About Ugly Bunnies
Ugly Bunnies is my personal website featuring my web projects portfolio. Soon it will include my art portfolio and other musings on web design and development.
Origins
Before Ugly Bunnies there was SerpentVenom, my previous site. I decided to let go of SerpentVenom a while ago and set out to build a new site. The name came about very serendipitously while I was teaching my class about how to search for available domains. I decided to look for uglybunnies.com and lo and behold, it was available.
Technical Information
Ugly Bunnies was designed and developed with standards in mind. The structure of the site is written in HTML5. Modern CSS is used to implement the layout, visual design and transitions. The site was built with the SvelteKit JavaScript framework to produce a static site. JavasScript is used as an enhancement but is not required to access all content in the site. Special attention has been paid to ensure that the site is fully accessible and search engine friendly.
About Michael
As for me, I'm Michael Wong. I'm a Web Designer/Developer by trade but an artist at heart. I have designed or contributed to a wide variety of web projects across a wide range of industries including sports, softeware, financial technology, non-profits, and the federal government. I have also created sites for individual clients like small business websites, WordPress sites and blogs, and also custom portfolios.
Art
I studied Conceptual/Information Arts (CIA), a program within the Art Department at San Francisco State University (SFSU). CIA focuses on preparing artists and media experimenters to work at the cutting edge of technology. The study of contemporary digital production skills is accompanied by the analysis of the cultural context of technology, as well as experimentation with newly emerging technologies.
I use computers to create art both for the web and for print. Personal computers and the emergence of the internet have given artists like myself an opportunity to create art that is not dependent upon grants, galleries or patrons. This means we have an autonomy that some working artists do not always enjoy.
My Art
I believe that art is a vehicle for raising awareness. As corporate money and fringe groups hold sway over our elected officials, many seem to only be concerned about the next pop idol or TV survivor. What I want is for people to wake up and engage in activities that will make the world better for everyone. I want to show people what they are missing and give them a reason to care.
Ad Art
Sometimes print advertisements, especially billboards, will capture my attention in ways the advertisers did not intend. When this happens, my response is to take the intended message and tweak it to reflect my response to the original message. My Ad Art posters are the result of this exploration and manipulation of messages.
Photography
I have been creating photographic imagery since I was a young adult. I mainly work in color with occasional forays into Black and White. I started out with a 35mm Nikon FM2 but I have embraced digital photography because of the immediacy and affordability that the technology offers. Whether film or digital, all of my images are created in camera. Their compositions have not been digitally altered.
My photography reflects my desire to capture what I see. I begin with ideas like the view through a window, the unusual angles and scenes of urban life, the beauty of nature, or photographic experimentation. The results range from straightforward representation to the abstract.