1987 saw the world's first major ISP take its name, AOL; Madonna topped the charts with "Open Your Heart"; Gorbachev campaigned for the reduction of arms; the largest stock crash since the Great Depression occurred on Black Monday. And of course I was born March 12th 1987 in Westminster, England. The second and final addition to my family, I was born the son of international business people, ex-patriots, and seasoned world travelers. After just 3 months in the UK I had my first plane ride to my new home, Singapore. I didn't know it then, but that trip marked the beginning of my life as a constant traveler, an experience junkie, and cultural chameoleon.

First came Singapore, then Hong Kong, and on to Bangkok. We moved every few years from city to city all over South East Asia. With each move a totally new culture opened up to me. Life was a blur of unusual sights, sounds, smells, and tastes. Typhoons and tropical heatwaves, jungles and beaches, street markets and high rises were the setting of my upbringing. What I always had with me though was my family, my computer, and my imagination. My youthful days were spent as a quiet observer soaking up all that I experienced with so much to do and see and hear all around all the time. And then it all changed again.

At 9 years old I moved to America, to the blue skyed state of Arizona. Life was completely different with baseball teams, shopping malls, and suburban soccer moms. The Sonora desert was as beautiful as the deepest jungle or clear blue waves of Kho Samui and I loved the dry heat. Seven years flashed by and again I moved on to California. Los Angeles was waiting with open arms for me and I fell in love with the biggest melting pot in the world, Los Angeles. My high school days were full of exploring the least understood city in the States, but it was full of surfing spots, hidden communities, the most dangerous slums, and the ritziest beach houses. LA is a city of contradiction and it fit with my existence of transience, the cultural chaos of my youth, the best memories of big cities and the worst drudgery of the suburbs combined into one. My adolescence was not wasted on timidity, and I experienced as much of life as I could as soon as I could.

The last few years of high school rushed by with plenty of love intrigues, AP tests, and my new found love of photography. Eventually college came and I found myself studying Business in the sleepy town of San Luis Obispo. The setting was idyllic, but I found myself living more and more in front of my computer screens which had gone from one 15inch to three 20inch screens in just a few years. The internet which was my playground in high school developed into my home and after a few years of fidgeting around with numerous hobbies and jobs I finally found my true passions graphic design, writing, and the internet to name the biggest. A couple summers back I found myself in yet another world as my parents moved to New York and I went to visit for a summer. What can I say about what is probably the most famous city in the world. Nothing that would do it justice here. And that brings me to now. Life has a way of constantly shifting around me and I follow its flow wherever it goes experiencing all that I can along the way.

My life has always strongly been defined by my numerous interests and activities. Over the years my changes in personality and setting have affected the focuses of my free time activities. Since my interests are so numerous I feel the best way to describe them is a simple list.

• Video Editing
• Web Development
• Graphic Design
• Blogging
• Cooking
• Eating
• Philosophy
• Politics
• The World
• Science Fiction
• Critiquing
• Conversing
• Photography
• Art
• Music
• Movies
• Lunching
• SCUBA Diving
• Traveling
• Gourmandizing
• Dancing
• PR / Advertising
• Internet
• Web 2.0
• Cyborgs
• Smoking
• Geeking Out
• Wine Tasting
• Evoluution
• Photography
• Racecar Driving
• Sleeping in the Sun
• Getting Down
• Drinking
• PC Gaming
• Dogs
• The Ocean
• Fashion
• Hardware
• Real Estate
• Cheese
• Olive Oil
• Hi-Fi Stereo
• The Good Life

This wouldn't be a complete personality description without the all important requisite lists also known as my favourites of which I have plenty.

