Wow – what a mad, mad week it was last week.  I pulled around 80+ hours in the last 6 days working on the Star Wars fan film being filmed in Hamilton by Sasha.

What a fun day.  Glen (my wife), and I were on the road to Hamilton at about 6.45am after 4 hours sleep.  As soon as we arrived as Sasha’s place it was all hands to battle stations getting everyone into their costumes.  There were a few final touches required for some of the key characters but for the most part is was a simple matter of each person bunging the stuff on and grabbing their weapon.  Easy peasy.

The props all looked great and received a lot of positive comments.  The general consensus seemed to be that they were of a far higher quality than what is usually seen in this type of movie.  Great to hear.

One of the best costumes was the “Axe Guy”. played by Jeremy, the hubby of the make up artist working on the shoot.  I had talked to Sasha about including a “vibro-axe” in the weapons list to mix things up a tad.  The vibro axe is a weapon seen in Return of the Jedi and is used by various guards at Jabba’s palace.  Then we met Jeremy and he suited the part of a big axe wielding barbarian guy down to the ground.  He’s about 18 feet tall and as broad as a barn .

I also ended up getting roped in to play a character when one of the actors was unavailable.  I rummaged through our costume bits and threw together a desert looking outfit that was reminiscent of the garb of the people on Tattooine, Luke Skywalkers home planet.  I go to say a line in the movie and mime getting blasted by laser.

I’ll be posting more photos of the costumes and the props once we get everything back and sorted.  Right now it’s back to work on websites and print jobs.  No more huffing paint and glue fumes for me this week – It’s going to be a week of hard out computer time!

This year seems to be all about getting fitter and getting out and doing stuff.  With my wife now addicted to running and completing her first road race it was only so long before I’d have to start pulling my finger out and getting involved too.

We signed up for the Rotorua Waikato Draught Tough Guy & Gal Challenge with 3 of our friends.  The course is 2 laps of a 6km slog across country through swamps, mud pools and various obstacles – so 12kms in total.  This is what I have been running on the treadmill and losing weight for lately.  :)

The course was hard going but fun.  About 2200 people run the course with only around 800 electing to do the full 2 lap 12km circuit.

We ended up jogging most of the course which made it take longer than anticipated, mainly due to the crowd of people and the slick nature of the course on such a wet day.  The course thinned out a lot once most of the people finished their 6km lap but by then we were quite cold and noticing the effect the chill was having on our biodies.  Even so, we managed to complete the second lap in a shorter time than the first.

We are looking forward to next year where we hope to completely thrash our times by being fit enough to get ahead of the main pack where we can run properly the whole way.

All in all it was a great day with a lot of fun.  No matter how cold and dirty you get you just can’t wade through chest deep mud and not be smiling like the happiest kid on the planet.

An awesome PrintStop sale for August.  This months you can get great saving on Rack Cards, Stationery, Business Cards and Leaflets.

Click here to view the specials and contact Martian to get your artwork designed.

Be in quick, all artwork has to be completed and sent to PrintStop by the 31st August – don’t miss out!

Want to SAVE on a Website?  Of course you do!  Order a WordPress website from Martian in August and you’ll get a fantastic site up and running with WordPress training for only $1500+gst.

That’s a crazy price for a website that you you have the power to manage yourself!

What you get:

• A fantastic looking website (naturally), designed specifically for your business
• Quick development time – have your business online in a flash!
• Navigation bar with as many pages as we can fit (with drop down sup menus if required)
• The ability to add pages/edit pages yourself (no need to pay me to do it!)
• The ability to add “posts” to your site (to share articles and information, specials and news with your clients)
• The ability to add images to your site
• A secure contact form with CAPCHA code to foil spammers
• Easy-to-use search engine optimisation tools
• Training on how to maintain your brand new site
• NO MONTHLY SERVICE FEES!

What is WordPress? WordPress is an online web platform that offers a powerful and free content management system (CMS) to it’s users.  No need to purchase a CMS to manage your site or pay any monthly CMS licensing fee’s like some web companies charge!

What does a WordPress / Thesis site look like? Here are some of the Martian sites currently using these tools:

• Martian Design – of course!
• CHS New Zealand
• Keeping IT Ezi-PC
• Mt Hiabs
• Way of the Jedi

Remember, your site can look like virtually anything.  If there is something more you want, like a Gallery perhpaps, there are a bunch of extra’s that can be quickly and affordable added to your site.  Just let me know what you are after and I’ll tailor the site and the price to suit.

