William Rainbird

Just picked up one of these bad boys, on first listen the sound...

Thu, 31 May 2012 22:59:01 +1000

Just picked up one of these bad boys, on first listen the sound is oh so full and smooth.

As part of the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, Flatstock...

Tue, 29 May 2012 22:56:40 +1000

As part of the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, Flatstock have put up an exhibition of showcasing some great music posters. Here’s some of my favourites:

Beirut - Gina Kelly

Fleet Foxes - Sean Mort

The Black Keys - Lars P. Krause

The Decemberists - Slowboy

One word describing what I remember from each city I've visted.

Mon, 28 May 2012 09:35:30 +1000

London: Underground.
Brighton: Banksy.
Oxford: Intellects.
Liverpool: Skiffle.
Manchester: Spaghetti.
Dublin: Guinness.
Amsterdam: Canals.
Copenhagen: Bicycles.
Stockholm: Blonde.
Prague: Beer.
Krakow: Women.
Zakopane: Christmas.
Budapest: Bath.
Barcelona: Breeze.

Note: some of these may be more based on the experience I had there as opposed to what you think would match the city. Such as spaghetti for Manchester. Also “Underground” for London is indeed a double meaning.

Just finished up a 6 night bus tour through Poland, Slovakia and...

Fri, 25 May 2012 04:07:24 +1000

Just finished up a 6 night bus tour through Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. I hadn’t done an organized tour before and this totally exceeded my expectations. No need to worry about plane tickets or hostel bookings - just 7 days on a bus with 30 of the coolest people on the planet. My stomach is still in pain from the laughing.

Today is tough. I’m hungover and everyone has disbanded to head on elsewhere. But looking through the photos is putting a smile back on my face.

storyboard: Liam Sarsfield of MetaLab on Building Tumblr...

Tue, 22 May 2012 16:01:43 +1000

storyboard:

Liam Sarsfield of MetaLab on Building Tumblr Themes

The idyllic seaside city of Victoria, British Columbia, is home to MetaLab, an interface design agency that’s discovered a profitable business in custom-built and à la carte Tumblr themes. So profitable, in fact, that themes are the main work product of a spinoff company called Pixel Union. Creative director Liam Sarsfield has strong opinions on what makes design beautiful — and how best to make it.

When was MetaLab formed, and by whom?

MetaLab was founded in 2006 by our commander-in-chief, Andrew Wilkinson. He had gone off to journalism school thinking that he wanted to change the world; he quickly realized that that wasn’t the way that he wanted to do it. He took up residence in his parent’s basement, and that’s how it started.

Read More

I got a shout out from Metalab & Liam Sarsfield! Feel chuffed.

Walked up a steep hill today.

Mon, 21 May 2012 23:32:54 +1000

Walked up a steep hill today.

Amplify Theme: Creating a page for upcoming shows

Fri, 18 May 2012 05:41:00 +1000

Amplify theme already integrates with Songkick so that you can display your next 5 upcoming shows in the sidebar.

What if you want to have a “shows” page which displays all your upcoming shows? Well you could do it manually, but why bother when I’ve created a little code snippet that does everything for you.

What you need to do copy the code below (between the dotted lines), then replace the text “SONGKICK_ARTIST_ID” with your Songkick artist ID. The artist ID can be found in the url of your artist’s upcoming shows on Songkick. For example, Radiohead’s songkick page is http://www.songkick.com/artists/253846-radiohead, therefore their artist ID is 253846-radiohead.

————————

————————

Then, create a new page in Tumblr for your shows (or go edit your existing shows page if you already have one). Click on the “HTML” button in the text editor and paste the code in then hit save.

If you did it correctly, you should now have a rocking shows page that looks similar to this:

The code supports all your blog’s customizations so it will slip right in to your blog’s existing style.

Also, if you don’t have a shows page, the link underneath the upcoming shows sidebar widget will just head straight to your Songkick page:

But if you do have a shows page, it makes more sense to just link to that instead so that users stay on your blog. So paste the full shows page url (e.g. http://www.yourbandname.tumblr.com/shows) into the “Upcoming Shows Page URL” text field. Amplify theme will pick that up and link the Songkick sidebar widget to your shows page:

Here’s a demo of a show’s page using Radiohead’s Songkick account: http://amplifytheme.tumblr.com/shows

Have fun creating pages for your upcoming shows! If you run into any trouble - shoot me an email: william[at]rainbird.me

Best day so far in Europe - weather wise that is.

