design is about conveying an idea and telling a story. computer graphics can convey all sorts of ideas and i've experimented through a variety of mediums, including architecture, print design, 3D modeling, animation, software applications & games.
Akorn the Squirrel
Since fifth grade, I've been drawing a cartoon squirrel named Akorn. When I finally learned 3D modeling, my first project was, of course, to model him.
My childhood virtual friend, I spent my middle school years developing a comic book series around him and find myself still doodling today.
Piano Key
What better way to understand the piano key than to model all its components and animate a key stroke? I've been playing the piano for years, so it made sense to understand how it worked.
I spent a lot of time playing with actual keys and reading diagrams. When this model was finished, a simple duplication of it (88 times) produced a fully-animatable keyboard (See Piano model).
Concert Hall
After playing performance piano for almost two decades, I wanted to mimic one of many concert halls I'd played in. To capture the essence, I aimed to glorify the piano as the center of attention, leaving everything else in the dark and putting bright, harsh lights on the keyboard.
I specifically did not use textures because I wanted to convey a simple idea in a very basic form. The reflectivity of the blinn material on the piano body is enough.
Pirates
Along with my squirrel, I created a fictional world of pirates, complete with stories, islands, maps, history and drawings. 
If I was to model the squirrel, I would have to model the pirates as well. Again, no textures, but I used a special rendering filter to make it look clay and cartoony.
Here they are standing on Fern Beach of Windsor Island, the most major of seven invented islands called Mariquest that exist in the South Pacific.
San Francisco Apartment
Given that I love architecture and was smitten with the details of my apartment in San Francisco, I wanted to create a 3D model of the space so I could later play with various furniture layouts.
I tried to pay close attention to the details of the trim as well as the dim lighting at night, which gives the place an oh-so-lovely atmosphere.
This took about three hours to model and another two for touch-ups and lighting.
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Pirate Town
In my made-up pirate world of Marquest, the town of Fern on Windsor Island consists of a small clustering of buildings. During my obsession with 3D modeling, I decided to create the whole island and all the buildings in the town. Here we see Arby's Tavern looking out over the fort to the ocean.
Modern House
Because of my passion for architecture, I used the 3D modeling skills to play around with a few random house ideas. Though not visible, this house actually has a defined and workable floor plan.
"Fragmentation" House
This is the 3D model version of a house design I created, which included an actual physical model of wood & cardboard and detailed drawings. The driving concept is the idea of "fragmentation." As such, the design is composed of several intersecting lines and planes that develop an interesting floorplan, which specifically incorporates the view so that it's clear from any position in the house.
Kitchen
When I worked in an architecture firm, I created this 3D model as a better way to visualize a then 2D-only floorplan. I spent time on the details of the layout in order to get a solid understanding of the cabernet placement, work triangle and traffic flow.
The Ultimate Desk
And just for kicks, I did a quick model of what I think would be the ultimate desk for me. Just enough desk space, a place for two monitors (or a giant 30" which I own now :P), laptop space, shelving space and several outlets to plug little devices into.
"Glitch" Animation
While I could have spent a long time on rendering a realistic environment, setting up a complex character rig or creating detailed models, I opted to focus on my story and the details of the animation.
A simple, semi-textured but well-thought-out building environment houses simple polygon, unrigged and faceless robots who effortlessly glide around on tracks.
But what happens if the tracks fail? Watch.
Ollie Animation
Since modeling a character and rigging it to move in all sorts of ways is exceedingly time-consuming, you can just download this free Ollie rig/model and spend your time animating it instead of creating it.
Given a 10-second verbal clip from the Matrix, I tried to make this character come to life in the lip-synching and subtle movements.
3D Breakout
Created in Macromedia Director, coded with Lingo and modeled in Maya, this 3D game takes the classic Breakout™ to a new level. Through the use of Havok physics, bricks are now stacked and tumble over upon the bottom one's collision with the ball.
The game also includes various powerups and camera angles.
Heightfield Modeler
In an effort to understand the technology behind 3D graphics, a friend and I created a heightfield modeling application from scratch. Programmed in C++ and OpenGL using FLTK, this program (and a couple other versions) allows the user to create 2D or 3D shapes, transform them, extrude faces, draw polygons, load & save files, rotate & zoom the view, almost like a mini version of Maya.
The HeightField application specifically allows the creation of a 2D grid-like mesh, where each point's Z coordinate can be altered either manually or through a fractal function, which creates mountain-like 3D models.
Visual Metaphor
Book covers don't always convey the real essence of a story. Rather, they often serve as a marketing tool instead. I wanted to redesign the cover of one of my favorite stories, Orwell's 1984, by using visual metaphors instead of concrete examples. My goal: create a visually appealing design that also had depth of concept.
In the result, the concept evinces the rigid structure of society imposed upon the unique lettering (each letter happens to be from a different revolutionary period - from the French in the 1400s up til present). Letters are forced to fit within the same size squares so they appear equal and identical - but it is clear through the visual uneasiness that what may have been a perfect plan in society is not always the perfect solution.
Visual Type
When I started writing a book about my stories from childhood - highlighting tough 'coming of age' situations but told from a fairly humorous standpoint - I wanted to present the story visually, but without pictures.
I wrote about trying to fit in by buying the trendy clothing. By delving into the meaning of the story, its implications and the emotions surrounding it, I created visual typography that enhances the overall concept and emotion of the story.
Poster Series
I created a series of posters for a lecture series entitled "Design in Everyday Life." Although the subject of each of the three lectures in the series were different, they all shared a common theme.
As such, I aimed to create posters that maintained their individuality, captured the essence of the lecture's story and still contained shared elements between them. Here you see posters for a talk on the Bauhaus movement, the Victorian era and the Design of Future Things. All posters have the lecture series logo in the lower right.
Architecture: "Solitareality" Model
The goal: design a space centered around a habit. The habit: eating cereal and contemplation.
In this space, the user enters a hallway to shed himself of his outerwear and then approaches the central area to prepare his cereal dish. He then descends into a half-circle space filled with natural light to sit, eat and reflect on the world. Finally, he leaves the space to dispose of his bowl and heads off to the next space.
