Crumbs from the Scone
Well, it’s just a few days until Christmas… The shopping is done, the presents are wrapped, the lights are up, the tree is decorated and I am busy tonight wrapping up some projects for clients before the holiday.
I wanted to take a moment to share with you all a video that my friend Lewis Nowosad of the Bay Area Paranormal Association turned me on to. This is one of those things that defines a person’s character to others 🙂 Either you “get” the humor or you will come away, head askew with a “tsk tsk” look on your face, wondering where my parents went wrong.
In any case…. enjoy!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JIz7I5yzwQ&rel=0&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1]
Crumbs from the Scone
Happy Halloween one and all…
I typically learn something from every client I have the pleasure of doing business with, but with the launch of Aesop’s Editions- The Art of Sharon Augusta Mitchell, I was treated to a very unique educational experience.
Sharon is a tremendously talented artist located in Lafayette and Berkeley. She works in digital an traditional media but her hallmark (in my never-to-be-humble opinion) is Mezzotinting and Aquatinting.
I know…. most of you are slowly shaking your head…. Mezzo-what?!?! I did too during my first meeting at Sharon’s exceptionally cool studio (which intertwines, ivy like, throughout her home). So for those of you who are interested I will direct you to Sharon’s comprehensive article on Mezzotinting located on her website, rather than having me butcher any sort of definition on the technique.
Working with Sharon was not only very enjoyable (we seem to share the same wry and somewhat disturbing sense of humor) but also extremely educational, we have shared tips and experiences on everything from software and Mac’s vs. PC’s to practical jokes and the “angst” of fine art students!
That’s all for now… time to take the kids out to reconnoiter some sweets!
Blessings,
Skip
Crumbs from the Scone
Shadowbend Studios has once again made it’s presence known in the Great State of Wisconsin. After working with Robin LeGrand on the website for her folk’s Nursery, LeGrands Gardens, I was contacted by Eileen Hammer Housfeld to work on a project for the Museum of Wisconsin Art. I was delighted to meet with Eileen and take on the project with her. I must say at this point that I continue to be pleasantly surprised by the people I have met and worked with from Wisconsin. Eileen; my contact in California, Darryl; the campaign manager in Wisconsin and Kyle Tuska of the Hoppmann Group who handled the printing were all extremely easy to work with and genuinly nice, pleasant people. Now every project has it’s snags and obstacles but even considering this, working with this team was very smooth and enjoyable.
The museum is currenty embarking on a project to fund the building of a new facility and it was our job to design the presentation package to be sent to potential contributors. We ended up with a 16 page presentation complete with the new floor plans, a beautifully embossed cover and a nice amount of representative work by Wisconsin artists.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of my 6 month involvement with the project was my continued exposure to Adobe InDesign. I had previously only used the program for smaller projects but I got a really good workout with InDesign CS3 and I am now completely devoted to the program! I can now produce projects that I previously would have done in either Illustrator or Photoshop much faster, with more accuracy and flexibility in InDesign. And with the new features of the CS3 package I could not be happier with the product.
I am very proud of the contribution I made to this project and I look forward to working with Eileen in the furture (or at least meeting for coffee at our usual table in Starbucks!)
Every day is a blessing,
Cheers,
Skip
Crumbs from the Scone, The Link Vault
Motivated, professional and on point. That’s the way I would describe the team over at Accountability Advertising. It was a pleasure working with Rich, John and Jackie and they helped make the design process very smooth indeed. I managed to achieve one of the fastest turnaround times for a redesign project and still kept the result clean, professional and stylish. This was due in no small part to the fact that the Accountability Advertising team knew what they wanted, gave me a definitive “yes” when they saw what they liked and not only let me know when they did not want a particular element but had suggesstions for changing it. I look forward to a continued relationship with everyone at Accountability Advertising.
Time to call it a night!
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Crumbs from the Scone, Designer's Resources
It’s a warm evening here at the studio (thank god for air conditioning and ceiling fans). I was tooling around on a Flash project tonight and had an opportunity to reference a tutorial that I had saved from an excellent online resource for learning Flash so I thought I would take a moment and share it with you all.
Before joining the International Webmasters Association and taking their excellent series of Classes I began my “formal” training in Flash at the website of Jay Dyke, called “Cartoon Smart“. Jay has an amazingly cool site and, even at the point where I am about to begin my Advance Flash ActionScripting class, I still go back to his site to pick up pointers. His downloadable tutorials are very well priced, easily downloaded and extremely fun. His informal style makes you feel as though he is sitting right next to you but the information he provides is very useful.
I highly recommend this site to anyone interested in furthering their Flash skills.
Cheers,
Skip
Designer's Resources
I was doing some investigative research today on an HTML problem I was having when I came by this really nice article on web design psychology. Almost seems like a small bit of required reading for web designers as it hits on some important points regarding basic web design philosophy. Kudos to the people at Stylegala for the excellent information they provide. As web designers, we need to be cognizant of not only of the technical nature of our trade, but also the intangibles; good design flow, artistry and design impact. Well done to Andy Rutledge at NetSuccess on his article.
Cheers,
Skip
Technical Articles
Great find for Epson Printer owners
If you are like me, you own multiple Epson printers and absolutely love them. However, you may have also encountered an episode involving a cartridge that you know is full or nearly full yet the printer is telling you it’s empty.
Enter the Universal Chip Resetter from MIS Associates Inc. This handy and inexpensive (about $20 USD) device is a lifesaver when you consider the price of printer cartridges nowadays. Clip this on the cartridge and it will reset the chip so that the printer will read it as full. Check it out, you won’t be disappointed.
Cheers,
Skip
Designer's Resources
Let me start by saying I am a photoshop zealot. I love the program, can’t live without it. Wonderful piece of software.
Having said that, I was browsing around in the Adobe Stock Photo browser the other day looking for photos to use on a website project I am currently working on. I realized after looking through the licensing and pricing areas that the pricing is set up only for larger (minimum of 1 meg) files. Now this is useful for most print projects, however those file sizes are far too large for web use.
Having done some more digging and finding nothing to cater to smaller file sized purchases, I decided to contact my guru of all things Adobe… Mark Barnes.
Mark’s answer was uncharacteristicly short… “Nope, Adobe does not have anything in place for purchasing smaller file sized photos”… “However…” it was then I knew he was going to save me once again. He then mentioned iStockphotos. Let me just say that this site is wonderful! Not only is the interface excellent for browsing photos, their photo quality is excellent and their library is huge! But the best part is their pricing!
$1 for web ready photos
$3 for print ready photos
$5 for full page photos
$10 for full page bleed photos
$20/$40 for double page spread photos
Excellent! A real find that benefits both the designer and client in keeping costs down. I highly recommend a visit to iStockphotos.
Cheers,
Skip
Crumbs from the Scone
Have a great day,
Skip
Crumbs from the Scone
Poozles Fiber Art www.poozles.com
Pamela asked me to design a site for her that would exhibit her line of custom made fiber art pieces as well as giving her visitors a sense of the country setting in which she worked. The design elements and layout that I used reflect the aproachable and handcrafted aspects of the sierra ranch setting in which Pamela creates her unique works of fiber art.
