The whole machine

Over the past few weeks I've written up each of the tools behind this site on its own. This one is about how they fit together. I kept picturing them as parts of one machine on a workbench, so I had them rendered that way: a brass automaton, built a piece at a time.

The eye and the face

The eye came first. ProPre, the press for my coloring books, is the project that brought me back to web development in May. It's a prism: a beautiful picture goes in and comes out as clean black and white lines, ready for someone to fill with colour.

The face is the lake on the front of the site. Every tab is a season, and every tab opens another part of the machine. Books leads to the catalog of everything ProPre has made. Workshop leads to the bench. Play is where the Field Notes live.

Memory and hands

The memory is the Parts Catalog: a drawer for every piece the lake is built from, each one running on its own with the same code the lake uses, so I can open one drawer without disturbing the rest.

The hands are the Workshop. Give them a picture and they shape a new part in the Catalog's own format, ready to join the others on the lake.

The heart

The heart is the Studio. A day out comes in as a track and a pile of photos, and goes out as a Field Note, with its post, its episode and its share card. The liquid in its pipes is the same idea as blood: the content is what keeps the whole thing alive, and the Studio is what moves it around.

It wakes up

In the render, the heart beats once, the light runs out through the glass veins, the hands shape a bird, and the bird flies into the lake. That's the whole machine. A day comes in, it's shaped, it's kept, and it ends up somewhere you can see it.

Each one is good alone, but it's the pipes between them that make it feel alive.

What I learned: none of these parts is the portfolio on its own. Each one is good alone, but it's the pipes between them that make it feel alive.