Seb Lee-Delisle

Seb Lee is a programmer that began his journey as a Flash developer, he now specialises in Javascript and ‘creative coding’. He runs workshops across the country for Javascript training - his website for this is CreativeJS.

Here’s his official ‘about’ - Seb Lee-Delisle is an internationally recognised creative coder specialising in large scale installations. Whether building digital interactive fireworks displays or glow-stick voting systems, his work uses technology to bring people together in fun and exciting ways. He also produces creative visual effects for websites, games and apps in many programming languages and platforms.

He loves sharing the creativity of code with artists and programmers alike using physics, motion detection, 3D and particle systems. His work has pushed the boundaries of what is possible both on and off the web, and won two BAFTAs with Plug-in Media, the agency he co-founded in 2004.

I learnt the most from Seb Lee out as I understand Javascript to look at and its individual elements but writing my own scripts is another matter - to have someone talk through creating a particle generator was really beneficial and I understood everything written. I am now working with the code example he produced to create other types of particles and to try and better understand the math involved. 

He’s a genius and pretty inspiring - His website contains loads of great tutorials at sebleedelisle.com. I hope to integrate Javascript object manipulation into the Interactivity brief to create some kind of interactive story website or game - this will aid my understanding of Javascript and hopefully give me the solid understanding I’ve been looking for for the last year… I’m currently reading Javascript, mySQL and PHP - the basics and I’ve read the whole of Javascript ‘the missing manual’ (how very apt) but to no avail - I can now just understand what the code does and means but not actually write longer scripts (not that actually work).

This is why Seb Lee is such a good teacher - he writes code in the most simple form and can tell you exactly why it works and does what it does. Fixing something when you’re not 100% why its broken is pretty hard so perhaps one day I’ll save up and attend one of his training workshops. 

Paul Bunkham

Paul Bunkhams talk was probably the most relevant to me in regard to content as he’s a programmer and technology enthusiast. He runs the Wordpress user group which I had already heard of but didn’t know he was a part of it…here’s a little snippet of what WP Brighton is about…

“Want to do better business online? WP-Brighton is a special event in the Brighton Digital Festival calendar, aimed at creating profitable connections between businesses and web professionals.”

In case anyones interested the next meeting is apparently around the 16th November.

He talked about the many different jobs he’d had in programming, software development and game creation, he’s obviously a genius and I found him really inspiring. I’m aware that I am not a genius and therefore will never be able to program or work like him, but it’s made me really want to try.

I don’t want to be a developer because I can’t even look at ruby on rails and I’m just not that good at maths or phrasing - so I spoke to Paul about what skills he thought I needed to become a web designer. 

He said he felt that a keen eye for design was the single most important thing, without even the need for coding at all. I seem to have focused so much on learning how to code and best practices over the last two years, I’ve almost forgotten to keep designing. Print graphics and design inspire the web massively - it’s like a dynamic and interactive book - the same fundamentals of ‘good’ design still apply. I need to remember this and keep up working as a designer and artist and not just get stuck looking at code just because it’s new and exciting. 

To contradict myself here I’ll now go on to discuss the most interesting element of programming and design that Paul Bunkham spoke about - parallax scrolling. 

I’ve been working on cracking this for a while using a jQuery plug in - it’s one of the best things I’ve seen on the web - I’m a little bit in love with it.

This is parallax scrolling - http://www.nikebetterworld.com/ or http://www.pro-foods.com  

Another point of interest was about canvasing in HTML5. It’s mad, but I’d love to try and create a moving particle interface or page using this technology. I also wrote next to this that I need to look into what three.js is…so I guess I’ll do that.

All in all, I’m looking forward to meeting Paul again and learning more about how he got to where he is, how I can improve, and (hopefully) enhance my skill set, in order to gain employment after this year. 

Mike Blow

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Guest Speaker // Professional Practice 20/10/11

 
Mike Blow is a sound artist, lecturer and arts technician. Projects he has worked on include ‘The Whispers’ for Christian Boltanski in the 2008 Folkestone Triennale, ‘Machines for Singing’, an architectural sound installation, and a projection project for Mark Power of Magnum photos, using 8mm film projected into a water tank with computer-controlled air bubbles. He is currently working on his own sound-based pieces and collaborating with other artists to make 3-dimensional circuit-bending instruments and light to sound units. Mike plays guitar with experimental band Spacedog and lectures in Digital Art at Brighton University.
 
Mike is currently undertaking PhD research with the Sonic Art Research Unit at Oxford Brookes University, his Thesis Title: The Perceptual Interaction of Objects and Sounds.
 