So what are you waiting for?  Contact Martian about getting your awesome new site.  The quicker you act the quicker you will be able to show it off to your friends and business peers!

TERMS: Website must be ordered and the deposit paid before 31st August 2010.  Balance of payment to be made within 7 days of the completion of the website or within 14 days of the deposit date whichever comes first.  On-site training is only available to clients within 50km of Tauranga central.  The $1500+gst special price does not include the yearly hosting fee, any domain name fees or copy writing.  Yearly hosting is $199+gst per annum charged at the beginning of each 12 month cycle.  Domain names registration fee (if required) is 39+gst per annum charged at the beginning of each 12 month cycle. Offer includes limited design time.  Additional design work or additional web features can be incorporated into your website development for an additional cost based on the work requested. Please contact Martian if you have any questions.

Carol from CHS New Zealand, (located in Mount Maunganui and servicing Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty ) contacted me about sorting out a brand new website for her.  She’d had a site in the past but was so disappointed with the site as well as the poor service and on-going monthly service fees from the developers that she’d had it taken down!

Well, it was time to show Carol how stylish, simple and easy to maintain a website could be – and with NO ongoing monthly service fees.

That of course means one thing, say it with me Martianeers “WordPress Site!”.  Top marks for you all.  Now for the bonus point: What theme structure did I use? “Thesis!”  Good stuff, you all get gold stars!

I had the chance to use some more of the great WordPress and Thesis tools in this build.  One was the addition of the banner boxes in the second column.  These are simple TEXT field boxes generated for the side bars which contain the html for both the image and the link.  Super easy to set up, super easy to maintain.  The client, Carol remember, can either contact me for fresh banners or even update them herself with a little training.  Fantastico!

Another great feature was the ability to incorporate the Thesis “teaser” boxes in the right hand column.  Thanks to a great Thesis plug in from webdesigncompany.net and some simple coding I was able to fully customise the look and length of the teasers – I’ll be using this again as I think they are much nicer than a bloggy list of posts

Once again the Thesis theme structure has proven itself a winner, allowing me to set up a site the way I want without having to beat WordPress into shape or spend a lifetime buried in css and html.  Don’t get me wrong, there is still a lot of CSS work to do with Thesis but apart from content and design that’s about ALL the work you need to do.  So you go from design to working site in a jiffy.  Leaving you more time for the important stuff like packing it full of content.

Carol is over-the-moon with her new site and is frantically accumulating content for it so it grows more and more each day.  Soon I’ll be showing her how to maintain the site herself and she will never have to worry about slack developers and expensive monthly fees again!

You can check out the CHS site here – then make an appointment with CHS to get that unruly mess on your head styled into an example of hair perfection!

Hi to all Martian clients and wannabe Martian clients – it’s the start of July and that means it’s time to post the PrintStop promotion for the month.

This months it’s another fantastic double-up promo!  Pay for 500 Rack Cards or Postcards and get another 500 FREE!

That’s right!  This is a great chance to get some promotional rack cards or post cards for marketing your business while saving a few bucks.

So if you need to stock up on some of your old cards or if you want to try some for the first time, contact Martian and we will get the artwork all sorted out and sent off to PrintStop for you.  Remember this promo is only valid for this month (July 2010) so make sure you get in quick to ensure there is enough time to get the artwork done before July 31st!

Conditions:  Clients to pay for cards upon collection from PrintStop or on invoice from PrintStop if goods are delivered.  PrintStop prices quoted do not include artwork charges from Martian.  Martian to charge client for artwork charges separately.  View PrintStop website for additional terms and conditions.

Ok, time for something that is completely non design related simply because I have to say how proud I am of my wife, Glen.

Yesterday was the annual Kawerau Half Marathon and 11km Fun Run.  Glen, who has been working hard to get fitter for the last 18 months, entered the 11km fun run a few weeks ago and has been training at least 5 days a week to get ready for it.  Glen has never competed in any type of road race.  The closest event to something like this was the “cross country” races at school where she generally rolled home last.  So understandably she was a bit nervous about her first ever real event.

We arrived at Kawerau with our mate Maggi all half asleep after an ealry start from Tauranga.  We didn’t know the area but found a park and waited for my parents who were joining us for support.  Maggi and I had the job of co-ordinating Glen’s post run nourishment and wardrobe.  We set up home base in the back of the Martian car then made our way to the start point.

The day was bitterly cold and misty but there was an excited buzz in the air.   As Glen stretched and tried to keep warm in her thin running outfit Maggi and I stood by bundled up like eskimo’s and pointed out how nice and warm we were  My parents arrived and parked down the road in a position where they could watch for Glen as she ran by.

