About Terry Majamaki
Terry Majamaki is an award-winning graphic designer, living in Los Angeles, California. As founder of Imaginary Idea, Terry's design and development studio, he brings years of experience in graphic design and Web development.
History
My creative juices started flowing back in the very early 90’s when I found myself taking a lot of photographs of everything I could. At the time I it was just a blur, but once seen and commented by friends and family, I started to realize that maybe this is something I can do for a living. While the photography wasn’t that great, it was the tweaking and layering of items and photographs that was getting the reactions.
It was around this time when a friend of mine first introduced me to the Apple Macintosh computer and Photoshop 2. After seeing what Photoshop was capable of, I quickly realized that I had to get a Mac and Photoshop. From that point on my life was dramatically changed forever.
Since then I’ve self taught or learned from people and books everything I know today about graphic design and Web development and the tools I use to work my creativity. I’ve also become an avid Apple Computer, Inc fan and love everything Apple makes.
About Me
I’m often referred to as a down-to-earth, laid-back person and one is passionate about my life and the lives around me. I’ve been a vegetarian since 1993 and have always felt strongly about animal rights and environmental issues. In addition, I support various non-profit and politically charge organizations based on what I believe and my views on government and society. Sharing and teaching my knowledge and skills is something that I've always felt is important in life.
When I’m not working, I’m doing some of the various things listed below and spending time with my wife, Jenny. She is the spark that makes life so amazing.
- Listening to my huge library of music, which is played in heavy rotation via my stereo, car stereo, iTunes or iPod.
- When not listening to my music library I'm usually listening to KCRW (89.9), my favorite non-profit, public radio station. It has some of the best music and programs you'll ever hear. They have live streams on their site or via iTunes along with every show and featured artist or host recorded live in studio available on demand or via Podcasting.
- Playing video games on any of the current generation of consoles including Playstation 2, XBOX, Gamecube, GBA SP.
- Cooking gourmet vegetarian food.
- Enjoying some good wine or beer.
- Reading a book.
- Taking Photographs.
- Learning, I'm always learning, be it design, code, food, or everything about life.
- Spending time with friends.
- Watching or attending a Los Angeles Lakers game.
- Watching or playing tennis, I'm terrible at tennis but I love watching a good tennis match.
- Snowboarding in the winter, whenever I get a chance I'm up catching some powder.
- Going to a museums or gardens.
- Nature hiking.
- Bike riding.
- You can find out more about my favorite music, books, movies, games and more in the currently enjoying section.
My Super Stores Rant
I’ve always strived to support smaller independent businesses for my needs. In current times it can be very hard find a good independent business that hasn’t been crushed or surrounded by large corporate chain stores such as Wal-Mart, Barnes & Nobles, and Starbucks so called “super stores”. Companies such as these use business tactics and ethics that I don't believe in. Smaller companies seem to have better ethics and often understand the needs of people who live in their particular community. Please support your independent business.
What Is Majamaki?
I often get asked about my name, most think its Asian, but when they see me then think I’m Hawaiian due to my tan skin tone. I'm a native Californian, born in Burbank, my entire family is from Finland and it’s a Finnish name and the translation means, “House on Hill”. It’s pronounced “Maya-maa-key”.
Geek Stuff
For those wondering what I use to do my work on, here a list.
- Hardware
- Apple Power Macintosh G4 Dual 1Ghz with 20" Cinema Display, a ViewSonic 19" A90f+ as a second display.
- Apple 15" PowerBook G4 1.67Ghz
- Apple iSight for video conferencing with iChat.
- Apple iPod 40GB.
- Kensington Expert Mouse, I've found these to be some of the most accurate and best trackballs.
- Griffen Technology PowerMate, fully programable for each program I use and I take full advantage of it in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash, Safari, Firefox, iPhoto, iTunes and the Finder.
- Harmon Kardon Sound Sticks with iSub.
- HP Photosmart 9660.
- Canon PowerShot S50.
- Epson Perfection 1660 Photo scanner.
- IOGear MiniView KVM, for testing on PC.
- Software
- Graphic design work is done using Adobe's Creative Suite 2.
- Web, XHTML, CSS and Flash work is done using Macromedia's Studio 8 , mainly Dreamweaver and Flash.
- FTP is done using Panic's Transmit 3!
- Writing and general office using MS Office 2004.
- Music, photos, movies managed with Apple's iLife '05.
- Personal databases are done and managed using FileMaker Pro 7.
- CD and DVD burnig provided Roxio's Toast and Apple's Superdrive.
- Spamfire eliminates all my spam.
- Candybar lets me chage my system icons to prettier ones.
- Icon Factory's Pixadex catalogs my Mac OSX Icon downloads.
- Delicious Library catalogs my movies, games, books and music.
- Compression by Stuffit Deluxe.
If you can't get enough information about Terry you may contact him and take him out for a drink, or just tell him what's on your mind. For more official business you can always view my resumé online.