Thomas Davis - Freelance motion designer based in Manchester

Creating a number counter in After Effects just got a lot easier

Thomas — Mon, 29 Oct 2018 12:24:08 +0000

Creating a number counter in After Effects just got a lot easier

The first version of the Numero script was designed to take a lot of the legwork out of creating a sliding number counter in After Effects: you could select the number of columns you needed, hit go, and the script would take care of all the boring duplication and layout tasks needed to create the counter.

The benefits of having a freelance contract in place

Thomas — Mon, 17 Sep 2018 10:22:42 +0000

The benefits of having a freelance contract in place

* Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer and this post is not legal advice. This post is advisory, please do your homework and consult an actual lawyer before making legal decisions. *

I’ve made a new addition to the Freelance checklist, an item which should have been on the list from the start really:

Have both parties signed the contract?

Comparing your work to others

Thomas — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 10:55:34 +0000

Comparing your work to others

On the last day of my week long takeover of the Motion Hatch podcast Instagram account, I had an idea to post my latest motion design reel alongside the first ever reel/promo I did… all the way back from 2010!

For those of you that weren’t following here they are:

My 2018 motion design reel:

Guest appearance on the motion hatch podcast

Thomas — Tue, 04 Sep 2018 11:01:00 +0000

Guest appearance on the motion hatch podcast

A couple of weeks ago, Hayley Akins from the motion hatch podcast got in touch to see if I’d be a guest on the show and I just had to jump at the opportunity.

For those of you who haven’t heard it before, the motion hatch podcast is a great resource for freelance motion designers, although, I'd recommend everyone giving it a listen - regardless of your profession.

Animating paragraph text in After Effects

Thomas — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 11:21:44 +0000

Animating paragraph text in After Effects

Throughout my motion design work I’ve animated a fair few paragraphs for explainer and social media videos - much like the example you see here for trivago:

Although simple on the surface, the technique to produce the effect has a tendency to be quite fiddly and laborious, here’s the usual process:

Creating a sliding number counter in After Effects

Thomas — Thu, 17 May 2018 10:07:15 +0000

Creating a sliding number counter in After Effects

*UPDATE: The script has now been updated to make it easier than ever to create a sliding number counter in After Effects*

My latest project for Loop is a brand new script for creating odometers or sliding number counters in After Effects like the one below:

Motion Design Reel

Thomas — Tue, 15 May 2018 11:28:08 +0000

Motion Design Reel

Yep, it's that time again! I've managed to put together a brand new motion design showreel for 2018, featuring projects from the past year and beyond.

Take a look:

I really enjoyed putting this reel together, it really made me stop and take a minute to appreciate the variety of projects I've worked on over the past couple of years!

Freelance Motion Design Update

Thomas — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 11:49:55 +0000

Freelance Motion Design Update

2017 was a great year, I've been lucky enough to work on some wonderful projects with some ace clients and agencies, if 2018 is as good then I'll be a happy motion designer!

As it was a busy one, I've only now had the chance to update my portfolio with some of the motion design projects I worked on last year, due to the nature of the game I unfortunately can't share everything I work on. Who knows, maybe in the future I'll be able to list those projects too!

Let's plant some trees!

Thomas — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 11:30:47 +0000

Let's plant some trees!

Spurred on by some eye-opening documentaries like: Chasing Ice, Chasing Coral, and A Plastic Ocean (all of which I cannot recommend highly enough) I've been looking at ways I can change my daily habits to help reduce the impact I have on the world.

The freelance checklist

Thomas — Mon, 15 May 2017 11:27:06 +0000

The freelance checklist

I've been doing quite a bit of reading recently, first up was: Thinking, fast and slow; a wonderful insight into how people think, and how humans make decisions in everyday life. The second was: The checklist manifesto - a fascinating read about the power of the humble checklist in the world of aviation, medicine, and construction.

Creating an animated explainer video for your business

Thomas — Thu, 27 Apr 2017 16:06:48 +0000

Creating an animated explainer video for your business

According to the Internet Advertising Bureau UK, Video was the fastest growing format in 2016, Up 56% on a like-for-like basis since 2015. With statistics like that it’s not hard to see why companies are turning to motion design and animation to get their stories heard.

Creating Chronos - a futuristic interface kit for After Effects

Thomas — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 14:58:48 +0000

Creating Chronos - a futuristic interface kit for After Effects

I’ve always loved sci-fi, it’s my favourite genre by far. The world building, the rules, the foresight, just the wonderful creativity involved in creating something out of this world is what fascinates me the most.

As a motion designer, I've always wanted to have a go at creating a futuristic project in After Effects, creating my own little sci-fi world, a project that could have been pulled from the pages of William Gibson or Phillip K. Dick.

Glitch effect presets for After Effects

Thomas — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 14:41:48 +0000

Glitch effect presets for After Effects

Fragment is the latest project I've made for Loop - a set of 15 glitchy transitions and presets for After Effects.

Had a lot of fun making the promo for this one too:

Skylights Pro - Vintage filters for After Effects

Thomas — Thu, 17 Nov 2016 16:31:10 +0000

Skylights Pro - Vintage filters for After Effects

Following on from the ever popular Instagram style Skylights filters I made a while back, I decided to make a pro version - 30 brand new filters, plus an additional 15 noise and grain overlays to give your footage that extra vintage feel.

