‘Design Thoughts’ : rjslade

Mid October already – a long time since I last added to this blog, but things are busy. We have had visitors, family and friends, and additionally are caring for a family member who is not well. The market is in turmoil, the american elections are approaching fast, the terorists are busy around the world and the sea lanes are getting clogged with pirates – What a world!

My morning scan of the news site sure can be depressing but the web, thankfully is full of a lot of other details. Below are some that caught my attention – not major items but interesting to me as a designer.

But first I want to mention an artist who I met this summer here in MCdV. Sangram Majumdar, Professor of Painting, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD. He was one of the lecturers at the International School of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture (http://www.giotto.org/ ) here, this his first time, as a member of the faculty. Amusingly enough, my first encounter with him was to find him in the main piazza doing a charcoal sketch of the newer section of town, a wonderful architectual drawing. I commented that he ought to be a teacher – his other half who was standing next to him laughed – “well actually, he is”.

The school page for him is at:
 http://www.giotto.org/cimabue/majumdar/index.html And his personal site is: 
http://www.sangrammajumdar.com/

As those of you who have read my background, I have met a few artists in my day – This is one to follow. I think his work is wonderful!

As an aside, he was accompanied by a wonderful violinist this summer, and we had a wonderful time with the couple.

Annelies Mast 2nd Violins, National Symphony Orchestra, Washington DC

*************

I am alway interested in software that provides interesting methods of showing images. I have previously mentioned JAlbum that will create sites of images, which can then be modified or included inones site. This is another solution

Smooth Javascript Image Zooming For Your Web Pages This much-requested chunk of Javascript to zoom images inline, originally written for this blog but later rolled out to the Panic website and used for screenshots, is now polished up, bug-fixed, available for you to use on your website! More information and details are available at: http://www.cabel.name/2008/02/fancyzoom-10.html

Another approach to image presentation is CoolIris, http://www.cooliris.com which used to be known as Piclens. This works as a plugin to most current browsers

Transform your browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for online photos and videos. *************

For a wonderful reference site on colour, or is that color ?, I suggest you look at -

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY TUTORIALS – http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/

Learn how to take and edit digital photographs using visual tutorials that emphasize concept over procedure, independent of specific digital camera or lens. Topics range from basic camera tips to advanced techniques

From their site:

Cambridge in Colour was started in 2005, and has since grown substantially both in content and in the number of visitors it attracts. On any given day this site has well over 10,000 different people learning about photography, viewing the gallery and contributing to the forums. Thank you to all those who have helped share this site with others

*************

If you are having trouble with your downloads speed, but it is not consistent, it might be a case of your ISP throttling some of your bandwidth. When BitTorrent files started they were used for ‘grey’ content so it was simple for the service provider to intervene in this method, for the client to complain would necessitate admitting to downloading quasi-legal content. But the world has moved on, and the format has been adopted by legal content.

The site below may be able to help you pinpoint a throttling issue : http://www.mpi-sws.mpg.de/index_flash.php which will lead you to http://broadband.mpi-sws.mpg.de/transparency/bttest.php?

Certain ISPs have been shown to rate limit or block BitTorrent traffic sent by their customers. While there are multiple reports of this on the web, only a few ISPs have admitted that they manipulate BitTorrent traffic. And, to date, it is hard for users without networking expertise to gain evidence about the behavior of their ISP.This test suite creates a BitTorrent-like transfer between your machine and our server, and determines whether or not your ISP is limiting such traffic. This is a first step towards making traffic manipulation by ISPs more transparent to their customers

*************

I love visualisations of information. Here is another interesting example I came across.

History flow: from – http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/projects/history_flow/index.htm

Visualising the editing history of Wikipedia pages – History flow is a tool for visualizing dynamic, evolving documents and the interactions of multiple collaborating authors. In its current implementation, history flow is being used to visualize the evolutionary history of wiki* pages on Wikipedia

Below another example of the visualisations of information, this time all in Spanish, I think, but a great graphic of money flowing in and flowing out, and how it has been divided up – from: http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb154/chiquiesteban/Presupuestos-dia-1-2.jpg



And here a website of an individual that takes diverse data types and presents them in visually interesting forms – data as ART. Here the mapping of location and intensity of WiFi points during a journey – From : http://yesyesnono.co.uk/ and http://yesyesnono.co.uk/article/30/invisible-journeys

Invisible Journeys May 2, 10:39 AM – Invisible Journeys is my first try at data visualisation. I have seen a few wifi geographical mapping, but they looked a bit too technical to my taste. Here, i aimed at a semi abstract visualisation while keeping the ability to extract sense out of the graphics.

