Erik E. Stonikas

Vine: the realtime film festival for digital characters

Erik — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:56:06 +0000

It's hard to imagine something that more precisely encapsulates my digital passions than Vine, Twitter's new 6-second looping-video social network.

If you have a smart phone with decent memory, I recommend you download and install it right away (and follow me, @eestonikas!).

It's digital cinema meets social media, with all of the democratized artistic and journalistic technology that implies. If you've never used a video camera, good – this is nothing like that. If you have – good, you'll have fun with this too.

I'm a dad so, naturally, I share plenty of video of my daughter Eloise..

#vine, the realtime #film festival for #digital characters vine.co/v/bH6UwVH9ZuM
— Erik Stonikas (@EEStonikas) March 5, 2013

Responsive design is no longer optional (which is good news)

Erik — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 22:23:31 +0000

There are a lot of considerations and priorities that need balancing when honing your digital character. Too often, the "special consideration" is a compensation for unfortunate technological limitations, usually browser-based (i.e. IE).

For a brief transitional period, one special consideration was whether you would optimize for mobile in addition to your "desktop" site. At this point, I think you're already agreeing as I say it, there option is almost completely eliminated: you must optimize for mobile.

But fret not! This doesn't mean a steeper investment in the structure of your site, necessarily. During the transition, many tools have been introduced by the beautifully cooperative web development community to streamline this process, in order to incorporate it into your design from Day 1.

Bonus: responsive design leads to elegantly organized content, copy and graphics.

For more details about the evolution and tools of responsive design, check out "Responsive Design Gets Simplified."

Never a Lovely So Real

Erik — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 22:35:14 +0000

Recent promo graphic for my client at Never a Lovely So Real.
Text: me. Image: Nelson Algren and his city, 1957, Chicago. Art Shay.

Awesomeprenuer

Erik — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:17:26 +0000

A recent write-up from a colleague of mine:

…Erik wasn’t always the awesomepreneur that he is today… His road was not simply less traveled–he paved it himself, machete in hand. Frankly, the world needs a lot more of his write-your-own-rules attitude.

Read the whole interview here.

Internet Error 451 to Honor Ray Bradbury

Erik — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 18:39:57 +0000

When a user is denied access to a website for legal/censorship reasons, this member of the Internet Engineering Task Force, and Bradbury fan, proposes the user be given the status code “451,” in honor of Bradbury’s famous novel Fahrenheit 451.

I approve.

Here’s the late Ray Bradbury talking about university, libraries, writing, and the inspiration for Fahrenheit 451:

Training for Community Organizers: Video Edit for Community Renewal Society

Erik — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 15:39:22 +0000

The folks at Community Renewal Society in Chicago have an effective training program for community organizing. Using footage and photos provided by CRS, I’ve edited together a promotional video in three parts.. and become very intent on taking the training!

One testimonial: “While I know some of the principles of organizing, this has given me the entire foundation for organizing.”

For Moog’s Birthday, Google Makes Something Awesome

Erik — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:53:52 +0000

This guy invented the coolest synthesizers and it’s his 78th birthday today. To honor him, and thrill me, they made their logo an in-browser synthesizer with recording capability. So cool! Of course, there are limits – there are millisecond delays that interfere with attempts to set a steady rhythm. BUT IT’S AWESOME. This is what I recorded.