Bits and bobs

Welcome back! Porker the pig here, filling in for Tommy. He’s hit the ground running this year, busy working and tinkering on a variety of projects. Let’s take a look.

Women in waste

Working once again with the lovely team at Studio Miko, Tommy created a series of illustrations for the Global Plastic Action Partnership’s feature on Amiyna, a waste picker facing gender inequality and plastic pollution. It’s a really informative read, and you can check out the project in more detail on his site.

A new website

Speaking of his site, there’s been a fresh lick of paint. Having been a long-term user of Semplice, Tommy decided it was time to bid farewell and try his hand at web development – not because he wasn’t happy with Semplice, but because he wanted maximum control over his site. That said, he still highly recommends Semplice to anyone looking for an excellent portfolio builder.

So yeah, he built everything from scratch. No site builders, no WordPress themes – just straight-up raw code. Sounds awful…

For the casuals:

• It has a dark mode! Hopefully, that’ll save some eyes.
• There are fun hover effects on the logo, thumbnails, and project index.
• You’ll still find me on the 404 page, taking a break.

For the nerds:

• It’s coded from the ground up using Astro + Tailwind.
• It utilizes GSAP for animations, adding some snazzy scroll-reveal transitions and jazzy mouseover effects.
• Instead of using GIFs for moving images, Tommy uses MUX to load motion pieces. This saves on load times and means he’s not beholden to 256 colors or explosively large file sizes.

There’s still plenty to tinker with, but he thinks it’s in a good spot (what a sucker). If you come across any bugs, please send an email to me at porker@tommyparker.co.uk. Also, big shoutout to Guy Moorhouse for his web development wisdom and his unending patience with Tommy’s unsolicited tech support messages.

A (type)face lift

You may have noticed a new wordmark on Tommy’s site, too. Enlisting the skills of his friend Liz Tregaskis, she created some awesome lettering inspired by mid-century design. She even did a wonderful job on this very publication you’re reading right now. What a clever sausage Liz is!

Any baseball fans?

For those who may have missed it on his Instagram, the book he worked on last year has finally been released! Author Patrick Renna has been touring the U.S. doing book signings, and you can grab a copy at your local bookstore or on Amazon. You can also check out the project page for a closer look at the artwork.

Society of Illustrators 67

Looks like the work for Cura landed a spot in Illustrators 67, the annual exhibit presented by the Society of Illustrators, in the institutional category. Neato!

Secret animation stuff

Although it’s super hush-hush right now, Tommy’s been creating a variety of bits for an exciting animation project with a great team behind it. I probably shouldn’t say any more, or else I’m dead meat 🥓.

Phew! Is that everything? I think so. Thanks for sticking around. Porker out!