Devon Gayfer

Garden Update #4

One of the sunflowers has finally bloomed, and the tomatoes look ready-to-pick! I feel a little guilty about the idea of eating the tomatoes. I’ve been raising them like children for months, and now they’re going to end up in a sandwich…just seems wrong. Maybe I’ll let them live a day or two longer. Maybe the fact that I’m photographing and speaking about tomatoes like children is a problem in itself, but we’ll just ignore that

I brought out the D90 to document this very momentous occasion:

And it started from some birdseed dropped in a planter.

Yummy.

Garden Update #3

It’s been a month since I posted garden photos, and things have changed pretty dramatically. Progress is speeding up a lot right now in the heat wave – I may be dying of heatstroke, but at least the plants like it. The sunflowers are taller than me and starting to flower, and the tomatoes are finally turning yellowish!

Finally, they're no longer totally green. I was starting to worry.

Sunflowers are just starting to bud.

The sunflowers suddenly got really tall!

Garden Update #2

I’m documenting the progress of my tomatoes and sunflowers – mostly for my own entertainment. Here’s some pictures I took of them today with my iPhone, 6 days after the last ones I took.

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Get a 10% discount on your first project with Epik Creative

I just finished designing some postcards to promote my design company, Epik Creative. I’m going to get them printed and mail them out, but I thought I would extend the postcard offer of 10% off your first project to readers of my blog. If you know of anyone else who needs graphic or web design and could benefit, please feel free to share!

Download the postcard: epik_creative_discount_postcard.pdf (428 KB)

Welcome, summer.

It was the first day of summer yesterday, and although it was raining on and off, the flowers in the backyard smelled wonderful and I was filled with hope that summer’s here despite the lack of tanning weather this week. I took a few photos of the backyard garden to celebrate…well, it’s not a garden so much as a collection of plants in pots, but you work with what you have (in this case, a suburban townhouse). I have a habit of killing plants, so I’m pretty proud of the garden’s progress so far:

I think these are geraniums. They're pink and they're growing, so I don't really care what they are.

These sunflower sprouts grew from birdseed that fell into the planter. Coincidences like that make me happy

More sunflower sprouts

I have high hopes for these tomatoes. I hope a deer or squirrel won't eat them for lunch before I get to.

More tomatoes.

A pretty dark pink flower.

Closeup with water drops.

More water drops on a white flower.

How I learned to stop being afraid of my own blog and write what I want.

After spending hours yesterday trying to tweak my blog theme to match the look of my Epik Creative website, I realized that there was a distinct problem with my blog. I’d been trying hard to make it look like a part of my business, and had great plans for using it to keep clients up-to-date with the goings-on of Epik Creative. However, I’ve never really been able to get on a roll with posting regularly, and I think the “business blog” idea is what was causing the trouble.

Every time I went to write something, I’d think over my ideas and inevitably decide that what I’d had in mind wasn’t good or interesting enough for the blog of a design website. I’d have an inspiration, then overthink it to death. Basically, my blog has been intimidating me for a long time. I’ve decided to turn the tables and take away the seriousness of writing a “business” blog. This blog is now going to be my own. As a freelance designer, I AM my business in a sense anyway, so why not write about what interests me? I already have multiple other ways that I market and advertise my design services, so my blog is going to be for me.

You’ll notice I’ve stripped the design down to a nice minimalist layout (thanks to Rodrigo Galindez for the beautiful Modern Clix theme, and another thank you to Grace Smith, because it was on her blog that I first saw this theme in all its elegant glory).

I hope to be writing lots more now that I’m not afraid of my own blog. Stay tuned!

Please Select Operating System – We Won’t Judge You…

I really don’t have anything major against Windows – I just like Mac a lot better. And buttons like these can’t help but amuse me:

New photos from the Greater Vancouver Zoo

Here’s some photos I took at a recent visit to the Greater Vancouver Zoo (see my Flickr page for all the photos). It’s awesome to make a quick drive out of the city and see the animals and have a walk around the place – the zoo is actually quite nice with lots of trees and large enclosures. Check it out if you haven’t already. They have an excellent volunteer and conservation program and are helping to protect animals that would otherwise not have survived (Silver, the grizzly bear, was rescued when she was found orphaned and starving in a landfill as a cub). Have a look at the zoo’s website for more info.

5 Easy Tutorials for Creating Web 2.0-Style Buttons

Love it or hate it, the “Web 2.0″ look is everywhere these days, and if you are in the design or web line of work, you may find yourself wanting to (or having no choice to) create them at some point. I’ve collected a few tutorials that I think are worthwhile and fairly quick and easy on making Web 2.0-style buttons and shapes. I tried to stay away from Illustrator ones that inlcude a lot of transparencies – they gum up your file and can make it a nightmare to work with. So, without further ado:

1. Tutorial: How to create a shiny Web 2.0 button in Illustrator (graphics-illustrations)

Quick and easy with a nice result that can easily have other graphics added to the button area.

2. Shiny Buttons Without Blends or Transparencies in Illustrator (VecTips)

Another simple Illustrator tutorial, this time for rectangular buttons or shapes.

3. Web 2.0 style buttons (Iris Design)

A similar effect as the above tutorial, but with a slightly different look, and this time for Photoshop.

4. Design a Glossy Download Icon (PSD Tuts)

A slightly more complex tutorial for Photoshop, but with a great result.

5. How-to Create a Web 2.0 button/icon (All4YourWebsite)

A really quick-to-make square button for Photoshop.

Hope these are useful to you!

Wordpress is everywhere!

I installed the free Wordpress for iPhone app, which lets you post/edit your Wordpress blog posts wherever you may find yourself – I’m testing it out right now on my morning commute (no, don’t worry, I’m on the Skytrain, not endangering the public by texting-and-driving). I think this app lets you add pictures as well, but I’m almost at work, so I will try it out another time. You can read more about the latest version of the Wordpress app at the Wordpress website. Happy Monday interweb people.

Edit: Hm, seems to be a problem with the date settings in the app, as this post showed up as having been written on March 20. I had to correct it to March 23 on my Macbook – I’ll  look into that.