Matt Maxwell Creative Launched

To ring in the new year, I have launched a new expanded self-promotional site. The new site, www.mattmaxwellcreative.com showcases not only my work found on www.mattmaxwelldesign.com, but it also work in progress and projects that are stuck in various levels of approval. It has new work in all categories and has two new categories, Advertising and Creative. These two sections have been added because I am discovering lately a new passion for advertising. I have also created a PDF portfolio in the Contact section. The site is password protected to safeguard privacy of some of my customers. If you would like access, email me and depending on who you are, I will give you access.

"Apprentice" Book

I just finished watching The Apprentice on DVD and it was not only entertaining, but very good instruction on how to be a leader and a model employee. I took a ton of notes as I watched it, but then I ran across this book which does an excellent job at articulating the principles taught in the show. If you find you have some rough professional edges that need smoothing, I highly recommend this book and watching the DVDs.

King Kong Video Game Rocks

I played this for the first time today and it is amazing. I have never seen such realistic effects in a video game. I have a new subscription to GameFly and it's my first game. I am going to start renting games instead of buying them. Gamefly lets you keep them as long as you want and they even give you the option of buying the game at a nice discount.

Crazy Christmas Party

In case you have never seen this done before, you cover up the upper-half of your head and put a face and hat on your chin then let your head hang off a sofa. Basically anything you say or do from that point is hilarious.

New Joseph Smith Film

There is a new film about Joseph Smith playing in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building Legacy Theater in Salt Lake City. It paints a very good portrait not only of Joseph Smith, but his wife Emma and the other early leaders of the church. I thought it was better than Testaments and Legacy, which are previous films that have played there. What was amazing to me was the new digital projection system that they have installed. This is the first movie to go digital and the detail is very rich. If you can get tickets, I highly recommend it.

Where is Jingle Bell Elf?

I have had a surprising number of people ask me this year when I would be sending out the next installment of our adventurous hero, Jingle Bell Elf. Sadly, the company that usually hires me to do this yearly game no longer exists. It has been absorbed into something else and has a new owner. So, I am not sure if I will do another installment before Christmas. In the meantime, if you would like to relive a past adventure visit jinglebellelf.com. Happy holidays!

New Family Member

We have a new family member. His name is Tucker. He was born on September 8th.

Must-read for Gringos

Okay, I admit it, I was a little uncomfortable with the noticable influx of Latinos moving into my city lately. I couldn't order a burger or even Panda Express anymore without seeing a whole staff of Latinos taking my order - and speaking 100% Spanish while they do it. "What is happening?", my xenophobic side said to myself and I indignantly wondered, "how they dare be so blatant about it? - This is America - they should speak English!". My whiteness was feeling rather threatened.
Well, this book by Jorge Ramos helped me overcome what I discovered was racism inside of me. I don't think anyone decides one day that they will be a racist - I sure didn't - many of us just grew up with it. I highly recommend this book.

Happy Halloween

Guess who? This is me unmasked. I thought I would finally come out. Yes, I am a clown. I am fed up with covering my face every morning with beige make-up and trying to look like everyone else! I just want everyone to just accept me for who I am!

Newsweek Cover Story about Mormons

Newsweek did an interesting cover story about the history and teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is pretty balanced and seems even to favor the church, where in 1997 there was another cover story on Time magazine that was entitled "MORMONS, INC. The Secrets of America's Most Prosperous Religion." which was more negative. Trumpeted Time: “The church's material triumphs rival even its evangelical advances.” They estimated the Church’s worth at about $30 Billion.

LooneyTunes.com

It looks like an old institution has digital. LooneyTunes.com has many Flash cartoons and games on their site. This is the first time I have seen full-length professional cartoons attempted in Flash. They are somehat mechanical, but pretty well-done.

New Quark Identity

Hmm - I don't like their new logo. I guess Quark, Inc. is trying to redefine itself. To me, it's a little too late. After years of terrible customer service, expensive upgrades, and paranoid licensing policies, Quark seems desperate with it's new rival InDesign hammering away at their customer base. I think I'll sue them for copying my duck logo.

