28 July, 2010

Portfolio Update: JavaScript, CSS, JSON in Action

The inspiration for this portfolio is a brick-and-mortar (or in my case, probably plaster and peeling paint?) art gallery. I was going to go with something that scrolls left and right as if you are walking through, but it felt so... constrained... contrived... limiting. For a portfolio piece, I really wanted something that showcased both my technical knowledge and graphic skill. So I broke out of the shell a bit with this one and made an original mashup of some leading web technologies combined with my own need for an easy-to-edit showcase of my creative work.

Try resizing your browser window and see what happens. Also try dragging some of the artwork around.

An original portfolio design

Now for some technical mumbo-jumbo. Rather than a lightbox for image enlargements, I used a mid-size image to start. I kept it simple and linked to the image's Flickr page which also allows commenting, favoriting, viewing full size etc. for further interaction with the same number of mouse clicks. The page uses Flickr's API to pull my most interesting images from my photostream (JSON), then gets their title and puts it in the little caption area. The rest is some CSS and jQuery magic. The result is I always have an updated, interesting portfolio page which saves me precious time and energy!!! The downside is that with JavaScript disabled there isn't much to see. Note to self: come up with a creative static portfolio asap.

Let me know how you like it in the comments.

03 July, 2010

Happy 4th of July Weekend

I'll be hanging out poolside for the rest of the day thanks to my lovely parents who let me come home whenever I want... (there's no place like home!)

Hope everyone has a happy and safe weekend, wherever in the world you are.

Photo upload from Flickr: Pools of Water
Pools of Water, originally uploaded by whoaitsaimz.

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