Microphone setup for voice over work

Thomas — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 16:07:30 +0000

Microphone setup for voice over work

Following on from my post about starting voice over work as part of my motion design projects I thought I'd do a quick run down of the setup I use:

Before I started I did quite a bit of research into the different microphones available and the best setup for recording high quality audio. Here's what I went with:

Nomadhouse - freelancing from Budapest

Thomas — Thu, 01 Sep 2016 09:53:00 +0000

Nomadhouse - freelancing from Budapest

After trying out freelancing from Berlin and Lisbon, I was searching for a new place to explore and freelance from. Then a couple of months ago, in one of those strange serendipitous moments life throws up every now and then: I discovered NomadHouse.

The concept was simple: 10 days in a Budapest, co-living, working and exploring a new place with 16 other freelancers/entrepreneurs/remote workers.

Handicons icon pack

Thomas — Thu, 11 Aug 2016 16:04:10 +0000

Handicons icon pack

Throughout a lot of my motion design work I find myself needing different hand icons; perhaps a hand pointing to something, or swiping on a phone screen.

That's why I've made Handicons! A set of 30 different hand icons, take a look at the preview:

The set is available to buy from Gumroad - as a special treat use the code thomas10 for 10% off!

Voiceover work

Thomas — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 14:19:28 +0000

Voiceover work

If you take a look at a couple of my most recent motion design projects, you may notice the voice is actually the same:

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Quick freelancing update

Thomas — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 10:32:21 +0000

Quick freelancing update

Following on from my freelance adventure in Berlin I decided to check out Lisbon back at the beginning of May, again taking a week and working from out there while exploring the city.

I decided to repeat what I’d done in Berlin and get an Airbnb, at the very least this could be somewhere to work from, a home office away from home if you will.

Freelancing from Berlin

Thomas — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 15:32:14 +0000

Freelancing from Berlin

As a freelancer I’m always saying to people I can theoretically work from anywhere; all I need is a decent internet connection and I’m sorted.

Up until now I’d never properly tried it though, so I decided to book a trip to Berlin and give it a try. A bit of an experiment to see if it’s actually possible.

Here’s some of the good stuff:

Berlin has some excellent co-working spaces

Finishing a freelance job early

Thomas — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 11:41:06 +0000

Finishing a freelance job early

* Update:
I now operate on the following basis: in order to confirm a booking the client agrees to pay for the specified number of days in full.
Confirming a booking means potentially turning other work down, as a result that time should be paid for in full.

My freelance work often takes two forms: either I'm working for my own clients, or I'm working for an agency; helping out with a particular project.

More motion design for The Guardian

Thomas — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 19:20:22 +0000

More motion design for The Guardian

Over the past couple of weeks I've been down in London working freelance on some more motion design projects at The Guardian.

This time I worked on a couple of different projects, the first of which was a video detailing what the Ebola virus is, how it's transferred, and what it does to you:

The second video was all about the new Guardian design; it details the various stages of The Guardian's online presence since it launched in 1999.

Motion design at The Guardian

Thomas — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 19:19:32 +0000

Motion design at The Guardian

Over the past couple of weeks I swapped Manchester for a freelance motion design contract at The Guardian in London.

I had a great time working there, as you can imagine the projects are pretty varied. In the first week I worked on this from the 99 seconds series:

When I joined the animation had already been started by Alex; the resident motion designer, and another freelancer. A great collaborative effort all round!

New website for the InnerVision film

Thomas — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 19:18:37 +0000

New website for the InnerVision film

Phew! It's been a busy couple of weeks for me, I've been down in London on a freelance motion graphics project (more on that later), but before I left I managed to work on a great project: creating the website for the Inner Vision film.

Keep vectors sharp in After Effects

Thomas — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 19:17:46 +0000

Keep vectors sharp in After Effects

Over the past few weeks I've been working on a new motion graphics promotional video for my own website (something similar to my old motion graphics promo).

In this new promo I've used plenty of shape layers, halfway through animating I ran into a slight problem though: I'd finished animating a section of the video and found I needed to scale it up for the final version. When scaling it up I found it became really blurred like so:

A new website design

Thomas — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 19:16:52 +0000

A new website design

Well it's more of a design refresh than anything else! If you haven't visited the site for a while you may notice some slight design changes here and there, I thought I'd write a quick post to run through the changes.

Let's start with the portfolio design - there's only a few small changes here, primarily in the width of the overall portfolio. The project tiles will now extend further across the page to make better use of larger screen sizes and help showcase my design and development work.

Freelance Tip #2 - Office Space

Thomas — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 11:25:32 +0000

Freelance Tip #2 - Office Space

Following on from freelance tip #1 - here's the second tip I thought I'd share:

Consider getting some office space

When I first started freelancing I did what most freelancers do: I worked from home. It was great at first, no more commuting! I could jump into work straight away and once the day was over I didn't need to travel anywhere to get home.

Freelance Tip #1 - Side Projects

Thomas — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 11:26:22 +0000

Freelance Tip #1 - Side Projects

I've been freelancing full-time for a couple of years now (I freelanced part-time while at Uni so I've actually been doing it for quite a while!) and in that time there's been a fair few ups and downs. As a result I've decided to put together a couple of blog posts on freelancing, nothing major just a few tips that I've found useful while working freelance.

