diccce

I find myself in a project that I couldn’t finish and to be honest, I didn’t try hard enough. I gave myself two weeks to launch a new portfolio and was not able to do it. 

Rather than delivering something, I pulled the plug on what I had and now stand here without anything.

Takeaway

If I commit to something, just do it. And don’t try to skip the workflow. Starting with the implementation without having a clear direction always results in twice the work. 

I wasn’t sure which way I wanted to go with my portfolio and on what platform I want it to exist. So now back to square one and start this project again.

Thank you for reading,

Ever since I call myself a designer and am working on a project, I need a deadline to finish it. Without a deadline there is always something other to do, always design details to polish and always a good enough reason not to finish.

At least this is how I feel most of the time. Once there is a date on a project, ideas pop and the work can begin. 

Portfolio

Not long ago this very blog got a new home at tumblr and a little refresh in design. But this is not about this blog, I’d like to relaunch my work portfolio. 

Finishing the personal portfolio is one of the hardest thing, for designers, to do. By participating in May 1st  Reboot, I give myself now two weeks time to launch my portfolio. 

Plenty of time and a reason to deliver on that date.

Thank you for reading,

Everybody should know how to listen to music, the right way. Today all you need is a phone… and headphones, nobody wants to hear what you are listening to when you’re in public.

How your Dad listened to Music

I’d like to take you down memory lane. You know, tapes, CDs and vinyl, the latter is becoming more popular than ever. Somehow we’re missing the days when listening to music meant to go through your collection and put an album on the stereo. Holding the vinyl and feeling the songs graved into it. Choosing an artist and their album and listening to it. Not just having something playing in the background, actively sitting down and listening. 

I guess that is why vinyl is back and people who care about music can’t just have their music in some app.

Now it is your turn

Singles and playlists, random mixture of songs you like. 

I always prefer stories over anything else. A random design task means nothing unless it has a story attached to it. During my study I got briefings to learn a certain technique, I could just do the first thing that popped into my mind, if it was related to the technique. What I did instead was think about a story, how could I learn something and at the same time make it mean something? If I had to create icons, I didn’t made random ones, I chose a movie or an album and created icons fitting the story of it. 

What I am getting at, a good album tells a story. Listen to it how the artist intended it to be listened to. Create playlists resolving around a theme. Different songs fit different moods and places.

Go ahed and start the week with your monday power playlist or put your favourite album on and actively listen to it.

Thank you for reading,

Rafael

Every day is short. I wake up do stuff and at the end of the day I go to sleep to recharge and continue on the next day. But sleeping is a necessity, skipping it is not really possible. Sure I could stay awake for two days, but wouldn’t be as productive as I would if I had taken my regular sleep. It recharges only so much. 

Having the weekends for recharging is a great time, but again there is always something to do. Going to the movies, cleaning the apartment and what not. 

Doing absolutely nothing, you feel you have to do. Just enjoying the day as it is. Going for a walk or sitting in the sun. That are the times I feel I really recharge. Having no agenda and do whatever I feel like doing.

Currently I took two weeks off. After I did a lot of stuff in the first week I had not the time doing normally while working, I will do exactly nothing on the second week. Probably not the whole week though, because when the battery is full there is no point to still charge it, right? 

Every day is important and you shouldn’t waste it, but don’t forget to do nothing once in a while. 😊

Thank you for reading,

I’ve been looking for a decent sleeve to protect my MacBook while it is in my backpack and to carry around. Most sleeves I found fulfill my criteria, but are incredibly ugly. 

The coal collection from Puritaan is exactly what I was searching for, minimalistic in design, high in quality and true to the material they are using. If it wasn’t for my friend Leander, I might still be searching. He stumbled upon their website and like me, fall in love with the products. 

Like you would expect from thick leather, it protects what’s inside of it. And while having this sleeve now for a couple of weeks, the leather got softer and shinier. With everyday usage it gets better and better. 

65€

★★★★★

As a product designer I am constantly working on my online presence. Growing with my work and rebranding myself as often as possible. I like to have the opportunity to continue doing this, but at the same time restrain myself and focus more on content creation rather then redesigning. Six month ago, when I started this project I mentioned how often I already did this. By putting this blog on tumblr I’d like to achieve an easier way to maintain a constant stream of content creation.

Why choose tumblr?

I found that having a complete self hosting solution and running a CMS like Kirby, gave me to much freedom. While at the same time restraining me to publish regularly. 

With tumblr I get features like scheduled posting and the ease of a community. Same as on twitter, having the ability to like and follow people is a big deal. And on top of this, I still have the freedom of designing my own theme.

So coding a tumblr theme is pretty new to me, the basics are the same, but I like to see what I can do with it. Expect at least one new post every monday morning. 

Half Year to Go

I studied Communication Design and Art Direction for three and a half years. At the beginning of 2015 I was about to finish one semester and start my last one.

It has been a crazy ride. I met a lot of awesome people and learned so much that will be with me my entire life. Even though I graduated in June, it is only the beginning of learning much more.

For my thesis I choose to write a book about seven topics of my entire study. Typography, Corporate, Illustration, Film/Photo, Graphic, Industrial and Editorial. It turned out pretty nice I would say.