Check Mike out with these links:
 http://oxfordbrookes.academia.edu/MikeBlow 
 http://www.blankstudios.org/artists/mike_blow.php 
 
A visiting speaker on our course on Thursday 20th Oct, Mike introduced us to physical computing, the incorporation of sound and interactivity and the various creative applications of a computer once the keyboard and mouse have been removed from the scene.
 
We were given the opportunity to view several pieces of Mikes work as he projected short movies of installations and exhibitions he has created.

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Points Brighton - Networking & Speaker Event

I attended ‘Points’ this week, a web developer and design event held at the Media Centre.

Speakers included Paul Davis an avid developer/designer up for young developer of the year award. He spoke about useful Wordpress requests /code and why you should try not to use plug-ins. The later part of the speech was about LESS, I’ve heard of LESS before and been recommended it but never really understood the benefits - perhaps I’ll give it a go and see if it can help me write quicker (and better) code. 

The next talk was really interesting - about the golden ratio/rule (I just wrote down it’s apparently represented in maths like phi = 1.618…mad) - Interesting things that use the Golden Ratio are the twitter layout and the apple logo. The talk was by Alex Sexton who’s studied Geology and spent a large amount of time looking and shells and nature - he now applies mathematic rules (and logic) to design and the web. He also covered the Fibonacci Scale which proved interesting, he applied the rule to type sizing.

Kris Noble spoke about Frameworks and how and when to use them. Considering I use jQuery and MooTools it was definitely useful, also made me realise I could never be a developer - I also learnt a few new tricks 

Anthony Killen was the last speaker, he designs out of passion rather than for his day job which is quite inspiring. He spoke about the importance of local meetups within the design community etc and to be honest, I think it is really important - especially at this stage (university) because you can get so much more than just a degree: gain useful tips and knowledge from real people not just the internet.

There was also a lovely raffle - not really done many raffles before but half the proceeds went to charity and the rest to the speakers  all the proceeds went to charity so I thought it’d be a good and proper thing to do - I only went and won a prize! A years hosting which is absolutely brilliant!

Thanks to Mike Street who organised the event and to all the speakers. You can find them here kris, mike, alex, anthony 

Find Points Brighton on Twitter

Sarah Bird - Guest Lecturer

Sarah Bird is an animator come photographer and has a wealth of experience in industry varying from Cartoon Network and Google to the Discovery Channel. I found her presence calming, she is honest, realistic and her advice; invaluable. 

She didn’t conform and hype the hype - she was honest and spoke of how times are hard now and we need to be aware of that, pull in other skills we may not normally use or develop. Style versatility is now favourable whereas before it may have worked to a designers benefit to have a certain style or flair, along the same route it’s perhaps now better to have a wider range of skills rather than a narrower more well developed skill set. 

I don’t know how old Sarah is, but you can tell she’s worked hard and got involved in everything she can - hence why she’s had such great jobs and opportunities. She owns her own business in Brighton (AnimNation) and has helped run/organise events such as BANG and White Nights. 

As a freelancer her words sound really familiar of every book or article I’ve ever read about working/living/surviving as a freelancer. Getting tax right is really important, setting up as a LTD company is beneficial, and getting an accountant is a must. I personally am excited to experience the challenge and danger of being Freelance - although I think I’d struggle with cabin fever and the lack of talking.

The thing I came away most inspired to do was sort out my print portfolio and digital samples (CDs) of work. I have job opportunities that I need to follow up and the reason I don’t is because somewhere in the back of my mind I know I need to reorganise/reprint everything so that I’m happy with it.

Time VS/OR Money - I don’t know what one’s worse right now but I know don’t have either.

Thanks to Sarah for coming in to talk and for thinking of a really useful/relevant presentation/talk

You can find Sarah Birds Animation company here 

Professional Development

Right, I’m meant to be developing myself in a professional way…I’m guessing this applies to developing contact lists, work ethic/effort and other interesting ways that could/would/should improve me as a person and worker, aswell as the work I produce.

I look at this brief - and am unsure how to start. I have a contact list, I have a website, I network. I now need to document this.

I’ll start by saying I’m going to Points Brighton on Thursday - an informal event for digital enthusiasts etc. The event is run by Mike Street from BozBoz which is how I heard about the event via Twitter - this proves twitter is useful and interesting (Kind of…)

It also helps show how I end up Networking - The twittesphere is small, especially in regard to design. Everyone follows everyone - it’s a definate positive. In regard to networking and breaking the ice - twitter is great. There is no ice in 140 characters. The feedback I gain is always useful and I always take it on board - I’ve spoken to a lot of great designers and programmers that I otherwise wouldn’t be in touch with.

Dissertation Idea

Paradoxes of privacy in Western Digital Culture and the relationship between techno-anxiety & the rejection of Digital development.