vbrunetti.com (2010 update)

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Giving a linkup to my boy Victor’s impressive 2010 portfolio redesign. I first linked up to Victor’s site in 2007 while I was working at Schematic. Two weeks after my linkup, by sheer coincidence, he’s interviewing with my design team and gets hired. Fast forward 3 years and we’re good friends and working together at Roundarch.
So what’s so impressive about this redesign?
Well Vic has managed to tame the beast that is @font-face so you should see custom fonts throughout the site for all the headers, titles and global nav. Mind you it’s real HTML text, and it’s not being rendered with sIFR.
In addition, he’s unified his blog and portfolio on a custom install of WordPress. Sure, this trend might not be new, but he’s taken the time to treat every section of his site differently, in a way that’s appropriate for the content type so the only section that feels like a blog is the actual blog section. A lot of big agencies haven’t even gone that far with their own sites.
…and, he’s also working on some great generative art experiments in Flash.
Big ups.

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Adobe Needs Their Own Phone

I’ve been reading, thinking and talking a lot about the iPhone and iPad and their lack of Adobe Flash. My problem, as always, is that I see both sides of the argument.

The Argument Against Flash

First, I see Jobs’ point of view – Flash is processor hog, buggy and hasn’t been optimized for mobile devices. I also can’t think of one Flash site that would work well when viewed on my iPhone. Youtube helped Apple launch a ‘Flashless’ video application for the iPhone in 2007 so the most popular place for online video was covered from the start.
The other online content not viewable on the iPhone is Flash games, and there are a lot of them. But to that I say native iPhone games are far superior to Flash games. They take advantage of all the native hooks and hardware that Flash games can’t like accelerometers, multi-touch, and OpenGL.
For the past 2 years of owning an iPhone I’ve never had one instance of wishing I had Flash installed. The way I use my iPhone is much different that how I use my MacBook Pro. Obviously Apple has shaped what I view to be a ‘superior’ mobile web experience, but I would argue that even if Flash were installed in Safari from the start, I wouldn’t be trying to view rich, Flash film sites or FWA winners.
The plug-in, a group to which Flash and Java belong, is dead as far as mobile web browsers. Sure, Flash 10.1 is coming to Android, but it’s still not going to be included on the upcoming Windows Phone 7 Series. Flash is actually not on very many mobile units at all (If you want a good laugh, see the amazing non-smart phones that support Flash Lite on Adobe’s site).

What Mikey’s Missing

Now as much as I might not want Flash on my iPhone, I’m also an interactive designer and developer. For the last 11 years, Flash has let me create websites that combine time, sound and motion that ultimately result in an emotional reaction and connection with the viewer. You can’t achieve this with just HTML and CSS (even if you add in JavaScript).
So now that Apple has kneecapped me, making it impossible to create immersive experiences without learning how to use their SDK, what am I do to? The whole beauty of Flash was that it let inexperienced designers create interactive animations, interfaces and applications without having to get a PhD in computer science.

Enter the Adobe Phone

This is the logical next step for Adobe. Over the years, they’ve gradually been giving Flash more and more robust functionality, expanding out from the mere animation realm and into the world of 3-D environments and applications (through Flex and AIR)
Why would Apple ever in their right mind allow Adobe onto their iPhone and continue on this trajectory?
Adobe wants people to continue to make Flash applications and Flash games and be able to deliver them via the web to as many people as possible – and they should, but if they want to see this dream become a reality, they’re going to need to build their own phone.
Over 28 years later, The words of Alan Kay are ringing more true than ever:

Remember, it’s all software, it just depends on when you crystallize it …People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.

Alan Kay, Creative Think (computer industry seminar), 1982
We’re seeing this with all the major mobile players now – even Microsoft is cracking down on how customizable their new mobile OS is, and how particular the hardware requirements are.
I don’t know about you, but I can picture the Adobe Phone. It’s a phone that lets Flash have complete access to all levels of the unit, runs smooth, fast and doesn’t drain resources because it has no longer been relegated to a mere plug-in.
The Adobe Phone would also let interactive designers like me design, test and deploy our creations without application submissions and approval processes. I’ve been doing it for years on my own as a web designer with an FTP program and web browser. It shouldn’t be any different for mobile phones.
Apple has proven when you build a great platform, great things are possible from the community that adopts it. Adobe should know this first hand from the millions of people who create amazing games, applications and experiences with Flash – why not leverage that community on their own phone with their own platform?
The solution to the problem lies within the problem itself. Adobe, you don’t need the iPhone or the iPad to be a success. Make your own platform. Make your own phone. It could really be awesome.

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Intel, Nokia, and their majestic Unicorn

“Trust me guys – it’s going to be AWESOME.”
Problem is, when you make statements like that, ‘it’ usually doesn’t end up that awesome.
‘It’ usually never gets made, or ‘it’ just ends up a piece of crap.
It’s essentially what Intel & Nokia announced in a press release on Intel’s website on their new alliance – Intel and Nokia Announce Strategic Relationship to Shape Next Era of Mobile Computing Innovation.

“This Intel and Nokia collaboration unites and focuses many of the brightest computing and communications minds in the world, and will ultimately deliver open and standards-based technologies, which history shows drive rapid innovation, adoption and consumer choice,” said Anand Chandrasekher, Intel Corporation senior vice president and general manager, Ultra Mobility Group. “With the convergence of the Internet and mobility as the team’s only barrier, I can only imagine the innovation that will come out of our unique relationship with Nokia. The possibilities are endless.”