Burnout Legends for Playstation Portable

Gamespot.com gave Burnout Legends for PSP a 9.0 rating and Editors Choice. Only 3 days 'til release! Vroom vroom!

Mormon.org Ecards Launched

The new ecards have launched on Mormon.org. This is a Flash application that was programmed by Paul Mayne and designed by myself. It is powered by a database and requires ther latest Flash 7 plugin.

Palmyra - Friday

Spent the morning in the Grandin Press building in downtown Palmyra, New York. We took two VRs and a bunch of pictures of interiors. Ate at Wards Burgers again and now I am at the airport. I will be glad to get home. I still need to blog yesterday. We really got a lot of shooting in yesterday.

Palmyra - Thursday

We had a long day today. We drove to Fayette and got pictures of the Peter Whitmer Farm where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized in 1830. We then went to the Hill Cumorah (see picture) and took more pictures of the Smith frame home. At the end of the day we needed pictures of the Susquehenna River but it was too far to visit so we used the Eerie Canal. We got some great pictures of it at sundown.

Palmyra - Wednesday

I spent the day taking tours of the Smith cabin and frame home and in the sacred grove today in the pouring rain. Is was very peaceful and I was all alone because of the rain. I took lots of pictures (see, above) and I had a chance to feel the spirit of the place. I feel a love and an appreciation for Joseph and his family. It is inspiring to be where the last dispensation was started.

Palmyra - Tuesday

Well I am here and we had a good day of shooting. The light wasn't the best but we took lots of pictures of the Smith log home and the Smith frame home and the surrounding areas. We have yet to enter the Sacred Grove. I discovered lobster bisque at Flahtery's. We also had an awesome burger Wards followed by a large bowl of ice cream. Welden Andersen ate at least a half gallon (hence the picture).

Palmyra is everything I imagined. The the scenery is very magical - it looks just like the pictures I have seen all my life. I can almost feel Joseph off in the brush carrying the plates and fighting off his enemies. I also think of the Nephite battles that took place here and the richness of it all.

Cool Flash 8 Links

The new version of Flash will be available soon and Flash designers are giddy with excitement. A friend of mine, Dustin Andrew, has collected a list of links things that the new Flash 8 player can do. First, get the player here, then go and try these links.

Instructional Design Principles in the Scriptures

I have noticed lately a number of verses in The Book of Mormon and the Bible that seem to be instructive on teaching techniques. Being a multimedia designer working for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I see these applying directly to church multimedia projects.

2 Nephi 33:6 - "...I glory in plainness..."
Multimedia tends to be more intuitive and it can create an experience that is more memorable. It takes less effort to consume and builds on familiar experiences. Text, on the other hand, takes effort to read and the brain needs to translate it into meaning. We spent the earliest years of our lives reacting to sights and sounds before we started reading. Seeing and hearing is wired deeply into us where reading was "installed" later. I have see a trend lately on the Internet where you have the option of experiencing a video of a news story instead of reading it. If I have a choice I always pick the video version. I heard somewhere that all technology evolves toward recreating reality.

2 Nephi 31:3 - "For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men. For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding"
Another scripture on plainness, but more importantly that God adapts His message according to a person's understanding. For some people, God sends a vision and for others such a s Lehi a book to read (see 1 Nephi 1:11.

2 Nephi 31:3 - "For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men. For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding"
Another scripture on plainness, but more importantly that God adapts His message according to a person's understanding. For some people, God sends a vision and for others such a s Lehi a book to read (see 1 Nephi 1:11.

1 Nephi 11:1 - "...I was caught away unto an exceedingly high mountain..."
God chose to teach Nephi using an angelic "virtual tour" The angel stepped aside at times to let Nephi explore. Nephi saw a panoramic view of the history of the whole world. The angel guided Nephi and asked him learning questions. John the Revelator in the the book of Revelation (Revelation 17:1 is one example) and Lehi (1 Nephi 8:5-7) also were also given a similar "multimedia tours". It is interesting that there is a guide in both instances. God could have simply played a movie with out a guide but he chose to include a guide for some reason. Some modern theories of learning show that learning retention is higher with the use of a host or guide in learning activities.