*************

Those of interested in the history of computing have all heard of the code breaking machines of the war but and article in the NYTimes led me to this gem

The Web Time Forgot : http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17mund.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

PAPER TRAIL The telegraph room at the original Mundaneum in Brussels. (image source – Mundaneum)

The place actually has a site at: http://www.mundaneum.be/

Which is well worth a look if yourlanguage skills are up to the excerpt I have included here:

UN PEU D’HISTOIRE(S)

Le projet du Mundaneum, son histoire:
L’origine du Mundaneum remonte à la fin du XIXème siècle. Créé à l’initiative de deux juristes belges, Paul Otlet et Henri La Fontaine, le projet visait à rassembler l’ensemble des connaissances du monde et à les classer selon le système de Classification Décimale Universelle (CDU) qu’ils avaient mis au point.

Outil de connaissance pour la paix, le Mundaneum était conçu à la base comme un centre de documentation à caractère universel. Il fut durant la première moitié du XXème siècle le berceau d’institutions internationales humanistes dédiées au Savoir et à la Fraternité universelle. A partir de 1920, il occupa une aile du Cinquantenaire à Bruxelles. Ses collections y étaient exposées dans l’esprit des expositions universelles.

*************

A wonderful set of sites, revolving around one designers ideas and thoughts on Logo Design - http://www.davidairey.com/ and http://www.logosdesigners.com/

And then some specific Logo’s that were done for this years 2008 Summer Olympics in China - http://en.beijing2008.cn/63/32/column212033263.shtml

The pictograms of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games integrate pictographic charm of inscriptions on bones and bronze objects in ancient China with simplified embodiment of modern graphics.

Not ‘Logos’ but ‘Posters’ – not quite so concise a presentation of information but usually so. Here a site that has gathered some great classics: http://www.bobstaake.com/posters/

‘Totally Amzing Posters
 – Throughout my life I’ve been mesmerized by posters — particularly those created by the Europeans of the mid-20th Century. These bold, graphic and inventive posters continue to captivate contemporary illustrators, and while many of us have liberally taken inspiration from iconic poster graphics, they pale in comparison to those created from 1930-1960 in France, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, and virtually every country on the European continent’

*************

Google SketchUp is a program that you must try. I have mentioned it in a previous blog and have played with it from just after its inception, many many years ago, when I bought it as a product from Alias. Now free, at least for the general version, a number of other companies are making rendering plugins that work with it and produce stunning results. They may not be fast and the free versions do not create large output, but they can take a fairly simple to create SketchUp model and produce wonderful results.

I found Renditioner Express first but at the moment it is PC only ( I have not tried Google SketchUp with Parallels on my Intel iMac – maybe I should!) and then I found SU Podium

IDX Renditoner Express (Free) 
http://www.idx-design.com/IDX/IDXRenditioner/FreeVersionofIDXRenditionerExpress/tabid/1011/Default.aspx

The free version of IDX Renditoner Express includes all the same features as IDX Renditioner but differs in render size and possibly speed. IDX Renditioner Express (Free) supports a maximum render size of 640 x 480 pixels. (IDX Renditioner supports a maximum render size of 4096 x 4096 pixels, a full 16 megapixels. It also supports multithreading for higher performance necessary on the large images.)

IDX Renditioner Express (Free) includes a smaller number of light components, but more will be available on the forums at http://forums.idx-design.com. Lights are easy to create and we encourage you to share.

At this time the PC version is available, but a free Mac version is expected soon.

SU Podium – http://www.suplugins.com/

The simplest rendering plug-in for Google SketchUp now runs on Windows or the Mac.

You can make TRUE photo-realistic rendering of your SketchUp model without the pain and frustration of learning a complex program. Podium runs completely inside Google SketchUp from start to finish. It uses SketchUp features such as textures, background colors, groups and shadows to achieve impressive results. Podium is intuitive to SketchUp users. Plus, its simple interface cuts the learning curve to minutes instead of days. Make an impression without the pain. SU Podium works with Google SketchUp 6 or 5, Pro or Free, Windows or Mac.

*************

I am not a big fan of gaming software. BUT that said, every so often something catches my interest. The following fall into this category, and appears to have a support community.

Welcome to Celestia : http://www.shatters.net/celestia/The free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Celestia runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn’t confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy.

