So what’s been happening at hq? Well where do I start I am developing four projects at the moment with another two due. I have launched several new sites which I will get around to putting in my portfolio. My new product AirCMS is nearly ready

First off I am going to be a dad which is both a worry and very exciting news for me, however it will mean random charchters in my web pages as I am sure young Clark will be banging the keys like Seasme Streets Animal on a drum set, Loving the thought.

So whats been happening in the world of Steve “Clark Studios” Clark. Well client wise I have been approached by several companies and secured some new clients for some summer websites, One called CMS which I suppose is going to be the hardest thing to SEO in the world. As well as that I have been doing the odd campaign monitor emarketing template and consultancy and tweaks to websites.

One of these websites was a company called mantek a seal and gasket company based in aldershot who needed some bits of work done on there new WordPress driven website, I have to say a gem of a client who had good savvy of computers already but just needed some help in tweaking their site – needless to say it is now live.

Just secured a design and templating job for a mansion house based in Hampshire which has been delivered and I am expecting the site to go live by mid July. Really liking that site.

What else, Oh yes just finished a design for a coach company based in Hampshire, it is with the client at the moment so I am expecting build to commence next month which I am excited about. See a preview here.

A part from that won a lot of money at Royal Ascot and having started writing a mean little Twitter App, shame I cant dedicate much time to it at the moment.

I have 7 projects on the go at the moment and one to demo this month, it is crazy being a freelancer and only now am I realising how much hard work it can be.

Bring on June….

Well I have been working with Frog recently when I have a spare min (Which to be honest is not often), and have found it to be very nice to work with. It is as is says a lightweight CMS, no libary of a million plugins that could be cut to 10 because they all do the same thing. It is lightweight with a gew developers who have grown to enjoy using and programming with it.

True to most open source solutions, it is a bit buggy and certain improvments could be made but on the whole it works as a nice development platform and also allows a client to create pages really simply. The use of snippets and layouts(templates) makes the whole system feel a lot more controlled from a developer point a view, meaning the user need not worry about wrecking what you have done.

I shall keep on working on it and let you know when I have something produced it in it (See you in 2010 then).

I have been really hammering away at wordpress and working with it’s API. I have got to be honest I have learnt so much it is unbeliavble, the best thing was learning about all the bits and pieces that you don’t look into as I normally just use it as a news section for clients sites.

What I have noticed is the abillity to manipulate the way it works and build around the way it works and how easy it is to add the theme options and extended functions to make the site do what you want to do. I finally loooked at the Custom Fields in posts and realised how easy it is to add them to really give your posts an extra dimension instead of just having a list of posts.

Normally with CMS WP installaions what you find is it is just the Pages that end up being used and the posts are applied as News within the site. What I have found is a way of making posts power various parts of the site so you cna have many dynamic CMS pages, its all very good.

At the end of the day I would still favour bespoke builds of CMS over a WP installation any day as in my opnion WordPress is a blogging platform and that is what it should be used for, but then again it is easier to use rather than drupal or joomala in my opnion which to a client you need to have a degree in computer sciences to even comprehend how it all works.

New Clients

Pro Avs and Twinkle Twinkle little bride have entrusted their brands and websites to me. The Pro Avs site is designed and is 50% built, while content is finalised. Expect a mid Feburary launch. Another couple of websites have come in as well, which I have quoted for,

Near completion of my first Flash Game

Nealry done it. Based soley on the arcade game derby day which inolved you betting 10p’s on the horse you wanted to win and then wathcing them move down the track on metal poles. It was legened and many a pound has been lost on it. I am writing it at work to be laumched at April. Still a lot to do but it works nice.

Left 4 Dead

As you will all probably kno, I spend my spare time on my Xbox 360 and I love it.  This year brought some stonking titles such as Call of Duty: World at War, Prince Of Perisa, Fall out 3 to name a few but the out and out winner for me had to be Left 4 Dead, simply awesome. Valve have done it again and I would suggest to anyone who owns a PC or 360 to go out and get a copy, Shooting waves of zombies is so fun. Think 28 days later with 4 player co-op online and you will get the picture. Pure legend.

Other Bits

Got me golf handicap down, played my first dj set (badly), Got spoilt at christmas and got my business cards made. Its a winner.

Lows

Paypal account getting fleeced

Bastards from Hong Kong managed to get hold of my paypal account details and transfer $1000 2 weeks before christmas, that was all I needed but paypal sorted it. It did take 3 weeks but they sorted it in the end.

Installing a new hard drive

Boo, my trusty old 20 gig filled up so went and bought a new 300gb to tied me over. It took me 2 days to migrate my old hard drive to my new one. Norton Ghost could’nt do it nor could disk image creator. In the end a trip to PC World saw me part with twenty of our English pounds to buy a mickey mouse looking product which in all fairness worked like a charm. My machine is now flying. Hoorah!.

Well it is the first thing I have given away for free so long may it continue. I have basically drawn a couple of icons and made four instances of each and changed the colours. It is pretty basic vector work but thought I would throw it out there. Dont ask me why I have done a light bulb and a WordPress logo, I have no idea why.

I have got loads of other vectors which I will post as a web kit soon. But in the mean time enjoy!

Download Free Vector Icon Zip File

I have recently (well, say recently) discovered the Graffiti Application which has to be one of the best apps around. Nothing breaks up my evening programming or designing more than going old school with one brush and an opacity setting. No fills, no stupid Linear Grads just old school painting.

I am no expert like some of the artists around there who must have some extreme on there hands but here is some of my creations. I am trying to move away from cartoon characters and do more serious drawings, but christ it is hard.

Man with big lips and wonkey nose

Tron Light Cycle

That Fox from Disney’s Robin Hood

Wile Coyote

Eeeyore

Jessica Rabbit

Dogtanion

Liono

Stewie

Evil Monkey