Notes
Short, dated updates: new work, site changes, things shipped.
Three catalogues, three rulebooks
Digital specials catalogues for three Metcash liquor banners are on the site: IGA Liquor, The Bottle-O and Cellarbrations. Each brand has its own guidelines, so the same job comes out three ways: a dense product grid for IGA Liquor, flat green with price roundels for The Bottle-O, a backyard lifestyle shot and brush script for Cellarbrations. New artwork lands each fortnight, and the legal strip changes with the state of sale.
One layout, three loyalty apps
Three of Metcash's liquor loyalty apps are on the site: my Bottle-O Rewards, Cellarbrations Top Drop Rewards and Porters Liquor Rewards. I wireframed one homepage layout and skinned it three ways. The points balance, what those points are worth and the store to spend them in sit at the top of all three. The barcode opens full screen from a chip in the corner.
Print joins the grid
Three campaigns from my finished-art years are on the site: a full-page Underbelly press ad, City Homicide DVD packaging for the Seven Network, and the poster and press suite for BBC's Top Gear DVDs. All of it ran in 2009 and 2010, every piece to publication spec, and the homepage has a Print filter to browse them.
Filters fixed, images automatic
Two site fixes this week. The category filters above the work grid stopped breaking the layout: pick any category, in any order, and the grid holds. And the deploy now converts every image I upload to WebP, capped to the size the page displays, with no script for me to run. New work ships at about half the image weight.
Case studies, at home
The case studies index was the last page that didn't look like the rest of the site: its own header, its own type, its own footer. I rebuilt it on the same layout and cards as everything else, and it sits in the main nav now instead of hiding behind a link.
I redrew the share cards for all three pages to match while I was in there.
Glass, all the way through
Every control on the site now runs off one glass recipe: the nav, the wordmark, the menu button, the filter chips, the case-study pager, the footer bar and the banner stage. Same fill, same frost, same lit edge.
I tuned it against the real work sitting behind it rather than a flat swatch, so the labels stay readable over a white poster frame as well as a dark one.
Lighter on landing
The work grid now sends each thumbnail at the size your screen can use, instead of a retina-sized file to everyone. The tiles have also stopped fetching a second full-size copy behind the video layer that nobody ever saw.
Landing on the homepage went from about 1.5 MB of images to 170 KB on a standard screen, 260 KB on a retina one. Same crops, same quality.
Credited in, rebuilt
The press credits on this site got a proper structure: 27 trade-press articles across AdNews, B&T and Campaign Brief, grouped by campaign. Sydney Metro, Tourism Tasmania, Minds Wide Open, Make It Your Business and more. Every article names me in the campaign credits, and the work pages link their own coverage.
Behance and Vimeo, wired in
New profiles on Behance and Vimeo, linked both ways with this site. One more place to find the work where you already look for it.
Process notes on every project
All 25 work pages now carry a short Process section: how I made each campaign, from storyboard to ad-served asset. Facts only. Where I hand-coded a suite it says so, and where the workflow called for Adobe Animate it says that instead.
Built to be read by AI
The site now publishes llms.txt, a structured FAQ and a full Person schema, so search and answer engines can read it and cite it. Ask an AI who I am; it has what it needs.
New home, new pipeline
The site moved to a new deploy pipeline this month. A content edit or code change goes live in seconds, worldwide. I built it with AI in the workflow, same as the rest of this portfolio. The full story is in the case studies.
Case studies published
Two are up: designing and shipping "Ready when you are." for AMP's Retirement Hub, and the making of this site. The decisions, the process, and what went live.
kingtan.com.au goes live
I went from a blank repo to live on my own domain in 11 days: dark-canvas design system, motion, CMS and a real deploy pipeline, all of it directed with AI.