Run a Marathon

Like a lot of people, I wanted to run a marathon at one point in my life. I signed up for the Hamburger Marathon and forgot about it. Then I got a message when I could get my number and stuff. I panicked and started to train for it one month before race day.

»Here’s how you run a marathon. Step one: You start running. There is no step two.« 

Barney Stinson

This quote got me through the finish line and much like Barney I couldn’t move my legs after that. It was worth it but next time I really should have been on top of my game and have trained just a little more.

Vacation

Every year I fly somewhere warm and just lay in the sun. 2015 me my girlfriend and befriended couple went to Side in Turkey. For 10 days we had a great time there. We bought cheap clothes on the markets, went white water rafting and worked on our tans.

Turkey is a beautiful country and definitely worth another visit sometime in the future.

Later that year my girlfriend and I drove to Amsterdam and stayed there for three days. We made a city trip and visited tourist attractions, like the Heineken Experience and a Canal Cruise.

It rained the entire time and I got sick after it, but it was a beautiful trip and I would do it again.

Studied

Getting my degree with distinction was a huge moment for me this past year. After that I was a little lost and not sure were to go from there.

Started Writing

Starting this blog and developing it is something I like to keep doing. And I had a good run, I published one article every week for 14 weeks straight. But got sidetracked during my vacation in Amsterdam and picked it up just now—writing this year in review.

Product Design

Getting a job as a UI/UX Designer at mytaxi and started working on the car2go app opened a new chapter in my life. I am no longer a student, even though I will never be finished learning new skills.

I feel that I got into the working world as a Designer. I look forward to 216 and honestly can’t wait to get my routine back.

Thank you for reading, 

Guess what, I rent everything these days. All my music? Rented. All my movies? Rented. All my TV Shows? Rented. I even may rent all my books. I pay every month to services like Spotify and Netflix. What I can’t rent, are my pictures. I have to shot them on my own, categories and store them somewhere. Maybe in my Dropbox, though I don’t have to pack them in my backpack. What a pain in the ass.

How much does your life weight? This is a question George Clooney, who plays Ryan Bingham in Up In The Air, asks in his speech. His point was to get every baggage out of your backpack and this means out of your life, because it makes you slow. And not just out, burned, gone forever.

»What do you want to take out of it? Photos? Photos are for people who can’t remember. Drink some ginko and let the photos burn.«

Ryan Bingham 

When I look around, I don’t see physical media except books and photos. My backpack is pretty empty. That’s because I’m young and I don’t keep everything I don’t need. But I don’t want to go so far, Ryan Bingham far. I like to have photos on the wall and I like to have books in shelves. What I don’t like, is stuff that makes me slow.

When I listen to music, I don’t want to put a physical media in a player. I chose an album and press play. What is missing there, is the connection, the whole package. Music isn’t just what you hear, it is the cover artwork as well. The booklet I never liked, but the artwork for the record I want to hang on my wall. You don’t have to look through my music collection to see what I like, because I don’t have one. When you’re in my apartment you look at my walls. The same with movies, hang the artwork on your wall and don’t collect DVD’s.

Books are different. They may be heavy and big, but you can feel every page. You can’t feel a movie or a song in that way, you would just feel some plastic. You open a book and you can start to read and dive into the story. Books look best when put in a shelf and give the room an educated feeling. I like to read them on a Kindle when I am on the go, but at home I want the paper in my hands.

Don’t get me wrong, the computer is the machine where you do the final result. But before you get to that use your hands. Not to move the cursor from one corner of the screen to the other, really use them. Get dirty, cut paper and write things down with a pen.

The worst is this clean and trying to be perfect work. You have to see mistakes, because it isn’t a mistake. It is you, it makes things how you are. Don’t try to get rid of those kind of mistakes. I’m not talking about typos or bad design. I talk about the human element you give to your work.

Austin Kleon wrote about his workspace in his book “Steal Like An Artist”. He has one desk with his computer on it, where he gets the work done. And then he has this one desk stuffed up with pencils, papers, razors and so on. That is his analog place, where he gets his ideas and has fun. Because when you think about it, it’s all about having fun.

Thank you for reading, 

Dribbble is a kind of closed design community, you’ll need an invite to be able to post your designs. And in the past I always showed my work just to delete it days later. Never good enough, never proud enough to see improvements by leaving the work around to be seen.

A couple of month ago I started to post some work of my personal website on Dribbble. But after a little while I wasn’t sure of what to post, since every shot had to be worked out. Well, I tend to overcomplicate things when it comes to show them. I want them to be perfect, but I know there is no such thing as perfection in life. This exercise will help me to better be done than perfect.

How It Works

Made by the dudes behind Noon Pacific. Inspired by Paul Nechita.

I get a daily prompt (M-F) for 100 days. I have to interpret and design the UI element and share it on Dribbble. The benefit is to get feedback from others and improve my skills.

Feel free to sign up at Daily UI as well, and hit me up with a tweet or just send me over a high five.

Thank you for reading, 

After seeing the first teaser for the Martian, I thought that this looked very funny and promising. So I decided to read the book first.

