Old Ads?

These ads seem to be imported from the UK. Not sure if they actually ran, or if they are even real but once upon a time (not long ago) stuff like this was feasible. How times have changed and with that, advertising. Check them out.

Resume Advice?

Anyone mind taking a look and giving me some crit on my resume? Time to look again. (click on the document to make it larger)

Slang is Gnarly

For show and tell last week I gripped the McGraw-Hill Book of American Slang and Colloquialisms. Dis treasure chest of classic, modern American off the cuff expressions, unusual definitions of common words and great old fashioned "Merica" style cursing. If you don't have a book like this in you library, go gank one, not only will it help your informal writing but it is a bangin book to chill with.

Worst Typefaces Ever?

My Top10 Worst Typefaces:

10. Dom Bold
9. Hobo
8. Cottonwood
7. Cooper Black
6. Papyrus
5. Lucinda Handwriting
4. Brush
3. Times New Roman
2. Arial
1. Comic Sans

The top 10 is based solely on type that I never want to use, see used or read.

Font Problem Font Solution

OK, some of you may know about my latest battles with my huge font library on both my G5 at work and my Pro Book at home. I enjoy having massive amounts of fonts and dingbats but that can lead to trouble. I have Extensis Suitcase on both machines but that software is for the birds, it just sucks. I have experienced everything from un-viewable/un-decipherable web pages and content because the fonts were so screwed up, fonts turning themselves on and off, fonts disappearing, my font cache getting clogged up like the subway during rush-hour, fonts setting fires, fonts playing hookie from school, smoking cigarretes in the boys room and even fonts going on homicidal rampages.

I've had enough.

Well, look out misbehaving fonts. I think I may have found a great solution to all of your bad behavior–for FREE. It is called FontExplorer X and can be downloaded from the Linotype website. We all know who Linotype is right? They invented the machine that eliminated typesetting by hand. (The founder Ottmar Mergenthaler lived in Baltimore). Anyway, my point is they can be trusted to whip your belligerent and mischievous fonts into order. It is easy to install, it is easy to turn off any other font manager during the install, it is very easy to add new typefaces to your list, very easy to activate or deactivate fonts, works seamlessly with Adobe and Quark, it is good looking and there is a version for both Mac and PC and so far they have worked amazingly. No font problems at all, now they are all the sweetest little angels, thanks FEX!

command - option - shift + K

Speaking of keyboard shortcuts, open a Quark document, select any object and use the shortcut in the title. Possibly the coolest thing about Quark, even more possibly the only cool thing about Quark. Be sure that you have the file saved first and have the sound up.

The Boston Turkey Story (What inspired our cutout project)

Wild Turkeys Take Boston, Surrounding Suburbs a Month Before Thanksgiving

(Found on foxnews.com)

Wild turkeys are running amok in the Boston area, startling, amusing and even chasing residents who have had close encounters with them on the street.

Previously alien to these parts, after having been wiped out long ago, the gobbling fowl are suddenly back and bigger than ever, descending with gusto upon suburbia, according to The Boston Globe.

The brazen little creatures have been so rampant that local police now get up to a dozen calls about them a day.

One woman jumped — and gasped — when she came face-to-face with a turkey right after she parked her car at a meter in Brookline, the Globe reported. But the showdown didn't stop there. The turkey ran after the woman after they locked eyes, gobbling and pecking at her bottom during the chase.

Click here to read the entire story in The Boston Globe.

Interesting Advice from Istockphoto.com

Gradients + Outlines + Highlights... Oh, My (Spotblind)


(Excerpt from an article on Istockphoto about Vector Dos and Don'ts.)

It’s easy to get carried away in the style department. You can add strokes, textures, gradients, patterns, you name it: why limit yourself to just one effect?! Well, it all comes down to consistency. Consistency is critical and the more you clutter your image with unnecessary elements, the more distracting and confused the final results will be. This is a key consideration to remember when illustrating for stock: The designer already has a message they need to convey… Your illustration will be used to support this message. Distracting and competing effects within a file can seriously detract from the usability of your illustration.

When planning your image you should start from the ground up and decide what the final look you want is: Light and delicate? Bold and strong? Shiny or matte? Comical, cute, whimsical, dramatic, serious? Once you’ve nailed the look and feel you’d like to aim for, every element you add should support the look. That’s not to say you can’t change your mind once you’ve started with a particular style. As long as you know what you’d like to convey to the viewer, chances are the end result will have a clear message and consistent look and feel.

Flowers have always been a popular subject to upload. Example 1 is pretty decent... But it could be a heck of a lot better, and with the amount of flower submissions this’d need some polish to get approved. The spirals are ragged and rushed, which doesn’t fit in with the soft gradients on the petals. The highlights are very sharp (perhaps this is a plastic flower?), and for some reason only 2 of the leaves have veins… Not very pretty veins at that, especially where they’ve cut right over the stem of the flower (on the lower right). The finished image is confused, cluttered, and not likely to attract any bees.

Example 2, on the other hand, is the kind of blossom you’d want to give that special someone. The distracting strokes from the first flower have been replaced with strong shapes that are subtly tinted to give a hint of depth and volume. The harsh gradients have been toned down and the highlights softened. We’ve removed the mismatched leaves and replaced them with 2 strong, simple leaves that are drawn in the same style. On the blossom itself some extra highlight/shadow shapes have been added to each petal, then carefully colored to look 3-dimensional… You can almost smell it.