hamilton.likes.to.draw...

I have a new thing I've been working on recently. I may as well post about it here.

I've been teaching now for about 10 years. I've never been better at programming and design than right now. I have not been sitting back idle, I have been attempting to push myself forward. The questions my students bring, and the projects they conceive have been amazing for my own personal growth as a professional.

Recently I began trying to write down some of the things I wish I had more time to talk about or teach during class. Either things that I came up with on my own for my own work, or things that are just beyond the scope of a design oriented school. Tutsos.com is a tutorial website, that I am becoming quite proud of. It is an organic recording of my own tools and how to make them from scratch.

One of the things I made offhandedly one night was a set of icons for a mobile design tutorial. And it ballooned out of control. I now have over 200 icons in a set that I designed. As a guy that never considered himself a designer, this is a big feat for me. If you'd like to check them out, they are searchable at icon.tutsos.com. But I'll just embed that here.

So for the past few years, I've been teaching at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. It's been about 2 years now, and I haven't really made a major update to my website code since then. I decided to take a bit of time today to update my CSS responsiveness. I did a lot, with a surprising little. I improved the gallery as well to be a bit more consistent across sizes. I fixed the mobile sidebar which has been janky since the first day I put it in. Honestly, I think I can finally be mostly proud of the mobile experience, which I definitely haven't been able to say in a while.

I've made so much code for students in the past 2 years, and I'm finally getting the chance to put some of it to my own use. It has certainly been a long road. I have learned probably so much more than any one of my students has, and that is sort of amazing. I have honed my own knowledge of all the subjects I teach, and I am now sharper, more knowledgeable, and able to articulate what I need to say in a far better fashion.

The next step for me seems to be improving my lessons, and creating content for learners. I've made a codepen to try to help people understand dozenal grids a bit better, you should check it out, if you're interested.

See the Pen Responsive Dozenal Sass Grid by Hamilton (@bronkula) on CodePen.

I wonder if Hamilton sells things anywhere.

I do. Sometimes. For instance, I have an account at a nice little website called RedBubble where I sell a couple things.

I don't think of myself as a designer. I'm a programmer. Actually, I'm more of a puzzle solver. I wouldn't say I'm a problem solver. I don't like to solve drama, or cause drama, or use the word drama. But I like to solve puzzles. The thing about problems is that there's never really a solution, no matter how many people give their opinion for one. Puzzles have a solution. There IS a way to solve them. You just have to figure it out.

I'm an artist, but I'm not a creative type. I like to look at a thing, and solve the puzzle of recreating it with lines or colors or shapes. I don't generally create things out of thin air, although often I enjoy messing around with the layout of the thing that I'm drawing. My design sensibilities, however, are extremely limited. I like squares, I like pictures, I like flat simple colors schemes. This is how I design.

I am exceedingly relaxed about rules and order and schedules. But I need them or nothing would ever get done, because I'm fairly lazy as well. I crave regularity and routine rather than deadlines and goal posts.

I started redesigning my website yesterday, only to remember what a daunting task it is, and why most people are scared shitless of it. I teach people all day long how to make websites, but I teach them how to make one page. I have hundreds of pages and sections on my site. Redesigns are not a simple task. I've gotten much better and more efficient at it over the years, but it's never easy.