doug barned - design for print and web - blog

= Here!

That’s right, I’ve got my first product in the shops… Actually on shelves! In an Apple store of all stores! Exciting times

(more…)

Time for a change?

As mentioned in my last post, for some time now I’ve had a new design in mind for this site. It’s current state has been around since around September ’08, so I’m itching for a change. The current design was devised in an attempt to create a stylish, professional looking frame for displaying my work. I was looking to better my career at the time and was determined to have a fully functional online portfolio in a finished state (for the first time since my university project, Design by BlueCow). The gradients were intended to draw the eye toward the content, whilst the grey colour scheme was to allow the coloured images of my work speak the loudest, helping the information hierarchy – and a bit of colour on a grey canvas always looks good and grabs attention.

(more…)

Many many months, a few haircuts, and a new job later, I’m back! Yes, I’ve been a busy boy… And what better day to start getting back into my blogging habit than the strangest day of 2010 – 110110, which has a lovely binary ring to it. Strangest until October 10^th anyway. (Not that I had built up much of a habit, but I was working on it )

I spent a lot of 2009 wishing to work for people I liked, creating work that I was proud of. I was searching for an opportunity to design, be creative, and develop my skill. I was lucky enough to get this opportunity! Since late September ’09 I have been working as the principle print designer at Mac games publisher, Feral Interactive. In this role I am now responsible for the design and artworking of all printed items and the odd digital/web work. This includes corporate and consumer marketing pieces, e-newsletters, sales brochures, DVD labels, sleeves and boxes, disk icons, folder backgrounds and the occasional in-game graphic or screen. If you’re an owner of the recently released BioShock port, or are a fan of MacFormat, then you may have seen some of my work already. I’m thoroughly looking forward to the release of the first title I’ve been involved heavily with, Rome: Total War – it will be a real thrill to see a product I’ve worked on ‘in the wild’, so to speak.

(more…)

Whilst the sun has decided to shine on the UK at last, all it seems to have done for me is make me a little less comfortable in my chair at work, instilled a yearning to go outside, and made me a little more sleepy.

(more…)

Sorry to any readers for the lack of new content! I’ve had a lot on recently and have let my blogging, tweeting and general web presence slip a bit…

I’m a day away from a week long break, after which I hope to achieve a long list of things. These include:

• Writing some posts about useful things I’ve found and learnt.
• Re-building my freelance site using WordPress for the back-end.
• Getting up-to-date with admin.
• Getting approval on an improved website (previously mentioned).
• Contacting existing clients.
• Following up leads.
• Investigate post-grad certificate.

(more…)

I was recently privileged enough to attend the edgeofmyseat.com HTML and CSS training courses, offering me a chance to pick the brains of some of the webs ‘go-to guys’, Drew McLellan and Rachel Andrew.

(more…)

So, I have finally given in and signed up to another social networking tool. Twitter.

After leaving my Myspace account to rot, and barely touching Facebook since registering, I feel I’m not really the social network entrepreneur’s target customer…

(more…)

All across London, a white sheet fell and halted day-to-day life. For the first time in a long time we have heavy snowfall! In fact, the heaviest snowfall for 18 years.

(more…)

As mentioned in my previous post, Push Forward, I have the opportunity to make some vast improvements to the structure and coding of a new website that my employers are launching. Unfortunately, I’ve been instructed to complete the site as it is first, and worry about this stuff later – mainly due (I think) to the people in charge’s lack of understanding surrounding the advantages of designing and building to web standards.

I have therefore been scouring the Internet for ammunition to backup my argument when the time comes to put my case forward. There are a lot of useful articles out there, but for my purpose, this short presentation from boagworld.com sums it up excellently:

(more…)

So, we are now well into the year 2009.

Unfortunately my aim to finish this and my freelance site over the Christmas holiday period was thwarted by the flu pandemic which seems to of hit the majority of the UK. However, all is not lost! I have now got my freelance site, design-is.co.uk, to a stage where I’m happy enough to push forward and get some stationery printed up and flyers/business cards handed out.

(more…)