- Oct 03
Crystal Sea Wallpapers
- Art, Design, Personal
I’ve been experimenting a lot with wallpapers lately. They’ve let me break out of the web design mold and try something new. This new set is an exploration of color, geometry, style and composition. I’ve posted them all up on Flickr for you get to a better look. I recommend checking out the full resolution to see the details. Alternatively you could just download the zip. Let me know which one you like best. I’m currently using Deep Sea.
My dad has always been a bit ridiculous. He revels in self-deprecating humor and it’s a trait I admire. On Sept. 11 this year he took it upon himself to drive around the small town of Hopkinsville, KY with a giant American flag tied to his scooter. He brought smiles to a lot of faces, reminding others that you don’t have to take yourself quite so seriously. In the wake of tragedy it’s good to remember that life is still full of wonderfully silly moments. Like a middle-aged IT Director on a tiny scooter with giant American Flag. I love you, dad.
- Oct 01
DB Clay closing it’s doors
- Design, Personal, Portland
I was quite sad to hear that DB Clay will be shutting down. They have some of the damned nicest, prettiest, most interesting wallets I’ve ever come across. They are a design icon in Portland and it’s unfortunate to see them going away. I’ve been talking with some friends about a possible save DB Clay movement. Whatever happens I wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors. I’ll keep rocking Dark Bark as my guilty pleasure, no matter how ugly my wife thinks it is.
- Sep 22
Refreshed the Site
- Design, Personal, Technology
If you can’t tell I’ve been doing a bit of cleanup on the site for the past few days. I was getting a bit bored of the dark and dreary but I also didn’t want to completely dump everything about my old design. I’ve traded in the dark greys for some clean whites and crisp grey lines. I decided to keep the green as it’s simply one of my favorite colors. I’m still trying to decide if the new header is too bright. Perhaps it lacks a bit of contrast?
Overall I am very happy with it. I’ve also begun to put my portfolio back online. I developed a new Expression Engine backend driving all the thumbnails and imagery. It’s still a bit more manual than I’d like but I’m pretty happy for the most part. My next step is to get a few more sites up along with some of my print, illustration and identity work. After that I plan on moving on to my logo. The fleur-de-lis will stick around but I’ve got some ideas for some interesting twist on it.
Let me know if you find any bugs. I’m also very open to suggestions and criticism.
Talk about a kick to the ego. These are some of my first projects out of college. I plan on keeping these around to remind me where I was when I started, especially when evaluating job candidates.
These were made as part of a loop for an arcade machine called the GATE. We had hooked up a webcam, mouse trackball and a keyboard to a computer in a custom cabinet. The idea was that you could play new computer games with people in arcades around the world. You could hear them and watch them in little windows around the game you were playing.
This was back in 98-00, way before YouTube, podcasts and ventrillo. It was pretty amazing that we could squeeze 8 videos through a tiny pipe along with game data. Alas, noone told the owner, an old exec from Atari, that arcades were dead in America.
He should have put it in Japan.
Welcome
I am Michael Sigler and this is my blog. I am a designer, artist, art director, writer, dungeon master and all around geek. I live in Portland, OR with my wife Joleine. During the day I work for the fine folks at Jive Software.
On the interwebs
Projects
These are the communities and projects that I proudly help lead and maintain.
Dragon Avenue
A community and news site for fans of Dungeons and Dragons and other role-playing games.
Refresh Portland
A monthly gathering focused on spreading a little design knowledge to the dark corners of Portland, OR.