August 2005 Archives
Great to see Adobe wade into the waters of corporate blogging, with the recent launch of the Adobe Blogs initiative. Just a few weeks past the Hello World stage, the participants, including Photoshop product manager John Nack, are just getting up to speed. This represents a new way to stay on top of what's going on at Adobe and have direct access to some of the folks there that have significant involvement in the design and publishing products we use every day.
It's not often that end user license agreements are changed to more accurately reflect the real-world practices of users, but that's exactly what FontShip International recently did. The new license for use of its FontFonts fonts (say that fast three times) permits sending them along with the related document to a service bureau for output. Be still, my beating heart!
Those that see Internet Explorer as an evil blight, bringing ruin and damnation upon all who use it, should check out the words of Chris Wilson, who is a program manager for IE 7, on the IEBlog. Judging from what's on track even in the early beta versions, IE 7 is going to not only make great strides in the area of user security but finally come to grips with its many standards-related shortcomings.
"The one thing agencies should actually bill for, the one thing clients can't do themselves, is creative—the ideas. The brilliant tagline. The great commercial. The iconic logo. Agencies make so much money hustling clients on markups that they basically throw the creative in for free. Creatives, like myself, develop brand-building ideas—lexicon-changing catchphrases, pop culture changing moments, imagery that gives a faceless corporation a personality people can relate to... And for our troubles? We get an annual salary, maybe a little bit of change per day or per project as freelancers."
Maybe I just haven't come across them but there don't seem to be very many gifts geared specifically to designers. Oh sure, there's some neat stuff in the merch area of Veer's site—that Lorem Ipsum bird t-shirt is definitely me. But beyond that, is there anything in a small package that could be counted on to bring a smile to the face of a fellow designer?