Of course the possibilities are endless. All the big wigs at Intel and Nokia probably had some great brainstorming sessions on “the possibilities” – imagining all sorts of Minority Report gadgets that can communicate in any medium and control everything from your television to your car to your house, ‘with a push of a button’.
My brother Mark coined a term for this behavior of announcing something you eagerly want and have every intention of doing, but haven’t done – Chimera’s Lens. He introduced this to me many years ago when he asked me, “Imagine something funny …….see? Isn’t that funny?”
This is the same thing as saying “Picture the best mobile device… like, uh, picture something even better than the best mobile phone…. how fucking cool is that?”.
Microsoft is also having a bitch of a time launching real operating system updates, but they had no problem envisioned the year 2019:
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Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, Apple continues on it’s upward track of success with the very real iPhone and the new paradigm of mobile software and mobile commerce they created – despite numerous blasts from the media over the years on their evil secrecy. The New York Times just published a new article titled, “Apple’s Obsession With Secrecy Grows Stronger“.
Nokia and Intel would benefit greatly by adopting some of this ‘secrecy’. It doesn’t even have to be secrecy, it could simply be keeping their mouths shut until that have something built to show off. This is what most of the media are referring to when they say ‘secrecy’.
The media doesn’t mind when no-name companies keep their product development under wraps do they? They don’t mind because a lot of no-name companies produce garbage.
Until Nokia and Intel actually produce some game-changing software or hardware products, their press release is really quite pointless.
UPDATE: What I forgot to mention on the positive note is I’m loving the fact that they’ve decided to use Linux Mobile as the software platform.

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Career, Technology

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stop crying about it and let it go

As someone who graduated from a very tough design program, Jack Moffett’s advice on disowning design rings true:

It can be devastating to have a project that you spent a lot of time on and thought was decent be ripped to shreds by your professor and peers. It is, however, a necessary experience. One must not only learn to accept it, but embrace it—welcome it, knowing that it will make the end result better. To do this, you have to disown the work, and see it as something other than yours.

On a slightly exaggerated level it calls to mind Alec Baldwin’s epic scene in Glengarry Glen Ross:

You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you cocksucker? You can’t take this — how can you take the abuse you get on a sit?! You don’t like it — leave.

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Career, Education, Words

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passive learning

When ideas do happen, it is not by accident. What separates creative people who make their ideas happen from the constant dreamers? Perhaps we all have an obligation to show our ideas some respect. Behance is partnering with Cool Hunting to host “99%”: a conference that focuses less on inspiration, and more on how idea generation and organization come together to make ideas happen.

– from the 99% Conference

As much as I think some conferences are important to go to, I can’t go to them all.
I learned about the 99% Conference only a few days ago. It looked interesting – although I wasn’t down for $490 per ticket (whether or not my company was paying).
The good news is we have people like Tina Roth Eisenberg always online and in attendance at these events. Now I can grab some of the nuggets of knowledge she mined and posted:
99% | Cheryl Dorsey
99% | Ji Lee
99% | Seth Godin

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Career, Words

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treat it like your first song

Well,
I’m just trying to stay above water,
you know?
Stay busy, stay working
I was telling you like,
the key to this joint,
the key to staying on top of things
Is to treat everything like it’s your first project
Know what I’m saying?
Like it’s your first day,
like I wasn’t even an intern or nothing
That’s how you try to treat things, like
Just stay Humble
– Notorious B.I.G from My First Song by Jay Z

As a part of the annual review process, the company I work for, Roundarch, requires everyone to collect a bunch of things – updated resumes, bios, project reviews and a one pager.
When I first heard about the one pager, I thought it was stupid. It’s a 1-page powerpoint slide containing a full page design/illustration that represents you. It’s not a bio. It’s supposed to be more visual and creative. Some people treat it like a scrapbook, some make it a parody of something else. Some feature more outside-of-work interests and some feature more work-related content.
The whole point of the one pager is to have something projected in front of the managers and VPs when they conduct your annual review.
I so decided to drop the attitude and have some fun with my one pager. This isn’t a first impression since I’ve been working for Roundarch for over 6 months, but it’s an impression none-the-less so I didn’t want to half ass it. I should treat this like a real project. I should treat it like my ‘first song’.
I choose the parody route for my one pager.
I chose to make myself a Transformer.
Like design, a good parody is all about the details.
I also decided to deliberately break the rules for my one pager and make it a two pager. I think you’ll agree it was a crucial part of the equation (click on the images for full size versions):

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For those Photoshop-savy people out there, you’ll see how handy the Multiply layer effect is for things like Tech Spec decoders.

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Career

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Good question, I don’t know

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My colleague Victor just wrote a great post.
From his post:

What is the service this site is providing me – or to put it another way – what’s in it for me (other than a way to waste 10 minutes of my day)?

It’s important to answer that question before your client does.
We all have to make a living, no one likes to turn down interesting work and I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t know Flash and HTML….
…but – that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t question the type of interactive work we’re producing.
Why Does This Site Exist?

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Career, Education

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interview time

So my geeky ass was interviewed on Level3 Hosting’s Red Couch at this year’s Phizzpop competition in Chicago in which the company I work for, Roundarch, was one of the competing teams.

Ok, so I need more practice with my speaking skills (Pound a beer every time I say ‘ya know’).

Michael Mulvey on Level3 Hosting's Red Couch, Phizzpop Chicago Here’s the interview with me

(Window Media format, sorry) and here is the page of all the interviews, including my one with my boss, Jeff Maling.