Daniel Treacy

Escape

danieltreacy — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:03:12 +0000

The other day I went to work in the morning and was a few minutes early so I just sat outside on a bench and thought about my life, as one does when you have five minutes of nothings inbetween everythings. One of my good friends recently went to Nepal and Tibet to travel of course, but also to escape the socially engineered machine of post-modern life, and her trip prompted me in those five minutes to think about what I would rather be doing, or where I’d rather be.

THe vision that came to my mind was some sort of old chateau in luscious English countryside, all alone, just me and my piano. To just escape from how society decides we should live, and to experience freedom like that… yep, I guess people have dreamed of such an escape for many moons, so much so that society had to conjure up the concept of retirement to stop the corporate masses from heading for the hills. Guess the hippies got through their fingers.

On the other hand, I can’t deny that I feel accomplishment and self-worth in my work, expressing my talents and creativity, and working hard at what I do best. I think we all need to escape some time in our lives, but at the end of the day we all want the same thing; happiness as a person, happy and fulfilling relationships (hmm guess that crosses out being alone in an English castle) and being a valuable contribution to society. Well, it was a fulfilling five minutes of daydreaming.

Bag Raiders adds new shine to the dance floor

danieltreacy — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:19:51 +0000

I have come across a hot new Sydney band called Bag Raiders, and was blown away. When asked to describe their music they refer to it as “adventure” (External Link) . Love it. Solidly disco-based with traces of house and breakbeat influences, Bag Radiers is a potent force on the turntables.

Raw design or CMS?

danieltreacy — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 12:38:29 +0000

I give up. I hate to admit it, but I have given in to a do-it-yourself CMS for my “official” blog. And by “official” I meant not including Facebook, Live Spaces or any other social networking site. This is the real thing boys and girls. The window to my life on the web for all to see. Anyway, back to the point; why I have given in to a CMS. After all, is there anything more hypocritical than calling yourself a designer and not even “designing” your own BLOG?! Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have the following reasons to state my case.

Time
Yep. As you’ll read in my lovely CMS-generated About page, my life is pretty full and busy and as much as I would love to deprive my caffeine-pumped body of sleep to bust out a sexy new design for a blog at this point in my already-busy life, i’ll take the CMS thanks. With a side-order of fries.
Re-inventing the wheel
It is said that good people create their own, but the best people copy others. Of course I’m not copying anyone by using a theme that some designer gave (or sold…? help me out here) to WordPress for the world to use freely. While i still would savor the bliss of boasting my blog as hand-crafted by yours truly from wireframe to javascript, I don’t think it is a “cop-out” or a defeat to make good use out of a fellow designer’s creativity. Heck, if I didn’t have a slice of creativity under my belt my clients wouldn’t pay me anyway!

The world of design is limitless. Don’t take my word for it, look at the fact that no human being has looked exactly the same as another, and no one ever will. Ever. Our ability to design creative works that move and inspire is a part of being human and it has no limit.

So, I’ve decided to give up the rat-race and use a well-built program to power my blog.
At least for another year or so.

Comment your thoughts – is raw design better than CMS?

(Image sourced from www.cyandesign.ca – thanks guys)

There's a designer in all of us