2 Nephi 33:1 - "...not mighty in writing...for when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men.
..."
To me this says that speaking is more powerful than writing. I like the word "carrieth" here.

Alma 18:24-43 - "...And Ammon began to speak unto him (Lamoni) with boldness, and said unto him: Believest thou that there is a God? And he answered, and said unto him: I do not know what that meaneth. And then Ammon said: Believest thou that there is a Great Spirit? And he said, Yea. And Ammon said: This is God. ..."
Alma 22:5-18 - "...And the king said: Is God that Great Spirit that brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem? And Aaron said unto him: Yea, he is that Great Spirit, and he created all things both in heaven and in earth. Believest thou this?..."
In these two areas of The Book of Mormon Ammon and Aaron used many teaching techniques that can be directly applied to multimedia training

Isaiah 52:15 - "...So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider...."
This is a good passage that Highlights hearing and seeing (Audiovisual). Jesus Christ and the apostles also mentioned seeing and hearing numerous times (Matthew 13:17, Acts 22:15). It is interesting that seeing and hearing are are many times associated with the heart (1 Corintians 2: 9). In the context of these scriptures the heart is almost portrayed as an additional sense similar to hearing and seeing. The heart is where attitudes change and emotions dwell. Quite possibly visions are the way God chooses to teach because they are a universal medium that first deeply effects the soul then is afterward interpreted into common language by the person.

Late Night with NASA

I am up late tracing the Discovery on a live RealPlayer feed from NASA. It is scheduled to touch down at 2:43 AM mountain time. I hope all goes well. Live NASA TV is very relaxing - sort of a zen experience here.

Siggraph - Wrap Up

Well it is over and my head is full of virtual reality. I look forward to interacting with the real world again.

Here are some thoughts that I am coming away with:

-All technology always moves toward reality.
-The future of the Web is all about users contributing content and helping you build your site. Users will be more and more empowered to create their own high quality content. Our job is to provide a place for them to put it.
-Graphic design is one of the core skills that will survive through technological evolution. The tools and media will change but design, typography, and storytelling will not.
-The future belongs to those who do the whole enchilada. Specialists will always need to be looking for their next specialty.
-Process kills energy and innovation. Innovation and greatness usually happens when the rules are broken and a risk is taken.
-Having one person in charge of a project is better than a committee where negotiations sap time and energy.
-Rushing into new processes and technologies should always include a careful study of the craftsmanship of the past and why things have evolved to their current state. Disney Animation will succeed in CG because they are listening to their traditional animators and lessons learned from decades of experience.
-People have nice skin in LA.

Siggraph - Wednesday Evening

Doug and Brian and I took a cab to the Grove Mall location of the Apple Store. It was a very cool place. We were hoping to get a Mighty Mouse but they were out of them. We saw Fantastic Four then ate dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Minnie Driver was performing live while we ate on the balcony.

Siggraph - Wednesday Afternoon

The Social Web was a panel discussion about creating communities where the users create using your tools. For example, Soda Constructor is sort of like online tinkertoys that alows visitors to create bots then animate them.

Dodgeball.com is a site where friends meet and interact. It is designed in Flash and is nicely done.

Processing.org is another community that has been built by by users that contribute code to an open source programming language.

I need to explore how the church can provide communities that the users build. The youth site would be a good venue for this.

Siggraph - Wednesday Morning

Peter Morville of semantic studios gave a good talk about ambient findability and information architecture - which is also the title of his new book due in September.Here is a link to his presentation.

Howard Tiersky of CapGemini.com gave an ease of use presentation. He talked about personas, heuristic analysis, etc. Basically an IA 101 course. We already do this stuff.

The Disney Legacy presentation discussed the transformation from hand-drawn to GC. They were careful to preserve the principles learned for many decades. It was a good reminder of the value of using black, gray, and white, then color to stage a scene. Visual hierarchy is important and dont show anything that doesn't reinforce the story. Put a spotlight in the scene and then put the character in it.