Music: I love it all! There's not too much out there that I don't enjoy listening to but if it came down to it my least favourite genres are modern mainstream hip-hop/R&B and hyphy followed by most country music. As for my favourites, well here they are:

• AcidJazz: Chicago Underground Quartet - Tunnel Chrome
• Core: Dougal & Gammer - Go Widda Flow
• Indie: Viva Voce - High Highs
• Indie Rock: Death From Above 1979 - Going Steady
• Indietronic: Soulwax - Krack
• Blues: Pacific Gas & Electric- Staggolee
• Classical: JS Bach - Unaccompanied Cello Suite No 1 in G Major BWV 1007
• Classic Rock: The Rolling Stones- Brown Sugar
• Country: Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts - Diggin'
• Dance: Debbie Deb - Lookout Weekend
• Disco: Diana Ross - I'm Coming Out
• Folk: The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride
• Funk Rock: Frank Zappa - Muffin Man
• Hip-Hop: Bobby Digital ft. Jay Love - Insomnia
• Jazz: Patricia Kaas - Black Coffee
• Mash Up: Marc Johnce - Nasty Feel (Notorious BIG vs. Justice vs. MGMT)
• New Wave: Blondie - Heart of Glass
• Oldies: Nancy Sinatra - These Boots Are Made for Walking
• Pop: Lily Allen - Not Fair
• Punk: The Misfits - Where Eagles Dare
• Reggae: Lauryn Hill & Bob Marley - Turn Your Lights Down Low
• Rock: Mindless Self Indulgence - Futures
• Soul: Hot Chip - Sexual Healing (Marvin Gaye)
• Trip Hop: N.E.R.D. - Provider (Zero 7 Remix)
• World: Bebel Gilberto - Samba Da Bencao
  
  
• Favourite Artist: Soulwax
• Favourite New Artist: Junior Boy
• Favourite Artist You've Never Heard Of: Flies Are Spies From Hell
• Song of the Moment: DatA - Rapture
• Favourite Cover: Nouvelle Vague - Heart of Glass (Blondie)

Movies: My favourites movies usually fall into two categories, ones that make me think and ones that completely entertain me, and my favourite genre is science fiction and horror. I prefer foreign and independent films, black humour, and epics. That said here are the favourites:

• Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
• Ghost in the Shell
• The Descent
• The Fifth Element
• Mind Game
• Die Hard
• The Four Feathers
• Saving Private Ryan
• Gladiator
• Sleepy Hollow
• Gattaca
• Sin City
• Fearless
• Teeth
• Election
• Death Proof
• Army of Darkness
• Helvetica
• C'était un Rendez-vous

TV: To be honest I've never watched much American TV and I would most likely not watch anything if it weren't for the internet, but I have found quite a few shows that I adore. To be completely frank I have a soft spot for Japanese Anime since many deal with discussions of metaphysics, technology, history, evolution, and politics and that kind of programming is just beyond American sitcoms and reality shows.

• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
• Sex and the City
• South Park
• Top Gear
• Serial Experiments Lain
• Samurai Champloo
• Seinfeld

Books: I usually only go for non-fiction these days but on occasion I'll find a really great fantasy or sci-fi story that sucks me in. These are the best of the best though:

• Island - Aldous Huxley
• Into the Darkness - Harry Turtledove
• Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds - Charles Mackay
• Libertarianism: For and Against - Tibor Machan & Craig David
• The White Man's Burden - William Easterly
• Why I Write - George Orwell
• The Importance of Living - Lin Yutang
• The World Without Us - Allen Weisman
• The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
• Travels with Charley: In Search of America - John Steinbeck
• We The Living - Ayn Rand

I describe myself as a classical liberal more than anything else. In relation to American politics I view myself as a libertarian. Political theories intrigue me and I view it as the most important real world interpretation of philosophy due to the power and effect governments have on human societies. As a classical liberal I espouse a few basic tennets: basic human liberty, completely deregulated trade, high quality universal education, the free flow of ideas, the acceptance of human similarities and differences, the end of warfare, and the deconstruction of power hungry institutions. Government's in history have always shown that once they become large and powerful they use their power at the disadvantage of its citizens and the rest of the world, and the US government is no different. If we decrease the military presence across the world, decrease spending on social welfare programs, and increase education, preventitive medicines, and science spending we might actually get somewhere. But that's just too much to ask for with either the Republicans or Democrats in charge.

