Track Name: The Gallows
Artists: LeeN (feat. FLOetic Lara)

Illustration: Liam Barry
Animation: Daniel Harte

(c) 2011 NLT Productions
(c) 2011 Liam Barry
(c) 2011 Daniel Harte

iphone game and facebook application

A short while back Mister Batlow was finding it hard to layout all his new work in his portfolio site 'Batlow's Apples'. The lack of any categorical management and the fact that we made the site almost a year ago had us saying it was about time to revamp it. For the revamp, we have taken Inspiration from the Apple Inc. website for obvious reasons. Last time, with Batlow's Apples v1, we created the anti-blog, this time we have created an image lead site that puts the work upfront. We used WordPress (with no Flash) to achieve the result. The new site still contains the old Flash site.

A website for MLKnCRL (Milk and Cereal, a musical collaboration). The design is inspired by 'breakfast' and the website is in the form of a cereal box. Content is displayed on the 'side' of the box. This creation of this website was a collaboration with Mister Batlow. The 'cereal box' effect is created mainly by the header image at the top of each page. This was made using 3D Studio Max and little Photoshop. A tall CSS box-shadow completes the look in the footer. We have minimised the amount of Flash in this project, using it only where strictly necessary; for the mp3 player on the home page only. We have used QR code that can lead mobile users to a secret download page.

Added a new collection to this website.

A website for Amy McWeeney. She is a professional qualified book designer / binder / restorer. We have created this simple WordPress site to chronicle her work.

Today we launch the new home of the Shining Heroes. They are a new urban clothing label that has just started up. They specialise in both Men's and Women's fashion and currently sell a selection of t-shirts, tops, sweaters, hoodies and jackets. The site is built with WordPress, and uses many plugins that I'm getting very familiar with. It also features several custom made elements. The first of which is a 3D introduction animation of a world spinning that can be seen on site entry (and in the static picture above). Originally I designed the site to look quite different, but the client was very particular and forced several changes that I would not have made. I think that the site has missed its potential to look as good as it did during development, but ultimately the decision is for the client to make.

Lifebulb is a company that specialises in stress relief. They offer several remedies to a stress filled lifestyle including; luxurious holidays and laughter yoga.

A website for the sharing of hip-hop videos. Uses WordPress to manage the content. jQuery for the slider and Adobe Flash for all the clocks within the slider. EDIT (2011/01): New ideas for the project have forced this implementation to become obsolete. We will be scrapping the WordPress version and replacing it with a new, fully custom Zend version that has many improved features. more news on this in later posts...

A website for the 4i2i Collective. They are a multidisciplinary group from London, UK and have been together in different forms since about 2001. They focus mainly on Musical endeavors, but are also involved with many other creative processes; visual arts, writing and acting. The group also has political involvement. The website is a platform for many different and varied things. The site is divided into these different categories; Live Stage, Library, Cinema, Action, Gallery, Music, News, Theatre and Info. Each category is represented by a 3D building / object. The user of the site navigates to the different sections by clicking on these buildings. Its a new 3D take on an old idea, and is reminiscent of the discontinued GeoCities. Since 'launch' the site has been highly underutilised by the members, with not much / any content being put up. Also, they requested that the music player be taken away, too many incomplete tunes. You will currently have to go to their myspace to hear some tracks. There is talk amongst the members of creating a new solely 4i2i music devoted website. More news on this in the future...

Liam is good friend of mine and with the absence of his site, we thought it was about time to get some of his work back up. He has helped me with several projects in the past, designing logos and helping with site designs. Site re-up, you say? Perfect opportunity for a quick redesign! We have given the site a totally look and new feel and it is now structured with WordPress.

They are an online music and arts magazine. Started in July 2009, they have been manually creating markup for each article separately and it was becoming a bit of a nightmare to update every single page when a small layout change was made. A simple WordPress site was a great option for them as this solves several issues they were having with their old setup and increases SEO automatically. The website revamp and conversion to WordPress took 21 days.

