Jaclyn Tan
Artist . Coder . Nightfiend
The person behind the pixels
Hello. I’m Jaclyn, but most people call me Jakki. I’m a digital designer, artist, and front-end web developer, and have been pixel crafting since my high school days. This website has been my digital playground since 2009 and is primarily where I rant about all sorts of art related shenanigans and random stuff I get up to online and IRL.
I have a Bachelor of Arts and an Advanced Diploma of Graphic Design, however I have also self taught myself for many years before that. I enjoy experimenting with different mediums and techniques, and have always loved problem-solving and creating things with pixels, preferably with sparkles and rainbows too. 
I like exploring the relationship between nature and technology, have a soft spot for nostalgic, 90’s-style design, and value simplicity and meaningful storytelling.
Design
Design has always been something I have loved doing- my first experience being around the time I was 14 and getting into a then popular online game called Neopets. It was a massive time-sink and actually the catalyst for introducing me to the basics of web content creation. Digital design became my favourite hobby growing up and back when web standards were just emerging, the lack of reference and global influence I feel helped me be at my most creative. To have the ultimate freedom to create anything with a bunch of pixels and imagination I think is simply glorious, and designing layouts and graphics on a whim when I was bored was very satisfying. All of these past experiences has helped to shape my design aesthetic and skills today and influenced a lot of my art as well. I honestly love both the technical and aesthetics sides of digital design- there’s nothing more satisfying than reading code like poetry, or designing a visual system that helps us understand us better.
Illustration
Illustration is my go-to medium when I have a lot of brain spew to get out or find my zen-mode in. I’ve gone through many phases of arting and art-blocking over the years. I wish I could say I was one of those people that “sketches” every day and produces amazing detailed art gallery quality prints every day…but I don’t. My sketches are rough and scribbly and sometimes I don’t even understand what I’m trying to draw myself…but it’s always something I like escaping to. For the most part I work digitally, although I’ve been experimenting with markers and ink and always love a good watercolour session when I have the time.
Techical
Design >> I primarily use Adobe CC, namely Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. I sometimes use Paint Tool SAI for line art or digital paintings.
Code >> I primarily develop custom themes using WordPress, HTML,SCSS, PHP & JS
Links
Colophon
Type set in Exquise FY and Realtime. Website designed and coded by Jakki, powered by WordPress, back-end development process streamlined by Cam, and skeleton by _s. Script credits to Bootstrap, Chocolat, Isotope, Jquery, Kurt Grigg, Slick
Content © Jaclyn Tan or respective rights holders, 2019
