Pulp To Pixels

Yes we kern!

Coming from the world of print, typography is an issue near and dear to my heart as I move more towards the web. So many tools and standards of design I took for granted are now denied to me. But that’s all starting to change. In many ways, 2012 is the new 1999. We have the freedom to work with any font we like via the @font-face selector. But our main tool, the browser, does not have any OpenType features to speak of. We have to create workarounds. via Smashing Magazine | The Future Of Screen Typography Is In Your Hands

Web design is graphic design

Web design isn’t about technology. Web design is graphic design, built on a interactive platform. It is graphic design with limitations, but mostly graphic design with endless possibilities. A graphic designer needs to understand the web. Information Architects states that web design is 95% typography, purely because web design is the same as graphic design – to present content the best way possible. The last five percent you ask? They’re about having a unison mindset, and being able to design for all surfaces.   Web design is graphic design. -  Kim Andre Ottesen via | Editors’ letter — Reformat.

Contract Creator

Ask any creative what their least favorite aspect of freelancing is and they will more often than not reply it is dealing with the legal mumbo jumbo of a Contract. So much so, many forego this step all together; sometimes with dire consequences. If you’re of this ilk, then check out Contract Creator from Freelancers Union (you must be a member to get access to the page). It doesn’t get much simpler than this, fill out some basic info such as names, addresses, dates, and prices and voilà! You get a complete contract in the form of a Word DOC. For many this will be as if they just found a unicorn frolicking in a field with a leprechaun. Establishing clear expectations before beginning work with a client will help you avoid conflicts and get paid — and a contract is the best way to do that. This tool will guide you through creating your own contract and allow you to edit it to fit each job. As always, this is no substitute for the services of a Lawyer, but it’s leaps and bounds ahead of not using a contract at all. You might also want to check out the AIGA Standard Form of [...]

Win 8 web browser to be plugin-free, sans Flash

More than a year after Steve Jobs took Adobe to task about the lack luster performance and experience Flash provides, Adobe has yet to modernize Flash. Now, Microsoft has announced the Windows 8 version of Internet Explorer will be plugin-free, preferring standards-based HTML5 content to content served via proprietary Adobe Flash technology. For the web to move forward and for consumers to get the most out of touch-first browsing, the Metro style browser in Windows 8 is as HTML5-only as possible, and plug-in free. The experience that plug-ins provide today is not a good match with Metro style browsing and the modern HTML5 web. Coupled with Adobe announcing last week the newest release of Flash Media Server will serve HTML5 versions of Flash video for those running iOS devices, and you have to wonder if even Adobe thinks Flash has a future. Will Flash be left to wither on the vine much the same way Shockwave was back in the ’90’s? Could Abode be cooking up a modern plugin to supplant Flash and secure its hold over digital media for the next decade?

Quark App Studio Arrives

Quark continues to innovate and close the gap between print and digital while avoiding the steep learning curve. Rather than dropping a new app or expecting designers to learn code, Quark has chosen to make the smart move of allowing designer to stay focused on design while empowering the technology take care of the technical aspects. Quark App Studio is an integrated set of tools that lets you create customized apps for the iPad (Coming Soon: Android), distribute those apps through the Apple® App Store, and then create and publish content (issues) that your customers can purchase or access for free from within the apps. Quark has posted a video of the new features in action, and over at MacWorld they have posts a review. You’re move Adobe.

Inkling—digitizes while you draw

Unlike pretty much any other profession, creatives will most often forgo technology and pick up an old-fashioned paper and pencil to get the job started. But inevitably the process turns to digitizing with a scanner and maybe some touch-up in Photoshop. A standard Wacom tablet lets you skip the digitizing process, but for most it’s awkward to coordinate what your hand is doing with what your eye is seeing on a screen two feet away. You could upgrade to the Cintiq with lets you draw directly onto the screen. But with a high point of entry (they start out at $1,000 for the 12″ model and shoot up to $2,000 for the 21″ model) it’s not an easily justified expense for all but the most prolific of creatives. Forget about the portability of a traditional sketch pad and pencil; you’re tethered to the desk for the long haul with this option. Enter Inkling. It restores the one-to-one process of pen to paper, digitizes on-the-fly, stores sketches until you are back at the computer, and gets you started on the Photoshop process by allowing you to create layers. At $199 it’s much more practically priced for most than is the Cintiq. [...]

Coca Cola Plants a Green Billboard

This is just plain cool. The billboard uses 3,600 pots of Fukien tea plants, which can each absorb an average of 13 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Recycled Coca-Cola bottles were used as pots. The plants, which are potted in a mixture of industrial byproducts and organic fertilizers, are watered by an efficient drip irrigation system called trickle irrigation or micro-irrigation. Via Ad Age | Coca-Cola Plants a Green Billboard

Google unveils Flash-to-HTML5 tool

You can upload a SWF file, and Swiffy will produce an HTML5 version which will run in modern browsers with a high level of SVG support such as Chrome and Safari. It’s still an early version, so it won’t convert all Flash content, but it already works well on ads and animations. Via Macworld | Google unveils Swiffy Flash-to-HTML5 tool

Make your Magic Mouse play nice with Adobe apps

Why won’t my mouse stop scrolling? Arg! With all the new additions to Creative Suite 5.5 they still have yet to correct what is, in my opinion, a critical bug—when using a Magic Mouse Adobe apps thrive on randomly and wildly scroll about the paste board and off to the nether regions of your documents. It’s like watching a drunk dance—random and sloppy. Houston, we have a problem The Mighty Mouse (which comes standard on many Apple machines) lets you scroll simply by swiping one or two fingers across its touch surface. While this makes for a great experience in the OS and every other app in existence, it simply doesn’t translate to the Creative Suite. From what I have read, it’s an issue wherein Adobe engineers have insisted on implementing proprietary drivers and not hooking into the Mac OS X architecture . Maybe they have good reason, but the result is the same with an extremely experience using the apps. The attempted fixes I’ve tried a few approaches; turning off “Scroll with inertia” in the Mouse Preferences, Magic Prefs, diable scrolling altogether. But none of these worked, or they created other issues outside of the Adobe Creative Suite. I could buy a new mouse, but why buy a [...]

Adobe Eazel for Photoshop CS5

Adobe Eazel turns your iPad into a Wacom tablet and your fingertip is the stylus. Sorta. It does demonstrate the seemingly typical dedication of Adobe to mobile media and devices in the new CS 5.5 release. This is definitely a step in the cool direction and starts to tackle one of my pet peeves in computing—redundancy. I have three touch sensitive items on my desk typically; an iPad, iPhone, and a Magic Mouse. While each has its own purpose there is overlap at times. To add a tablet would just cramp my desk further so I think this is a good compromise. Now, lets see if Apple can bring touch sensitivity as a Core technology to iOS so the iPad can someday replace my Wacom tablet or Cintiq. I think it’s a ways off, but until then I’ll keep dreaming. Via Photoshop.com | Adobe Eazel for Photoshop CS5 | Photoshop.com