What economic downturn?

I must first apologize for the long delay between posts. I've been consumed with a fairly complex project for Tad Inoue, who manages www.tadthedietcoach.com. This site relies heavily on PHP, mySQL and several HTML tricks to pull it all together. The site features a store, forums, photo gallery, blog, and many other static pages.
It's a type of site with a theme I've never worked on before, and not my cup of tea, to say the least. It was certainly a daunting task, but well worth the results, and the client seems to be happy as well.

So, that's what I've been up to for the past week. Sure, we've had other projects sprinkled in-between. A few ads, some fabric banners, a logo design. Seems like things don't seem to be slowing down.

Which brings me to the precise content of this post.

Certainly we are seeing the impact our economy is having on our personal lives, and on the local cost of goods we need to keep things rolling. But, the good thing about having a web based business is that your income is not determined by any one local economy. ProGravix works with hundreds of clients around the world, diversifying our income across many continents. Obviously we have seen a slow down with our video services, but this is generally a result of local families being impacted by the crunch.

We're happy that we are not affected too bad by the increased price of gasoline (seeing only a slight increase in the cost of supplies). Personally I am in the market for a new vehicle, and while I hardly travel great distances by car, I don't see that justifying the purchase of a much desirable SUV. For the time being, I roll a Chevy HHR. I like it. It's retro, and gets great gas mileage.

I just hope that I may one day replace my totaled Jeep Liberty.

This has been today's clarified butter.

iPhone and the SDK

Apple, Inc. today released a beta version of their Software Developer Kit for iPhone. I always get excited about Apple events, and news about great new releases and developments from Apple.

Now, you are probably wondering how this relates to design, or more specifically, ProGravix.

Well, it doesn't.

Okay, so maybe it does a little. Developers (in most cases "programmers") and designers are two completely different breeds. It's almost impossible to find someone that is a very creative designer that also has a rich knowledge of programming and back-end environments. I for one have always hated programming (and by rules or polarity, love design).

The great news about this SDK is that it gives these developers all the tools they need to create robust, enterprise grade applications for iPhone and iPod Touch. (This would be like asking Dreaweaver to create all your graphics, and code in HTML, as well. Just won't happen.) So, hopefully in June we will see hundreds, if not thousands, of applications for iPhone and iPod Touch. I'm personally excited for an AIM client.

So, getting back to how this relates to ProGravix. Well, we always shied away from anything involving programming... so much so that we turned down very lucrative offers. We always believed that we were designers first and foremost, and that we should focus purely on that. Our customer's thought differently.

I personally have taught myself PHP, mySQL, Java, JS, and enough ASP to cause trouble. It was a daunting task, but turned out to be very beneficial. Now, I won't be calling myself an expert anytime soon, but at least my toes are slightly damp. We've already revamped our online billing and estimating system using PHP. Hopefully we will be able to translate this all into a richer proofing and artwork accessibility program. In the meantime, I think we are doing pretty well (and much further along) than any of our competitors.