Philosophy is an area of study that I can't get enough of. For the past four years I lived with a college debater and got the benefit of always having someone around to have an indepth conversation on philosophy with. The three philosophers that have influenced my thought the most are Kant, Nietzsche, and Huxley all of which advocated a strong individualistic experiential view of the world. My personal philosophy which I someday hope to put to paper is one which bases its major tenets on both Western and Eastern thought: Buddhist meditation for the purpose of introspection, Shintoist reverence for nature, Nietzschean anti-structural belief, Kant's philosophy on peace through perfect free trade, Huxley's ideals of society and education, and McKenna's views on roles of technology and the destructuring of modern culture. Most importantly I hope to add my own element on the gross importance of human experience and how philosophy can only work if it can relate to every individual unlike most of the past Western philosophies which were written not only to the perspective of the creator but also to the needs of the time.

According to Keirsey I'm a Champion (ENFP) and I'd say that the description fits pretty well. I'm extremely extroverted, creative, curious, individualistic, empathetic, idealistic, energetic, dramatic, and a keen motivator of people around me. I have a deep interest in the world whether that's in politics, the environment, the internet, philosophy, education, or the working world. When I speak or write I generally try to voice my opinions or share experiences. I love being around people and working as a team with other highly motivated people. I am a creator and focus a lot of my energy into new designs and styles which catch my eye. I work extremely hard and hope to some day make a significant change in the world. The two areas that interest me the most are the internet and technology's influence on human evolution, and the development of an experiential philosophy based on individual human experiences and a synergy of Western and Eastern cultures.

In my view education starts first and foremost with an inquisitive mind. Even if someone goes to school or travels around the world, neither the raw information or the pure experience automatically translates into learning. My parents raised me to be open minded and curious about everything in the world and I have learned the most about life on what others would consider my free time. Through experiences travelling and trying things first hand, through books about world issues and novels on ideal philosophies, through my hands on approach to computing, I have learned almost everything I know based on my curiosity alone. My friends consider me something of a walking encyclopedia with knowledge of pretty much everything and an extensive knowledge in areas that people are really interested in but rarely have the opportunity to learn about themselves, such as cultures and histories of foreign cultures, the best wine to have with a French dish, or what colour shirt goes with gray boots. Education at its most basic is a fanaticism towards experience and when I learn I don't just take information and store it to be repeated later, I work hard to live it, whether that's history, philosophy, or home ec.

School has been an interesting blur of topics and personalities which I value highly in my life. Most importantly I wouldn't have met the people that I now consider my friends if it weren't for school, and all my friends I value for their ability to make me think about life, ideas, and the things that I have learned and experienced. School has provided me with an outlet for some of my creative passions and has challenged me to become well rounded in areas that I wouldn't have otherwise studied such as calculus and tax accounting. Above all else, school has given me a versatility in my approaches to business. Learning about marketing from a technical side has helped me develop graphic design work that will appeal to larger audiences, writing that more people are interested in reading, and styles that can fit in any industry.

Besides my experiences with graphic design, I have even more experience in the service sector. My first job as a real estate appraisal trainee was a clerical job and I learned a lot about working in an office, answering customer questions, the real estate industry, and how business functions on a day to day basis. After working there for three years I had risen to the top employee and learned just about all there was to know in the appraisal field.

In college I worked in the toughest service position, a Resident Advisor in the Freshman dorms and learned a lot about the psychology of modern youths, what they enjoy doing, thinking, and learning about. Out of this experience many of my opinions on philosophy, psychology, and our society began to develop. Following my work as a RA, I worked at a restaurant for two years and experienced the more difficult side of making a living at minimum wage. While it wasn't what I loved doing, it paid the bills and gave me tie to go to school and work on my graphic design during the day.

My last service job and most important was at WeOlive, an olive oil retailer, in San Luis Obispo. With a small staff, each employee had many duties and with my experience with restauranting, food, and wine tasting, I quickly learned as much as I could about the industry, olive oil, and the connoisseur lifestyle. My tasting skills were already somewhat developed from years of dining experiences and WeOlive allowed me to reach my potential and I began writing reviews not just for the olive oil, but restuarants and wine as well. With all my skill with tasting, cooking, and the lifestyle that accompanied I was able to apply my knowledge and experience and quickly became one of the top salespeople and employees at WeOlive, especially with tastings and recommendations to customers for pairings.