Additional material for this program is available at : http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/

The one Gaming title I have paid for is XPlane. http://www.x-plane.com/ This is a flight simulator that is simply amazing. Currently in version 9, I quote from the web site

‘X-Plane is the world’s most comprehensive, powerful flight simulator, and has the most realistic flight model available for personal computers. Welcome to the world of props, jets, single- and multi-engine airplanes, as well as gliders, helicopters and VTOLs such as the V-22 Osprey and AV8-B Harrier…”

At the moment it is 39$US, a bargain, but they are soon to return to their former higher pricing. Like the above mentioned software this is also a product with a community – didicated to making an already realistic product even better. This one is so good it is actually used by flights schools.

And to sweeten things they have an iPhone and iPod Touch version. This is software that will sell the hardware – really! Go look for yourself at : http://www.x-plane.com/iPhone/X-Plane/iPhone_X-Plane.html For just under $10, the experience of flying this in your hand is, to me, unbelievable…

*************

I like music, but my tastes are eclectic (my wife says they are warped) That said, we are blessed with internet service, courtesy of ARIA DSL here in Umbria that lets me listen through iTunes to streamed CBC Classics via the internet. I just have to remember to switchoff the remote speakers – iTunes and Airport Express – before I put on any folk or rock music.

So it was with interested I looked at this site below : Relational Music Discovery – http://www.maxkiesler.com/Relational Music Discovery

‘I spend most of my days and nights in front of the computer screen. Needless to say I listen to countless hours of music. I’m always looking for new music to listen to, and face it, iTunes can only get you so far with it’s rather limited discovery features. Recently, I’ve turned to relational, and visual music discovery engines to find more tunes that related to my current musical tastes.’

• Artist Network Visualization
• Audiosurf: Ride Your Music
• Liveplasma Music Discovery Engine
• Musicovery – Content Visualization
• Musiclens – Music Discovery Visualization
• Music Maps – Who is Listening to What and Where
• Podbop – Mp3 Concert Calendar
• TuneGlue – Relationship Explorer
• ScreenVader – Algorithmic Music, Images and Video
• Whitney Music Box – Visual Harmony

And while on the subject of music, what could be more so than the Minute Waltz – Right? Well not in this case but still worth a look Minute Waltz : http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/05/16/opinion/20080516_schott_2.html

*************

An avid reader of BrookStones (http://www.brookstone.com/) Vermont Country Store (http://www.vermontcountrystore.com/) and Hammacher Schlemmer (http://www.hammacher.com) catalogues, I like interesting gifts. So this site peaked my interest ; http://www.gnr8.biz/

*************

Getting good at Adobe PhotoShop takes some talent, some reading and a lot of practice. Thankfully there are a lot of sites out on the internet with free content to help you in your exploration. This is one : http://psdtuts.com/

“About – PSDTUTS is a blog/Photoshop site made to house and showcase some of the best Photoshop tutorials around. We publish tutorials that not only produce great graphics and effects, but explain in a friendly, approachable manner. Photoshop is a fantastically powerful program and there are a million ways to do anything, we hope that reading PSDTUTS will help our readers learn a few tricks, techniques and tips that they might not have seen before and help them maximize their creative potential! PSDTUTS is the sister site to VECTORTUTS, NETTUTS and AUDIOTUTS.”

If you have read this far, heaven knows how many typo’s and grammer mistakes you will have suffered through. While the content interests me greatly, trying to keep track of it, for myself and for you, is quite a task. Spelling and correct punctuation is not one of my strong points. BUT this site might help – http://www.retinart.net/miscellaneous/grammar

‘Retinart – Thoughts on graphic design, creativity and beauty. That’ll pretty much sum it up. From analytical essays on the finer points of typography (get it? You’ll laugh later, promise) to interviews with creatives with something special, the goal is to show the creativity and beauty produced by talented people and to hopefully make you think a little different and see things through a different lens.

Alex Charchar – Retinart is written by Alex Charchar. I’m a graphic designer currently living in Queensland, Australia. I graduated from Swinburne in Melbourne, started to work at USQ in the in-house studio and then wanted to develop my knowledge and love for all things creative. From one educational institutional to another.

After far too long thinking about how to do it, I finally did something with the domain I’ve owned for a number of years for more than getting email about making things bigger. I love clever ideas, elegant solutions and all those pretty things that make us smile, so my (very original) idea was to put together a site dedicted to such things.’

