The New Brian Mays.com is Live

December 21, 2009 at 9:55 pm | This is Posted in Uncategorized

My new personal website is finally live!

This was no insignificant undertaking. The last site’s design was made public in late 2000 with site tweaks in early 2001. Since then I have started, stopped, and restarted on a website redesign at least 15 times. Like any creative individual, I found myself my most difficult client and was never satisfied for whatever reason. This design has found the different voice that I have compared to my last site, conveys the attitude I try to convey in day to day life, and has a few homages to my old site.

You’ll see on the home page of the site the motto “Be Nice, Have Fun.” Everything on the site is designed to carry that theme across. Expect to find a playful and light attitude here.

The new site lets friends, family members, colleagues, and whoever else may want connect with me in more ways than the previous site. You can find my profiles for Facebook and LinkedIn on the contact page as well as a link to my Twitter feed. There is also a feedback box on the same page to let anyone drop me a message instantly.

New to the site is a blog. The goal is one update per week with hopes that there is more. I’d rather start small and achieve that goal than set a lofty goal that may not be reachable at this point in time. Expect to find everything from the silly to the serious to the sublime. If I can bring a smile or provoke thought, I have succeeded.

The most recent additions to the site can be found at the bottom of each page. The Latest Twitter area contains my latest posting as well as a link to follow me. The Latest Blog area contains my most recent blog posting. And the Miscellaneous Randomness area…well, you never know what you’ll find there. Feel free to interact with the content that shows up there. It’s usually something that has been stuck in my brain that I wanted to share.

My portfolio has been updated. Some of my old work is still present, but much of it is new to my site. Short explanations for the work help give an idea of the concepting and problem solving that went into each piece.

My links page contains a lot of destinations I hit regularly online, as well as links to past employers, schools where I teach, and companies I support. There are also a number of friends that I am throwing props out to on the page.

And the adventure begins anew!

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Brianstorming: My Only New Year’s Resolution

December 31, 2009 at 3:49 pm | This is Posted in brianstorming

I have set one resolution for 2010: to make life a more positive experience for everyone I come in contact with.

Over the last year I seem to have seen more belittling, divisiveness, derision and thoughtless inconsideration to both myself and others than usual. Some of it I attribute to the stress of a difficult economy and unstable financial times for individuals and their families. I overheard others wish failure upon those who have had more success than they had. Envy rearing its ugly head was likely a cause. The worst was when I would encounter situations where individuals would actively attempt to make life worse for others. More energy seemed to be expended at tearing others down rather than improving themselves or accepting responsibility. But on this point I digress for the time being.

A world rife with this type of energy is not good enough for our son to grow up within.

I want to do something about this. I’m in a number of positions as a professional, an educator, and a volunteer to help influence and affect lives. If I can encourage someone in an endeavor, show someone how to do something they’re struggling with, or just bring a smile and a brighter outlook for the day I will do so. And I will hope that those I come in contact with will pass along the same courtesies, considerations, and respect that I will strive to show.

Each year the world feels as if it becomes more brazen and tactless. I’m going to do my part to reverse that within my sphere of influence and embody my motto, “Be Nice, Have Fun.”

I hope your 2009 ends as well as possible, and that your 2010 begins on a good note.

(Eagle-eyed users will notice this post subtitled “Brianstorming.” My blog posts involving opinion, commentary, and possibly volatile subjects will fall under this banner. Look for other changes as the site continues to evolve.)

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Baseball Geekly: An Introduction

July 3, 2010 at 4:50 am | This is Posted in baseball

On summer nights during high school and college in the 1990s I would sit and pore over baseball box scores and my encyclopedia-sized copy of “Total Baseball.” I would soak in all the history of a game born in the late 19th century. And I would often wonder, “Which team was the best?”

All answers would prove to be speculative, until 1993 when USA Today’s fondly remembered sports publication Baseball Weekly ran a season-long computer-simulated tournament to help answer the question. The tournament was a 4 round bracket of 32 teams. If memory serves correctly there was one pairing completed per week. The teams in each pairing played 162 games against each other.

