copyright in the fear losing clients. Ignorance of he concept of copyrights among young or inexperienced designers and illustrators is also a factor. Unfortunately, this situation contributes to the erosion of creative rights and the loss of income for the entire visual arts community.”

Learn more about Optimum Design & Consulting’s stance on Copyrighting here. If you view it on “their” site it will popup in a sweet HighSlide box.

This post isn’t to trash Lara and Rebecca (of OD&C) and despite the ridiculousness above I wish them well in business, especially these days. That being said, there is a larger issue here that I’ve really only touched upon quickly in a previous blog post, on Twitter and now a somewhat permanent footer message on my site. The offenders (below) haven’t stolen clients from me, or cost me business, or made any personal attacks other than taking my work (and sometimes, taking credit for it). But apparently this is happening to designers everywhere.

Aside from the Google insight above (and the first site rip by Gurdeep) all of these have been brought to my attention by other people, either on Twitter or email. The first few were somewhat flattering and since the rippers were so far removed (outside the US) I wasn’t particularly bothered. But when I saw that Jason (below) not only graduated from the same college as me but also works in the same city as me (designing, no less) I was appalled. And very surprised.

So I sent gentle emails to everone requesting that they remove my graphics/content. Some of them complied (see for yourself, I’m linking to the sites that originally had the rip). Others didn’t (I’m looking at you, Nazmul). Let’s take a look at the “bio” page for each of these. Read the rest of this entry »

…several people took everything BUT the font. Like my whole site.

I’ll keep this post really short, since these sit rips are becoming more common and less cool/flattering. In the past two months I’ve seen four identical versions of my site (but with my name/stats/work swapped out with theirs) and one that I have a hunch started as a copy/paste of my site, but luckily with original imagery (which almost stings more, but eh)…as of 5 minutes ago, the only site that still stands is this: http://www.nazmulalam.com/delta/

Look familiar?

I’ll post screenshots soon since three of the four (five?) offenders have removed “my” site. One even responded to my email (which has awesomely been replaced with this: http://gurdeepubhi.com ). I guess I’m writing this up now because I’m working on two sites which will launch soon that, in my opinion, are cooler than sursly.com. So I’m expecting them to get ripped.

They’re both 1-pagers and though they don’t use the same lead-through method that my current site does, they do everything else better/cooler.

Back to finishing the first of the two…

I’m not sure if I’m calling this throwback because it is a sweet repeating background image (center it, yo), because it is plaid or because I made it a long time ago. It used to be the background of my previous one-page site but since I’m not using it.
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A few hours after I wrote the previous blog post last night my bike was stolen. It was a rad, lime Nishiki Manitoba that my grandparents bought me as a birthday present over 15 years ago. It was like, the first 21 speed I had ever heard of at the time. I’ve biked it all over the place, including the Trek Across Maine, but it has also taken me to and from work for the past four months…

Long story short: I’m internally raging at what has happened, and I think the only thing keeping it internal is the new music from Gavin (hence the follow-up, hear: Coffeelocks) and sweet mix CD that Karen gave me.

Gosh.

OK ppl, really: http://www.gavincastleton.com

I don’t think he’ll mind that I’m borrowing this sweet banner (I’ll give it back). The point is: you’ll love what you’ll hear.

I’m pretty sure I had his Hypoteneuse album on repeat for the entire month I was in India, which either kept me sane or made me miss New England like crazy, but I’ve been hooked since the Gruvis Malt days. I can’t believe I took this video 6 years ago (wow):

A Heart Transplant You Could Afford

So he is/was the keyboardist for that band (sorry for the Worst Audio & Video Ever), who consistently provided the best live shows I’ve ever attended. But this is now, solo (not one of his songs, but it has GavCaz written all over it):

Big things coming, whether he likes it or not. His new album sounds ridiculously unique, and progressive even for him. Check out the other videos he has on that YouTube page.

If you want to listen to MY favorite work of his, check out A Bullet, A Lever, A Key, which chronicles his prospective life (in reverse) if he were to give up music NOW. It starts (or ends) with his suicide in a hotel room (2054) and moves back to 2007, when he ditches music for a more “normal” live. The track titles are years (as mentioned above) and narrative…and beautiful. 2054 is one of my favorite songs ever written. Enjoy.

On this blog re-design, whether or not I should renew my Flickr pro account, if we should suck it up and buy Mario Kart (wii) online, packing lunches for work…the usual. Oh, and the whole: what happens in 6 months when it is time to move, again. Do we stay in Ithaca/New York? Is it possible to continue to work at AWP if we DO move? Do I buy some land and start farming? Have another kid? Steal the beer jar money from work (probably at 85 cents) and buy a corner store cookie?

2009 is already daunting, but for some reason I’m not letting it get me down. In fact, I’m almost up for every one of those odd questions/challenges. I probably won’t start farming, and if I want to we could try with that .025 acre we have in Ohio (snap).  Maybe this has something to do with being able to just deal with stuff:

My little 3.5 year-old is tons of fun. Aside from the midnight/morning visits he provides pretty regularly: this age rocks. If that doesn’t explain my attitude than it could be Obama. Dfntly.

Oh, 2009 will be the year I give more stuff away, too. Including free websites and logos to non-profits. Yes. More on that later…