About Me

sharkyG

design – photo – visuals

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About Me

sharkyG

Gregor Mima

1994

It was a good year.

South Africa held its first interracial election, and Nelson Mandela became President. The last Russian troops left Germany. Michael Schumacher claimed his first Formula One World Championship. Steven Spielberg won his first directing Oscar for Schindler’s List. We watched Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, and The Shawshank Redemption.

Oh, and the web was just starting to explode. Altavista was launched, and Lycos, a new search engine, went live. WebCrawler, created at the University of Washington, went online. The first conference entirely focused on the commercial potential of the World Wide Web opened its doors. Microsoft bought Mosaic, rebranding it as Internet Explorer. Meanwhile, a little company called Netscape launched its Navigator browser.

As for me? It was my first contact. Passing a public computer room at the university, a friend called out: “Hey Greg, wanna check out some cool stuff? Funny jokes and fancy images from around the world. Take a look!”

I did. And I’m still hooked.

years of experience

projects released

answer to everything

2024

It’s been one hell of a ride.

I’m proud to say I’m among the few who experienced the web from day one. Through all its ups and downs—the browser wars, the dot-com bubble, the rise of bloggers, and the Edward Snowden revelations—I’ve been here, evolving alongside it.

Sharks, older than dinosaurs, have evolved for millions of years. I’m still evolving too. Sure, I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way, but you don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing—and sometimes by falling over.

Oh, and my first website ever? Don’t laugh—it was an F-22 fan page, a bit of a tech show-off for the American stealth fighter.

See ya.

sharkyG

Whirly Sharky Fin

You’re still here? Persistent, I like it.

I began building my website over 10 years ago. A bit like James Cameron with Avatar—I had to wait for technology to catch up, so I could publish my ideas without constraints. Remember the Flash rush in the early 2000s? Adobe Flash? One of Adobe’s bigger missteps.

Anyway…

Logo

Let me think—I hope I still remember. My logo took shape around the image of a swimming shark fin.

At first, I toyed with incorporating a Japanese symbol for honor, but I quickly dropped that idea. It felt a bit too cheesy for my taste. Once I settled on the base shape with just the swirling fin, I started experimenting with fonts. I initially went with a classic version of Helvetica and began playing with colors.

At that time, I was watching a Van Gogh documentary, and something he said really struck me: “There is no blue without yellow and without orange.” Well, I figured old Vince was onto something, so I chose a deep blue and paired it with its complementary partner—a yellowish orange.

After a week of staring at the logo, something still didn’t feel right. Helvetica didn’t quite fit with the flowing shark fin. So, I searched for a new, more modern font and stumbled upon NeoTech.

It was a match made in heaven—the swirling fin and that sleek font… don’t you think?

Logo Evolution.

CD & Co

Here are a few samples of my sharkyG designs. I’m using PT Sans and PT Serif as my fonts—they’ve become quite popular with Google Fonts.

PT Sans, inspired by Russian sans-serif typefaces from the late 20th century, has a distinct, modern humanistic style. PT Serif is a transitional serif with humanistic terminals, designed to pair seamlessly with PT Sans in metrics, proportions, weights, and overall design. The result is clean, readable, and versatile enough to use in headlines. Best of all, this beautiful font family is free.

I started rendering early, experimenting with fish swarms, sharks, and a steampunk compass. Instead of buying stock images, I modeled the compass after a picture I found online. I now use this compass for most of my eye-catching blue-and-yellow-themed front pages.

For business cards, I have two themes: a simple white design and a photorealistic version.