Creating a 3D blueprint in Cinema 4D

Thomas — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 09:43:06 +0000

Creating a 3D blueprint in Cinema 4D

Ever since Adobe added Cinema 4D to After Effects I've been trying to use it more and more in my motion graphics work. Every now and then I'll discover something cool & I just can't help experimenting with it!

The most recent thing I've found is the "Cel Render" effect (Edit render settings > Effects > Cel Renderer). Enabling this function allows you to render the edges and outlines of an object as you'll see in the example renders below.

A motion graphics business card

Thomas — Thu, 22 May 2014 09:49:11 +0000

A motion graphics business card

I had a random idea the other day while I was looking at my current business card design - why not create a business card with a bit of a difference? Something which showcases the motion graphics work I do, something which could act as a little introduction to what I do and the services I offer.

So I decided to create a motion graphics business card! A very short gif that introduces me, the website design and motion graphics services I offer, and tops it off with a call to get in touch:

A motion graphics design gif!

Thomas — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 12:19:29 +0000

A motion graphics design gif!

After creating a few different motion design gif experiments, I decided to incorporate one into my site to help advertise what I do.

This is the result:

Texture experiments in Cinema 4D Lite

Thomas — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 16:29:19 +0000

Texture experiments in Cinema 4D Lite

With Cinema 4D Lite now included in After Effects I've been getting back into producing more 3D motion graphics work. As a little side experiment I wanted to test out some texturing within Cinema 4D to see what is and isn't possible.
I created the text and textures in cinema 4D then imported them into After Effects via Cineware.

The first texture I wanted to create was a grungy steel look - something with a nice reflection accompanied by a rough surface.

Another motion graphics gif experiment

Thomas — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 16:27:56 +0000

Another motion graphics gif experiment

Following on from my previous motion graphics gif project I decided to create a new experiment, this time with shape layers!

Tutorial for the Computer Arts Photoshop magazine

Thomas — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 12:39:48 +0000

Tutorial for the Computer Arts Photoshop magazine

I was recently asked to create a short tutorial for the new Computer Arts Photoshop Studio Training magazine.

The tutorial aims to provide a basic overview of the video timeline feature in Photoshop. As well as covering how to import and work with video footage, I also look at how you can create simple animations using keyframes.

Infinite floor not working in After Effects & Cinema 4D Lite

Thomas — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 12:00:01 +0000

Infinite floor not working in After Effects & Cinema 4D Lite

I recently upgraded to the Adobe Creative Cloud & one feature I was really looking forward to trying out was the Cinema 4D Lite package within After Effects. I've experimented with Cinema 4D before, mainly just creating a couple of random objects here and there, but only ever with the trial version.

Skylights Deluxe - 25 After Effects Filter Presets

Thomas — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 10:00:11 +0000

Skylights Deluxe - 25 After Effects Filter Presets

Introducing Skylights Deluxe! A set of 25 new filter presets for After Effects.

Following on from the original Skylights filters I created, I've decided to put together a deluxe version that includes 25 brand new presets as well as 30 high resolution texture files.

Tracking link clicks with Google Analytics

Thomas — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 15:22:25 +0000

Tracking link clicks with Google Analytics

When I released Skylights a few months ago, I wanted to track how many people actually clicked the download link to give me a rough idea of how many people were trying them out.

Luckily, Google Analytics lets you track particular interactions on your site using 'Events'. Setting up an event to be logged is pretty straightforward, all you need to do is add a tiny bit of code to the onClick attribute of a link like so:

Animating a still photograph in After Effects

Thomas — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 15:53:14 +0000

Animating a still photograph in After Effects

I was looking through some of the pictures on my phone from last summer and decided to have a go at creating a short animation from a still photograph. Here's the result:

Here's the original photograph:

Skylights: 15 Instagram style filters for After Effects

Thomas — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 11:27:36 +0000

Skylights: 15 Instagram style filters for After Effects

I wanted to create an Instagram style filter using the standard tools within After Effects to help liven up some old footage I was working with. After creating a few different styles I ended up creating Skylights! A set of 15 presets that you can use to help liven up a bit of old footage or give your videos a slight colour boost.

Motion graphics project: gifs

Thomas — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:18:52 +0000

Motion graphics project: gifs

I've been working on a motion graphics project recently that involved creating an animated gif version of a client logo in After Effects.

Before taking on the project, I decided to experiment slightly and put some trial animations together to help get a feel for the gif making process:

Elementary - Drupal theme

Thomas — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 12:08:46 +0000

Elementary - Drupal theme

I've finally had some time to start work on a new Drupal theme which I'm hoping to contribute back to the community. I've decided to call it Elementary, and my overall goal is to keep things as simple as possible & focus on written content above all else which I'm hoping will make it ideal for blogs.

An early screenshot:

Removing unwanted CSS files from a Drupal theme

Thomas — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 11:37:06 +0000

Removing unwanted CSS files from a Drupal theme

If you've ever developed your own Drupal theme then you may have noticed that Drupal & other contrib modules provide their own stylesheets for you to contend with. Of course you could just override the CSS rules with your own, however the files are still being included on every single page load when they really don't need to be.

Just as an example: there were around 14 additional stylesheets being provided by core or contrib modules on my contact page alone.

Website bookmark icons for different iOS devices

Thomas — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 15:32:38 +0000

Website bookmark icons for different iOS devices

A couple of years ago I wrote a short post on how to create an iPhone bookmark icon for your website which would appear if someone were to add your site to their homescreen. That post is getting on a bit now (the screenshot alone shows just how the UI has changed) and now there all sorts of new devices and perhaps more importantly: resolutions to consider when creating an icon.