The service industry is fascinating to me and I feel that with luxury and lifestyle services and goods I make an excellent salesperson and representative. I also abide by my strong ethical beliefs and speak frankly about the products which furthers my connection with my customers. To me, shopping isn't so much about buying goods to consume. The most important part of service that I provide, whether it's at a restaurant, retailer, or office, is an experience that will last in people's minds forever and keep them coming back for more.

Photography was where it all began. Christmas 2003 I received my first digital camera, a 1.3 MP Kodak Easyshare and within a few weeks I decided I needed something more. I had never taken photography courses, or played with my Dad's cameras, or paid much attention to photography besides I liked art more than the average Joe, but once I had my hands on that first camera it changed my whole life. My father also had a knack for photography and when he was high school age he was a major photographer and somehow that got passed on with something like a time release. By early 2004 I had moved up to a Canon Point and Shoot and was using it on a daily basis, pushing it to its limits with the manual modes and through playing around in Photoshop. Quite a few friends were photographers and showed me the ropes of SLR and by the end of the summer of 2004 I had my eyes on a Nikon D70. Once I got the D70 my photography capabilities exploded and paired with my high school's extensive lens collection, I was shooting exponentially better in a very short time.

Lucky for me, my senior year had an opening for photography editor and my daily growing love of photography and knack for Photoshop and design landed me the position with relatively no experience. Had I experience before going into the job I'm sure I could have done an even better job, but as it was the position was my life and the results were beyond my expectations and beyond most who knew me as well. It was my first step in a direction that completely changed my life and without the opportunity to work as editor I'm sure history would have ended completely different.

For my high school work the usual school shots were necessary and I quickly learned I have a natural affinity for sports and action shots, landscapes, macro, and travel photos. The static shots proved difficult at first, but with the proper equipment and a little trial and error I managed to pull off some amazing work. Outside of school I traveled significantly and ended up the third place winner of the Hemisphere's Magazine International Travel Photo Contest in 2004 and second place in 2005 of the same competition.

Since 2006 started my focus shifted more towards driving and travel and taking photos of the beautiful roads and scenery of the Central Coast of California became my favourite past time. For a short time I worked for a San Luis Obispo local photographer primarily editing her photos of the sites around SLO and I was inspired to get out there and see what there was for myself. Panoramas were my specialty, although I also enjoyed traditional landscapes and wildlife photography when it was possible. I also began playing around with lighting effects such as long exposure and stroboscopic flashes. With the help of a few of my friends I also managed to practise my portraiture and ended up taking the best portraits I had taken so far by 2008. If it weren't for the difficulty in getting people to pose I would love to continue working with model photography, especially fashion shoots but I haven't found anyone yet for the job.

Sometimes I feel photography has taken a back burner to other facets of graphic design but everytime I pick up my camera and take some photos I feel that same fresh, eager sensation like it's the first time and I won't ever give it up.

Video is possibly the most exciting and most rewarding of any graphic design work I have ever done. In the past three months I discovered After Effects and quickly realised that it is the most exhilirating of all the Creative Suite programs to work in and in its results. The creative outlet in video is almost limitless with the ability to blend story telling, aesthetic beauty, audio, and concept into just a few second long clip. If I had my choice I would spend all my time learning how to use After Effects, but video is also the most time consuming and requires the most creativity of all the mediums I have tried before and I just don't have the opportunity to spend the amount of time that I'd like to on video projects.

My finished projects in After Effects consist of a couple video logos for both SLOMosport and SLOVW, another San Luis Obispo based car club. I also developed a few opening scenes for some video clips and worked in largely with the Particle System plugin for After Effects. Besides After Effects, CS4's new Media Encoder has been a life saver for comrpessing large amounts of raw video footage allowing me easy access to dealing with hours of video footage in Premiere Pro, a major problem when an hour of footage was over 13 GB. Now I develop all motion graphics in AE before editing it together with footage in Premiere Pro.