A 3rd year university project for a friend - Amy McWeeney. It explores the difference between real and virtual books and the processes of conversion from one to the other. The project has two main parts; a leather bound book and an accompanying website. The book (handmade to exquisite quality) has a USB memory stick containing the website embedded into the back cover. The website is an exact copy of the real book, but made in 3D. In both versions, the pages of the book are filled with an OCR'd copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses. OCR is not a perfect technology and is prone to making mistakes. Part of the idea behind the project was this notion of blind conversion; 'real book' to 'scanned images' to 'OCR text file' to 'an audio file'. This is a process that, in theory, could be applied to any book. The website animates / simulates the experience of turning of pages and reads aloud the content of each page, which includes the OCR errors (it occasionally speaks gibberish). It was very time consuming to create each page, so we decided that it wasn't important to replicate the entire book - we only created the first 20 of 300 pages in the virtual version. She got 90% for the project. The project files and some photos of the book will be posted here soon!

The first version of LinkHideout is now available at beta.linkhideout.com. EDIT (06/02/2010): There are several ideas that I've had since the launch of this beta project, soon several changes will be made!! I will give more information on the whole project when its a bit more user friendly.

canal in Hackney Wick
edit: it got flickr'd by some randomer.
edit: and again, flickr

A friend of mine is a plumber, a trade which is fairly similar to my own IT call out company. When he said that he needed a site we decided that the look of the Zeus Repair site would fit this project also. This was good news for me because by making a few adjustments to the color scheme and adding a few additional icons the project, I was basically finished. The new FlexiPlumbers logo that you see at the top of the page was designed by Liam Barry.

A portfolio of the more recent work done by Mister Batlow. I worked closely with Batlow to develop what we are calling the Anti-Blog. It scrolls sideways and has very little information, allowing visitors to focus on the images. The entire site is built in flash and has an easily edited backend that he updates with no interaction from me.

On new years day 2009 I bumped into a resident of another flat in my building. Pete is in the process of writing and publishing a book. The book itself is the result of a multi-continent expedition that he went on. While he was on his travels he kept a diary that he would email to friends back home as he wrote the entries. A surprisingly high amount of online interest was spawned from this and has prompted him to use the ideas recorded in these emails to create a book. The website I created for him is being used as a platform to consolidate all his work into one place. The website provides the project with several key advantages before the book is published

• It allows him to update people who are tracking his progress with new info as it happens.
• It allows him to get valuable feedback on sections of the book that he has written.
• It allows prospective publishers to get a feel for the book quickly.
• Once published, it can be used to sell the book and provide additional information to readers of the book before, during or after they read.

The project was complete within one month of starting the project. I used wordpress as the base framework for this project.

Since the hay day of TStar Garment Customisation, Batlow has teamed up with some new friends and has started a new company called The Ugly Kids Club. They now professionally design and print custom tees, which are well worth having a peek at. I join them at an interesting time as they are in the process of being sued by an unnamed credit card company over the design of one of their tees. Read all about it in their blog. It seems like they have been having some problems with their blog - their page numbers have disappeared and they cant access any older blog posts... The main fix - add page numbers using the wp-page-numbers plug-in. Whilst fixing this small problem I have also set up misterbatlow.com for Batlow, he has completely taken over this site in terms of design (hence it not having its own blog post) but worth a mention! He is using it as a way to document his progress of the last few years, much like this site. I'm expecting that they will want some more work done to TheUglyKidsClub very soon...

a character to inspire / reflect travellers on their way to and from work.

A short while ago a friend suggested that we put our hardware experience to use. We decided to set up a IT support company, so that we could make call-outs in our local areas. After going through a few different names for it we have setteled with ‘Zeus Repair’. As the company is half-owned by me I have had a very active role in the design side of things; developing the logo, branding, website, business cards, letterheads, etc - all completley from scratch. The website has these key design features:

• Logo - patially designed using 3D Studio Max
• Customed designed icon for each page / service
• Google Maps integration - use a custom map without leaving the site

The company is now up and running - so if you need support with any computing related matters and live within London or Essex then visit the site and check out our great prices!

[images]

A 3D concept for an event involving a skate rink.