Creating different shape masks in After Effects

Thomas — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 14:48:10 +0000

Creating different shape masks in After Effects

I've always loved watching video tutorials on the web, I find having someone talk you through how to do something and being able to watch them do it is far more engaging than simply following a blog post with some screenshots.

BBC Olympic trailer - "Stadium UK"

Thomas — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 16:48:07 +0000

BBC Olympic trailer - "Stadium UK"

The BBC revealed the "Stadium UK" trailer/ident for their coverage of the Olympic games during the Euro 2012 final last night - if you haven't already seen it, take a look:

After Effects motion tracking experiment

Thomas — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 10:38:49 +0000

After Effects motion tracking experiment

Another short motion graphics test, this time experimenting with motion tracking in After Effects to "parent" some visuals to the movement of my eye:

I'm pretty pleased with the results, using motion tracking like this can be a great way to annotate live action footage rather than having a static title displaying information.

Shapes - animation

Thomas — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 17:29:50 +0000

Shapes - animation

Another little motion graphics piece I've created, this time to experiment with a couple of different techniques when animating 2D shapes in After Effects.

Assassin's creed logo animation

Thomas — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 18:05:19 +0000

Assassin's creed logo animation

I wanted to have a go at animating the futuristic Assassin's creed logo in After Effects:

Motion graphics promotional video

Thomas — Thu, 31 May 2012 13:37:00 +0000

Motion graphics promotional video

To go along with my website redesign I thought it was time for a brand new promotional video as well. Here's the finished video:

Once again the music was provided by my good friend Andy - http://andyhudsonmusic.com

Motion graphics experiment: "Annotation"

Thomas — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:39:19 +0000

Motion graphics experiment: "Annotation"

As a little experiment into mixing live action footage with motion graphics I created the short sample videos below. The process involved tracking the motion of the video in After Effects and linking the position of the graphics to the tracked keyframes - this basically helps to keep the titles steady as the camera moves around slightly.

Version 1 -

JavaScript-less social share links

Thomas — Tue, 01 May 2012 11:47:37 +0000

JavaScript-less social share links

Social sharing widgets are everywhere these days and on a growing number of sites they even follow you down the page just so you're blatantly aware of where they are at all times.

As well as just being visual pollution on a webpage, these widgets are resource heavy too, chocked full of extra JavaScript which needs to be loaded for each individual widget - all of which slows your site down!

This is an issue I wrote about in my recent website redesign post and after seeing this tweet :

Introducing: Block - a simple tumblr theme

Thomas — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:45:38 +0000

Introducing: Block - a simple tumblr theme

Today I submitted my first Tumblr theme: 'Block' for review. (I named it 'block' because the main navigation is quite block-like as is the general structure of the overall theme.)

Who's tweeting the most?

Thomas — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 09:58:39 +0000

Who's tweeting the most?

In an effort to learn a bit more about the Twitter API I decided to set myself a little weekend project to try and create something with the data available.

I'm used to working with PHP and found this pretty solid PHP library which gave me a good base with which to get started on. If you use another programming language, the Twitter developers site has a comprehensive list of other libraries available.

Tweet archive: Google calendar

Thomas — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 19:49:43 +0000

Tweet archive: Google calendar

A few weeks ago I blogged about archiving tweets by sending them to another web service using ifttt. In my case that web service was Google Calendar since I never really use it.

I just thought I would share a weekly snapshot of my tweets in calendar format:

GrammarTime JavaScript word clock

Thomas — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 17:24:09 +0000

GrammarTime JavaScript word clock

As a little side project I decided it might be pretty cool to create an online word clock which shows the time as you might speak it.

So, I created: GrammarTime.

I'm pretty pleased with the result, looks pretty nice in full screen mode too.

I also learned a nifty little trick for hiding the navigation bar in Safari on the iPhone, just use the following bit of JavaScript on page load:

A photo of the Moon taken from my iPhone

Thomas — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 18:34:22 +0000

A photo of the Moon taken from my iPhone

I took the photograph below by lining up my iPhone to the eyepiece of a telescope. It was slightly tricky to get lined up but I think the end result was pretty great:

Pretty cool huh?

Let there be lightsabers

Thomas — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 12:29:58 +0000

Let there be lightsabers

Another design I thought would make a pretty cool poster, although that could just be because I'm a pretty big fan of Star Wars.

This one was created for the 'light' brief over on GotBrief and started out as just a design of a lightsaber which then turned into the 'let there be lightsabers' idea:

Enjoy!

Using ifttt to archive your tweets

Thomas — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:31:47 +0000

Using ifttt to archive your tweets

UPDATE: unfortunately due to recent changes in the Twitter API it seems IFTTT has to remove the Twitter triggers which means the following technique will no longer work. Thanks Twitter.

I’ve been seeing quite a few tweets about not being able to search back through your own tweets, with some users even offering to pay twitter for such a service:

I'd be happy to pony up an annual fee just to be able to search my tweets and favorites on @twitter. I'm losing important info.

The apostrophaces strike back

Thomas — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:10:45 +0000

The apostrophaces strike back

That's right they're back!

As I was sifting through my old blog posts I found the apostrophaces design I did just over a year ago and decided it was high time for a comeback!

