I've backed up my most important files, I purchased Snow Leopard, the new iLife '09 and here we go... Finally all my endless, incredible fonts have transferred over to Mobile Me (the great Apple server cloud in the sky).
Time to load her up and she how she purrs! Wish me luck, I'm going in.
A few weeks ago a designer and blogger I have been following, as well as very active Twitterer, Graham Smith of imjustcreative, announced a series of logo round ups he was posting. I figured I'd take a look and found these words:
This is Part 10 of the Logo Design Round-Up series. This ongoing series showcases a collection of logos and brand marks, self submitted by a bunch of freelance designers and creative folk in many creative areas. These designers use the logos to sell, promote, brand and market their various skills. If you want to be part of this logo design series, then details can be found at the bottom of this post.
Well I was excited and got to work following the specs to submit and write a quick synopsis on the the logo treatment for my personal business Anubis Creative. Hey, free advertising and a link from a well known blog site, who wouldn't, right?
After a long day at work I decided to check some email, read a few of my favorite blogs and Retweet some valuable info to the design community and... Well to my amazement Graham posted an announcement about the latest submissions! Anubis Creative was on the Part 11 blog post in living color. Excited I texted a friend and just hope people make some nice comments. Maybe even a new project would be great, the visibility is wonderful and much appreciated - hence the posting here talking him up!
Remembering though that as Graham puts it: "This is not a competition, it’s not a best of, it’s not a who has the best logo, it’s not a collection of logos that I have chosen. They are logos supplied by those that wanted to be part of this post. And a huge thank you to everyone who has submitted."
Tweetdeck has changed my mind on using and posting on Twitter. It is a Godsend and has elevated my productivity on Twitter to an all new high.
TweetDeck is your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook and more. TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organized and up to date. The panels are straightforward and easy to scan and view. All at a glance everything is there and it even has an iPhone app to further your enjoyment.
Best of all... it's FREE!
OK, here is an example of how I find things...
1. First I heard a bleep on my TweetDeck and saw a tweet from my favorite blogger Chris Coyier from CSS Tricks.
He mentioned he just posted a screencast on how to re-create a CSS trick on this other site.
2. I watched the video, thought it was cool, and scrolled to the end of the post to see others posts/comments.
3. Then I scrolled past one where he commented back to someone and nosy me wanted to know what was up.
4. I read both and came across this
Jack Franklin says:
Great stuff Chris.
I noticed you have the HTML Ipsum icon in your menu bar, where can I get that program from, I’ve been searching for ages and I can’t find it 
Thanks,
Jack
Chris Coyier says:
Use fluid.app and make a menu bar app from this URL http://html-ipsum.com/fluid/
5. So I Googled the app and... check this out and review the first 1 minute video on the sidebar. Very cool...
6. The html ipsum app he was talking about is cool as well
This is how I find these things out, one thing always leads to another...
Wow, a friend just sent a post on his Facebook account that reads the following:
ALERT! FACEBOOK has agreed to let a third party advertisers use your posted pictures WITHOUT your permission. Click on SETTINGS up at the top where you see the Log out link. Select Privacy. Then select NEWSFEEDS and WALL. Next select the tab that reads FACEBOOK ADS. There is a drop down box, select NO ONE. Then SAVE your changes!
Best to do it just in case... Alvin doesn't need any bad press!
Here are some pretty insightful things to look for when looking for a "deal" in asking for a designer to create a custom logo for your business.
I am posting this because recently I was approached by someone who wanted a logo and possible website created for his new business. When he finally got to the bottom line and asked my rates, he paused and said he would get back to me. I never heard from him again, and I recently saw the new company logo and "coming soon" website online. You do get what you pay for!
This article I came across on Smashing Magazine and thought I would share... the author can be reached below:
Gareth Hardy is a professional graphic designer and illustrator based in the United Kingdom. You can find Gareth at Down With Design or on a snowy mountain near you.
With the power of the Web, and more eyes watching than ever, it’s important for a business to communicate its unique message clearly. The easiest way to recognize a company and distinguish it from others is by its logo. Below, we go through 10 common logo design mistakes that you should avoid if you want to create a successful and professional logo.
Avoid websites that promote ridiculously cheap logo packages. You get what you pay for.
A professional business should look professional. New business owners often invest a lot of time and money in property and equipment, but do not often match it by investing suitably in their logo.
Here are the most common reasons why many logos look amateurish:
All of the above can result in disastrous outcomes. If your logo looks amateurish, then so will your business. A business should know where to look when it wants a new logo. David Airey offers great insight on how to choose the right logo designer for your requirements.
Here are the advantages of hiring an established and professional logo designer:
Focusing on current logo trends is like putting a sell-by date on a logo.
Trends (whether swooshes, glows or bevels) come and go and ultimately turn into cliches. A well-designed logo should be timeless, and this can be achieved by ignoring the latest design tricks and gimmicks. The biggest cliche in logo design is the dreaded “corporate swoosh,” which is the ultimate way to play it safe. As a logo designer, your job is to create a unique identity for your client, so completely ignoring logo design trends is best.
Logolounge has a great section on its website in which it updates current logo design trends every year. Being aware as a designer of the latest crazes is important, mainly so that you can avoid them at all costs.
An example of how raster graphics can limit reproduction.
Standard practice when designing a logo is to use vector graphics software, such as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. A vector graphic is made up of mathematically precise points, which ensures visual consistency across multiple sizes. The alternative, of course, is use to raster graphics software, such as Adobe Photoshop. A raster graphic — or bitmap, as it’s commonly called — consists of pixels.
