Redneck Goes Cute


There's not a lot of imagery that the males in my family are attracted to, but deer is definitely one of them. Much energy is devoted to the plotting of their death {come hunting season}, and interestingly  that somehow translates into an affection for stuff with deer pictures on it. So I thought it'd be a good birthday card for my dad! I was pleased with how the colors came out on this one. Unfortunately, my brother instructed me that a deer cannot have both antlers and polka-dots at the same time {baby deer are spotted and big deer get antlers}, but I assured him that it was indeed all good. Things in Amanda-land can grow up without losing the elements of their youth that contribute to their adorableness. It's like never-never land, except better and it actually exists. ;)

Happy Morning Murder Time

The day after "Happy Morning Cuddle Time" went up on the Wheelhouse, I posted this update on Facebook:

Sometimes, like yesterday, I think, "I love my kitties." 

And sometimes, like today, I come home to find that they have murdered, beheaded, and are eating a ginormous cockroach, and I think, 

 "FEARSOME FUZZY DEFENDERS OF THE FORTRESS, EPIC MUTANT-BUG-DESTROYING HEROES, FULL OF VALOR, MAD HUNTING SKILLZ, AND HAIRBALLS, MY HEART IS YOURS FOREVER!!! DON'T EVER LEAVE MEEEEEEEE!!!"


Happy Morning Snuggle Time


My kitties are hard core cuddlers; this is how we start every day. I would never get out of bed, except after a while Milton gets hungry and switches from snuggling to poking me in the face whilst meowing belligerently. It's like a fuzzy interactive version of an alarm clock.

Pixel-Pushing Pigeon

Allison is a very excellent designer at Nick Jr. She happens to really like pigeons {she has an excellent facebook instagram stream of artsy shots she takes of them on the streets}, and she used to have a really adorable pigeon mug. But one day a long time ago, her mug disappeared, and I was very sad. I wanted to make her a replacement, but I was a little intimidated about drawing a pigeon for a super cool designer. But then, this year, she was my pick in our department secret santa, and I thought, "Hey! This is a great opportunity to get over my pigeon drawing block." So I made her this little guy, who is drawing her a heart in photoshop on his little 'puter, and got it printed on the front cover of a sketchbook. I think she was pleased. :)

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

I thought these signs only existed on "Hey Arnold." Clearly not.




Pretty lines and colors




 mysterious looking door




enthusiastic window box!



I have always really loved how christmas lights look in early morning overcast light: this batch was at Columbus Circle



Adorable bricks, cute grates, and lovely sign = winning combination



little church in Hell's Kitchen



THERE'S A GIANT NOODLE GROWING OUT OF THE GROUND!!!



The Upper West Side is home to the cutest takeout window on the planet.



enchanting little walkway in midtown 



lovely light and colors



Upper East Side



Not the Upper East Side



W 52 st

Design Work: Sax Savvy

This site was a series of games I designed {and programmed!} to teach kids the basics of music for saxophone. I also recorded all of the sound effects myself, so it's full of pretty adorable saxophone noises. After an intro animation that followed the red string of music down into the bell of a saxophone, the user found themselves in this happy little world in there that was, of course, wind powered. Each little house {constructed with sax parts} was a button, and had a super cute little animated rollover so you knew what part of the world each led to. There were three wind-related scenes accessible from the village: sailboats, kites, and hot air balloons.



The first was a drag and drop labeling game. Each sailboat you were given had the name of part of the saxophone on it {keys, bow, reed, etc} and you had to drag the boat to the appropriate destination on the map of the sax.


This one took the wind theme to the sky for a matching game. When you clicked a kite, it flipped over to reveal either a note on the clef, or a letter name of one of those notes, the goal being to match the two that referred to the same note. Another level of learning was added with the sound effects; each kite when clicked played the tone of the note it displayed. The clouds in the background also moved lazily across the screen as you played.


The most dynamic of the games was this last one, a shooter. It had three levels, and the objective of each was different—level 1: hit balloons that have sound marks, level 2: volume marks, and level 3: rest marks. The bow, that moves back and forth based on keyboard input, is a tenor clef, and the user hits the spacebar to shoot little quarter rest spears to pop the balloons.

Design Work: Assorted Show Sites for NIckelodeon


One of my many roles at Nickelodeon has been a visual designer. The typical task in that mode is to take the technical framework that already exists and re-paint the face of it to make it representative of a particular Nickelodeon show. Between Nick proper, Teennick, Nicktoons, and Nick at Nite, I've done tons and tons of these. Here are a very few select highlights:




















































Design Work: Character Image Styling

Every show site on Nickelodeon has an "About the Characters" page.  One of my favorite creative exercises is to figure out how to treat the images that live there. That particular page is templated, so all of these have to be the same image size and shape, and always sit on a white background, next to a block of text that describes the character. The interestingness comes from discovering, over and over, new ways to execute the same task.

To get an idea of what this process actually is, take a look at the before and after below. To start, I'm given an image {or series of images to pick from} of each character. Ideally they come isolated on white, but if they don't the first step is doing that. Then I can create an environment around them that's fun, reflects something about them or the show, and looks good with the rest of the show site. 

This first set was from a show about a jungle boy who had powers to summon magical spirit-like creatures:




Two more from that same show:



Fanboy & Chum Chum trading cards:



Creepy TV movie, The Boy Who Cried Werewolf:



That 70's Show:



Fred:



The Naked Brothers Band:



Bucket & Skinner's Epic Adventures:



The Mighty B—girl scout badges for a show about girl scouts:



"Good Guy" and "Bad Guy" image treatments for Iron Man Armored Adventures:



How to Rock:



Back at the Barnyard:



TeenNick Rocks Out:



The FairlyOdd Parents:



House of Anubis:



El Tigre!