They also showed a clip from Rapunzel that was ASTONISHING. It is the first time a master traditional animator has latched onto technology and made it look like a storybook instead of like Toy Story.

"Mighty Mouse"

Finally a new Apple mouse. I want one. Now if they would just make the keyboard the same as the PC.

Siggraph - Tuesday Afternoon and Evening

This afternoon we went to the Electronic Theater matinee and saw two hours of the years best animations. They were presented on the best digital projection system I have ever seen. The realism that can be achieved today is downright spooky. We also saw a great two hour presentation from Phil Tippets, Dennis Muren, and Rob Coleman who were the main special effects guys from Star Wars episodes 1-6. It was a retrospective of old techniques as well as some interesting detail of current CG techniques. Really, there wasn't much live action at all in Episode III - just the main actors on a small platform surrounded by CG environments.

Siggraph - Tuesday Morning

Just wandered around the exhibition floor all morning. I got to see an XBOX 360 up close. The graphics are stunning - very detailed. I also looked at a program called Martin Hash's Animation Master. It is very inexpensive and is on both Mac and PC. I got all sorts of junk and filled a bag - and I only walked half the floor.

Siggraph - Monday Night

I stayed and watched a special session about video game controllers. I was introduced to the "DDR" (Dance, Dance, Revolution) phenomenon and a new version of the game that is called Karaoke Revolution. This game detects the pitch of your voice and you sing along as well as dance at the same time on a pad and the eye toy tracks you. It looks really fun and will be available for all consoles for Christmas.

DDR is helping kids (and adults) to get in shape and now is helping them to learn to sing. My kids will love this.

Sony demoed a new eye toy that detects depth of field and the guy demoed various environments. One that was very interesting was where he played raquetball with a beach ball using his arms. An onscreen skeletion tracked his movements. Motion capture is merging with video games!

Siggraph - Monday Afternoon

George Lucas gave the keynote address in the form of a causal interview Letterman style. He spoke about the importance of digital cinema and putting previsualization tools in the hands of technophobic "old school" film producers. He was refreshingly blunt about a number of things. I wasn't able to see him in person but I was in the next room watching him on closed circuit TV.

I also caught the end of the computer animation festival. There are some pretty bizzarre minds out there.

Siggraph - Monday Morning

We got registered and went up to the computer Animation Festival where we saw a variety of attendee-submitted animated shorts. They ranged from virtual heart operations to funny cartoons to dark, dreamlike metaphors. I watched Teach, Laugh, and Escape. Chris and I are going to lunch then we are going to head back for the keynote address by George Lucas.

Siggraph Los Angeles 2005

Well I'm here. Had a lovely flight with a sideways landing. I got to see an actual X-wing fighter in the convention center. It was autographed by the original Star Wars production staff. It is made out of plywood and is a genuine full size prop from the 1976 production!

Flash Experience Designs

Here are some sites that create rich experiences. I will continually update this entry as I find cool sites. (WARNING: The Saturn Sky site will start a midlife crisis if you watch the videos).
Saturn Relay
Saturn Sky
Saints and Soldiers
Volvo
Volvo Wherever
Volvo
IBM Help Desk
Ford Truck
Subaru R1
Heart of Volvo
BecomingHuman.org
Narnia

New Identity for GreetingCall

I just got this design approved for GreetingCall. This is a new company that allows you to purchase a gift then attach a phone recording to the gift.

Rembrandt Exhibit Launched

The Museum of Church History and Art has posted a new online version of its Rembrandt Biblical Etchings exhibit. This is a rare collection of more than 60 of Rembrandt's original etchings. The exhibit is designed in such a way that you can zoom in on each piece.

This uses our new dynamic exhibitor engine. This Flash engine is a skinnable, completely dynamic system that runs on a CSS and XML file. All of the elements and colors are interchangable.

New Joseph Smith Site Launched

This is the first web site out the chute that uses the new lds.org interface. The new site has a lot of media and information about the founder of the Mormon church. It can be found at www.josephsmith.net.