Originally made for personal use only, I expanded this project to be the basis of my third year project. The page itself is a collection of links that people frequently visit. Rather than typing in the URL to Facebook and YouTube, people can just click the link... saving time. The page also incorporates a powerful search tool that has the ability to spawn multiple tabs each with a site specific search in each one... which means that users can search multiple sites with less clicks. When I submitted the whole project this page was slightly more advanced - it gave users the ability to edit and customise the page, however the log-in system that I wrote for this was very poorly coded, so i made the executive decision that i would strip all that unnecessary functionality out, and replace it when I had more free time. The page was also linked to an experimental forum where each thread was represented in 3D by a chain of spinning white cubes, which each could be opened to reveal the posts content. Although I did submit this for examination at Goldsmiths, I decided to strip this out also for the version that i made available online. The 3D forum was a good idea - I expect that eventually many online forums will share similar ideas to this, but my implementation was very shoddy and made a poor use of screen real estate. It was these factors that led me to never publish / make public this work. In the near future there will be a new version of 'Norge Bookmarks' with a new name and style. I will be using WordPress to provide the relevant secure log-in system, and have some interesting ideas to give registered users the ability to share their bookmarks and sets of bookmarks with each other and unregistered users. I hope to retain the functionality of the existing page, whilst adding in so other much needed features. More details can be found in the project page. Your comments / thoughts / ideas are welcome there.

This is a video document of graffiti work completed within my second and third year at Goldsmiths. The video is a combination of several static photographs and videos with various post-production techniques applied. The music you hear while the video plays was created specifically for this project by Platitas. He composed the music after the video was complete, taking inspiration from the content of the video. Here is what to expect in the video:

1. Zeiht painting a throwup, with red beams of light coming from can top as he sprays.
2. Photos made to look like video, used 3D effects and motion blurs to show stencils of Zim in best way.
3. Time lapse of Zeiht and I painting in an abandoned warehouse in Brockley. I used an 'echo' time effect.
4. Video tour of warehouse with time compression effects, mixed with photos with 3D effect applied. It shows some of the other work in there.
5. DFS subvertising - changed 'think of your perfect sofa, think DFS' to 'think your perfect'. An obvious grammatical error, but you get the idea.

This site documents the work I completed during my second year at Goldsmiths. The site contains three projects. The first project of the year was based on the theme 'Community'. I used this opportunity to explore the creative nature of a group of my friends. 3D environment of twisted buildings that grow from a moon-like desolate rock. Re-reading the Book Sound Project

In their own words: 'The Strident Camp and Summer Blockade aims to offer space for creative and open dialogue, enabling a united stand against what some commentators have called a nuclear renaissance. Bringing people together from across the political spectrum for open and honest debate about how to achieve a future free from the threat of nuclear annihilation, the week will be packed with speakers, discussion forums, training and workshops. We believe a mass movement from across society is needed to demonstrate that nuclear weapons are too dangerous for the power players of geo-politics. Though uncertain, the future is shaped by the present, and we must start moving now!' Indeed a good cause to be supporting, I did the work for free. They had already set up the site but thought it was lacking in several areas; the navigation being the main problem. Originally they had sets of nested sidebar style navigation menus, these were confusing visitors and meant that some pages were not being found. I replaced their old system with the more useful horizontal drop-down navigation menu that you see when you visit the site now. The other 'Site Mod' I created for this site was the animated pad of Postit notes. Situated just below the new navigation bar, this Flash movie serves as a perfect visual reminder for all up and coming events, recent news, and new site content. It also allows for quick access to relevant pages. The site has not been updated for a while and I don't know if the protesters found a conclusion or if they are still active.

This is a website I created for an all organic catering company. It uses a simple HTML frame structure to display pages. This style is very outdated these days and is hardly ever used. Modern techniques tend to dynamically rebuild pages into one file, rather than keeping them all separate. I helped the company develop much of the content for the site as well as taking many of the photographs personally. I used many different advanced techniques in the production and design of this site. This was one of the first times that I used 3D animation within a site. The basic idea with this technique is to pre-render a 3D scene to video (AVI) and then import this into flash as an FLV (Flash Video). The video can be played, paused or stopped from within Flash. This means that complex 3D animation can be achieved within a site without the high processor cost of rendering on the fly. Within the site I used this technique for the introduction video and navigation menu. Both of these scenes are based around the same objects; the knife, the fork, the spoon, the wineglass and the menu. I personally modelled each of these from scratch. The logo we used for the site was developed from a picture of the owner. The site used to be available at http://www.fresh-flavours.com/ but the company has since shut down and so I host a copy of it on this site.