The collection:

Font: Chiller

My new website design

Thomas — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:12:52 +0000

My new website design

This post talks about the latest iteration of my site design and the steps I took in order to produce it. It’s not really about the code I used to create the theme but more the rationale behind the various decisions made, the thoughts running through my head and some general issues I had with my old design.

The main points will be covered as follows:

Moving Brands & their creative process

Thomas — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:57:38 +0000

Moving Brands & their creative process

Mat Heinl gave a great talk at the Northern Digitals BLAB event yesterday in which he showcased some of the various projects Moving Brands have worked on recently.

Wilson Miner - Build 2011

Thomas — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:50:37 +0000

Wilson Miner - Build 2011

Back in November I attended Build 2011.

Without a doubt the talk which stood out the most to me (and I'm sure a lot of others at the conference too) was this one by @WilsonMiner:

Planning a project pie chart

Thomas — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:15:36 +0000

Planning a project pie chart

Today I have yet again been faced with this:

Personally, I think something needs to change with regards to domain name registrations. Perhaps if a domain isn't put to good use within 6 months it should be put up for sale again?

At least the ordeal inspired me to make something!

GotBrief - a site to fuel your creativity.

Thomas — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:19:01 +0000

GotBrief - a site to fuel your creativity.

Over the past couple of months I've been working on a self initiated project: GotBrief.

After attending Build 2011 I was inspired, truly inspired by the various talks and events which took place over the course of the conference. So inspired infact I decided to actually go out and build something, something which would hopefully inspire and help others to go out and create something too.

The new twitter design

Thomas — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 22:13:35 +0000

The new twitter design

Twitter has today launched a major new design of their apps across the board. Interestingly the announcement on http://fly.twitter.com came with a call to download the official mobile apps in order to get access to the new design on your computer, was this to reinforce a mobile first approach? Or perhaps it was just a ploy to get people back into using the official twitter app? Either way, I updated the iOS app & hey presto! The new web design appeared almost instantly.

The bowler

Thomas — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 19:00:50 +0000

The bowler

Eee Gads! Two blog posts in one day? Surely not!

I've been hard at work finishing some designs off and thought I would post both today. Much like the Level Up design I posted earlier today, I think the following design would make a pretty cool poster:

Level Up

Thomas — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 12:43:38 +0000

Level Up

I've been working on the following design recently:

I'm quite happy with the final result, I did have the chevrons of the military insignia as solid colour rather than the vertical lines but I find they add a slight illusion to the piece; can you see the three floating platforms?

DrupalCon London 2011

Thomas — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 21:19:46 +0000

DrupalCon London 2011

DrupalCon London is almost over, the sessions have all been wrapped up and all that remains tomorrow is the code sprints to try and put some of the awesome ideas from the week straight into action. This was actually my first ever DrupalCon, unfortunately I could only attend one of the days but even so; I learnt a lot from the sessions I attended, the entire atmosphere was great and I'll definitely be attending future conferences!

Wunderlist: the fantastic task management app

Thomas — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 17:39:23 +0000

Wunderlist: the fantastic task management app

If you're trying to find a decent to-do list app then you really need to checkout the task management tool: Wunderlist. As well as a web app, wunderlist is also available for a wide variety of devices and perhaps the best thing about it: it's absolutely free. Incredible really when you look at the key features the app has to offer:

How to detect the width of a web browser using jQuery

Thomas — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 12:41:41 +0000

How to detect the width of a web browser using jQuery

Detecting the width of a browser window can be very useful when designing a website, it allows you to create a more responsive design which is suited to the current browser dimensions.

Quickly resize a lot of images in Photoshop

Thomas — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:26:37 +0000

Quickly resize a lot of images in Photoshop

Over the weekend I needed to resize an entire folder full of photos from my brothers graduation so I could upload them to the web without it taking 100 years to complete. I could have simply opened up each image in Photoshop, resized & re-saved them however that would have probably taken longer than the upload so I did a little research into automating the process.

Fading chances

Thomas — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 16:55:10 +0000

Fading chances

A little design piece I've been working on today, it's called "fading chances".

I don't think it's quite there yet & perhaps needs something else but I thought I would post it anyway. I find it's quite good to just stop and take a step back, maybe get some feedback before I add something that perhaps might not be needed!

Like it? Hate it? Indifferent? Let me know in the comments below.

P.S. Don't smoke.

Apostrophace design - bauhaus

Thomas — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 12:42:35 +0000

Apostrophace design - bauhaus

I thought I would share one of my favourite apostrophaces. I found it makes a pretty good background or wallpaper so feel free to save it & try it for yourself!

If you would like to alter/re-post this image then all I ask is that you add a link back to this original design.

Website overhaul: new design and development

Thomas — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 14:48:14 +0000

Website overhaul: new design and development

Last week I released the latest version of designedbythomas.co.uk. If you ever visited the old site then you will see there has been quite a drastic change to the overall theme and structure.

What is Drupal.settings all about in Drupal?

Thomas — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:48:08 +0000

What is Drupal.settings all about in Drupal?

I've recently been using the Views nivo slider module for a Drupal project which needed a nice neat javascript slider. After installing the module & getting the slider in place I suddenly came up against a slight problem in that I needed to dynamically change the starting slide on the slideshow.

Social media campaign tools.

Thomas — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 12:54:22 +0000

Social media campaign tools.