Flash Platformer Game Engine Underway

Here is the latest version of my new Flash game. I don't have a story for it yet, but the physics are getting worked out and they are getting pretty believable. NOTE: this is not a game yet-just a physics engine. Don't try to make sense of it.

Check out some of my other games here and here.

AIGA Portfolio Site

I have belonged to the American Institute of Graphic Arts since 1996 and I just posted my portfolio on the portfolio area of their web site. I also discovered that their trade journal VOICE is now an online journal. It has great articles on graphic design.

New Church History Library Building Announced

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has just announced a new church history library building.

LDS.org Retrospective

With the recently previewed LDS.org redesign nearing release, I thought I would take a trip down memory lane and attempt to assemble a history of LDS.org home page designs that I have collected over the years. This is not 100% accurate but gives a flavor of the evolution of LDS.org.

1994-1995
Here are some of the first designs that were approved and posted on the Internet:



1998
The site pictured above grew to the point where a redesign with categories was needed. Four new main categories were identified: Basic Beliefs, Family History, Member Resources, and Media Information. The hope at the time was that these four categories would serve the needs of the LDS.org for a long time.


1999
This design was introduced to add spirituality and warmth to the site. Upon entering LDS.org the user was presented with a "splash" screen that punctuated the centrality of the Savior in the church. Families were also highlighted. This was the last site that was created by hardcoding HTML pages. At this point we were accumulating a large amount of content that was quickly becoming unwieldy. This drove us to begin investigating the concepts of a dynamically built site and the need for a new concept called information architecture.




2000
The need for a dynamic site eventually caught on and a new team was brought in to the Church to lead us into this exciting new technology. The infusion of new information architects also influenced the need for a new redesign which would accomodate even more content that was pouring into the site.


2001
An emphasis to the living prophets was added to the home page by adding a daily quote and a large link to the First Presidency Message. During this period, new sites were designed such as mormon.org and providentliving.org.


2002-2004
More sites were designed during this period such as Home and Family, Stake and Ward Web Sites, Church History, and Newsroom.

2005
...Which brings us up to the present. This new design is expected to be released this year. It was previewed and usability tested at Education Week at BYU last summer.

New Talent - Scott Stoddard

I discovered a new Flash game programmer/character designer and it turns out he lives in my neighborhood. His site is:

http://www.spiritonin.com/

Check it out!

Golden Gate Panorama

This panorama was created with Photoshop's stitching function so it is not the best, but it gives a good sense of our walk that turned into a hike (click on the picture to see it larger).

Tony Hawk for PSP

I got a new game today. Tony Hawk's Underground 2 for Playstation portable. It is AWESOME. Here is a product description:



You've been chosen by Tony Hawk to take on Bam Margera as your teams go globetrotting on an insane road trip: the World Destruction Tour. THUG2 grinds in with a hilarious story mode, an unprecendented level of customization, and more moves than the Skate Gods could dream of. Make the world your own skate park, as you spray your custom tag, slap stickers, and even create new skate lines as you wreak havoc. Now you can play as yourself, your teammates, or over 20 special guest skaters. When you're ready to go old school, check out Classic Mode with all-time favorite goals like S-K-A-T-E, Secret Tape, and High Score against a 2-minute timer. Grab your board, an arsenal of spray-paint... jump into the tour van and get ready to wreak havoc across the globe.

SF Flash Forward Conference - Saturday April 9

We spent this morning touring then rushed to the airport. I played Twisted Metal all the way home.

SF Flash Forward Conference - Friday April 8

Advanced Character Animation
Chris Georgenes of www.mudbubble.com showed some animation techniques.

Unleash Your Debugging Arsenal
Paul Ortchanian of www.reflektions.com demoed debugging techniques in Flash. He spoke about "unit testing" which is basically tracing every line of code as you program to test assumptions. He posted some valuable unit testing components and his notes at:

http://www.reflektions.com/lectures/

The O'Reilly Radar
Tim O'Reilly of http://www.oreilly.com/ gave a lecture. This is the famous technical book publisher. They have a new magazine called MAKE.

