Website redesign for the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History

Like many of my museum colleagues, I’m a big fan of Nina Simon’s blog, Museum 2.0. When the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, of which she is the director, needed a new website, I jumped at the opportunity. Simon praised my work, saying, “Marty is everything I could have wanted from a designer — he overdelivered on my vague directives and pushed me to think more rigorously about what we were trying to do.” Read more

Collecting as an Artistic Mode

This is the second part of my notes on Museums By Artists, edited by A. A. Bronson & Peggy Gale and published by Art Metropole in 1983. Phrases have been lifted from the text, then grouped with like. See also: Museums, Collections and Art. Read more

Website for Photographer Carolyn Drake

Carolyn Drake’s website I recently had the pleasure of creating sites with documentary photographer Carolyn Drake. Carolyn has an amazing eye and strong sense of narrative, which she brought to her layout and navigation. This site is built on WordPress, with custom gallery-presentation plugins and theme. Read more

Website for Photographer Andres Gonzalez

Andres Gonzalez’s website I recently had the pleasure of creating sites with documentary photographer Andres Gonzalez. EachAndreshas an amazing eye and strong sense of narrative, which he brought to his layout and navigation. The site is built on WordPress, with custom a gallery-presentation plugin and theme. Read more

Center a Google Map on the Latest WordPress Post

This is a follow-up to my previous post on integrating WordPress and Google Maps. Damien asks: “Would it be possible to centre the map on my latest post?” Yes, it is! This builds off the example in the previous post and I’m using the Address Geocoder plugin to set latlngs. Read more

Website Redevelopment for Honoria in Ciberspazio

An artist’s project I collaborated on has recently launched. Or I should say re-launched, as it existed before; I’ve been involved in getting it back to fighting form. Honoria in Ciberspazio is Honoria Starbuck’s jam. Begun in 1997, it’s “the first internet opera” — written via online collaboration and performed via webcast, with the online condition as its subject. Read more

Website Redesign for Tiffany Malakooti’s “Belog”

An artist’s project I collaborated on has recently launched. Or I should say re-launched, as it existed before; I’ve been involved in getting it back to fighting form. Belog is Tiffany Malakooti’s jam. She’s assembled a collection of Persian art and culture that is beautiful and often quite funny. Read more

Address Geocoder WordPress Plugin

A simple WordPress plugin for saving location data with Posts and Pages. Conveniently converts addresses to lat/lng from the Edit screen. Storing addresses as lat/lng (rather than geocoding each time a user requests a page) decreases load time. This plug-in makes it easy for content managers to generate lat/lng, which is stored with the post as a custom field that can be accessed as part of the loop. Read more

Using the WordPress Featured Image / Post Thumbnail as a Google Maps Marker

This is a follow-up to my previous post on combining WordPress and Google Maps. Jayc asks: “Is there any way to change the MarkerImage to the featured image for the post?” Yes, there is! But one thing to keep in mind is that markers are not one image but two — the marker itself and the shadow. Read more

Museums, Collections and Art

This is the first part of my notes on Museums By Artists, edited by A. A. Bronson & Peggy Gale and published by Art Metropole in 1983. Phrases have been lifted from the text, then grouped with like. See also: Collecting as an Artistic Mode. Read more

Integrating WordPress and Google Maps API V.3

Here we will go through the steps for creating a Google Maps interface for a WordPress blog. Posts will appear as markers on the map, which you can click to reveal the post content in the Google Maps Infowindow. Download a ZIP of the complete example. Read more

Introducing “Multiple,” a new online artwork / web comic

Multiple on the Wednesday Cooper website. What’s your favorite super power? Flight? Strength? Invisibility? For as far back as I can remember, mine has had to do with time: I wish I could do two things at once.  The closest example in mainstream comics is Marvel’s Multiple Man.  Read more