Back to Blogging

With all the recent work, and the timing of getting back and forth to Philadelphia to work, I've neglected my blog.
Plus, with the time I spent looking for design work, I may have gotten discouraged about who would want to read what I have to say.
If you look at my previous posts, you'll see that I'm about design, whether it's for the Internet, print projects or anything in between.
So, I'm back. Please check the previous posts, and if you have suggestions or updates, let me know. I'll be updating those I think are still relevant.

3D AND IMAX? Be there.

3D IMAX FILMS

Just a quick note for those who work too much, and don't have time for things like, say, FUN.

If you're a designer, visual artist of any kind, or otherwise creative, I wholeheartedly recommend the IMAX experience. I've long been a big fan of movies that take full advantage of the big screen, the surround audio, and the fact that they've got you pretty much where they want you... no phone, no doorbell, just visuals and sound.

That all started for me when I went with a bunch of friends to see a movie, thinking it was another space soap opera series like Star Wars, so we sat in the 2nd row, center.

The movie was Alien. And we were wrong.

Anyway, back to IMAX. If you don't have an IMAX theater in your 'hood, plan a road trip. Avatar in 3D on a screen that was the full height of the movie theater was the most extreme visual experience I've had. And I've had a few.

When it ended, the audience was actually applauding while they were walking towards the door, as though the actors could hear them. It was a testament to the power of the big screen, the big speakers, and the big dark room.

Just an FYI, in case you haven't been.

Free Video Clips

Getting back to what blogs were originally about:

Here's a site that I found, that other designers, creatives or students might find useful

The video stock house Artbeats is doing what some of the stock photo sites are doing now, and that's offering a FREE video clip every day, for anyone who signs up for an account.

I know what you're thinking... but they haven't sent me the bundles of junk e-mails I thought I'd get for signing up. They have restrictions in their license for use, but they're common sense, like, you can't get video from them, and turn around and sell it. Or use it for the opening credits of your porn movie. Common sense, since they really still own it, and they're granting you a license to USE it. Meaning of course, that they intend on selling those rights to other people, too.

It's a good deal, it's free, it's very useful for creatives like me, who are training in video, motion graphics and all. Hopefully, it's useful for you.

Identity Design and Typography

Graphic Standards, Identity and Typography

I noticed an unfortunate trend, and thought you might appreciate the note:

With the tons of cheap and/or free fonts available out there, you should know that many aren't fully "ready for prime time".

Specifically, there are many fonts that don't have a full complement of characters. Some font "designers" would have you believe that things like ampersands (&), the plus sign (+), the asterisk (*), and the number sign (#) are optional. They are not. By the way, the word "octothorpe" or "octotherp", used by programmers and engineers to describe the number sign (#), is a made up word from the 60's, which DOES NOT have universal acceptance. It was invented as part of a practical joke (link here). Stick with "number sign".

Also, stick with fully thought out fonts. It will come back and bite you, if you specify a second-rate product as part of your design client's identity.

Just a typographic FYI.

Upper and Lower Case Magazine Online

Typography Nirvana

Designers, if you work with type and haven't ever read Upper and Lower Case (U&lc)online, you owe it to yourself to start.
I'm actually old enough to have read U&lc on the printed page at my first design job in Princeton.The things the guys did with type was magical.

Tips for making even type done in Microsoft Word look like you know what you're doing. Imagine that.

Plus, uses for alternate characters, ligatures (you know about ligatures, right?), proper page numbering, details, details, details. We all know that setting the proper typography is all about those details, and from the time that U&lc was an unknown piece of stylistic journalism, they've been the authority.

True, U&lc was always produced by International Typeface Corporation (ITC), one of the world's largest and most prolific type foundries. Which means they have a certain ulterior motive to making us all crazy about creating beautiful, legible and imaginative type treatments. Like selling fonts.

Go into the Archives on the right side of the page to get a wider variety of articles by a wider variety of authors, including visits with type designers and craftspeople. Most all the articles recently are from Ilene Strizver, who writes the For Your Typographic Information (fyti) entries. The archives will get you greater variety. Don't get me wrong, Ilene's typographic information is great stuff for us type geeks (Is it geeks or nerds? And who cares?).

Valuable, useful site, and information. Some good typography-related articles, too.

Photoshop CS4 and JPEG 2000

Some who read my stuff may remember that I recommended AbsolutVision.com, a stock image company, as somewhere you can get free images every single day.

Well, yeah, but... I got responses asking what was up with one of the file formats they provide. That question was about the JPEG 2000 format. (hot tip for product managers: don't put a date in your product name, since it will be out of date soon...you too could be as lame as Windows98...or, JPEG2000)

Anyway, the JPEG standard, a widely used file format on the web, really does come from somewhere, that being the Joint Photographic Experts Group (www.jpeg.org). And they figured out how photographs—or other images with what us graphics-types refer to as "continuous tone" images—are translated into something you can see online.

