Help End the Email Horror
One of the first things you learn when creating an HTML newsletter is that it isn't a Web page. It sorta, kinda, almost is. You'd like to pretend it is. But it just isn't. The bastard child of graphic design, the email newsletter remains one of the last bastions of Web standards run amok.
June 9, 2009, 11:55 AMThe Joy of Domain Parking: Part 1
If you've been involved in web work for a while, you've probably accumulated at least a few domain names. These could be for sites you planned to build, but never got around to. Or ones you launched but then dropped when the concept didn't pan out. Or even wacky ones you registered on a whim, just for fun. After all, for just a few bucks it won't set you back much more than a MacLunch to be the proud owner of a shiny new domain name. But as these start to pile up, the renewal costs can become significant. Get those emails often enough from your registrar reminding you that your account has been dinged again and a little voice starts saying, "Just why the heck have you spent the last ten years paying for HarryPotterSucks.com?"
May 21, 2009, 8:49 AMPHP and MySQL: Together Again
Sometimes it's only years after an initially bad experience that you finally embrace something that once seemed repugnant. Take opera, for example. While I periodically give it a shot, I just haven't been able to develop a taste for what many feel is one of the highest achievements of Western civilization. I chalk my aversion up to a traumatic exposure to the works of Florence Foster Jenkins.
April 13, 2009, 3:31 PMLast Call for CS4?
There are some applications that I just can't get excited about upgrading. My copy of Word, for example, is antediluvian, and yet it still provides all the functionality I need. Given that there are now open source and online alternatives, there's probably nothing Microsoft could do to induce me to upgrade, short of giving it away. I imagine I'm not the only one with this attitude. The situation is different, however, when it comes to graphics and publishing applications. Or is it?
January 28, 2009, 1:32 AMWhen Crowdsourcing Goes Bad: The Google Favicon Fiasco
The world of the favicon is a harsh one. Of all the challenges facing graphic designers, compressing a company's identity into an area 16 pixels square has to be one of the toughest. Some firms, such as Apple and Adobe, catch a break, since their graphically simple logos translate well into favicondom. But others find the task daunting, not least of which, it would seem, is Google. January 9, 2009, 8:57 AM
The Return of Mellow Yellow?
Yellow, we're told, is back. But not just any yellow. One dubbed Mimosa by color authority Pantone, which has made it the firm's pick for Color of the Year for 2009, embodying as it does "hopefulness and reassurance in a climate of change."
January 4, 2009, 8:23 AMVote Early and Vote Often
It may be too late to follow the first half of the recommendation attributed to Al Capone, but you can still vote as often as you like in the third STEP Design 100 Readers Choice poll, currently being held on Graphics.com.
December 22, 2008, 9:15 AMIt Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times...
It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.
December 8, 2008, 1:34 AMReach for Your Wallet
My previous post was on November 28, the last day of Adobe's 2008 fourth quarter. As it turned out, both events had something in common—the responsibility of designers to move their profession forwards. The first involved an investment in time. The second, money.
November 28, 2008, 5:48 AMThis Is Not Happening!
The above photo was taken at the exact moment when a website designer, having finished a complex new site for a client, belatedly thought to check how it displayed in Internet Explorer 6. Been there, lately?
October 7, 2008, 3:25 AMHave a Happy Animated Birthday
The French have a mania for injecting culture into some of their oldest and most notable architectural environments, with a greater or lesser degree of success. Here in Lyon, for example, one of the largest and best preserved Roman amphitheaters plays host every year to an ambitious season of music, dance and theater. You can sit on the ancient stone seats, with the city and the hills beyond stretching out into the distance, as I did one evening this summer during Leonard Cohen's farewell concert tour. A magical moment.
September 19, 2008, 12:35 PMI'm a... Whatever
So, did you think the first two Microsoft ads sucked? Personally, the first one left me spinning in circles, while the second one seemed like a remake of Un Chien Andalou set in suburbia. But with the latest phase of this campaign, we seem to be on firmer ground.
September 9, 2008, 3:36 AMChaos Revisited
I last featured the extraordinary Demeure du Chaos—literally Abode of Chaos—over two years ago. Rather than rehash that long post, I encourage you to give it a quick read before proceding, since it provides the background on an artistic call to arms recently launched by Demeure creator and lead artist Thierry Erhmann.
August 29, 2008, 9:50 AMLies, Damn Lies and the Art of Chris Jordan
Chris Jordan is a Seattle-based photographer who is receiving growing acclaim for his series of dramatic images devoted to what one usually thinks of as the driest of all topics: statistics. But not just any statistics. Jordan has chosen to visually demonstrate the wildly out of control nature of our consumer culture through photographic constructs that bring home the numbing statistics that express the scope of our ravaging consumerism.
August 21, 2008, 10:40 AMDesign Contests on Graphics.com
For the uninitiated, it may come as a surprise to hear that Graphics.com plays host to four ongoing design contests and challenges. While they all have in common a connection with a Jupiterimages stock content site, each provides a different way for you to participate and express your creativity, whether graphically or from a design perspective, ranging from an open-ended approach to those that have quite rigorous requirements. They're all fun to participate in and provide a way to stretch out a bit, freed from the day-to-day rigors of paid work. They also offer the potential to take home subscriptions to Photos.com, AbleStock.com or liquidlibrary.com.
