Dudebox Launch!

Yesterday, a site that I really admire called Dudebox made their launch. I first found about Dudebox when their web developer contacted me regarding the Hipster theme, which they are using for their site.

Dudebox, as they put in their own words, “is a team of fanatics on a mission.” On their blog, they feature really talented artists from around the world and showcase some of the coolest vinyl toys I’ve ever seen. They also hold cool competitions for designers and artists.

I gotta say, it’s the best implementation of Hipster I’ve seen so far. It’s also exactly the kind of niche market that I was hoping Hipster would be used for.

It’s super-cool to see my theme being used as a showcase of amazing artists, and by a group of really cool individuals. Best of luck Dudebox, and looking forward to your shop launch in 2012!

Vectortuts Peer Review Part: 2

Yay!! Vectortuts put my drawing up for peer review! \(^0^)/

I’m really looking forward to reading what people have to say. Thank you so much Vectortuts, you guys rule!

Vectortuts Peer Review

Today I was browsing through Vectortuts and came across this article. “What a great idea!” I thought, and I decided to man up and submit the ‘spiderdog’ vector illustration that I made for peer review. I was a little hesitant at first because I thought maybe they’d tear it apart, but hey, how else are you going to learn right? I just hope it’s not too late for the awesome folks at Vectortuts to look over it.

The spider-dog thing all started from a skateboard that we made at work (at Shopify we have design challenges, and this one was to make a cool skateboard deck). I’m not sure how it all started but I thought having a dog with multiple eyes was a cool eye-dea (SEE WHAT I DID THERE). Also, Burger King is awesome.

After I was done with the skateboard, I was pretty happy with the result so I decided to take a picture and vectorize it. It was a good exercise for getting more familiar with the pen tool. It was also nice because I learned more how to use the Pathfinder tools.

New Design (Now with Responsive Goodness!)

A few months ago I stumbled across this awesome book called Responsive Web Design. No lies, this book seriously changed my life. It changed the way I looked at websites, and I was absolutely fascinated by the way media queries and responsive web sites work. I found myself looking at responsive websites and resizing the browser window for hours on end seeing how the site adjusted to the viewport size.

That’s why I spent the last month or so working on a responsive web site that I could call my own. At the same time I decided to ‘re-brand’ my site to “tetchi” (my nickname since I was a kid) because it sounds way more wicked than “tetsutakara”. Today, I’m releasing my responsive web site out in the wild!

I’m currently working on a boilerplate for Shopify, which is based off of the excellent HTML5 Boilerplate. The goal is to make it easier for Shopify theme authors to start building a theme from scratch. I then plan on building a super-basic theme with it and an up-to-date “How to build a theme from scratch” screencast for it.

Anyway, hope my first responsive website works as it should. Please leave a comment if it looks funky on your device!

PS: I may have lost some recent comments as I transitioned to this new site… sorry! Please leave another comment and I’ll try to get back to you.