A complete portfolio documenting the projects that I completed in my first year at Goldsmiths (University of London). The work was completed between September 2005 - July 2006 and consists of 3 main projects tied together into one site. I strongly recommend watching the animated introduction (music by Intrigue Junkie) before looking at the rest of the portfolio as it is well worth it. This animation incorporates many elements from all three projects, but in an abstract and non-direct way. The first project was based on an 'Experience' theme. This being the first project completed at Goldsmiths, the product of was a short and basic shooting game. We used this project to demonstrate our skills and settle into our new university life. The second project, 'Location' gives visitors a chance to get a feel for various aspects of my local park. The project consists of a sequence of scenes, some are just animated, others interactive (lasting 15 min. approx.). This was the most successful project of my first year. The third, 'Presence' was thrown together at the last minute. The idea and content were incomplete at the time of submission and I have no plans to improve upon them at any time soon. Time was shared between the third project and creating the main site.

This website was made to promote the delicious homemade cupcakes created by Fairy Cups. Have a quick browse of the site and you'll find yourself wanting one - they just look that good! Unfortunately the company, like so many other good companies before it - has closed. If you managed to get one while they were still open congratulations, otherwise I think that a petition to get the company reinstated should begin right here, in the comments. If you like the look of the cakes comment below and I will forward them to the previous administrator of the company. I'm sure that for the right price a custom order could be made.

My first published illustrations are in a book designed in collaboration with my mother, Catherine Harte. The book was written to help children with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties understand their emotional state a little better and thus improve the quality of their lives. This is known as emotional literacy. Using a series of cartoons, the book takes the reader through several scenarios that explain how emotions can affect behaviour. Once the child is able to understand and quantify their feelings they can take on an objective way of thinking more easily. We have plans for a second book introducing a female character, which will explore the common problems associated with eating disorders in teens. Published in 2006. ISBN 0-9548321-7-5

Having just finished an Art Foundation course at The London Metropolitan University in 2005, I had already created an A1 size portfolio of physical work completed during the course. However, I felt that this alone didn't represent the full scope of what I was capable of. With a degree course interview in mind I decided to create a digital compliment to the foundation work. The style of the site reminds the visitor of the experience of reading a book, with each work shown on each of the pages. The work in this portfolio is divided into five virtual books; Stencils, PC art, Hand drawn, Animations and Web Designs.

This site was created in 2004 as a replacement for 2003s batlow.8m.com, which was a nice experiment by didn't really show off the work in the best way. We decided to entirely remake the site and put it up on a new host and domain. The result of this was the Tstar project, which initially featured the work of Batlow only, but later was expanded to several artists including myself.

The basic idea was the same as the first site; garment customisation. you bring the garment and Batlow/the team would customise it using a variety of media into a truly street-worthy piece of wearable art. The site is no longer updated, but stands as a testament to the designers and designs of that era. Batlow has started several other projects since this site. You can find more info about them by visiting misterbatlow.com.

Back in the summer of 2003 I attempted to make my first officially commissioned website. Before this time I had been experimenting with Flash and web design, but I never had any 'real content' to play with. An old secondary school friend, Mark AKA Mister Batlow, had been setting up a small business in the few years after we had graduated. He was making highly stylised graffiti customisations to clothing.

Having not seen him since we were in school a few years earlier, it was a chance encounter on our local train service that led to the start of this project; Mark was talking about what he had been doing and his garment customisation service. He was carrying a photo portfolio of previous work to show people and entice them into possibly using his service. It was not great leap of the imagination to decide that all his work should be available online - a fact that we realised within the short journey of a few stops. We developed batlow.8m.com for this purpose.

Looking back now, it seems distant to remember the ways of non-megapixel / standard film cameras and physical portfolios of that era. I hope people can still appreciate the way things were done before we were all 'better connected'. Before MySpace and Facebook and certainly before anyone really had personal websites or blogs.

Due to a lack of any budget, free hosting was really the only way forward. We didn't know it at the time but this was a good move because it means that the site is still up and available in the cloud although the log-in details have long been lost and the site forgotten.

This would be the first in a long line of websites serving a similar purpose, as he has commissioned several web related works from me over the years since 2003. You could also say that this is the site that kindled my interest in commissioned web design.