What is truly important?

Steve Jobs has been an inspiration to many people including myself. His words were a motivation when I decided to pursue a new career direction of developing drawing and educational apps.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life. And the only way to be truly satisfied is do what you believe is great work. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. And don’t settle.

In honor of his birthday, here is a tribute time-lapse drawing of him.

Time-lapse made with an Adonit Pixel and Interactive Sketchbook.

Path To A New App

Ian on May 3, 2012

Digital Wave Creative’s second app is going to be released soon for both iPhone and iPad! I thought you might be interested to know what the process behind creating it was.

Inspiration:

I literally had the inspiration for our first app, Interactive Sketchbook, the first day apple announced that they were going to launch a new product called the iPad. That was January 27th, 2010 – shortly after 1pm eastern standard time – for those who still remember.

The iPhone was already proving very popular, and I had already spent countless hours daydreaming about becoming a developer for the platform. But I never put forth the effort to make it happen, because without an idea worth pursuing, what would be the point?

After seeing Apple demonstrate what was possible with a 10 inch version of their iPhone platform, the idea struck me. My brother was (and still is) a well known entertainment illustrator who I was currently helping produce a series of How-To-Draw videos to promote a book he had made with Lucas Film: You Can Draw Star Wars.

An hour of excited pacing post Apple’s announcement yielded an idea worth pursing. The iPad didn’t just have enough screen real estate to draw on, it had enough screen real estate to draw on next to photo reference, or interactive tutorials.

My brother didn’t take much convincing, and most of the application design was on paper by the next day.

Constraints:

Early in the development process of Interactive Sketchbook, we could see that playing with the interactive tutorials was fun. You could touch the art, and explore it. This would also appeal to some who either want to draw along on real paper, or who might have an iPhone in place of an iPad. The iPhone screen is too small to make the side-by-side drawing feature of Interactive Sketchbook work, but the tutorials themselves would work great on the device. We resolved to make a cheaper version of the app sans drawing that would be available on iPhone – but not until we finished Interactive Sketchbook.

New Direction:

Interactive Sketchbook had a successful launch, but was progressing at a slower pace then I would have liked. Shortly after it hit the app store our software engineer became super busy. He was amazing to work with and super talented, but those traits made him highly sought after, and less available to us. After months of trying to find a capable programmer who we could afford, I found myself at a crossroads. My day job as a video producer gave me a bunch of skills that translated well to the field of software development. But after 8 years of working with clients to produce videos promoting their products and services, I was ready for a change. What if I quit my day job and took the time I spent there and the time I spent looking for a new programmer and put it towards learning to program for iOS? It was a gamble, but I wasn’t getting very far in my search for a replacement programer, and with a successful app already in the store, I was certainly motivated. I quit my job, and made learning Objective-C and Apple frameworks my full time job.

Fast Forward 6 Months:

So here we are today. Between working occasional contractor video shoots for my prior employer and income from Interactive Sketchbook, I still have a roof over my head. Learning to code was a long tedious process of rewiring how my brain works. It was extremely frustrating at times but there were enough breakthroughs to push me through the difficult days. And my first test of skill, and the first part of rebuilding Interactive Sketchbook from the ground up, is the new “How To Draw” app that will be available in the next week or so.

Its available for both iPhone and iPad. It features gorgeous illustrated tutorials created by my brother, with new higher resolution assets that look stunning on retina displays. It features a simple, sleek, and playful interface. It’s done. It’s delightful. You should try it.

~Ian

A New Age. (Not just 39.)

Matt Busch on May 8, 2011

Matt’s the name, art’s the game, and this is my first post on the DWC blog.

I’m turning 39 this year and though my life has seen many changes that I can reflect upon, nothing quite boggles my mind as much as the changes in technology that I’ve seen. I mean, I remember as a kid hating anyone that had a 0 in their phone number, because that meant you had to wait for the rotary dialer to spin all the way back after dialing it.

And of course, we’ve seen huge leaps with the PC, the Internet, smart phones, and now, here we are with the iPad. Already a fan of this product, Apple CEO Steve Jobs really struck a chord with me when he unveiled the iPad2, proclaiming that the iPad has launched us into the next chapter of technology: Post-PC Devices.

I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking this is a dream come true, literally. When I was in 3rd grade, I used to make my own imaginary handheld computer devices out of cardboard. They looked like remote controls, but with a screen, and they could do anything, not just watch videos, or play games. I had buttons for instant weather, news, lasers, you name it. Keep in mind, this was in 1982, well before PCs were commonplace. And now, that and more is at our fingertips in a way we never could have imagined.

What am I getting at? Pushing my gushing fascination aside, I guess I’m just waxing ecstatic about where we are now and where this is going. For some, the iPad seems like a novelty. But it’s growing faster than anything else has before it and it’s here to stay.

I’m a firm believer that there will be a day where no one carries actual textbooks to class, but instead reads and studies them off a Post-PC device, most likely an iPad.

I will have art students in college that have never even touched a pencil, but have already created countless masterpieces digitally.

How crazy would this be? Imagine a student wants to show me a history of their art, sketches and ideas, and they can literally start from the beginning- from finger-painting as a toddler to video game concept design as a teen. And what if when they pull out their iPad to show me, the App they launch is Interactive Sketchbook?

Believe me, if I could simply open up an App just to show you the handheld cardboard device I designed in 3rd grade, I would.

-Matt

Welcome

Ian on May 7, 2011

This is the first blog post on the Digital Wave Creative Blog. The developers, designers, and programmers of DWC will use this blog as a way to connect to our customers and to share ideas within our community of creative professionals.

Having spent more than a year developing Interactive Sketchbook for iPad, we have lots to share pertaining to art, design, programming, the iPad, and much more. Come back soon!