The only tools you'll need for a social media campaign:

You don't have to look too far to see that the major social networking sites are littered with these so called "campaigns".

If you are planning a social media campaign then please try to steer clear of these tools otherwise, you're not really planning a campaign: you're planning a competition.

Microsoft urges you to stop using Internet Explorer 6.

Thomas — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:13:45 +0000

Microsoft urges you to stop using Internet Explorer 6.

On Saturday I, like many other web designers and developers, woke up to some rather pleasing news: Microsoft has started a campaign to finally say goodbye to Internet Explorer 6 (IE6).

The campaign site: ie6countdown.com shows a worldwide map and statistics of the current usage count IE6 is sitting at. As of Feb 2011 the magic number sits at 12% usage worldwide (down 9% on the previous year), with the ultimate goal of reducing this number to less than 1%!

The lone vagabond

Thomas — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 16:40:56 +0000

The lone vagabond

I've been playing about with the idea of a design involving the outline of a person, much like the style of the Mad Men opening titles, however I have been a bit too busy lately to actually design anything!

I managed to play around with some of the ideas today and I came up with the following:

The new HTML5 logo

Thomas — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:40:35 +0000

The new HTML5 logo

The World Wide Web consortium (W3C) unveiled their new logo for HTML5 on Tuesday, along with a rather fancy website & a clear brand message on what HTML5 represents.

Wandering through the Forrst!

Thomas — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:38:46 +0000

Wandering through the Forrst!

Recently, I was lucky enough to receive a Forrst invite from Jim Ramsden of designfridge.co.uk and over the past couple of months I have been actively contributing to the site whenever I get chance.

Qwiki: the information experience

Thomas — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:19:42 +0000

Qwiki: the information experience

A couple of months ago I discovered Qwiki.com, a site which aims to transform the way in which people consume information on web by offering 'information experiences'. The site aims to do this by allowing users to search for information on a particular topic, much like conventional sites although; rather than simply returning a list of results the user is given a short presentation or 'Qwiki' which contains a variety of different panels with all sorts of information in various different formats depending on what you searched for.

Apostrophaces!

Thomas — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 18:58:55 +0000

Apostrophaces!

A few months back I discovered the brilliant fontstache/typestache poster which seems to show the personality of each font used through the style of the curly bracket.

Inspired by this I had a bit of fun putting together some "apostrophaces" - by using the apostrophe of a font I wanted to see if a certain personality came through when put in the context of a face.

2010 - A year to remember

Thomas — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:04:20 +0000

2010 - A year to remember

Captains log, star date December 31st 2010.

I find myself writing a blog post looking back on the year that has seemingly flown by and I can't help but smile.
At the start of 2010 I was heading into the second term of my final year at Lancaster University and I was part way through my dissertation.

Fast forward to the 22nd June - Results Day! On this day I found out that 4 years of hard work had finally paid off, I was awarded a First Class MSci degree in I.T & Media Communications! This was perhaps one of the happiest days of my entire life.

Using CSS3: box-shadow to create a photo vignette.

Thomas — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 13:32:08 +0000

Using CSS3: box-shadow to create a photo vignette.

The CSS3 property: box-shadow allows you to create simple drop-shadows on block level elements within a webpage. The box below shows this effect in action:

.selector{
box-shadow: 
x-direction
y-direction
blur-amount colour;
}

The box-shadow property also allows you to place the shadow within the element using the inset value, this allows you to create some pretty cool effects including: photo vignettes.

Motion graphics: kinetic titles.

Thomas — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 23:07:31 +0000

Motion graphics: kinetic titles.

With the phase 1 changes to my site now live, I finally had the chance to work on some motion design work.

To get back into the swing of using After Effects I created the video below, it showcases some 'kinetic titles' as well as some other cool visuals, check it out & let me know what you think:

Phase 1 complete

Thomas — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 20:02:54 +0000

Phase 1 complete

A few weeks ago I decided my website content pages needed a bit of a spruce up, less of a 'redesign' more of a 'refactoring' really.

Whilst designing the new content pages I also decided to make some changes to the backend too; moving away from the ZEN base theme to a completely custom theme contstructed from scratch.

I am in the process of writing up the changes I've made in slightly more detail, there are some pretty cool changes I made to the Drupal side of the site which I wan't to share.

My time at Lancaster University draws to a close.

Thomas — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:44:13 +0000

My time at Lancaster University draws to a close.

On the 22nd June 2010 : I received the results of my four year degree. I am absolutely delighted to reveal: I achieved a first class Msci degree in I.T & Media Communications and as an added bonus I have also been nominated by the board of examiners to receive the IEEE Prize for outstanding performance on my final year project. I really couldn't have asked for a better end to my academic career!

Incorrect password error using GMail on the iPhone

Thomas — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:14:19 +0000

Incorrect password error using GMail on the iPhone

Whenever an "enter password" message box pops up on my iPhone I immediately enter my iTunes password, it's pretty much a an immediate action and I don't tend to look at what the message is saying once I see the word: "Password" I just zone out and enter it.

So when the familiar message box below popped up I proceeded to enter my iTunes password as per usual!

5 Second Project: Countdown

Thomas — Thu, 27 May 2010 16:40:13 +0000

5 Second Project: Countdown

A couple of months ago I came across Greyscale Gorilla - a blog dedicated to all manner of motion graphics and 3D design.

