Merry Christmas from Erin & I. Hope 2011 was great and 2012 is even better. Thanks for the drawing for our Christmas card Ken!

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I had the privilege to interview Jay McFarlan, my oldest brother, recently. And although I’ve known Jay my whole life I learnt many new things about the man. We spoke about what he does, what’s important to him, and why he chose particular paths in life.

One thing is evident, Jay is a family man. His love for his family is immense. Jay started dating Veronica in his final year of high school. More than 12 years later, they are happily married with a 9 month old boy named Dash. With parents as loving and intelligent as Jay and Veronica, Dash is sure to be a humanitarian mastermind; watch out for him.

Jay is nearly complete his PhD at the University of Guelph where he is studying and writing about fat metabolism in muscle tissue. Curiosity and a strong work ethic are his fuel for scientific research. However, his journey into the realm of science isn’t your typical path.

Often times people are in a particular field as it agrees with them. Jay’s initial relationship with science was not so amicable. He told an amazing reflection on why he initially became interested in science:

Jay loved and still does love hard work. After grade school and high school, he chose to pursue science in the post-secondary realm. He tried his hand at medicine, dentistry, but ultimately he was bitten by the research bug. Long days and nights of research and experimentation ensued throughout his degrees. And those long nights and days have continued into his PhD.

Jay’s curious mind doesn’t stop after he ceases a day of writing and research. In fact, he’s the type of person to continue pondering during all hours of the day. For example, while playing with is baby boy Jay will often ponder what Dash is thinking, how he thinks (as he hasn’t developed language yet), and how his mental model of the world is changing so rapidly.

His ideas also encompass commercialization. For example, Jay describes creating bioluminescent flowers which could be used to light up patios, provide mood lighting at restaurant tables, or replace the night light in the hallway. A simple solution but created through very complex means; creating such a flower requires a bit more effort than ‘throwing in a couple of bioluminescent genes.’

Once Jay is completes his PhD in 2012, he’ll be on the market looking for a job in the research field. His open, curious mind and hard work ethic make him the ideal employee. If you or someone you know is in need of someone of his skill sets, be sure to contact Ian.

Notes: Illustration by Kendrick Tu, Recorded at the UnLondon UnLab.

My first day of school at York/Sheridan’s Design program in 2003 I had the privilege of meeting Kendrick Tu. In our first class, Visual Language, we were asked to pair up with a fellow classmate. We would be working with them for the remainder of the course on various projects. Being the first day, no one really knew each other and all of us, more or less, looked around the room for a friendly face.

Mr. Tu was sitting next to me and we spoke for about 45 seconds before agreeing that we should work together. Eight years later I find myself fortunate to have grown closer to Ken. He’s a hard worker, gifted illustrator, hilarious, and all round fantastic man. When I spoke to him about this writing venture, we made a deal; he would pickup his pen again and start illustrating provided I post his work here and comment on it.

The first piece in this series is inspired by the new Batman console game Batman: Arkham City.

It’s simple shapes speak of anime. Good anime though – not the fluffy kind. While the shading lends itself more to Frida Khalo’s self portraits. A good mixture of style in my opinion. A slight touch of red on the shark’s mouth amplifies the high contrasting black and white. The movement and direction is clear; Batman’s fist towards the sharks nose. Boom!

As mentioned previously, this piece was inspired by a scene in the Batman: Arkham City game. Players are put at odds against a savage shark. Bruce Wayne’s encounters with sharks go back quite a few decades.

Great work, Ken. This piece was featured on Kotaku on Monday and has received some great feedback, including approximately 29,000 hits on Ken’s personal website. For those interested in tools of the trade, Ken completed this piece using Adobe Photoshop, a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet, and gallons of green tea.

PadWorx Digital recently published Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for iOS. Friend, illustrator, and geek Kendrick Tu was the Producer for this interactive book, which was featured as app of the week (October 23-29, 2011). The interactive pages and animation bring a new level of reading and help immerse the user into the story. Each page has the option to compare the spin off with the original story, Pride and Prejudice, giving readers the ability to read two books at once.

It’s a fantastic app that highlights the kind of high calibre work coming from PadWorx. Congratulations Ken and the rest of the PadWorx team; you’ve raised the bar for interactive books once again.

The Weather Network, working with Jarret Hardie (programming deity), launched a new version of their iPhone App this week. It’s absolutely gorgeous, responsive, and has a plethora of new features. This is the only weather app you need.

As I write this, it’s is currently ranked number 2 on the Apple App Store - not bad for 48 hours.

Buckle up and please keep all limbs inside your browser viewport. This redesign and refocus has been a long time coming. I must have redesigned and coded 6 iterations of this site before the launch of the current site. One would think that with my fan-boyish admiration for Waferbaby I would have shipped earlier.

The final push came from Greg Storey (formerly of Airbag Industries now of Happy Cog) with this tweet. I have been designing and coding for almost 8 years now but have yet to hone one very important skill — writing.

Taking Mr. Storey’s advice, I plan to write here frequently on a variety of topics. Some things to look forward to include…

• Interviews with artists, programmers, writers, scientists, and others;
• Discoveries in the world of front-end development, particularly CSS3;
• The ongoing spotlight of the gifted illustrator, game producer, and philospher Kendrick Tu of PadWorx Digital.

I hope this site can prove to be a public place to help improve my writing. Thanks for swinging by and please be sure to check in from time to time. All the best,

ian

Tyler has been creating brands for the past 5 years and has some damn fine work. Tyler is a partner and the creative director for Stacked Design & Development. Have a look and be sure to follow him if you’re on Dribbble.

With the passing of Steve Jobs, many people are taking the time to reflect on his contributions and impact. Dan Benjamin’s 5by5 Studios put this collection of thoughts together from various industry professionals.

• Thank You, Steve Jobs. 5by5 Studios
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• iTunes Audio

I had the privilege to both got to school and work with Kendrick. He’s a gifted illustrator is currently a game producer at PadWorx Studios: an iOS development company.