kev/null » brandon hanvey

Maker Faire 1 – SFIFF 0

Kevin Cheng — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:40:00 +0000

I went to [Maker Faire][1] over the weekend with [Tantek][4] (and ran into [Nicole][5], [Brandon][6], [Leonard][7] and many others). We didn’t arrive until quite late due to a number of circumstances (including some protesting on [Bill 42][8]) and I have to say I was pretty disappointed. Not in the Faire but in myself for not having arrived earlier. Imagine your typical county fair with booths of knick knacks and cotton candy and replace all of the booths with people who love to tinker and you’ve got Maker Faire. There were great displays of inventions ranging from the artsy to the useful. There was a garage where they were converting a Prius from a hybrid to a plug-in hybrid. A swap-o-rama where you could screen print your own shirts or bring stuff to trade with others, workshops for kids, a place with a ton of old computer parts where people just put together whatever they wanted, and more geeky inventions than you can shake a bread board at. Yahoo! also had a sweet center booth which I was happy to see. A great community to have a presence with.

Photo by George

After the fair, a bunch of us checked out Cock Byte: Masters of Machinima, a feature of the [San Francisco International Film Festival][2]. I knew it was featuring the people from [Red vs. Blue][3] but wasn’t sure what to expect. As it turns out, there was nothing new and they showed the first season of RvB which, as they so helpfully pointed out, was copyright 2003. Most of us were pretty annoyed at having spent $11 and an hour and a half watching something we’d seen, at worse quality and then listening to two of the members of the team basically insult the audience and have nothing intelligent to say. At least the film fest can only go up from there.

[1]:http://www.makezine.com/faire/ “maker faire”
[2]:http://sffs.org “san francisco international film festival”
[3]:http://redvsblue.com “red vs. blue”
[4]:http://tantek.com “tantek”
[5]:http://neekole.com “nicole lee”
[6]:http://thegeekout.com “brandon hanvey”
[7]:http://randomfoo.net/ “leonard lin”
[8]:http://www.joshwolf.net/blog/?p=173 “Simpsons Did It”

Connecting with Comics and Dodging Dodgeball

Kevin Cheng — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 18:46:27 +0000

APE was really great. It was my first comic convention and I met a ton of people who were creative in different ways than one might see in the design community – refreshing. Probably the coolest thing, next to seeing Matt Groening again, was checking out the booths and finding someone over a sketchbook behind each one. Each had differing styles: abstract, cartoon, manga, superhero, photo-tracing, etc. Thanks again to Brandon and Nicole for their generosity in letting us clowns sit with them. Too bad I didn’t get the graphic novel done in time because I had so much on my plate.

I always seem to put a lot on my plate – some would say too much. Jamie, who has a lot on his own plate, asked why I was doing the graphic novel. He said he could understand all my other ventures: Off Panel, OK/Cancel, and the encore presentations of the IA Summit presentation but couldn’t see how the graphic novel fit.

Which is precisely why I’m doing it – it doesn’t fit. Doing a project like Soul Jump is really all about connecting with a different community and doing something for the sake of it and it feels great whenever I get even a little done on it.

I turned off dodgeball recently. It’s a tool that tells you on your phone where your friends are and you use it to let your friends know where you are. It’s great ofr nights when you want to be out and all your friends are roaming all the time. I still remember in university when as a group, the destination might change at the last minute but because not everyone had cell phones, one or two stragglers sometimes end up at the original destination and go, “where is everybody?” The problem is that I have no will power. If I know my friends are out and not too far away, I’m more inclined to join them even if I hadn’t planned on going out. Turning off dodgeball was liberating. Now I am back to controlling when I go out and when I’m dealing with all that stuff on my plate.

Like starting on the first two pages of Soul Jump.

LAPE3 POP

Kevin Cheng — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 06:25:31 +0000

This weekend, I’ll be at the Alternative Press Expo (APE) for the first time. I’m glad that there’s a strong independent creator community here in San Francisco and am looking forward to a different crowd from the design conferences. Brandon and Nicole have graciously offered to share their table with Min Jung, Courtney, Robert and I (We’re in The Geekout/Entropy Booth 348-349). Min Jung and I are collaborating on a graphic novel loosely based on an elaborate Sci-Fi dream she once had. It’s called Soul Jump. I haven’t had time to work on it as much as I’d like but I’m hoping to get an ashcan out in time.

I’ll also be representing for Off Panel. We got all new business cards printed for that and we’re hoping to attract a few creators. We’re giving $100 to any referrals for people that sign with us or an iPod Nano for two referrals!

The week after, I’m part of LAP POP 2.0 which largely involves the same crew. It’s a celebration of the arts in techies – especially Asian techies. The event is curated by Min Jung with participation from Nicole and Robert (Courtney exhibited her photos in the first one). I’m still deciding what to talk about but it will likely be another immigration anecdote or two.

Finally, I’ve decided to go to E3 in May – also for the first time. I’m hoping to see some Playstation 3 or Nintendo Revolution stuff. Partly, I’m satisfying my video game geekery but I’m also hoping to get some inspiration in designing engaging and immersive environments.