Heartworker - Playground & Portfolio

October report

Joel Helin — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 06:21:43 +0000

Hello friends. You might be wondering why the announcement of the new site never appear and I fully understand that. I’ve been doing some client work along with some big things since the last update which is both work related and personal. I would love to share with you now but I will have to wait for the new layout.

All I can say is that I’ll add Loyalguard - Running From Ghosts to my portfolio soon, along with the news. The work is a cover for a friends band that really rocks (proof here).

My intention is to release a new version within a month. I feel like I’m getting there but I’m simply too self criticizing when it comes to work I do for myself, because basically, that’s work I do for everyone else. I hope to see you soon with a fresh and more suiting face.

T-shirts and websites

Joel Helin — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:53:00 +0000

I know that you can almost see the dust laying around here as the updates have been lacking a bit lately, but that’s only temporary, my friends. I am (as I said before) working on the sixth version which will bring some new freshness around here. You can look forward to more posts and more work in the near future.

Another thing coming up is some awesome t-shirts for my awesome friends in Loyalguard. Me and Thomas (singer/guitarist) will team up and do some killer merchandise to be released simultainiously with their second effort, which will feature artwork from yours truly.

Much going on now, and I love every second of it.

Samsung 40″ LCD

Joel Helin — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 08:10:35 +0000

I finally got my gaming (and movie) experience upgraded with a new Samsung 40″ LCD TV. The picture quality while gaming is stunning in HD via componenet cable from my Xbox 360, while it’s a little less impressing through scart from the digital box (as expected), but still good. Needless to say - I’m really satisfied with this one.

For you who are interested, here’s the specs for it; 3x HDMI, Component, 2x Scart, PC input, 8000:1 dynamic contrast, gaming mode, movie mode and some other different pre-installed settings that I don’t really remember.

I’ve watched some movies, and the result is better than I expected from an LCD (been a sucker for plasma earlier). Good picture quality and lots of inputs for anything I might buy in the future. Thank you Samsung.

Version 6 in the making

Joel Helin — Thu, 22 May 2008 08:34:53 +0000

So, what am I up to right now you might ask. A new version of this site is in the making, and I hope to get it up as soon as I can. I’ve also saved some drafts of articles to discuss later on, which will be as soon as the new site is up and working. There will be more links, more features and I’ll hopefully be able to create a better experience as a whole.

I’ve got some really rad ideas on how to solve some problems I expirenced doing the current one. I’m aiming towards a little bit more personal design with some advanced layout solutions. I’m currently playing around with the layout so I don’t have a timeframe in mind as of now. But it hopefully won’t take too long.

Ps. Sorry for the lack of updates, but I prefer to stick to relevent notes here while focusing entierly on the site in general. Thanks for understanding. Ds.

April update

Joel Helin — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:13:18 +0000

So, the vacation was great and both Hannah and I are very pleased with the ink, and that means that it’s time to start up the design process again. It’s been far too long since I’ve done something creative. Which is a shame. I’ve been thinking about redesigning the portfolio again, that might do the trick.

I’m planning to launch joelhelin.com in the summer of 2008, wich means that I’ll start doing some layout work now. No stress there. Read more about that project here.

Hannah launched her Swedish blog using WordPress 2.5. This is her first experience with PHP and she’s doing an amazing job finding widgets and modifying the code to fit her needs. She’ll be an excellent designer some day, I’m sure.

Personal gaming rants

I preordered Grand Theft Auto IV the other day and I’m really excited. I know that it’s totally going to blow my mind and I look forward to hunting all the G’s in it.

Currently, I’m trying to finish Guitar Hero III on hard, which is just hard. All I’ve got left is Metallica - One and the last boss. 95% done and I’m stuck. Very frustrating.

I’m also enjoying Burnout Revenge for the second time. I got it back when I was playing PlayStation 2 but sold it with the console a couple of months back. I look forward to play it in HD when I get the new tv.

Just personal rants

That’s about it. This entry got a little longer than I expected, so I’m not going to rabble on much more. There might be some changes around here (small fixes) and eventually a redesign in the near future. Stay tuned.

Vacation in Karlstad

Joel Helin — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:24:54 +0000

On April 10th me and Hannah will travel down to her old hometown Karlstad (Charlestown to non Swedes). We’re going to meet up with my parents that I haven’t seen since July 2007 and spend some time with her younger brother and one of my long-time-friends Peter Müller.

The main reason we’ll go down there is to get some tattoos done. I will do a koi on my right upper arm which is the first step on a future sleeve - and my second tattoo in total. Hannah will ink a geisha on her back which works as a cover-up on an old tattoo she has (she has about 5-6 in total).

I’m really excited meeting up with everyone again and to spend some time away, even if it’s just for a couple of days. I’ll post some pictures from the trip when we get home.

New domain - joelhelin.com

Joel Helin — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:27:14 +0000

I want to keep Heartworker as my playground, but still have a more “serious” approach on another site. Buying a new domain makes it much more easier to seperate work from experimenting fun.

This means that I’ll be redirecting the new domain to Heartworker for a while now, while working on the new layout. I have no plans to launch this in a near future, but I am very happy that I finally got this done even if I’m not planning on doing anything with it just yet.

I also realized that much of my ideas can be easily arranged with the new features in WordPress 2.5. And that just makes me more excited to open this sucker up.

WP 2.5 sneak peek

Joel Helin — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:37:06 +0000

Waiting for WordPress 2.5? Then you’ll have to wait a while longer for the full version. But the RC (Release candidate) is now available from www.wordpress.org. Personally, I think I’ll wait until the real thing is released, though I must say I’m very excited about it since it has so many features that you now need plugins to use today. It’s really great that they are now integrated.

This is how the crew explains it:
A customizable dashboard, multi-file upload, built-in galleries, one-click plugin upgrades, tag management, built-in Gravatars, full text feeds, and faster load times sound interesting? Then WordPress 2.5 might be the release for you. It’s been in the oven for a while, and we’re finally ready to open the doors a bit to give you a taste.

Want to try out the new beast? There is a demo available for you to enjoy.

iPod Mini 4GB for sale *

Joel Helin — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 11:01:35 +0000

I forgot to tell you that I’m currently selling my iPod at Tradera, the Swedish answer to Ebay. I got it up for sale only because I use my new phone, a SonyEricsson w910i as a mp3 player as well. And it works surprisingly good too. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t upgrade to an iPhone as soon as it hits Sweden.

If you want a cheap and good mp3 player, then start the biding right away. It’s only a few hours left now. You know you want to make me dirty rich. ~~It’s now up to 311 kr.~~ It’s now gone to someone else for 432kr.

*This will be updated as soon as something happens.

Styling with CSS

Joel Helin — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:13:29 +0000

We had a big book sale a couple of days ago and I took the opportunity to look for some web and/or design related ones. I found a couple of candidates but none of them where included in the sale, but I bought one about CSS anyway since I really wanted to dig deeper into the subject and maybe learn some new techniques. The one I bought was; Styling with CSS - A designers guide by Charles Wyke-Smith.

I’ve only read about 20-25 pages but it’s really good reading so far. It’s seems to be more for beginners but what the heck, something new could be learnt since I’ve only been learning it from other sites source code and some tutorials online.

Other books

My next book to pick up will be CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions by Andy Budd, Simon Collison and Cameron Moll. It seems to be recommended by many designers out there so it might be worth a shot.