I kept things relatively quiet on the blog for the past week in order to keep attention on the Haiti relief effort. I want to send out a huge thanks to all those who ordered posters over the past week to help raise money to be donated to the Canadian Red Cross. In total, $1,187.02 has been raised, which surpassed all of my expectations.

I really appreciate all of those who brought attention to this effort, notably Applied Arts magazine for bringing people together for such a good cause. Thanks so much, everyone.

The republic of Haiti was hit with a magnitude 7.0 earthquake on Tuesday, January 12th. Most of the necessities of life, such as food, shelter and water have been reduced to near nothing and the poor country is now struggling with rescue efforts and the dispersal of much-needed supplies and aid. They have very little to work with.

For the next week, artists like Chuck Anderson are donating all money they make from selling their wares to the disaster relief fund to help Haiti, and Signalnoise will be doing the same. 100% of sales from the Signalnoise Store for the next week will be donated directly in support of Haiti. I will also include an 11 x 17 poster version of the ‘For Haiti’ design. Please note, the photocopied photograph used in my design was originally taken by Maggie Steber.

Big thanks to the following for their orders and support:

• Ramon Thompson
• Andreas Ellwanger
• Emilio Bellu
• Brandy Byrd
• Franz Jeitz
• The Remakers
• Luke Desroches
• Allison McCarthy
• Daniel Yankowsky
• Melissa Mercado
• Jonathan Mitchell
• Mathieu Cristinziani
• Andy Heckathorne
• Aaron Irizarry
• Matthew Hayashida
• Derek Hartley
• Jeff Simpson
• Cameron Duthie
• Dan Andriciuc
• Andrew Fallon

It’s easy to feel separated from things like this based on geography, but it doesn’t mean we’re not all in this together. Every bit counts. My heart goes out to you, Haiti.

Please note, all posters will be shipped out of Halifax next week, starting January 25th.

Well, 2009 will be drawing to a close this evening in a flurry of fireworks and noisemakers, making way for the start of our brand new decade.

This is inevitably the time of year I think back on the events that happened over the past 12 months, what those events brought about and what they may lead to. Since I started this blog back in 2007 it is a wonderful way of looking back on a personal level to see what new artists I discovered, new pals I made and new collaborations that may happen.

But on a larger scale, I’ve been reflecting back over the past decade. At this moment in 1999 I was in Montreal visiting my friend Lisa and geared up for the big Y2K meltdown. I was listening to a lot of Rob Zombie and Radiohead, still flipping out over Fight Club and working my way as a fledgling designer through the web boom. I visited K10k and Designiskinky everyday, watched what new Flash experiments Joshua Davis was up to, all the while struggling to make a cool website for ‘this Signalnoise thing’ I had going. Man, good times.

I struggled this year to come up with an idea for the year-end wrap up post on Signalnoise, but because of lack of time and focus over the holidays it proved to be a bit difficult. However, here are three main items I would like to include on this last day of the decade:

1. Tuts+ Commemorative 2010 Poster
I was asked by the kind folks over at the Tuts+ Network to design an original poster and wallpaper for their big holiday giveaway that has been happening over the last 11 days. Well, tomorrow is the 12th and final day when they will be announcing and showing off the new Signalnoise poster I created for them. They will be giving away 10 copies so be sure to check it out tomorrow morning.

2. Signalnoise Crystal tutorial
Over the next week or so I will be creating a tutorial for the above poster, showing how I created that crystal. I’ve been wanting to provide you readers with more little tutorials over the past while, something I will be making more time to for in the new year. So stay tuned for that one.

3. You guys!
It wouldn’t be a year-end post if I didn’t give a huge shout-out to everyone who has been following and reading Signalnoise. Whether you hit my blog, follow me on Twitter, say hello on Facebook, highfive via Flickr . . . where ever you are, I wanted to send a huge thanks for the support you have given me and the blog over the last year. I only hope I can match your enthusiasm with posts on inspiration, process and other fun stuff. You all rock, thanks so much.

Have a happy and safe 2010!

I came across these beautiful photos by Gavin Marchio while running around Ffffound last night. These were taken during the big dust storm that hit Sydney, Australia earlier this year. Simply dumbstruck by these photos, the rich orange hue with the bridge, you can’t get any more sci-fi then that.

Swing over to Gavin Marchio’s Flickr stream for more of his work.

The graphic above says it all . . . who are you?

I’m one of those nerds who checks out the web stats almost every day to see who is coming to my site, where they’re from, and how they get here. Based on the numbers, I know there are a lot of you design kids out there checking things out yet I have only gotten to know a handful of frequent comment leavers. You know who you are, and you’re awesome.

So for the rest of you, here is your chance. Drop me a line in the comments and introduce yourself. Where do you work? Where are you from? What are you into? What are you working on? What’s your website link? Whatever you want to say, do it.

Us designers have to stick together, man, so step on into this post and lets all shake hands.

Part VII: Long Live the Orbinauts!

Dear reader, I want to send along a sincere thank-you if you have been taking the time to keep up on my posts outlining the lengthy process of A Signalnoise Odyssey. What started as a few sketches a number of years ago had slowly evolved into a little project I am quite proud of. With this post, the timeline I have been talking about reaches the present day.

A number of months back I enlisted my pal Jonathan Mitchell, a very talented 3D visual effects artist, to help me realize my Orbinauts designs even further by creating photo-realistic depictions of the toys. I had never designed anything to be re-created in 3D so the process of working with him was new and exciting. Jonny surpassed all of my expectations (which were pretty high to begin with) by creating flawless models of the characters so I could see exactly what they might look like sitting on my desk.

Working with a like-minded artist like Jonny truly added life to the project. Check out what he did:

Things have come a long way since my original little doodle over 2 years ago.

As I said earlier, this brings us to the end of the road so far. I have taken my conceptual toy designs as far as I can for the time being, of course the final hurdle being the actual creation of the designs as toys. So where do I go from here? Over the next couple of days I will be exploring the options I have available, to see what my chances are of making this project a reality.

Given the future of this project is fairly uncertain, I would like to ask a favor . . . if you have been reading my Signalnoise Odyssey posts and would like to see the Orbinauts toys made available someday, feel free to take a few seconds to leave me a comment. I might need a bit of your help at this stage, and any buzz I can muster surrounding the Orbinauts will certainly help my chances of seeing these little guys come to life :)

Thanks so much, everyone. To be continued . . . ?

Need to catch up on the previous parts of A Signalnoise Odyssey? Be sure to check out:

Part I: A Long Time Ago
Part II: Rise of the Brothers
Part III: Here Come the Bad Guys
Part IV: Creating a Planet
Part V: A New Start
Part VI: Stranger in a Strange Toyland