Wake Up Later is a website that touches on the subjects of website building, freelancing, blogging, and online entrepreneurship. We cover a variety of topics from freelance tips and programming to SEO and internet marketing. It is also the home of free stuff for freelancers, a growing repository of Flash, audio, and other stuff free for personal and commercial use. Furthermore, the website encourages the sharing of ideas and experiences through Interviews and GroupThinks.

The person behind this website is Samuel Ryan whom I will now refer to in the first person. I am a web designer and developer who currently resides with my wife in the heart of the United StatesIn Conclusion: Although it’s easy to laugh at the past designs of many of these websites while praising current designs, remember that you are a contemporary of 2008 and five years from now, you might think that even these current sites are a mess. Overall, I’m sure most would agree that design standards have been raised over the last decade, and it will be exciting to see what the next ten years hold…

*************

Now here is my idea of an Entertainment Site – if the conversation ever lags at a party you are at, maybe one of these gems will help ! Unnecessary Knowledge : http://www.unkno.com/

*************

I have a beautiful friend who used to live in Ottawa and now lives in Washington DC – A fanastic designer who I have had the opportunity to help on occasion. Every time I see an article on shoes I think of her – so this site is for her.

The Virtual Shoe Museum : http://www.virtualshoemuseum.com/vsm/index.php The Virtual Shoe Museum was initiated by Liza Snook in 2004. Once the idea was born, a long search began for designers, photographers and publishers connected to shoes. New friendships developed and our mailbox filled with loads of material on fantastic shoes, art and design on shoes.

*************

I have already mentioned the iPod Touch that I own. I use us to check stocks, weayher, write notes, surf when I am away from my computer and need some nugget of knowledge, I have paid for the full ‘American Heritage Dictionary’ and ‘Ultralingua, English-Italian Dictionary’. ‘AirSharing’ is a great piece of software that allows you to tranfer nonstandard content to your iPod Touch or iPhone – such as Adobe pdf’s or ‘Apple KeyNote’ slide shows.

I disagree with Apple in that I think electronic reading tablet is a great idea and without a lot of work they could create one – Sure the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Readers are nice but for that price they ought to do all the other things that Apple could allow them to do.

Another recent find has been : Stanza – http://www.lexcycle.com/

‘Featuring a clean, well-organized interface, Stanza is expressly designed for reading digital publications, including electronic books, newspapers, PDFs, and general web content. Stanza is built from the ground up to make reading on your Macintosh or Windows laptop or desktop an enjoyable and hassle-free experience. It gives special attention to details that are usually overlooked in other software readers such as hyphenation, text columnation, automatic text scrolling, and user-friendly page and chapter navigation. Lengthy content that can be tedious to read using a web browser or PDF viewer is easy and natural with Stanza.’

*************

And the last entry here has got to do with the Gorrila of all software suites – The Adobe Creative Suite. A month agao now we were shown what is would contain and it has now just started to ship. It is one of the reasons that I continue to do a bit of design work. PhotoShop alone is worth the price to entry but I also use, most days, DreamWeaver (yes I have had to switch from GoLive, and now that I have I can see why it wond the battle – I just wish that they had provided thoe coders of MenuMachine (http://menumachine.com/) a heads up – the loss of that wonderful plugin for Golive – is a loss all designers should feel. They are reworking it – from the ground up for Dreamweaver but it is not happening overnight (http://menumachine.com/blog/) – meanwhile I limp along with inadequate soltions…

Adobe Illustrator was my first Adobe product – I don’t use it vey often these days but it is an old friend – InDesign took the place of PageMaker and shortly after its inception left Quark struggling to catchup. A wonderful program that allows content layout for diverse platforms – including eBooks – like those used by the previously mentioned Stanza.

BUT the Jewel is PhotoShop! The new version is worth it, the improvements to an already astounding product adding more than enough features to keep most designers happy for a few more years… And soon to be released is Adobe Configurator a tool for creating your own palletes. John Nack on his Adobe blog explains it in more detail…

Adobe Configurator : http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/10/introducing_ado_1.html “By now you’ve probably heard me talk many times about our desire to better manage the complexity and power of Photoshop. The very general interface that Photoshop presents is incredibly flexible, but it can be overwhelming, and it doesn’t do much to show you just what you need when you need it. We can do better.”

There is a very good video of the features here : http://www.russellbrown.com/Transfer/Configurator.mov

And that is it for this entry

Hopefully I will again add to this blog – heavens knows I have a lot of things collected to share with you – R