Welcome to Shinybinary version 2.1, the online portfolio and design playground of Nik Ainley.
Who?
Nik Ainley is a UK based designer who has a passion for producing personal art and illustrations. After teaching himself Photoshop in his spare time while gaining a degree in physics at Imperial College London, he has since moved full time into the design world. He is constantly trying to further his expertise in digital media, and won't stop until he has mastered all the tools he needs to fully realise his designs.
Above: Some of Nik's work for Esquire Magazine
Shinybinary was first launched in 2004 as an online presence for Nik. Version 1 was successful - clocking up almost a quarter of a million unique visitors. Version 2 has since followed in August 2006 and attracted a further 300,000 people in its first 8 months. The site is still young and Nik has grand plans for its future
development.
above: The Birds by Nik Ainley
As a designer, Nik has been receiving more and more exposure, his work featuring in many magazines as well as on books, album covers, posters and clothing. He was listed as one of the "Top 10 up-and-coming creative talents of 2006" by Computer Arts magazine, and later as "the Computer Arts artist of the moment".
above is just one of his screensavers available for download...Gee, I wonder why I picked this one?
Lest you think he only uses vectors and illustration technique, here's a few pics of his photographic work:
How?
Shinybinary version 2 was hand coded in HTML, CSS and Javascript using Textpad while all of the graphics were produced in Photoshop. The site is designed to be viewed in IE 7 or Firefox 1.5+ at a minimum resolution of 1024 x 768 with Javascript enabled.
All of the images displayed on the art page were produced primarily in Photoshop, but in some cases have utilised other applications including Illustrator, 3D Studio max, Cinema 4D, Bryce, Poser and Xara 3D.
above: One of his available prints for purchase
Where now?
Check out more of Nik's work on community sites Deviantart and Computerlove. Version 1 is also archived for viewing, as a snapshot in time just before the launch of version 2
In the future Nik expects to continue his work both on and offline, while trying to satisfy his huge appetite for mastering new tools and techniques. Things are going to get even shinier.
Visit his site here
Visit his site here