This is the personal (as opposed to professional) site of artist / designer / writer Honor MacDonald.
This is mostly an undeveloped space, used for hosting graphics posted elsewhere on the Internet, and for staging personal projects. Although you might find some gallery stuff or mention of professional work here, mostly it’s just basic information and perhaps some ranting ‘blog posts.
Hi. I’m Honon MacDonald. In case you’re wondering, yes, that’s my first name. It’s what the C of E used to call a virtue name, like Love, Hope, Charity, Faith, Chastity, Patience, Prudence, etc. So, yeah. It could have been a lot worse.
The first ‘job’ I had as a kid – the first thing I ever did for money – was original art. I’m not entirely sure how old I was, but I know I’d not yet started kindergarten… So less than five.
I produced a limited edition series of commemorative originals in honor of the upcoming American Independence Day (read: I drew a lot of American Flags with crayons.) and discreetly made them available to a select group of local collectors (read: I sold them door-to-door.)
There were three toys I wanted desperately. Each cost $2. Given that this was around 1969 or 1970, the inflation calculator at westegg.com tells me that this would be around $11 each today. I sold just more than $4 worth of these masterpieces for prices ranging from ten cents to a quarter. If someone had had the foresight to keep one, it would probably be worth almost fifty cents by now.
The object lesson that people would pay me to be creative and innovative stuck, though, and most of the money I’ve earned in my lifetime has been for, essentially, the same thing.
I often half-jokingly refer to this as prostitution, or to myself as an art whore. The joke there, of course, is that I’m doing something I’d normally do just for the pleasure of it, but I’m doing it with a stranger, for money.
In 1993, a computer programmer friend dragged me almost bodily away from my drawing board and light table and insisted I look at what his computer could do in terms of art. I spent every waking hour of free time playing with that thing for months afterward.
In 1994, I began selling my first digitally produced commercial art, including several logos, so advertisements, and a CD album cover. I also created my first web page in 1994, on the free space given to Compuserve members as a benefit of their subscription… I hand sliced and hand-coded a client-side image map for that page without knowing there was a name for such a process or that someone else had already thought of it. It was sick.
About a year later, I got my first major publication credit writing five chapters of one of those after-market books the size of a phone book.
Of course, since then, computers have changed the whole universe of art, just as we knew they would. The tools available have improved considerably, and I’ve stuck to my lifelong passion for learning new things by taking assignments all over the map, in and out of my chosen field.
I’ve done professional art for AT&T, Motorola, and dozens (and dozens, and dozens) of other small to large companies, numerous non-profits and individuals, city, county, and state governments, and institutions of higher learning.
I’ve also built physical things, restored antique knives and swords, driven just about every kind of thing I could find to drive, helped run a political campaign opinion research office, sold books, written books and articles, and been a sushi chef, among other things.
…And there’s still a whole lot of other stuff I want to try…
Here I will list my own personal projects… Probably not professional projects, as what I’m doing for them is their business, not yours. 
You’ll notice a lot of personal projects sitting on the back burner in the form of undeveloped or partially developed ideas. Such is life… Paying work comes first.
I love to write. If for some reason you want to read that, you can try one of the following ‘Blogs:
The Devil’s Advocate – LiveJournal, random but heavy on religion and politics with a decent smattering of language and ‘dontcha hate it when…?’
Honor MacDonald @ Blogger – Also presently named “The Devil’s Advocate”, the original idea here was simply to repost the work from the LJ of the same name, to improve audience and linkability… Currently undeveloped, future unknown.
Here? – I am also thinking of posting a more ‘me-centric’ what’s going on in my life kind of blog, perhaps here. DA, by contrast, is almost not about me at all. I try to keep it very free of ‘personal’ issues.
Design Blog – Now that I’m done with my travels and back ‘in the business’, I’m also considering a design and graphics ‘blog, attached to my design firm site, which will again be Ravensteed Media once I get the free time to tune it up.
(Nobody’s done anything as impressive (not that it was that impressive, but still… It was pretty cool for it’s day) as my original “Gaia Graphics” site with that name since I let it go to work full time at Motorola, but it’s never been vacant since, when I’ve checked. Just years of “coming soon” graphics and a few poorly designed sites. Pity there’s not a merit system for domain names. }:-) )
SMS is fastest and best. If you don’t have the number but want it, email and ask for it.
Other places:
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/honor.macdonald
Twitter – http://twitter.com/Honor_MacDonald
LiveJournal – http://honormac.livejournal.com/
email – herself at honormacdonald dot com
Pretty links and icons coming later. Maybe.
