Almost the end of the page. You can find more blog posts here.

Kevin Steele

Designer of New and Old Media
Photographer and Pixel Minder

205-1153 Queen St. W. Toronto

About Kevin Steele

I’m a designer of new and old media, and an habitual photographer.

I’ve been based in Toronto since being in the Photo/Electric Arts program at OCA (now OCAD) in the 80s. I went to public school in Saskatoon in the 70s.

I add quality cat content to the Internet.

New Media: With Smackerel I design user experiences for digital products like Rosetta Stone software. I’ve been doing this for more than twenty years. You can find me on LinkedIn.

Old Media: I recently made a children’s book with my cousin. I’m slowly working on book ideas related to my photo projects. I can draw.

The Mackerel years

From 1989 to 1997 I was a partner in Mackerel, one of Toronto’s first interactive media shops.

Here is a scrapbook from one of our more interesting projects Echo Lake.

At the Smackerel site: I’ve posted an article about some of our early work and the work that inspired it: When Multimedia Was Black and White.

Read the Step-by-Step Magazine article about The Mackerel Stack, the interactive promo that made our rep.

Then you can read the obituary, Mackerel: Burying the Fish by Cory Doctorow.

Here are some photographs:

From 2001-2005 I posted more than 200 short photo series here. There are more than 200 million pixels of storefronts, litter & cats available!

New on Portraits of Queen West:

New on Brand Name Litter:

And now for the cats. My current cat muse is Toby, an orange and white cat. Toby’s had an internet presence for five years and has fans around the world. He tweets and has a photo blog.

New on Toby’s Blog:

In 1988 I made this minicomic about my first cat muse, Angelo, a serious tabby who graced my life from 1983 to 2001. Here are the stories:

The Caped Kitty and Friends Store
Feline inspired designs. By me.

You can order fun products like this sweet Toby mug at my online shop.

Buying my products pays for quality cat content to be added to the internet. What could be wrong with that? Obey Toby.

Let a superhero carry your groceries! I use my Caped Kitty Tote Bag every day.

If I’m not the Kevin Steele that you are looking for...

You might be looking for one of these mostly fine individuals:

  • Climber Kev scaled Kilimanjaro, blind-folded, for charity. Article from before his successful climb.

  • Coach Kev recently turned down big bucks to stay in his current job. May integrity serve you well, Kev. Oops: 1999.

  • Comic Book Kev is with Stumblebum Studios.

  • Dancing Kev was recently with the Georgia ballet. ‡

  • DJ Kev, last heard in Atlanta, had to settle for .net. He’ll DJ your wedding. Anywhere.

  • Fictional Kev is a Gulf War vet seeking to avenge the murder of his wife in an episode of Australian cop show “City Homicide.” He was played by the same actor who played Agent Jones in The Matrix. My mother’s maiden name was Jones. Coincidence? If you squint.

  • Former Teacher Kev lives in Indiana and has 2 kids. He taught for six years but now does tech support for a company that makes software teachers use. ‡

  • Guns and Ammo Kev says “I want my bullets to be able to break shoulder, spinal and pelvic bones with equal aplomb.”

  • Iceman Kev aka Kevin D. "Iceman" Yellow Bird Steele aka Heavy Chevy is down for whatever. ‡

  • Inspirational Kev lead a campaign “that resulted in a £2 trillion investment group for action on climate change.” He has degrees in neurobiology and psychology from the universities of Sussex and Oxford. Kev is currently available for speaking engagements. In November 2006 he was profiled in both the Telegraph and the Guardian. Keep on making this a great name.

  • Investment Scammer Kev ripped off 229 people for millions of dollars, and gives all of us a bad name. Fucker. In July 2007 he plead guilty and was sentenced to six years. “My conduct makes me sick,” he said before going into prison. There are too many great Kevs for him to ruin our good name.

  • Karaoke Kev runs the Karaoke Star in Phoenix.

  • Litigation Services Kev is a lawyer in Indiana.

  • News Anchor Kev worked at KCEN-TV in Waco and I lost track of him for a while, but he has resurfaced at KBMT in Texas. ‡

  • Other Photographer Kev takes terrific photos in exciting outdoor places, and shows them at kevsteele.com. He has a blog, with lots of photos. Nice. ‡

  • Prosecutor Kev is Assistant DA in Montgomery County, PA. He “ maintains a caseload of serious, complicated cases he prosecutes personally including capital homicide offenses.”

  • Rock Star Kev bands were Roxx Gang and the Mojo Gurus. Roxx Gang is one of one blogger's fav bands.

  • Personal Trainer Kev got good reviews as part of the cast of Chicago in Rhode Island and toured in The Producers as a blind violinist. ‡

  • Property Lawyer Kev works for Coffin, Mew & Cloverin the UK.

  • Reverend Kev is Pastor at the National Hills Baptist Church across from the Augusta National Golf Course in Georgia. “Too bad it affords no playing privileges there!” he writes. ‡

  • Soccer Kev kicks the ball.

  • This Kev on Twitter insists he is the RealSteele.

  • Vintage Gamer Kev runs Retroblast and edits GameRoom Magazine. Thanks for the magazine, Kev! ‡

About the Directory of Kevin Steeles

Photographs of other Kevin Steeles used without permission and are © various.

Revised August, 2010.

There are far more Kevin Steeles online now than there were when I started keeping track. This is just a glimpse into the world of Kevin Steeles.

Still looking for some other Kevin Steele? Find more Kevin Steeles.

Kevs marked with ‡ have sent me email, and it’s appreciated.

If you are Kevin Steele, and wish to be listed, or are listed and have a better link or info, send me an email with the subject: I am Kevin Steele.

kevinsteele.com

v5.0 08.29.10
v4.5 10.08.08
v4.0a 07.21.06
v3.0 05.29.05
v1.00 12.04.01
live 11.16.01

The site was once entirely hand-built but now it’s a real blog. Heck, it’s a bunch of blogs!

The current version of this page launched at the end of summer 2010 and was a few years in the making. It looks almost exactly like the previous version, but now posts are served up by Blogger and are archived at kevinsteeleland.blogspot.com.

Focused Tumblr blogs:
queenwest.kevinsteele.com
brandnamelitter.kevinsteele.com
toby.kevinsteele.com

The oldest page on this web site is:
500 Years of Bembo (1996)

© 2001-2010 Kevin Steele

Many photographs are covered by Creative Commons rather than standard copyright.

The pattern in this column is adapted from William Morris’ willow wallpaper. It’s nice to see his patterns resurfacing, even if used in an ironic manner. There’s no irony here. William Morris is a personal hero.

More links for the completist

Since May 2005 I’ve been posting new day to day pictures at flickr.

This Tumblr blog is more random:
tumblr.kevinsteele.com

Every once in a while I tweet at:
twitter.com/kevinsteele

My cat is far more social than I am:
twitter.com/toby_cat

My other cat is antisocial:
twitter.com/fiddy_cat

Last thoughts

One of these days I’ll take some time and make one of those slick deep bottom navs that are all the rage; I’ve long been a booster of the idea. Until then I find the occasional cognitive dissonance of this two column design amusing.