Sun, 13 May 2012 20:39:33 +1000

Best day so far in Europe - weather wise that is.

One of my favourite parts of travelling is doing just everyday...

Fri, 11 May 2012 10:14:42 +1000

One of my favourite parts of travelling is doing just everyday things in each city. Was glad I captured me riding a bike in Copenhagen to go grab a cup of coffee. Enjoy. Music: Real Estate - Easy.

Creating a new Tumblr theme while drinking beer and pizza.

Thu, 10 May 2012 03:15:46 +1000

Creating a new Tumblr theme while drinking beer and pizza.

Edam, The Netherlands.

Mon, 07 May 2012 02:53:06 +1000

Edam, The Netherlands.

Out of the loop

Fri, 04 May 2012 07:58:00 +1000

This post is quite spontaneous and has no real point, I just felt like writing something so my blog doesn’t just appear to be a bunch of pictures of coffee and scenery around Europe.

I feel out of the loop. Just one month ago, I was in a routine of being online at least eight hours a day. Most of that time I would be so absorbed in information, such as Hackernews, Dribbble inspiration, random Wikipedia pages and the constant and exciting Twitter conversations between people I know and the inspiring links and wisdom of Twitter people I admire.

I played the violin for about 10 years. Two years ago I moved into the apartment where if I even whispered the woman in the room below me would thump the ceiling in a witch-like manner. So out of pure habit I stopped playing the violin and it ended up being two years before I picked the instrument up again. I was nervous at the thought of how much I would have lost, but surprisingly I managed to play it quite well. A few notes were off, but I was relieved at the fact that I could still play the violin. That was two years.

I’ve only been travelling for just one month. But already I feel like I am five years behind the web industry now. I check Twitter in the morning and see my friends from the future (aka Melbourne), talk web to each other. Words are thrown about that I don’t even understand.

I will finish my travelling in about 2-3 months. That’s when I will try and find some work in the UK which is a very exciting prospect. However someone who hasn’t designed a website in 6 months could be seen as a builder who hasn’t built a house in 10 years. So while I am enjoying the biggest adventure of my life, I am also trying to keep in touch with one of my passions.

Lucky, I have one of the best passions in the world, because it can be practiced anywhere in the world where you have an internet connection. At the start of my trip, if I was having downtime and none of my Australian friends were online, I would get lonely. Then I realised that if I was bored or lonely back in Australia, I would simply open up my laptop and begin working on an idea.

So I’ve begun to try and find a balance and even though it’s something I’m still working on, so far I’ve found it very rewarding. Even if it’s just for an hour, I will try and get some work done, type in some code, design something, so that I stay fresh.

Travelling may be all about seeing the sights, but let me tell you it is quite an incredible feeling to be sitting in a coffee shop, listening to some great music and plugging away with an idea, when you look up to catch your breath and realise you’re in another country.

Getting some work done in the Dutch countryside.

Fri, 04 May 2012 01:00:29 +1000

Getting some work done in the Dutch countryside.

Queen’s Day celebrations.

Tue, 01 May 2012 22:59:15 +1000

Queen’s Day celebrations.

See if you can spot me. I am wearing orange and am standing on...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 03:32:30 +1000

See if you can spot me. I am wearing orange and am standing on an upside down W.

Theme Support

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 07:07:44 +1000

Just a note to anyone emailing me for support on any of my three premium themes, I would like a make a note that if you could please include a link to your Tumblr blog and any third party apps that you are having trouble with (such as your Flickr account, Soundcloud account) then it’s going to make it a lot easier for me to fix your problem and get back to you as fast as I can.

Have a good day (or night!) depending on where you are on the world!

Frank Chimero’s new book will be my friend on this train...

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 21:56:17 +1000

Frank Chimero’s new book will be my friend on this train trip.

My brothers Sam and Fred are rocking the Beatles t-shirts I sent...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 07:59:51 +1000

My brothers Sam and Fred are rocking the Beatles t-shirts I sent them from Liverpool.

What happens after three weeks of travelling.

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 08:01:03 +1000

What happens after three weeks of travelling.

Spotted in Soho, London. Notice how this looks very familiar to...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:01:20 +1000

Spotted in Soho, London. Notice how this looks very familiar to a famous album cover.