Lunchtime
Chevy's Fresh Mex. Great fajitas, Batman!

Cut, Paste, Animate: Collage Animation
Evan Spirellas from www.jibjab.com gave some very informative demos on his collage animation techniques. He designs large for TV then scales down for the web. Kim and I attended a Q&A afterwards where we got to ask him questions face to face. He was very generous with his techniques and advice.

Less Ordinary
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Erik Natzke of http://www.natzke.com/2002.html showed some amazing Flash effects and ads he created for HP. His site speaks for itself.

Closing and Raffle
None of us won anything.

Evening
We took a bus to Fisherman's Wharf and had dinner at Cioppinos. We found a beach then took a cable car back to the hotel.

SF Flash Forward Conference - Thursday April 7

Macromedia Keynote
Kevin Lynch from Macromedia promoted Flash for mobile devices. He also showed the new Flash player. Here is some info about the player:
Click here

Drag Slide Fade 2.0
Brendan Dawes from magneticNorth demoed some Actionscript classes that seemed somewhat useful. It inspired me to start building a class library of commonly used functions.

Evolving Computational Creatures
This was AMAZING. Jared Tarbell from www.levitated.net demoed some examples of Flash organisms.

Lunch
We walked for a few blocks to Carl's Junior. I had a guacamole 6-dollar burger. Mmmmm. I'm sleepy.

A Close-up View of Type
Matthew Carter, a famous type designer who designed Verdana and other popular fonts, gave a lecture about the nuances of designing type. He showed a cool font that has interchangable serifs. It is not available, but I WANT it. Here is a specimen:

http://www.feelgoodanyway.com/identity/walker1.html

Here is a Matthew Carter bio:

Click here

3D and Games
Patrick Gardner of http://www.perfectfools.com/ showed how he did some of his award winning games for Coca-cola and other companies. This was insiring to see how 3D and "2 1/2-D" are being used in Flash to simulate depth.

A Warped Look at Flash
Ze Frank of www.zefrank.com showed some extremely funny work on his site. He uses Flash in very innovative ways. To me he was hilarious and is an exceptional improvisational actor. Be warned that his web site is a little too harsh to be viewed at work. Wade carefully.

Flash Film Festival
Flash pieces were shown and designers recieved awards:

Click here

Our music Flash application (http://www.lds.org/cm/display/0,17631,4996-1,00.html) was one of the finalists but didn't win.

Dinner
My brother Mike was in town and he picked me up and we went to an Italian restaurant and then he blazed down Lombard Street.

SF Flash Forward Conference - Wednesday April 6

KEYNOTE:
Made You Look Again - Stefan Sagmeister
-http://www.sagmeister.com
-Very creative (and sometimes crude) approaches to design
-This guy liked himself a lot

Lunch
While standing in line at California Pizza Kitchen we met two guys from Punchcut, a SF design studio. Both guys were BYU graduates and LDS. I had a long conversation with Joseph Pemberton who is the creative director.

pemberton@punchcut.com
TEL. 415 445-8855

Flash Video In and Out (two sessions)
-Very good introduction to get started using Flash video
-www.pixelfury.com

Best Practices Experts Panel
-Robert Reinhardt www.themakers.com/
-Brendan Dawes www.magneticn.co.uk/
-Chris Georgenes http://www.mudbubble.com/mad2005/main/mad_2005.htm
-Joey Lott http://www.person13.com/
-This panel was very good. Each designer gave their list of rules to live by

Evening
We went to Fisherman's wharf and ate at Neptune's palace and watched the sea lions bicker with each other. Afterwards we took a cable car ride back to our hotel. Kim made the mistake of talking to a homeless man carrying a large, live chicken. He made some colorful remarks. I guess we were walking through a bad part of town. It was a rush.

SF Flash Forward Conference - Tuesday April 5

Before I left I bought a Playstation Portable (PSP) and played Twisted Metal on the plane. We took BART from the airport to our Holiday Inn Civic Center hotel.

Around 5pm we picked up our packets and got our badges and went to dinner. Bummer. My wireless card doesnt work in the hotel.