In short, the Martian by Ridley Scott is a great movie on its own. The amazing cast makes it very special and gives every character the personality they deserve.

The back and forth between Earth and Mars drives the movie and don’t make it feel like Castaway in space. And if you would think because it is a space movie, that it is similar to Gravity or Interstellar, you’re wrong. This is a very different movie and a very good one. 80s disco and geeky fun stuff. It’s even worth to watch it in 3D.

I am currently one month in at my new job as a product design intern at mytaxi (Intelligent Apps). What I can tell you is that I am working on the car2go application, other than that I can’t write about anything I am currently working on, sorry.

It is great to finally been working on a daily basis. I mean after 13 years of school and three and a half years of study it is a change of pace for me. I have worked before at different companies, but never full time at a job doing what I love. Designing user interfaces and user experiences.

So here I am going to work every day and doing awesome stuff. Living with my beautiful girlfriend in a nice apartment and having a great time in general. Life is good.

I used two of those gadgets, first the Nike+ FuelBand and currently the Mi Band by Xiaomi.

The one from Nike seemed promising at first. “Gamificate” your live and push your fitness level by earning Fuelpoints throughout your day. And it was fun at first. I walked more than usually to get to that green goal I have set myself. But after a while it became a chore. It wasn’t fun anymore, somedays are just lazy and you don’t want your little fitness buddy to keep reminding you every time you look at it, that you did absolutely nothing that day.

So eventually I stopped wearing the band. It wasn’t a good watch, you had to press a button to see the time. It needed to be charged every couples of days. And it doesn’t seem to be worth it.

A couple of month after I sold the FuelBand, I probably wore it for six month, I heard about this Mi Band. To be fair, I read about a couple of different fitness and sleeping tracking devices: Jawbone, Fitbit, Adidas, Garmin, Withings, Misfit. The problem with all of those is the pricing. Their are damn expensive for what it’s worth. It is not like I need this data or that this bands look particularly good. Their are gadgets and maybe bring some value to my live, but nothing I really need.

Well, back to that Mi Band I’m currently wearing. It costs like 15€ and is well manufactured. Doesn’t feel like a cheap fitness tracking device. The band itself feels extremely good to wear. Besides the obvious fitness tracking, which it does good, it is a nice sleeping tracker. I grew quiet fond of the fact that this band wakes me every morning with some gentle vibrations on my wrist. I never liked peep-sounds or music to wake me up. Music isn’t that bad, but if it is the same song every morning. The song becomes that annoying thing that wakes you up.

It is not the fitness tracking that keeps me wearing a band everyday, I pretty fast got rid of the idea that it should push my activities. It is quiet nice to see how much I walked on certain days, but doesn’t make me uncomfortable when I don’t reach my goal for the day. It is the alarm in the morning, it even tries to wake me when I am not in my deep sleep phase. In the end it is just a little gadget, I could go on without it. The little value it brings to my live, is really just that little.

The next thing on my wrist will probably be the second generation Apple Watch. Maybe by then it can be my gentle wake up call.

Training in the morning is like a domino effect. Starting my routine with an exercise will carry on for the rest of the day. For example, I am likely to follow my training with a healthy shake, snack or breakfast.

It even carries to my work. I don’t walk around sleepy and can start right away. Since I am not a coffee guy, a workout is all I need to start my day.

As a Free Athlete you are not alone. There are thousands of athletes. We train Freeletics together. We compete against each other. We fire each other up. In this way you can push yourself harder. This is why Freeletics is the most motivating way to live a healthy and balanced life. Freeletics

Be consistent. If you say you’re going to do something every day, do it ever day.

Apple announced new Apple Watch bands, the iPad Pro, a pencil, Apple TV and of course the iPhone 6s in two sizes. All those products are nice and everything, but nothing I want to buy right now.

The new iPhone doesn’t give me anything my current iPhone 6 hasn’t. I mean 3D Touch looks neat, but it’ll take probably a couple of month until the apps I use will implement it in a useful way. The iPhone 7 will do just fine than.

But there was one product they showed I would like to own right now. A new iPhone Dock that not only looks stunning but works with a case.

The choice of which browser to use isn’t easy. Most of the time it is what’s the most comfortable. On Apple devices it obviously is Safari. It is already installed and sits in your dock.

Then there are the choices someone makes. Firefox stands for open source and transparency. Chrome and Safari are going for speed and new features. And what the Internet Explorer was doing, nobody knows. Now there is a new player in town — Microsoft Edge, but I don’t use a Windows PC and don’t care.

Right now I think that Chrome is the best browser out there. It probably always was and I just wanted to see how the competition was doing. Now I am back and like it.

Thank you for reading, Rafael

A lot of great new cards and many little improvements through out the game were added. This is the perfect game to be played on an iPad. The fast pacing makes it neat for breaks.

My Hunter Deck

This is very much a work in progress, I looked at many deck postings on different sites and came up with this build. I try to play in rank mode. The best I could do is rank 10.

Challenge Me

If you happen to play as well, feel free to add me. My BattleTag is Diccce#2800.