Today is a good great day for us, as we can finally welcome you to our brand new website.

Our site has been in the works for a very long time now, and as any designer/developer may know, doing your own portfolio site always seems to find its way to the bottom of your to-do list.

Since day one in 2007, our workload has never stopped, and we have always been working harder and harder to keep on top of the ball. Throughout these five years, we have worked with over 100 clients on a wide variety of projects. It is a great experience to go through all our client files and reflect on all the work we've done, the people we've worked with, and the progress we've made with our own personal skills. We try to make each job a learning process and continue to push ourselves to try new things, no matter how big or small.

The focus of this site has been to keep things more to the point, and not overload people with project after project. It was hard to decide which projects to include and which ones to leave out, but we've narrowed it down the best we could.

I hope that you can take some time getting lost in this site, by looking at projects we've worked on, reading through testimonials, or browsing our studio notebook, (which will grow fast!)

If you're discovering Melodic Creative for the first time, please don't hesitate to drop us a line to see how we can help on your upcoming project, or just to simply say hello.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out the new website. 2012 is going to be a big year.

I have been on a bit of a shopping spree lately, and have been finding some great silk screened show posters. I'm still scratching my head on where to put these up.. For the moment, they're in my home office, propped up against the wall. These posters deserve better!

Explosions In The Sky in Toronto, 2011
This one is done by local Toronto artists, Doubleneaut. They have a great simplistic and vintage style that is imitated by many.

Circa Survive in Seattle, 2010
Circa to me is what Michael Bolton is to the two Bobs in Office Space. I can't get enough of this band.
I stumbled across this little gem online and the bright colours mixed with plain white background really caught my eye. After a little digging, I found that it was done by Bryce McCloud at Isle Of Printing.

As you may have noticed, things have been quiet with us since the fall, and apologies are due, as we have been holding onto this bit of news for a few months now. To make it short and sweet, This Is A Standoff is done. Touring has become harder and harder, and everyone's lives have been heading in different directions for quite some time now.

We set out to be a part-time band, but somehow we ended up playing 322 shows in over 25 countries across 4 continents. Along the way, we were lucky enough make amazing friends in all corners of the world and play along side some of our favourite bands.

It's been an amazing and surreal five years, and we owe endless thank you's to every single one of you that helped us out along the way by checking out a record, attending or promoting a show, letting us crash on your floor, giving us food, or simply taking five minutes to come chat with us.

It's been swell, friends... Thanks for everything.

I have been touring in bands for the better part of 8 years between my own bands, This Is A Standoff and Forty Cent Fix; filling in on guitar duties for Carpenter; and merching for Protest The Hero once upon a time. Throughout those years, I played somewhere around 600 shows and have had the opportunity to travel to around 25 countries, including Japan, Brazil, Russia, and many places in between.

I never imagined I would get to tour so much and visit so many places. I met some of my best friends through those years on the road, and am so grateful for each and every experience that came out of picking up a guitar when I was 12 years old.

Simply put, I left the Standoff back in November to spend more time focusing on Melodic Creative, and because I found that the touring life and the workload that went into band had become very hard to manage. On top of playing, I was writing a big chunk of the music, designing the artwork, creating promotional materials for tour and records, running the website, and maintaining an online presence. Overload.

I will never quit playing and writing music, but only time will tell whether or not it will be on a stage or in my bedroom.

For those who have been asking what the next step is, there is not much to report. I have been writing with a friend for a project called Many Small Places for the past year or so, but at the moment, we have no plans to turn it into a full band or hit the road. We are simply writing music for the love of music, without deadline or an audience in mind, and we've been having a blast.

Admittedly both strange music choices for the working day, but these two movie soundtracks — Inception and Tron: Legacy — have given me countless hours of productivity.

Despite simply sitting at a computer, writing code or coming up with designs, these movie scores seem add a sense of urgency into whatever I'm doing, as if there's an audience watching and I'm disarming a ticking bomb.

I have found this also applies to day to day tasks like cleaning the house or doing dishes. So next time you're feeling a bit unfocused, give it a shot.. You'll thank me later!

Jumpcut for Mac is probably the most efficient application that I have ever downloaded.

Jumpcut is a simple clipboard application that allows you to access multiple copy and paste items, instead of just one.

This comes in handy when writing and editing code, copying multiple items to and from databases, and for tasks as simple as copying and pasting multiple website addresses or editing paragraphs. The list goes on and on.