how it got made
mike's ice cream
my first paying client. mike's has been on 2nd avenue since 2003, and its old wordpress site took 7 seconds to show up on a phone. so i rebuilt all of it by hand... the website, the admin the staff use, and the tv in the shop.
- homepage on a phone
7.4s0.8s - pages under google's “good” line
1 of 66 of 6 - downloaded to see every page
6.9 mb2.7 mb - cookies on a visitor
50 - security headers
0 of 66 of 6
measured sept 28 on a phone over slow 4g, the way google's own speed test does it. old site vs new, middle of three runs.
the problem. the old site was a wordpress theme with its demo pages still in it (a medical practice's, somehow). slow on a phone, five cookies, no security headers.
what i built. the website, phone first, for people standing on 2nd avenue deciding on dessert. behind it, an admin made for phones too: staff turn a flavor off when it runs out, managers build the schedule, everyone gets their messages, and a photo editor cuts scoops out of their backgrounds. the tv in the shop reads the same flavor list.
the fun part. every drawing is drawn in code and builds itself as you scroll... scoops drop onto the cone and a cherry splats on top. a hand drops a cherry on the see all flavors button, and the 404 page drops a cone. no framework, no database, no cookies.
the website
the staff side
the tv in the shop
textue
the other thing i make... after effects panels, under the name studio.tue (see p. 2). textue is the biggest one so far.
the problem. after effects ships with hundreds of text animation presets and most people use the same four, because the only built in way to preview them is adobe bridge, a whole separate app.
what i built. a panel where every preset is a card with its own motion preview, right inside after effects. play the whole page at once, compare six side by side, apply one in a single undo, and take it back off with one button.
the fun part. it reads your preset files and never writes to them, it fits a skinny dock without scrolling, and the real panel runs live in a browser demo on the studio.tue site.
it's free, pay what you want. i also build custom panels for studios... see p. 2 for the site.