I originally became intertested in video a couple years when I started SLOMosport. Before then I had always expressed my love of the road through photo and I felt that to really capture the excitement and feel of performance driving I needed to move into video. Cinema is also one of my major interests and my movie collection of over 700 titles I think explains how much I love video as a format for art, design, and concept. Amongst my favourite films are Death Proof, C'était un Rendez-vous, and the BMW short film series starring Clive Owen and sometime in the near future I hope to put my driving footage together into a short driving film.

Writing has always been my forte. My personal interests in culture, design, and philosophy have led me to develop my writing as the best way of sharing my experiences with people around me which I view as the primary purpose of my life. Through reading great novelists such as Faulkner, Hemingway, and Huxley, I developed a love of story telling as a means for transferring my opinions on society in an interesting and personal style that are both thought provoking and entertaining, and my deep interest in non-fiction writing has given me equal insights into describing real world issues while avoiding the major problem of appearing too dry. Reading also has given me insight into a style and syntax that is timeless and appreciated by a large audience. reading and writing likewise developed my speaking skills and whether in conversation or speeches I usually can draw my audiences into the ideas I try to communicate.

Starting as early as my Freshman year in high school I was drawn to the idea of blogs. As a cheap and efficient way to communicate with a mass audience, there's little that can compare. Today I have five blogs - QuestionableDaze (Design, Philosophy, Lifestyle, Politics), Stop Pop (Culture, Music, Movies), Art of Eat (Dining, Food, Drink), Style Stazi (Fashion), SLOMosport (Driving). My viewership is growing with every new blog post and if I had more time I'd write everyday, but life gets in the way most of the time and I content myself with two or three days a week to devote to blogging. Even looking back on what I've written in the past few months, my articles have gotten better and with no pressure to perform I can spend a lot of tie researching articles before publishing.

I tend to think that I'm a decent writer and hope that I can continue to use my writing skills in the work place. Copy writing has interested me, but I would really hope to someday become a full time reviewer, of what has little difference since I'm interested in just about everything, but it's a dream that I will continue to work towards.

Following my first foray into photography in 2004, print design was the first area of graphic design I was exposed to. Working all year on my high school's newspaper and yearbook as the photo editor put me in constant contact with the two editors in chief and our design editor for the yearbook and the section editors on the newspaper who were in charge of the design work. My job on the design front primarily consisted of tweaking the templates and existing designs to fit the needs of the available photos and occasionally I got to take part in the design process, which I found amazingly interesting. During that year the first design program I learned how to use was InDesign and from there after getting a copy of Adobe CS I started playing around with the other programs. Most of the work I did in that first year was photo based, but I started poking around in Illustrator with typography and vector drawings.

Print design has had the most use in my school projects and for numerous projects when graphics or layout are required I have used InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop. Especially while an RA at CalPoly I completely redesigned the RA newsletter. My first commercial print project was a concept catalogue for StraightDown Clothing in San Luis Obispo, a retailer of golf apparel. I implemented a number of catalogue styles I had liked, but my inexperience resulted in another design being used. My first major commercial print project was a concept catalogue for WeOlive in the summer of 2008. The catalogue was built off what I had learned with the first catalouge design and fit the luxurious and sophisticated styling needed for the olive oil market. It is still my favourite print work I have done, and since my recent transition into web design I haven't had another good opportunity to work in print, but I hope to again soon.

My web development and design interest started a couple years ago with my first photography site, TougePhoto.com, dedicated to driving and travel photography. The largest focus was the roads and landscapes of the Central Coast and a simple consisted of a simple html and javascript gallery. In late 2007 I continued to expand the site adding the driving community SLOMosport, which was built on the phpBB2 architecture. The SLOMosport community was rapidly expanding and was aimed at unifying the many fragmented groups of auto clubs in San Luis Obispo into a focused driving focused club. By Spring of 2008 I had worked feverishly on numerous graphic design projects, primarily for fun, education, or school, and had enough to warrant adding to the site. My styles were still extremely edgy and I was attracted to the web development of music groups and artists. I began developing my new site IntenselyTrashyDesign. The layout was based on a horizontal scroll similar to the Modular Records page. The site was almost completed by the end of Summer, but by that time my style had changed again and I wanted to incorporate a less difficult to appreciate design that would appeal to more audiences. Thus sprang TotalPanicDesign and the bright and colourful diagonal "Arrow" homepage. Over the next few months the site evolved a few more times until what you see today.

