<commit_before>---
layout: page
title: About
headline: What's a Made Mistakes?
subheadline: Behind the Name and Designer
modified: 2013-08-29
description: "You've found the about page of <NAME>&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;just another boring, tattooed, time traveling, designer and illustrator from Buffalo, New York."
tags: [<NAME>, design, Buffalo, web design, feature]
---

<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ site.url }}/{% ministamp _assets/css/form.min.css css/form.min.css %}">
<script src="{{ site.url }}/{% ministamp _assets/js/vendor/wufoo.js js/vendor/wufoo.js %}"></script>

<figure>
  <img src="{{ site.url }}/images/paperfaces-michael-rose-beard-m.jpg" alt="<NAME> self portrait">
  <figcaption>Self portrait illustrated with the lovely Paper by 53 iPad app.</figcaption>
</figure>

So why the title *made mistakes*? It vaguely has something to do with that whole happy accident thing, where a mistake can turn out to be something great and unplanned. But to be honest I was just looking for a short, memorable sounding domain name.

In May of 2004 I purchased mademistakes.com, and threw up a Macromedia Flash splash (hey remember those?) while I worked on building a design portfolio using Movable Type. For the next couple of years I would experiment with various content management systems ([Movable Type](http://www.movabletype.org/) &rarr; [Textpattern](http://textpattern.com/) &rarr; [Wordpress](http://wordpress.org/) &rarr; [Indexhibit](http://www.indexhibit.org/)), developing minimalistic themes and learning what I could about <abbr>HTML</abbr>, <abbr>CSS</abbr>, Javascript, <abbr>PHP</abbr>, and MySQL databases.

I've since decided to go <abbr>CMS</abbr>-free and utilize black magick and [Jekyll](http://jekyllrb.com/) to [manage the site with static text files]({{ site.url }}/articles/going-static.html). I like knowing how things work behind the scenes so hand-coding the layouts and stylesheets is the only way to go. Not being limited by a <abbr>CMS</abbr> is a wonderful thing...

### And Who Are You Again?

Oh hey --- I'm <NAME>, just another boring, tattooed, time traveling, designer and illustrator working in Buffalo, New York. I'm into drawing [faceless portraits of strangers]({{ site.url }}/articles/paperfaces-ipad-portrait-project.html) on an iPad using [Paper by FiftyThree](http://www.fiftythree.com/paper), movie theater popcorn, [chicken wings done right](http://www.duffswings.com "Duff's Famous Wings"), dust collecting record collections, and over using ellipses and em-dashes.

When I'm not drawing on my iPad, releasing open source [Jekyll themes]({{ site.url }}/tag/jekyll), or [building the next great thing](http://ekowave.com), I work as an inhouse web and print designer for a science education company. On any given day I could be designing product catalogs, marketing collateral, landing pages, email promotions and newsletters, or just getting cozy with <abbr>HTML</abbr>, <abbr>CSS</abbr>, and JavaScript.

Oh, and I'm a recent father of twin girls and will someday help redesign [my wife's site](http://2littlerosebuds.com "2 Little Rosebuds")...

## Contact Me

Send a short message below or [@reply me on Twitter](http://twitter.com/mmistakes).

<form id="form1" name="form1" class="wufoo  page" autocomplete="off" enctype="multipart/form-data" method="post" novalidate
action="https://mademistakes.wufoo.com/forms/z7x4m1/#public">
    <ul>
      <li id="foli1" class="notranslate      ">
        <label class="desc" id="title1" for="Field1"> Message <span id="req_1" class="req">*</span> </label>
        <div>
          <textarea id="Field1" name="Field1" class="field textarea medium" spellcheck="true" rows="10" cols="50" tabindex="1" onkeyup="" required></textarea>
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        <label class="desc" id="title7" for="Field7"> Name </label>
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      <li id="foli2" class="notranslate      ">
        <label class="desc" id="title2" for="Field2"> Email Address <span id="req_2" class="req">*</span> </label>
        <div>
          <input id="Field2" name="Field2" type="email" spellcheck="false" class="field text large" value="" maxlength="255" tabindex="3" required />
        </div>
        <p class="instruct" id="instruct2"><small>Your email address will remain private and won't be shared with anyone.</small></p>
      </li>
      <li class="buttons ">
        <div>
          <input id="saveForm" name="saveForm" class="btn" type="submit" value="Send Message"
 />
        </div>
      </li>
      <li class="hidden">
        <label for="comment">Do Not Fill This Out</label>
        <textarea name="comment" id="comment" rows="1" cols="1"></textarea>
        <input type="hidden" id="idstamp" name="idstamp" value="DXSyHZyBYpNZI+88LvVOKO8dSfd/5lyIeCQAXFVxeJY=" />
      </li>
    </ul>
  </form><commit_msg>Add hardware and software used lists<commit_after>---
layout: page
title: About
headline: What's a Made Mistakes?
subheadline: Behind the Name and Designer
modified: 2013-08-29
description: "You've found the about page of <NAME>&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;just another boring, tattooed, time traveling, designer and illustrator from Buffalo, New York."
tags: [<NAME>, design, Buffalo, web design, feature]
---

<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ site.url }}/{% ministamp _assets/css/form.min.css css/form.min.css %}">
<script src="{{ site.url }}/{% ministamp _assets/js/vendor/wufoo.js js/vendor/wufoo.js %}"></script>

<figure>
  <img src="{{ site.url }}/images/paperfaces-michael-rose-beard-m.jpg" alt="<NAME> self portrait">
  <figcaption>Self portrait illustrated with the lovely Paper by 53 iPad app.</figcaption>
</figure>

So why the title *made mistakes*? It vaguely has something to do with that whole happy accident thing, where a mistake can turn out to be something great and unplanned. But to be honest I was just looking for a short, memorable sounding domain name.

