Your design skills are not just limited to print and web. My wife and I have been trying to find a unique backsplash for our newly renovation kitchen. We looked all over the place and then we realized, 'Hey. We're designers. We have tonnes of resources'. Then the idea hit me. We work with a sign guy who has done vinyl on plexiglass for us before. Why don't we see if the plexiglass is durable enough withstand the wear-and-tear of a busy kitchen counter. 'No problem he said. It will last as long as your kitchen will.'

So here's the idea. We will get a custom cut to fit the shape of where the backslash will go. The edges of the plexiglass will be flamed so they will be nice and rounded and smooth. We will make our own design to be cut from a semi-transparent, frosted vinyl and apply it to the back of the plexiglass. We will paint the wall behind the glass white and pin mount the custom plexiglass to the wall, and voila! We have the coolest, custom designed backsplash for our kitchen. This will cost us under $300 for about 12 x 1.5 feet of backsplash. It beats the heck out of tiling and the cost of tiles. And the best part is, if we get bored of the design, we can take the plexiglass off, remove the vinyl and apply another design to freshen things up every so often.

If you know the software and have the resources, there are so many opportunities for you to do-it-yourself when your renovating your home. Try something different. It will make your home unique and will have a piece of you permanently etched in its structure. I'll post some pics of my kitchen when I get it done.

A week in the Canadian Wilderness.

With Tom Green.

Actually, it was not as scary as it sounds. I recently spent a week near the eastern shore of Lake Superior with Tom and his son, Rob. We had a great time, camping, hiking and canoeing and treating ourselves to some most excellent camp chow and some of the most spectacular scenery one could see and still be within walking distance of a hot shower. A mere 12 hour drive from Toronto, our base of operations was Obatanga Provincial Park. At just $25 a night for peace and quiet and gorgeous views it was worth every penny.

I made many pictures that week (well over 400), some with the intention of turning them into panoramics using Photoshop, or combining images using Auto Align and Auto Blend to make the perfect exposure and still others just for the sheer joy of capturing the moment, like this one:

Still others were just for fun and for future plans, such as the pixel dump station:

For the edited (under 300 images) version and to see some great scenery - and some pretty cool panoramics (all hand held, I would add) - make sure to drop by my flickr site, choose slide show, sit back and enjoy.

I just completed a 9 day trek deep into the Sierra Nevada wilderness, where many interesting things may be seen. I'll spare you the usual tedious mountain peak shots and proceed directly to an amazing phenomenon rarely caught as an image.

Below is a photograph of the elusive mountain ape in its natural surroundings (Evolution Lake in this case), where you can clearly see three prime specimens "displaying" for the females. What superb luck to witness it!

The females appear to be using body pigments of some kind (perhaps colored mud), revealing a hitherto unsuspected sophistication. Do the males wash off this pigment as part of the display? Alas, I arrived too late to view the early part of the ritual, and was soon compelled to retreat due to the risk of being discovered myself.

Exhausted by the exertions of the trail and the giddy excitement of my discovery, I had to rest upon a high slab near Muir Pass.

Next year I hope to return and learn more about these magnificent but endangered beasts. Until then...

We get a lot of positive feedback about our JumpStarts. They are a great way to kick start the design and production process and can really speed up development time. They're so great, I use them myself!

Last month I was approached by a personal trainer who needed a web site. A friend had been promising for about 4 months to make one for her but at the time she contacted me, nothing had yet materialized. My client was serious about promoting her business and really wanted to get her name on the web. As a small business owner, her budget was not very large and while her site was going to be fairly simple, she really wanted someting clean, professional and contemporary.

Enter CMX JumpStarts. After my initial meeting with Caroline, I experimented with a few JS's, and decided that Traverse City woud be the perfect answer. Opening the PNG in Fireworks, I created my own custom banner and navigation icons. When I was happy, I exported out full size jpegs for my client to view. With some tweaking, the design got a green light and I jumped right into development.

The site took less than a month in real time before it went live (that was tonight - woo hoo) but in actual production hours, it took less than a week. Traverse City saved me a lot of time and as a result saved my client a fair chunk of change, too.

There's still work to be done - we're nailing down keywords and she has set up a photo shoot so we can get some current shots of her and what she does on the site. But that's the beauty of a web site; as long as the site appears whole and complete, you can continue to add to it as new content becomes available.

If you have a chance, check out GRIT Conditioning for some Great Results in Training!