Danny Turley - Designing and Developing for the Web and iPhone
Notebook
Welcome to my Notebook, I'm Danny Turley, a student studying a Masters in Multidisciplinary Design, a Web Designer and iPhone Developer from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Personal Identity
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Before I started studying on the Multidisciplinary Design course, to be honest I did not quite yet know what kind of a designer I wanted to be. Towards the end of my undergraduate course on the Interactive Multimedia Design I found myself working more in the development, and that I was perhaps working more so as developer than a designer. My mindset has all changed since that, largely due to masterclass session with Christoph Zwelleger.
Christoph Zwelleger
Christoph deserves a lot of credit for helping me shape my thinking as a designer, and his insight on Art and Design was awe-inspiring and a very nice man to talk to. During our masterclass with Christoph, he spoke of how designers — “have a desire to improve the world”, and artists — “have a desire to understand the world”. He also talked about how both of these statements are connected as in my scenario as a designer, I believe that we need to understand the world so that we may be equipped to improve the world.
I asked Christoph during the session about personal identity, in that how do we describe our role as a designer or artist to others? Christoph asked each of us to write down how we would describe ourselves in our practice. For me I thought of words such as web designer, web developer, iPhone developer, user experience designer, user interaction designer… the list goes on. The list of words all describe the things I can do but didn’t describe what kind of a designer I was until Christoph suggested — User-centred designer, a lightbulb went off in my head and the idea of translating my long list of buzzwords under the umbrella name of user-centred designer fitted my profile as a designer perfectly.
Networking
I had started to design some new logo icons as I wanted to design a new business card and brand myself as a user-centred designer. I have noticed from other Masterclasses with Kris Turnbull, and sessions with Andrea Montgomery that the business cards played a pivotal role in networking. I should be using events such as Refresh and Build to help get my name out there among the community.
Tutorial
I had a tutorial with Chris Murphy, and I was able to show him some of the ideas I had for my new logo. I had quite a few and I was undecided how I should take my ideas forward. Chris suggested to create 50 unique icons, and after that I could possibly take my top icons, and use the 10 icons as my logo. The idea of having a dynamic icon was really nice and unique to me. I then started to look into braille, as I like the shapes and the idea of it encourages you to touch to understand the information.
I was able to catch Chris for a follow up tutorial, and he really liked the idea of using the braille, and in particular going with the braille equivalent of my initials DT. So next step was to begin designing the business card. Chris and I discussed about using the idea of designing the business card in the shape of an iPhone icon. I wanted the design of the card to be something different and away from the normal shaped business card, something that once I hand over my business card that that experience is something different for the other person.
Printing
I was originally thinking of using Moo to print the business cards, that was until Chris McClelland (@chrismcclelland) from Ecliptic Labs gave me one of his business cards. I was really impressed with the quality of the card and the UV Vanishing was a nice touch, and Chris got them printed by Print100.com. Print 100 offer a impressive range of options and especially at a great price. They have a diecutting option if you wish to shape your card differently, and this was exactly what I was looking for. So I have placed my order with Print 100, and will post up some pictures when the business cards arrive hopefully before Christmas.
The Design…
Loving the design, especially the braille idea. I could see this becoming a trend of some sort
why not incorporate the same idea into your website
@Barry — Thanks for the kind words, sir.
Yeah, I was thinking of taking the same concept from the brand and developing it further into a new site design. Unfortunately, I am too busy at the moment but maybe in the next few months I can get working on something nice
A very professional looking business card is really very important in promoting your business. It makes good impression among customers.*;.
A very professional looking business card is really very important in promoting your business. It makes good impression among customers.~-~