Using raster images for logos is not advisable because it can cause problems with reproduction. While Photoshop is capable of creating very large logos, you never know for sure how large you will have to reproduce your logo at some point. If you zoom in enough on a raster graphic, it will appear pixelated, making it unusable. Maintaining visual consistency by making sure the logo looks the same in all sizes is essential.
The main advantages of vector graphics for logo design are:
Using stock vector graphics in a logo puts your client at risk.
This mistake is often made by business owners who design their own logo or by amateur designers who are not clued in to the laws on copyright. Downloading stock vector imagery from websites such as VectorStock is not a crime, but it could possibly get you in trouble if you incorporate it in a logo.
A logo should be unique and original, and the licensing agreement should be exclusive to the client: using stock art breaks both of these rules. Chances are, if you are using a stock vector image, it is also being used by someone somewhere else in the world, so yours is no longer unique. You can pretty easily spot stock vectors in logos because they are usually familiar shapes, such as globes and silhouettes.
Never impose your own personality onto a client’s work.
You can often spot this logo design sin a mile away; the cause is usually a designer’s enormous ego. If you have found a cool new font that you can’t wait to use in a design, well… don’t. Ask yourself if that font is truly appropriate for the business you’re designing for? For example, a great modern typographic font that you just love is not likely suited to a serious business such as a lawyer’s office.
Some designers also make the mistake of including a “trademark” in their work. While you should be proud of your work, imposing your personality onto a logo is wrong. Stay focused on the client’s requirements by sticking to the brief.
Highly detailed designs don’t scale well when printed or viewed in smaller sizes.
What better analogy for thumbnail images than fingerprints? You’ll notice the intricacies of your fingerprints only when looking at them really close up. As soon as you move away, those details are lost. The same holds true for highly detailed logo designs.
When printed in small sizes, a complex design will lose detail and in some cases will look like a smudge or, worse, a mistake. The more detail a logo has, the more information the viewer has to process. A logo should be memorable, and one of the best ways to make it memorable is to keep things simple. Look at the corporate identities of Nike, McDonald’s and Apple. Each company has a very simple icon that can easily be reproduced at any size.
Without color, your great design may lose its identity.
This is a very common mistake. Some designers cannot wait to add color to a design, and some rely on it completely. Choosing color should be your last decision, so starting your work in black and white is best.
Every business owner will need to display their logo in only one color at one time or another, so the designer should test to see whether this would affect the logo’s identity. If you use color to help distinguish certain elements in the design, then the logo will look completely different in one tone.
Font choice can make or break a logo.
When it comes to executing a logo, choosing the right font is the most important decision a designer can make. More often than not, a logo fails because of a poor font choice (our example shows the infamous Comic Sans).
Finding the perfect font for your design is all about matching the font to the style of the icon. But this can be tricky. If the match is too close, the icon and font will compete with each other for attention; if the complete opposite, then the viewer won’t know where to focus. The key is finding the right balance, somewhere in the middle. Every typeface has a personality. If the font you have chosen does not reflect the icon’s characteristics, then the whole message of the brand will misfire.
Bad fonts are often chosen simply because the decision isn’t taken seriously enough. Some designers simply throw in type as an afterthought. Professional font foundries, such as MyFonts and FontFont, offer much better typeface options than those over-used websites that offer free downloads.
A logo works best with a maximum of two fonts.
Using too many fonts is like trying to show someone a whole photo album at once. Each typeface is different, and the viewer needs time to recognize it. Seeing too many at once causes confusion.
Using a maximum of two fonts of different weights is standard practice. Restricting the number of fonts to this number greatly improves the legibility of a logo design and improves brand recognition.
This is the biggest logo design mistake of all and, unfortunately, is becoming more and more common. As mentioned, the purpose of a logo is to represent a business. If it looks the same as someone else’s, it has failed in that regard. Copying others does no one any favors, neither the client nor the designer.
This is really a wonderfully soothing piece of interactive art and music, enjoy!
It takes a bit to load, but I think it's worth the wait.
In Terminator, machines took over...
In an effort to assist the $24 billion budget deficit in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to bring the education system into the 21st century. But in a good or bad way????
Schwarzenegger is looking to eliminate text book spending and funnel those funds into more electronic learning, which is more cost effective and relevant for kids today.
In a press conference, he announced his plan and assure his state's citizens that the move will be highly beneficial:
"For so many years, we've been trying to teach the kids exactly the same way. Our kids get their information from the Internet, downloaded onto their iPods, and in Twitter feeds to their cell phones … Basically, kids are feeling as comfortable with their electronic devices as I was with my pencils and crayons. So why are California's school students still forced to lug around antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks?"
While it is clearly a smaller corner to cut, it might actually do some good, as long as the school is equipped to handle the move to a digital classroom. One textbook can average in price between $75-$100 and the numbers add up with the size of California schools. However, unless the school has the kind of hardware to sustain the change, then it becomes a useless endeavor.
For your viewing pleasure I will be posting here various images I come across that amaze and inspire. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do!
In today's world of the internet we have so many choices. Starting with the type of computer we use to get to the web, to the operating system on that computer, to the browser we use to access that world wide adventure. 
For a PC user the browser of choice is usually Internet Explorer and all its versions (IE6 being the biggest thorn in a designer/developers side). For a Mac user it is the OS X system. Everyone has their preferences and reasons for using what ever browser they use.
I personally use the Firefox browser due to all the ad-ons that, as a developer and designer, makes life much easier. I know, I have an iMac and why don't I stay true to Apple and use their browser, Safari, but it is slowly catching up to Firefox's capabilities with it's latest update and I often switch to see the difference.
Below are some stats that show what the world is using:
Back in the day the screen resolution of choice was the 800 x 600pixel range, but due to the flat screen and the need for bigger and better, the tide has changed and the designer's are currently using the 1024 x 768 screen resolution as the default for design.
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