Whilst traversing the wealth of posts over there I found out about the "5 second projects" - basically they provide you with a theme and all you have to do is create an animation based on it. The animation can literally be anything you want it to be as long as it has something to do with the theme they set.

My New Business Card Design

Thomas — Mon, 24 May 2010 17:34:15 +0000

My New Business Card Design

Over the past couple of months I've been busy working on my final year project & dissertation and as a result the blog has suffered slightly!

Fear not my faithful reader(s), I am back!

As an initial post I would like to showcase my new business card designs I had printed recently as part of the new brand design and the designedbythomas.co.uk URL change.

designedbythomas - the new URL.

Thomas — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 12:08:05 +0000

designedbythomas - the new URL.

Just a quick note, I have now added a new domain to my site: http://designedbythomas.co.uk - you will see exactly the same thing as if you were visiting the site from: http://thomasedavis.co.uk so there is no massive change going on with the working of the site.

designedbythomas.co.uk provides a slightly clearer url than thomasEdavis.co.uk - people can often miss out the E or spell Davis: davies.

Website design inspiration: designfridge.co.uk

Thomas — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 17:31:21 +0000

Website design inspiration: designfridge.co.uk

I think we all need a bit of inspiration once in a while, regardless of the field you work in! It is always useful to find a consistent source of inspiration which you can admire whenever a creative block forms over your head.

Not long ago I came across designfridge - a brilliant collection of various different websites and website designers all packaged into a cool clean site.

Thomas Davis: brand design

Thomas — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 14:26:34 +0000

Thomas Davis: brand design

[UPDATE: I have gone ahead with the change to the new brand tagline. Thanks for the feedback! ]

I have been thinking about changing the branding tagline of my site for a while now and have come up with the following:

Thomas Davis | Creative Design & Development.

Compared with the original:

Thomas Davis | Online Design & Creation.

Website design project finished: Andy Hudson Music

Thomas — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 19:29:55 +0000

Website design project finished: Andy Hudson Music

I am very pleased to announce a brand new website design project: andyhudsonmusic.com has just gone live!

The website is part of a complete redesign & rebranding project which aims to increase Andys online presence as well as giving him a more professional and refined brand image to operate under. As well as a new design the new website also comes with increased functionality which gives Andy the ability to easily upload his music tracks to the website himself.

Motion graphics: textured title fade

Thomas — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:23:45 +0000

Motion graphics: textured title fade

I recently wrote about the visual design within games and how I am inspired by the visual aesthetics of certain game environments & landscapes.

Following the post, I decided to have a play around with some of the aesthetic elements seen in one of the games I mentioned: Fallout 3.

Here is what I came up with:

The end of a few busy weeks...

Thomas — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:02:28 +0000

The end of a few busy weeks...

Phew! The past couple of weeks have been properly busy for me; finishing various projects, revising for exams and finishing coursework. Today however: I am finished. At precisely 11.19am today I finished the last exam of my Msc and quite possibly the last exam of my academic career!

If you are following me on twitter then you will probably be glad to hear that my exams are over as I do tend to tweet about revision quite a bit!

My new Behance profile

Thomas — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:55:50 +0000

My new Behance profile

I recently came across the site: behance.net - the site showcases creative portfolios and work from various people all over the world.

At the moment you cannot simply signup to the site, I am not sure whether or not this will change in the future but at the moment you can register interest in the site then be invited to join it. I registered my interest in the site and within a few hours was invited to join so it was quite a quick process.

[Rebrand]New Logo: Andy Hudson

Thomas — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:21:04 +0000

[Rebrand]New Logo: Andy Hudson

I am very pleased to reveal the new logo for my client: Mr. Andy Hudson.
The new logo is part of a larger rebrand project for Andys professional portfolio.

Andy is currently working as a freelance music producer and did some fantastic work for me on my promotional motion graphics video.

I will reveal the rebranded website when it goes live within the coming months but for now feast your eyes on the new logo:

How to: create a website bookmark icon for the iPhone

Thomas — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:52:26 +0000

How to: create a website bookmark icon for the iPhone

For those of you who follow me on twitter - you may have read that I recently became the owner of an Apple iPhone. I must admit that it was quite a hard decision, the lack of a camera above 3 megapixels being the main reason I didn't really want to join the Apple masses. Nevertheless, I now have the device and must admit: I love it!

New: Motion Graphics Promotional Video

Thomas — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:23:12 +0000

New: Motion Graphics Promotional Video

I recently completed a new promotional motion graphics piece to advertise my services in a fun and exciting way. The music used in the video was produced by my good friend Andy Hudson.

The video makes use of the new Video Copilot Sure Target 2 plugin.

The video will take pride of place on the front page as a short description of what I do.

Check out the video below and feel free to leave your comments!

The real beauty of the Apple iPad

Thomas — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:49:07 +0000

The real beauty of the Apple iPad

After months of speculation and a plethora of "is this the new Apple Tablet?" images, Apple finally revealed to the world: The iPad.

Is this is it for Internet Explorer?

Thomas — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:31:14 +0000

Is this is it for Internet Explorer?

In my previous blog post on website design & cross-browser support , I brought up the issue of cross-browser support and the main challenges for website designers trying to acheive the same site in all browsers - most notable Internet Explorer 6. Now, it seems that problem may be about to be resolved.

A useful tool for website development & cross-browser support

Thomas — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:24:36 +0000

A useful tool for website development & cross-browser support

A major aspect of website design & development is cross-browser support: making sure your website looks and feels 'roughly' the same in different web browsers running on different operating systems.