We all waited for the timer as it counted down to the start time.   The hooter sounded and we wished Glen good luck as the runners moved off.  I watched as Glen as she jogged off through the pack making her way past the slower starters wondering how well she was going to do.

I was a bit nervous.  She had been working hard and had never run 11kms straight and we did not know what to expect.  I was confident she would be fine because I had seen the effort she had put into her training – but you can’t help worry when your partner is worried.

Glen has estimated that the run would take her about 80 minutes based on her training times around our neighbourhood.  So we supporters to time out to enjoy hot chocolate and biscuits.  Then Maggi and I went across the road to the conveniently placed supermarket for the makings of a hot chicken roll to warm up Glen after her run – a better option than the hot soup we had in the thermos back in the car.

Well, the course was a lot flatter and than where Glen usually runs, allowing her to stretch her legs out to a much faster pace than in training – slashing her estimated time to shreds.  The result: she came across the line at 59 minutes!  She was so quick that she bet us all to the finish line arriving about a minute before we all did!  Naturally Glen was over the moon with her time and we were all was extremely proud of her.  Next time we’ll UNDERESTIMATE her finish time!

Later the results were posted on a notice board and we wandered over as we warmed up with hot drinks.  Glen was amazed to read that she was the 8th woman across the line, less than 5 minutes after the first woman!  She was also only 18th overall to finish.  So in her first ever event she had managed to come home in the top 10 woman and the top 20 overall!

This was the icing on the cake and now she is looking forward to next year when she will compete in the half marathon event.

Glen is also registered for the Rotorua Tough Guy and Girl 12k Challenge next month and is looking to enter the Hamilton Half Marathon in October.

So a big “congratulations” to Glen and keep it up – We’re all proud of you, especially me!

A while ago I was contacted by Sasha from Hamilton, a super mega Star Wars fan who was getting a crew of likely lads and lasses together to make a couple of fan films for the annual Star Wars fan film competition.

Initially I set up a quick WordPress website so we could swap info and keep abreast of the progress of the various departments. You can view the site here.

But the reason Sasha contacted me was to design and build props for the movie.  He had heard about the star Wars costumes and props I’d made for a SW party a couple of years ago and was keen to get me involved in his fan film.

Using Cinema 4D I created a lightsaber for one of the characters which I then proceeded to craft out of PVC and assorted hardware.  You can see the images of the 3d lightsaber here and the PVC parts here.

The film was put on hold while Sasha sorted out the cast but with the players now confirmed it’s all go for filming in mid August.  So the props department (Martian) is back into production.  We have the light saber to finish plus 7 assorted blasters and laser rifles along with a vibro axe and various costume accessories.  One of which is being recycled from my previous SW costume.

Awesome fun!  May the force be with us!

….. no!  it’s TURBO COW!!

That’s right folks, evil doers beware, for Turbo Cow is on the case!

No, seriously now.  I was contacted recently by Paul Hamilton of Communique Marketing regarding one of his clients requiring an illustration for one of their products – an energy drench for cattle.

The brief was “we need transformer cow”.  The brief got refined to “a cow with jet boosters that looks kinda robot like or similar”.  The final illustration had to be in vector format so it could be easily scaled without degrading the quality.  Not a problem – the creative Martian goo flowed.

A quick sketch was sent to the client to confirm the orientation of the cow and general concept then it was into Adobe Illustrator for some vector doodling.  The end result was a dairy cow with big old boosters taking flight in her cyber-suit.

The entire image was constructed in Illustrator using mostly gradient fills, overlays and opacity settings to give detail.  The final artwork will feature on labels being printed for the drench container.

That’s the great thing about illustration- you never know what someone is going to want next!  Maybe a nuclear powered hamster??

Just like in the fashion industry or with any design related industry, web design styles came and go.  A lot of the way sites look is driven by the changing software that designers use and the ease at which developers can integrate designs into web platforms with the help of new systems and content management systems.

Each year improvements in software and hardware mean the focus of web design shifts.  You now have much more complex images and designs where as a few years ago slow internet connections and poor quality monitors would have made such complex artwork annoying and arse.

2010 looks to be a big years for interesting design work, large fonts and making the most of the scroll button on your mouse.  The time of the short page is well past thanks to the movement towards blog and magazine style layouts.

For a look at the way websites are going read this great article about the look of websites in 2010.  If you are looking to have a website make over or want a site built from scratch, impress your visitors with your contemporary styling choices

Contact Martian today for more information and a free quotes on designing your new website!