The concept interested me and has stuck with me to this day over 17 years later, in much the same way Francisco Cabrera’s pinch hit single in the 1992 NLCS has embedded itself in my memory. The results would settle some arguments and raise others as the tournament progressed.

But there was always one question in my mind that in my mind tainted the simulation: why those 32 teams? USA Today had their reasoning, and it was spelled out in the first installment, but the subjectivity of the process always cast doubt to this fan as to whether there were other teams more suited to be in the tournament.

Which brings us to 2010, and my attempt to postulate a more realistic answer to the question of which team is the best. I am using Out of the Park Baseball 11 to simulate a Baseball Weekly-inspired bracketed tournament. Two teams will face off against each other in a 162 game series to allow for a more realistic sense of superiority than a 5- or 7-game series may allow. The series will be split into two segments of 81 home games, each segment using the traits of the home team’s era (for example, teams in the 1900s will have fewer home runs, in keeping with the results of that era).

I will seed all 2,634 baseball teams that played through the end of 2009.

A friend has referred to this as “epic, on a Howard Hughes scale.” The same friend also referred to it as an obsession, but I think any baseball fan would view it as a quest for truth. It will also be a wonderful opportunity to learn about the unknowns, the third string utility infielders or dedicated pinch runners that make baseball’s history so rich, deep and unique.

I’ve discussed the bracket with a few friends, and some of them have wanted to see it. Unfortunately the bracket challenges the Titanic in terms of size, so I can only show portions of it at one time. Once the tournament reaches the point at which there are only 64 or 128 teams a visual representation will become more feasible.

Next time I’ll discuss the bracket and the seeding process in more detail.

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A Graphic Designer’s Adventures in Web Technologies

August 9, 2010 at 9:32 pm | This is Posted in graphic design, web design

I’ve been reading a bit about technologies that affect how I create graphic design work online. There are quite a few things to take into account, and at times it can be overwhelming just keeping up with the names of technologies. HTML5, CSS3, JQuery, JavaScript, SVG, Objective-C. If you are a graphic designer and your eyes glazed over on that last sentence you’re not alone–nor can I blame you!

I read about these technologies and I really don’t know where to start. The last two technologies I spent a good deal of time learning were Flash and CSS. Both of these were technologies that I was able to jump in and be “functionally illiterate” as it were, meaning I could create things that functioned well while learning at the same time.

Maybe it’s the plethora of new technologies at one time, but I don’t feel as capable of doing that with what I mentioned above. And frankly it doesn’t seem all that fun (Objective-C and iPad app development, I’m looking at you here!). I’m perfectly willing to start at a “Step 1″ somewhere, but that’s where the path gets a little murky – where to start with each of these? I’ve read overviews, tutorials, specs and guides and some of them just don’t seem (at least to me) to have a great “jumping in” point to help you ramp up quickly.

Perhaps this comes from the goals I have when I set out to learn  these. I’ll use HTML5 as an example (or rather HTML5 plus CSS3 plus JavaScript since that’s actually what many refer when they talk about a “Flash killer”). I will admit that my goal when learning HTML5 is not to necessarily have a strong semantic grasp of code. My first and foremost goal is to create a piece of graphic design. So I approach learning HTML5 not so much from a “what does this tag do, what does this piece do” place but more from a “how do I make this piece draggable, how do I make this graphic move” place. This approach sometimes creates holes in my knowledge I have to back-fill, but for the most part works for me.

To put it differently, I prefer to point and click with the occasional writing as opposed to writing with the occasional point and click. That’s the way I’m wired. Unfortunately as some designers and developers put it to me today I will find few examples of the technologies I’m looking into that are wired the same way I am. And the point that continually came up was not having any sort of WYSIWYG way of creating the things I’m thinking about. I think I’m going to see what I can do about changing that. Stay tuned, more on that later.

In the meantime I will post various experiments, assignments, and discoveries here to poke at. Some will be successes, and some will be learning experiences. None will be failures.

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