Visualization of RFID

Thomas — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:35:26 +0000

Visualization of RFID

In my blog post on the nabaztags, I talked about the RFID rabbits known as nano:ztags bringing a relatively new and emerging technology to the public in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

I then remembered a site which I had come across a couple of months ago: nearfield.org - the site relates to the research project: "touch" which investigates Near Field Communications.

Nabaztag: the wireless rabbit

Thomas — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:37:28 +0000

Nabaztag: the wireless rabbit

OK, now you may look at the title of this post and think that I have lost it but keep with me!

I am infact talking about this little critter:

Looking to the future: 2010

Thomas — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:10:04 +0000

Looking to the future: 2010

As 2009 draws to a close I find myself looking ahead to the future, making plans and setting myself personal and professional goals.

2009 brought many changes to my website; the most notable change is the design of the site, the new design fit into the new direction of the site. A site more focussed on design and not just development.

As well as the new design, 2009 brought new areas of work: print and motion graphics both of which I am keen to expand on within 2010.

Real-time search from Google

Thomas — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:32:15 +0000

Real-time search from Google

Google have just released a video of their real-time search function.

So what does this mean? Well, if someone was searching for an article on the new realtime search function in Google at around 8pm on the 7th of December 2009 then my blog post and all the related blog posts will show within the real-time results.

Basically, it gives users access to up-to-the-minute results from a wide variety of sources and from the video it seems twitter will play a big role in the real-time searches.

Visually stunning: Gorey Castle besieged by projection

Thomas — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:34:01 +0000

Visually stunning: Gorey Castle besieged by projection

Now this is how you attack a castle in the 21st Century!

The effect was achieved by mapping out the castle and then creating the various animations to fit the map - it was then projected onto the castle using a very high intensity projecter: the Christie 25K projector.

The end result is truly magnificent, especially the final 5 seconds!

The project by Seeper, was displayed at the Jersey Branchage Festival 2009.

URL Change: Blog

Thomas — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:42:14 +0000

URL Change: Blog

Just a quick announcement: I recently changed the base URL for my blog from "blogs" to "blog" - this shouldn't really affect anything too much but if you have come across a page not found error when trying to reach the blog from an external link then this is why.

New Testimonial: The Customs People

Thomas — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:42:51 +0000

New Testimonial: The Customs People

I am delighted to announce a new testimonial from: The Customs People.

Google Wave: Initial thoughts

Thomas — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:30:07 +0000

Google Wave: Initial thoughts

For those of you who don't know what Google Wave is - check out this guide to google wave from Mashable.com.

At approximately 8am on the 30th October 2009, I received an invite to Google Wave!

I had been informed that an invite was heading my way from a twitter contact (@BruceElrick), but the invite process is not instant and for me it was 3 days from being put in the invite queue to getting my invite!

Finished: The Lancaster Award

Thomas — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:53:20 +0000

Finished: The Lancaster Award

I finally handed over the Lancaster Award site last week just in time for freshers week.

The whole project has been a really good experience right from the word go! The Lancaster Award team were a really friendly bunch of people to work with and I would gladly work with them in future.

The project didn't just involve the designing and building of the website, there was also an A5 leaflet and digital booklet to accompany the award to provide students & site visitors with more information.

Graphic design portfolio section

Thomas — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:19:11 +0000

Graphic design portfolio section

Yes I have now increased my portfolio section to include my previous graphic design work.

This section will contain all graphics work (not website design) and will be updated very soon with all my previous work.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy checking out the: awesome new graphic design portfolio

(and remember if you need any graphic design work doing then contact me)

Student? Jobless? Enter: Student Gems

Thomas — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:01:08 +0000

Student? Jobless? Enter: Student Gems

I have had a such a good experience with this site that I thought it deserved a blog post:

About a year ago I was introduced to a wonderful site: studentgems.com - a brilliant site for all students looking for part time work.

The site is so good because it allows students to advertise their own individual skills to employers and allows employers to search for students based on the skills they need!

"Where Am I Based?"

Thomas — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:51:50 +0000

"Where Am I Based?"

As a freelancer I am currently not fixed in any one location for work.

For the past 3 years I have been primarily working in Lancaster as I worked towards my degree.
(I recently received my results for the third year and was very very pleased to have acheived a 1st!)

In the academic year 2009/10 I will be completing what will probably be my final year at Lancaster University, hopefully graduating with an MSci in I.T. & Media Communications.

Completely New Site

Thomas — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:38:27 +0000

Completely New Site

Welcome to the new site design!

I recently updated my site from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 and to go with it I created the new theme you see before you.

Instead of upgrading from D5 to D6 I decided to make a fresh start. My old site had a lot of unnecessary modules & themes installed as well as unwanted content from when I first created the site. For all of these reasons I decided simply to create a whole new site, delete the old database and content and start with a new fresh install of Drupal 6.

Zen Sub-theme Error

Thomas — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:36:57 +0000

Zen Sub-theme Error

The great thing about Drupal is that it comes with a variety of themes available to download. If, like me however, you want to carve out your own theme then there is an incredibly useful way of doing this: the Zen theme.

Zen is a perfect starting point for anyone who wants to give theming a go for Drupal sites. It is well documented and within a few easy steps you can be on your way to creating your own theme.