I’m so happy to announce I was finally invited to Dribbble this evening, thanks to the awesome Elizabeth Vornbrock!!! Check out my debut shot here (likes are awesome!), I’ll be posting much more interesting stuff and probably a few rebounds soon 
– really though I’m so so excited and buzzing from finally being invited!!!
Some awesome announcements over at http://www.melonade.co probably due at the end of this week or the week after… 
Yes, I said I’d update the blog more often this year, so here is a list of my excuses…
So yes, I apologise for the lack of updates here, and may as well leave you with a screenshot of an idea for part of 140′s upcoming webpage (super mega unfinished, and there will be actual times)!
Expect proper updates in a bit… or at least some more info on melonade.co – and do follow Seb’s blog!
2012 was a totally fantastic year, but now the whole world’s moved into 2013, and as always, this is going to be the best year ever!
Expect loads of much more frequent posts from me, surprises, and the hopeful release of 140! It’s a huge year academically but I’ll be squeezing in whatever video/designy/appy awesomeness where I can
So just to say thanks to everyone who’s been reading my blog in this first year, even though it’s mainly been rather an irregular, jumbled up assortment of randomness!
Have a very merry Christmas, and I’ll be back in the new year (a year in which I will post way more)!!!
I’m adding a new feature to 140, a feature that was already there. But better. If you want, you’ll be able to hide everything for even more tweet-authoring awesomeness! There’s still a little bit of a character length indicator with the subtle progress bar at the top of the screen, but the iconic character counter is gone. This bar should change blue the instant the tweet hits exactly 140 characters. I hope this will let even the most distracted of tweeters make sure they’re sending a masterpiece every time. Anyway, first I need to get much closer to finishing this thing.
…and what’s that there? – you’re right, I’ve sorta finalised the icon! Keeping it simple and showing off a very twittery blue.
Until the next time!
EDIT (05/12/12) – Zen mode is now fully implemented and tested, but I decided it would simply BE the landscape view, removing the need for a setting. This is also entirely logical as the keyboard takes up more relative space in landscape. I’ve added some nice touches to the progress bar, which only shows in landscape, it goes blue when the 140 character limit is exactly reached and red thereafter
Saw this really nice concept on dribbble earlier tonight, and felt compelled to make my own concept Skype login window!
I wanted it to look really cute and simple, attempting to improve on Alexandre Naud‘s already great design. I also thought that it should be less gradient-heavy, inline with Microsoft’s Modern UI, whilst still exhibiting a softer look. The result is below – goodnight
I’d love to share with you some more new features I’m building into 140, my debut Windows Phone app, so here’s a mid-development banner!
As you may have noticed from my previous post, I wanted to include more than just the completely focused experience, also providing some useful tools but without ruining this experience. The result is: gesture navigation. I’ve implemented a GestureListener so that when the user flicks the main page to the left with sufficient velocity, a panoramic series of extras are revealed. As you can see, these are a history page containing previously sent tweets, and a settings page, currently containing placeholders for account and theme options. These two pages loop as one, giving a consistent sideways scrolling experience native to Windows Phone and Windows 8. A navigation bar is provided below which will allow the user to return to the main tweeting page or bring up a quick help window. In truth, these are the only two elements of this “background” page sequence that properly work – the rest is laid out the way I intend, but currently not entirely functional.
There are still a lot of things that need to be done, including perfecting the icon and properly integrating Twitter, but in my usual style I just keep adding more things before actually finishing what needs to be done…
Next I want to get the signup experience (looking) perfect, and you can probably expect a new – epic – video trailer sometime in the future!
I’ve decided that I will be posting shorter, more incremental posts now, but more frequently. So, I have been working on and off on 140, my first full mobile app (see previous post). I had a huge brainstorm today involving loads of sketches for more features I am planning to add very soon. The photo above shows a sneak peak of planned Live Tile animations, I also really really need to make the icon better! I plan to implement a gesture navigated history page, and various small detail improvements. For the time being, I’m keeping other details secret!
Also, if you have navigated here from my Dribbble page, PLEASE invite me to share my work, I have made a lovely thank you shot as well, you will be named!
Hey everyone, so I spent a lot of my summer on a mystery first Windows Phone app, and I very recently finally got it to work! Being me, I couldn’t resist making a promotional trailer video immediately after this huge milestone:
So, this app has been made following research, as the artefact for the Extended Project Qualification. The development process was very tricky, seeing as I am not only new to phone development, but new to programming in general! I am particularly pleased with the landscape support implemented, coding this was tricky but eventually I made it just right. Until very recently, I got very stuck with the app beyond the user interface, as setting up Twitter was a nightmare, however, I eventually found a way around this, using the built-in ShareStatusTask feature, which was much easier even if it could be categorised as a shortcut!
Anyway, it is sufficient enough for my project write up (which I’d better begin), I have ideas for additional features such as swiping left for drafts and tweet history. I hope you enjoyed the trailer though, had a lot of fun making that!!!
I’ve enjoyed this summer holiday enormously, and have been working on lots of things throughout, however in essence, I haven’t really done much at all!
Firstly I have been working on my Windows Phone App/EPQ project, which I will reveal to you is called 140. Yup – “140″! Basically it will be the fastest way to tweet from Windows Phone devices, in a completely distraction free environment with lovely visuals. I’ve set up the UI, some content-aware visuals, landscape mode, and proper backgrounding so far. The problem, however, is actually getting Twitter integration to work…
On the design front I tried a random experiment three months ago, uploading a 30min quick logo template idea to GraphicRiver. I went back on the site three and a half weeks ago and – lo and behold – my random logo had sold. This was pretty neat and unexpected, and so for the past few weeks I’ve been on the site more, having uploaded 5 items now I think it’s going quite well, and the community is definitely awesome! Now my timewasting sorta does something useful!
I made a particularly awesome thing earlier this month… and yes… it’s another business card template : P This is also up on GraphicRiver, and is doing pretty well! Anyway, I’ve decided presentation templates are the most tactical category at the moment. Doing this also forced me to make a decent logo for Melonade Studios, and I think I’ve finally settled with a very simple wavy “m” in a circle, used on my GraphicRiver page.
Additionally, I’ve been doing a lot of photography, with my new Nikon 1 camera (in beautiful WHITE!!!). The image quality is just fantastic and it’s such a handy size to bring around, as well as being able to film HD slow-mo movies…
I plan to post here more about 140′s development as I progress further with it, and if I ever finish it! Particularly stunning photos I take will also go up here, but for new item releases from MelonadeStudios, follow @melonadestudios on Twitter (an account I have been saving for a long while!)
So yeah – not that much of a productive summer!
