SGO v5

Greetings to all, and apologies for a lack of updates. I’ve been really sidetracked with everything going on. In any case, I’ve spent some time thinking, and I’ve decided the site needs to be completely restructured. I’ve always tried to come up with a solution to do everything I want to do with my website all in one, and I’m learning that this is extremely difficult to pull off. I’ll be leaving the site up as it is and work on the restructuring in the background until I’m ready to launch the new site. Here are my proposed changes as they stand right now:

• A main “hub” that acts as an index to all the smaller sections of the network.
• All blogging and blogging-related items will be in their own area (news, reviews, etc.)
• A portfolio section that will showcase past and present work in graphic design.
• A business mini-site focusing on my insurance business.

That’s really all I have at the moment. I’m going to do things the right way this time and map things out in advance before I start trying to put it all together. For those of you who have stuck around for all of this reshuffling, thanks for your support.

Sorry about the lack of updates lately, but things have been moving along at a steady clip over here. I just wanted to make a quick post about some upcoming work. I was contacted this weekend by Steve Ashton and was asked to help with the updates to his leadership website at http://www.steveashtonforpremier.ca, and since the convention is coming up this Saturday it’s probably going to be keeping me relatively busy throughout the rest of this week. Make sure you check out the website if you’re interested in following Steve in his campaign to become our new premier.

In the wake of Steve Ashton’s announcement that he will be running for Premier of Manitoba, his new website has gone live. Be sure to check it regularly for information regarding the leadership race! You can access the site via the link on the sidebar.

Well, after careful deliberation I have come tothe conclusion that my website is too jumbled, and so I will be keeping some of my content separate. This website will remain for my blogs, reviews, writing, etc., and I will be moving my portfolio to a subdirectory on the site to keep it separate.

Wordpress, while a fantastic product, is still primarily geared towards blogging and that type of content, so I’m going to stop trying to mold it into something it’s not meant to be and go with a unique design of my own, that probably won’t run on any type of cms at all. Who knows? I’m going to keep the links to my client sites here on the main page until I finish the portfolio, then it will all be switched over. In the meantime, if you want to view samples of my work, check out my deviantArt gallery via the link in the sidebar.

I’ve been having some trouble with spam comments lately, so I’ve got a new captcha system provided by reCaptcha installed. Not only does it protect from spam, but it helps with OCR scanning of books at Carnegie Mellon Universtity! Everybody wins in this scenario.

I’ve just recently added a new Game Review to the newly retitled Game Reviews section. This review is for the game Cave Story, which is absolutely incredible and everyone must play it.

Also coming soon is the new website design for Steve Ashton. This has been a long time in coming, but I think it will impress.

In graphic design news, there are a few things coming out soon as well. I’m working on a series of advertising banners for my friend Brandon’s website The Moon Books Project, as well as a banner for Coyotes Publishing. Look for those to be released soon.

To add to the mysteriousness, there are also a couple of gaming projects in the works. I’m not sure if they all will see the light of day or not, but I’m on a creative streak so I’m just going to run with it and see what happens. If anyone of you out there in internet-land read this and have experience with programming, please drop me a line on the contact page or leave a comment if you’d be willing to help out at all. Also pixel/sprite artists are welcome.

If you want to see the higher-res version of my poster, you can check it out at the following link:

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/imageGallery/Poster_Contest/Poster_Contest_84.jpg

Here is my entry for the H2 fan-made poster contest:

Well, you’ve probably noticed the theme has changed yet again, and this time I’m pretty happy with it. The only change to come will be in the header graphic, where I’m going to have the text replaced with my new logo as soon as I finalize the design for it.

In other news, I created a new background image for my Twitter profile, which you can view here, and I’m also designing a poster for Shock Till You Drop’s Fan-Made Halloween 2 poster contest. If my poster is selected, I get a full-size print of it autographed by Rob Zombie!!! I’m really trying to pull out all the stops on this one. I’ll post an image of it once it’s completed.

I’ve added a contact form on the Contact page to make it more convenient to get in touch with me.

Also, I’ve isolated the couple of graphical issues with the new theme that I don’t like and will be changing them, so look for those changes coming soon.