Each change in my style has changed for two major reasons, function and influence. My original designs, although edgy and unusual, were not optimal for all browsers and many people not only had problems viewing the pages but understanding how to navigate through them. For this reason both the side scrolling and diagonal pages were abandoned for more traditional styles after a relatively short period. At the beginning of my web development I had not become accustomed to cross brower optimisation but through problems with my own site I studied it as much as possible and found ways to work around problems I had in the past. My design influences have changed rapidly with my original aspirations based on music label and artists' sites. Now I base much of my style off of graphic designer's portfolios and pages. My taste for minimalist fashion styles and Swiss design has also influenced my choice in colour, font, and ui.

My commercial pursuits in web development began with a concept design for WeOlive in the Summer of 2008 which eventually was abandoned. In February of 2009 I was contracted to develop a website for a San Luis Obispo based wedding planner at LoveAlwaysWeddings.com. I have also worked with a few friends to develop two different Facebook Apps, MyFitnessLog and MidnightRacingClub, where I supplied the graphics and overall CSS design. MidnightRacingClub is currently nearing final public release and should go Beta by April 2009.

The majority of my web design work is front-end development with a focus on CSS. Dynamic content primarily utilizes Javascript and I have significant experience with MooTools and jQuery. I also utilize minimal to moderate amounts of PHP and Ajax epending on the needs of the client. My knowledge of Flash is still developing and I primarily use it for photography pages such as galleries, banners, and welcome screens.

Technology is of huge importance to a graphic designer/techno geek like me and keeping up to date with the newest computing is absolutely important.

On both the Windows and Mac fronts I am adept in all the Adobe CS4 programs. My experience with Apple products is formidable with formal training in all the CS2 programs on Mac OS X and continued use of Mac school computers with newer CS products.

My personal computer is a hand built Windows PC with these specs although I have a tendency to add to it almost obsessively:
Athlon XP 4400+ Processor
2x eVGA nVidia 8800 GTS 320MB Graphics Cards
2 GB DDR RAM 3200 Memory
Asus A8N-SLI Motherboard
Bluegears B-Inspirer 7.1 Surround Audio Card
4.3 TB HD Capacity
Thermaltake Toughpower 1500W Power Supply
Thermaltake Kandalf Mini Server Tower
2x Memorex DVD+RW Optical Drives
2x Samsung 1100DF 21" CRT Reference Monitor @ 1600x1200 85Hz
Panasonic 55" HD Rear Projection TV @ 1920x1080

I also use an old Dell laptop for travelling, although it's only used for basic web and photo editing and illustrating.
For the price I find PC a slightly advantageous option for a few reasons:
1) If you have the know how to build your own PC why pay someone else to do it
2) Building things is a pleasurable experience
3) Keeping up-to-date with the newest hardware is easier
4) There is more choice and better deals when choosing your own equipment
5) It's better for gaming
6) Despite my processor, RAM, and motherboard at an age of 4 years now I can still run Crysis on High in 1600x1200 85Hz with 32+ FPS

Derek Fidler
dwinstonfidler@totalpanicdesign.com
310.228.8210
Currently working in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and New York.
Available 24 Hours a Day, 7 Days a Week, 52 Weeks a Year.

For more contact information visit the contact page.

TotalPanicDesign is the creation of graphic designer, photographer, writer, and experience junkie, Derek Fidler. On this page you'll find practically all you'll ever want to know about the mind behind TPD without even having to get into a long drawn out conversation about the internet or copyright or cheese - what a relief! It's all been blended and simplified, all ready for your viewing pleasure.

Alternatively, if you get bored of the site or want something simpler, my resume can be downloaded HERE in pdf format.

A note on the usage of this page:
To expand a window click the button on the left. To hide a window click the button on the right. To resize just click a side and drag. To move click the title and drag.
Many thanks to jQuery and Mateo Bicocchi who developed the scripts to make this page work.

Enjoy.