Then came JPEG2000, designed to make slightly smaller files, with higher quality and Alpha channel capability. As I see it, a very important part of JPEG2000 is the ability to include an Alpha channel. An Alpha channel is just a place to draw a shape which gives those of us who modify photos in computer programs the ability to isolate different sections of the photo. This allows us to select, remove and re-combine images to create a family portrait from separate photographs, for example. It also allows you to put people's heads on dogs and cats (or vice versa), and any number of things you probably shouldn't do in the first place.

What good is an Alpha Channel, anyway?

The image here (image courtesy Absolute Vision) is from Photoshop. And what it shows is that this JPEG 2000 image has what normal JPEG images don't have: an Alpha Channel, which here saves a silhouette of the passport, ignoring the shadow. (the orange area indicates that the Alpha Channel is activated, and can be used as a mask to hide the rest of the picture) This gives a ton of flexibility in working with images. Why? Because working with, and modifying photographs, is about being able to accurately select and isolate an individual item or area that you want to work on, and not change anything else around it.

Can you even work with the Alpha Channels in JPEG 2000 files?

Fortunately, someone's done the research and posted much too much technical info about the JPEG 2000 file format on Wikipedia. Most important here, is further down the page, where they give a breakdown of which programs can make, read or open these files.

I'm using Photoshop CS4, the newest version, and this is what this blog is about. When you install this newest version of Photoshop, you can neither open or save JPEG 2000 files. It's necessary to add plug-ins to the program, plug-ins that were supposed to be included with your installation files in the "Goodies" folder (which on the Mac version, anyway, is on the disk marked Content. And there's plenty of good stuff on that disk, too, like more web gallery versions, software to help Photoshop work better with Bridge, and more. But not the file format plug-in that lets you read JPEG 2000 files.

So how do you read JPEG 2000 files in Photoshop CS4?

This minor "oops" didn't get completely lost on Adobe, and they've provided a download with a number of things that didn't get included in your Creative Suite installation.

In what Adobe calls Legacy Plug-ins Downloads, you can get the folder of plug-ins, including the instructions for where and how to install them, right here.

If you need these plug-ins for the PC version of Photoshop CS4, I'd wager you'll find them in a similar location on Adobe's site.

One other thing's in that group of Plug-ins that you might want

Remember the Extract filter, that let you work with silhouetting photos, from all the earlier CS versions of Photoshop? Well, ExtractPlus is also not included in the Goodies disk that came with your installation of Adobe's Creative Suite. It is, however, also included in this group of "Legacy Plug-Ins", along with the JPEG2000 read/write capability

The designer's responsiblity to a new brand or identity

Normally, in an agency or corporate setting, all the legal wrangling will have been performed regarding a company or a product's name before it ever arrives at the designer's desk.

Now as a designer, you probably spend more time than anybody else in the place, looking at things like logos, web site layouts and the design of ads. So, it's responsible for you to chime in when your sales manager says, "We'll call it The King of Beers, and have a horse-drawn carriage with Clydesdales!"

Now, if you're not working in a "departmentalized, compartmentalized" design situation, you have even more responsibility to the client, so it's also reasonable for you to do a quick Internet search. Since you'll logically be looking to tie all your advertising, marketing and even social networking together under one name, it's best to make sure it's not somebody else's.

This came up because a new band asked me, last week, to design their logo. This would grow to include a CD design and web site, and they wanted to name themselves Blues Explosion. As a professional designer, here's where that "added value" thing comes in.

I remembered an old band with a similar name, so I did a search online. Sure enough Jon Spencer's Blues Explosion is still around, doing that "punk blues" thing. Just as you'd figure, their music has nothing at all to do with any musical style called Blues. But they've been out there for years and years.

So, we're looking for a new name. Better now than 2 years from now.

Bottom Line? A simple check to help your client (and friend, in this case) is both a reasonable and responsible thing for a designer to do.

The name game

If this band was just going to work locally in a county or two, they'd probably never need to care. But, today's music scene can get global in a hurry, and the last thing you want is to have to change the name of your band, your web site, your CD, and everything else before you can sell music on iTunes, CD Baby, Last.FM, Walmart, Rhapsody or anywhere else.

So, no, you probably don't have all the tools to be responsible for patent or copyright research. Leave that to the lawyers. But, be a good professional designer and make sure you're working with information that is accurate, original, and as much as possible, make sure that information (and, logically, your design) will be useful to your client far into the future. All of this is the same whether you're introducing dish detergent, inventing a new motorcycle brand or naming a Little League team.

Woody Allen said, "80% of success is just showing up." Do that for your design clients. Show up. And pay attention.

This touches, just a little, on Intellectual Property and Copyrights, something huge on the Internet, and something we'll get into next time.