Archives

In the past year I worked on two eBooks in my spare time containing stories about the Surinamese (plantation) history. These stories were written in the period between 2003 and 2009 by my father Kenneth R. Donk. The stories were divided into three main themes and each theme is covered in a separate book. Read more ⟶

A few months ago I noticed the new skill assessments feature on LinkedIn and decided to try out the one for C++ to see what it was about. And before I knew it, I spent almost a whole day — without any preparation — behind the computer doing these assessments for all the skills that I had listed on my profile. It was kind of addicting to see the blue checkmark appear behind the skills and I wanted to earn as many of them as possible. Read more ⟶

I recently made a commercial for Energy Management & Saving Solutions (EMSS) N.V. Suriname to promote their services. It’s really more of a balance between a commercial and infomercial. The final result can be seen on YouTube (embedded below) or on Archive.org in better quality (larger). Read more ⟶

Today I removed all my photos from licensing at 500px. It has frankly become a scam that’s ripping off photographers worldwide. There used to be a time when 500px was all about doing what’s best for photographers, but ever since they sold out to a Chinese company called Visual China Group (VCG) and started sublicensing through Getty Images, licensing through 500px has become a major rip-off for photographers. Read more ⟶

I just uploaded two posters about the C++ programming language to GitHub. I made them specifically for this year’s CppCon C++ conference but they were not accepted by the CppCon Poster Review Committee. Most of the committee members did appreciate the humor but had other concerns, among which the use of some strong language. Read more ⟶

After a fairly long time I did a photo shoot again two weeks ago with Carol Chen Poun Joe. It was an interesting experience doing such a photo shoot again after 2 years; I found out afterwards that I forgot about small details and made some stupid mistakes. Read more ⟶

OuroX, a FinTech startup incorporated in Delaware, went live with their new website a few days ago. I did the webdesign and web development for their new website.  Below are a few screenshots; you can take a look at the website at https://ourox.io/. Read more ⟶

The last time I did a portrait photoshoot for myself for social media was back in 2013, so it was time to do another one. I didn’t want to spend (waste) too much time on it so I kept it very simple. It’s also very difficult to do a self-portrait with the equipment that I currently use so there was lots of trial and error involved. Read more ⟶

When I first got the idea to develop QuantumGate back in 2006 I designed a logo for it that I could use in communications and in the software that I began working on at the time. The idea I had was that I wanted to show a couple of connected peers in the logomark, and the image that came to mind was what you can see on the right. There was no process behind it and no reasons for the proportions used. Read more ⟶

A few weeks ago I did a photo shoot involving a very pretty young lady named Zurina Williams. This time the theme was ‘faux freckles’, meaning that freckles were drawn onto the face of the model by the makeup artist, in this case the talented Tanielle Seauw. We did two looks; the first one a ‘natural’ look and then after that a more colorful version with heavier makeup. Read more ⟶

I did a photo shoot a few weeks ago for a beautiful young lady named Daryola Brandon. For this session we first went for a ‘natural’ look and after that a look with some heavier makeup. The focus was on taking portraits, although towards the end I also quickly took some other types of shots. Read more ⟶

There’s a lot of thinking that went into the creation of the intro sequence that I have on the homepage of my new website. It’s based on years of my personal research into trying to find out more about life and about the reality that we live in, much of which you can read about in my post on the All Seeing Eye and the Cycle of Life. In this post I’ll go through the sequence and explain what you’re seeing. Read more ⟶

Yesterday I launched a brand new design for my main website at kareldonk.com. It was long overdue considering that the previous design was launched all the way back in May of 2011. Six years is a long time on the Internet, and the old design was technically just not up to today’s standards anymore. I began working on this new website design in early 2015 mostly in my spare time. Read more ⟶

Want to learn typography? The best book on the subject is “The Elements of Typographic Style” by Robert Bringhurst. This book is a masterpiece when it comes to the subject of typography and page design. Very often I come across people online who ask where they can learn about typography, and I see experienced designers being very mysterious about it, as if they’re hoarding and carefully guarding their knowledge. Read more ⟶

Back in August 2010 I shot the official portrait for the president of Suriname. You can read all about it in a previous blog post titled “Photoshoot: President D. D. Bouterse of Suriname”. I used to be proud of this, but not so much anymore. To be sure, it’s usually an honor for any photographer to be chosen to shoot the official portrait of the president of a country. Read more ⟶

I came across a very good article written by Espen Brunborg titled “Is the Internet killing creativity?” Brunborg touches upon a number of interesting subjects, and I especially liked the following bit towards the end: But remember this: machines have no imagination. Robots work to a specific set of rules. They follow the recipe. They can’t create something that’s original and meaningful. They have no imagination. Read more ⟶

Visual communication is many times more powerful than verbal and written communication. People remember 10% of what they hear, 30% of what they read, and 80% of what they see and do. Read more ⟶

I’ve just launched another one of my personal Internet projects. This time it’s a small website dedicated to explaining to people how the current social system that we live in (Statism) is enslaving us all, and why they should seriously think about not voting anymore. There are better ways of living together, and it’s high time that we start to seriously look into this. Read more ⟶