In May of 2004 I purchased mademistakes.com, and threw up a Macromedia Flash splash (hey remember those?) while I worked on building a design portfolio using Movable Type. For the next couple of years I would experiment with various content management systems ([Movable Type](http://www.movabletype.org/) &rarr; [Textpattern](http://textpattern.com/) &rarr; [Wordpress](http://wordpress.org/) &rarr; [Indexhibit](http://www.indexhibit.org/)), developing minimalistic themes and learning what I could about <abbr>HTML</abbr>, <abbr>CSS</abbr>, Javascript, <abbr>PHP</abbr>, and MySQL databases.

I've since decided to go <abbr>CMS</abbr>-free and utilize black magick and [Jekyll](http://jekyllrb.com/) to [manage the site with static text files]({{ site.url }}/articles/going-static.html). I like knowing how things work behind the scenes so hand-coding the layouts and stylesheets is the only way to go. Not being limited by a <abbr>CMS</abbr> is a wonderful thing...

### And Who Are You Again?

Oh hey --- I'm <NAME>, just another boring, tattooed, time traveling, designer and illustrator working in Buffalo, New York. I'm into drawing [faceless portraits of strangers]({{ site.url }}/articles/paperfaces-ipad-portrait-project.html) on an iPad using [Paper by FiftyThree](http://www.fiftythree.com/paper), movie theater popcorn, [chicken wings done right](http://www.duffswings.com "Duff's Famous Wings"), dust collecting record collections, and over using ellipses and em-dashes.

When I'm not drawing on my iPad, releasing open source [Jekyll themes]({{ site.url }}/tag/jekyll), or [building the next great thing](http://ekowave.com), I work as an inhouse web and print designer for a science education company. On any given day I could be designing product catalogs, marketing collateral, landing pages, email promotions and newsletters, or just getting cozy with <abbr>HTML</abbr>, <abbr>CSS</abbr>, and JavaScript.

Oh, and I'm a recent father of twin girls and will someday help redesign [my wife's site](http://2littlerosebuds.com "2 Little Rosebuds")...

## Contact Me

Send a short message below or [@reply me on Twitter](http://twitter.com/mmistakes).

<form id="form1" name="form1" class="wufoo  page" autocomplete="off" enctype="multipart/form-data" method="post" novalidate
action="https://mademistakes.wufoo.com/forms/z7x4m1/#public">
    <ul>
      <li id="foli1" class="notranslate      ">
        <label class="desc" id="title1" for="Field1"> Message <span id="req_1" class="req">*</span> </label>
        <div>
          <textarea id="Field1" name="Field1" class="field textarea medium" spellcheck="true" rows="10" cols="50" tabindex="1" onkeyup="" required></textarea>
        </div>
      </li>
      <li id="foli7" class="notranslate      ">
        <label class="desc" id="title7" for="Field7"> Name </label>
        <div>
          <input id="Field7" name="Field7" type="text" class="field text medium" value="" maxlength="255" tabindex="2" onkeyup="" />
        </div>
      </li>
      <li id="foli2" class="notranslate      ">
        <label class="desc" id="title2" for="Field2"> Email Address <span id="req_2" class="req">*</span> </label>
        <div>
          <input id="Field2" name="Field2" type="email" spellcheck="false" class="field text large" value="" maxlength="255" tabindex="3" required />
        </div>
        <p class="instruct" id="instruct2"><small>Your email address will remain private and won't be shared with anyone.</small></p>
      </li>
      <li class="buttons ">
        <div>
          <input id="saveForm" name="saveForm" class="btn" type="submit" value="Send Message"
 />
        </div>
      </li>
      <li class="hidden">
        <label for="comment">Do Not Fill This Out</label>
        <textarea name="comment" id="comment" rows="1" cols="1"></textarea>
        <input type="hidden" id="idstamp" name="idstamp" value="DXSyHZyBYpNZI+88LvVOKO8dSfd/5lyIeCQAXFVxeJY=" />
      </li>
    </ul>
  </form>

## Tools of the Trade

Here's a laundry list of hardware and software I use to create Made Mistakes and most of it's content.

### Hardware

* iMac (20-inch, Mid 2007)
* iPad (Retina 3rd generation)
* Canon EOS XTi Digital SLR

### Software, Plugins, and Whatever

* [Jekyll](http://jekyllrb.com)
* [Adobe Creative Suite](http://adobe.com)
* [Sublime Text 2](http://www.sublimetext.com)
* [SourceTree](http://www.sourcetreeapp.com)
* [Paper by FiftyThree](http://fiftythree.com)
* [Multi-Browser Viewer](http://www.multibrowserviewer.com)
* [Cyberduck](http://cyberduck.ch)
* [FileZilla](https://filezilla-project.org)
* [LESS](http://lesscss.org)
* [jQuery](http://jquery.com)
* [Grunt](http://gruntjs.com)
* [Magnific Popup](https://github.com/dimsemenov/Magnific-Popup)
* [FitVids](http://fitvidsjs.com)
* [Font Awesome](http://fontawesome.io)
* [HTML Compressor](https://code.google.com/p/htmlcompressor)
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