As a Mac quack and visual comm professional, I browsed mostly with Safari and Firefox for a few years. I've tried Opera and BlueDolphin (or whatever it was called on the Android OS), but Chrome won me over this year with its speed, privacy, task manager, and especially its address bar as a Google search box. Task icons on the address bar make accessing your personal apps so fast, that you can customize and minimize clicks, which is every graphic designer's dream. Chrome still needs more apps and optional extensions, which I'm sure will improve over time, but adding and removing extensions is so easy. Pretty much anyone would benefit from switching to Chrome. People, you need to get off IE already (re: http://www.favbrowser.com/november-2011-google-chrome-share-up-internet-explorer-firefox-safari-opera-down/). Someone please tell me if they disagree.

I read an article today that made me proud to be a working digital artist amid this decade's technology developments. Pat LaPointe from Metrics Insider at MediaPost Publications mentions some interesting points about marketing experimentation that complements my career philosophy; that the art side of good marketing creatives needs the science side of research and data, plus the ability to suit each medium.

Pretty much every day, I beat myself up about keeping up with the latest technologies, from iPhone apps to webfonts. I am repeatedly challenged to perfect this changing art of scalability, interactivity, and imagery, where "shifting sands are the rule, not the exception," as LaPointe puts it.

The article doesn't really give us the magic formula to excel in marketing communications, but the challenge is the reason I chose this career in the first place. Anyway ... thought I'd share.

Article: "Why Does Marketing Have To Be So Damned Hard?"

Me ke aloha,
~d*

I created a few new vector shapes to add to my Custom Shapes collection for Photoshop. If you are a shipping box designer, no doubt you need my free .csh download.

I didn't design these icons -- they are industry-standard symbols for "Keep Dry," "Handle With Care" and "This Side Up"-- but I converted them into scalable and editable vector formats for large-format design. You may have seen other variations, since they are in fact symbols, not logos. My version uses a bubbly style because it was appropriate for my client's box design. I used the Pen Tool to trace a low-resolution jpeg and added a rounded box to enclose the symbols. There are some jagged anchor points, but works fine as is.

On the other hand, the JAWA, VIA and JWL symbols are logos and not to be used unconsciously. I am not accountable for the brand guidelines, so beware of your usage of the Japanese certifications and marketing trademarks (source: Japan Light Wheel Alloy).

NOTE: Box designs are typically created in Adobe Illustrator because of the large-format requirements. However, the artwork provided to me was in Photoshop format and I finished the design in Adobe Photoshop CS4 where I created these vector shapes.

For help on using Photoshop's custom shape tool, refer to Adobe Design Center.

One of my career heros, Al Ries, author of 1996's Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends on It, wrote an article last year "Marketing Success Comes From the Right." This subject of common sense versus marketing sense came up again, as I'm making some visual identity determinations today.

I am famously right-brained--a visual thinker, fierce in writing, cowardly in person.  I much prefer an email or text message to a phone call. The challenge is that CEOs and managers are totally opposite.

Ries reminds us that business solutions are routinely left-brained: Improve the products. Cut the costs. Reduce the prices. Then hold employee meetings and talk about loyalty, enthusiasm and team building; but, that we right-brained folk really need to push our marketing sense through all the facts and statistics.

While it's illogical to present unproven ideas, I have to remind myself that my wild right-brained ideas sometimes serve a good purpose =P. Steve Jobs would agree. I thought I'd share the article in case you need encouragement for the day.

Article (excerpt): "Marketing Success Comes From the Right: Are You a Left Brainer or a Right Brainer?"

Me ke aloha,
~d*

I have to admit, I'm not a programmer nor a web developer. I don't know much about framework schemes and databases. But I know just enough Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) form and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) to make my print design function for the Web.

Facebook offers their own language too: Facebook Markup Language (FBML). It is a great branding tool for any business. I still don't understand the language completely, but I was pretty much able to make it work by adding <fb:fbml> and </fb:fbml> tags to my HTML code. There are a few resources online that explain FBML in detail. As a print designer, I prefer to leave the details to trained programmers.


5 Tips:

Luckily for us print designers, imitating print design on the web is becoming increasingly popular. Here are a few tips I can offer to other transitioning print-to-web designers like myself.

• Add the Static FBML application to your Facebook Fan Page. (Static FBML is not available for personal pages). I believe Facebook recommends the app for most fan page categories. If it is not in your apps or recommended apps, type "Static FBML" into your Facebook search bar to add the application to your page. Once you can access the app, you will see the field to enter the a tab title and a field to enter your FBML code.
  
• Use tables. Purely by observation, I noticed that FBML ignores my spacer.gif images that Photoshop renders for in-between slices. So instead of using <td> cells throughout the code, I bypassed the limited HTML help that Photoshop could offer and used CSS for a background image and simple tables to position my Design Gallery images. The maximum canvas width is 760 px.
• Photoshop your background. The key to producing a branded look is to carefully design your background image. I didn't really take a lot of time to plan out this example. In fact, I was so eager to try FBML that I quickly took a stock photo and superimposed my face just to create an effective image for the purpose of my tab "All about d*." And it's not even me. Ah, the beauty of photo manipulation.
  

• Lastly, consider your audience. Chances are, you are using a Facebook Page as a feed to your real website, so you want to use your custom tab as an opt-in initiative to your primary site rather than some confusing visual for your brand. You can also change your wall settings to default to your new FBML custom tab as a landing page. There's nothing like making a first impression with a snazzy opening.

Take it or leave it, but these are my novice tips on FBML. I will explore iFrames, Javacript, and Flash soon, so I will have more to shed on the topic later. Also check out some useful tools on www.vegasproeditors.com.

Me ke aloha,
~d*

Receiving a critique or usability test is probably one of the hardest things designers do in our work. But detached opinions are what we need after days, if not months, of our own revisions. I mentally work with design critiques written into my process in order to tune into my overall goals, but I rarely have the luxury of conducting them. So I created a Facebook Page to provide another inlet for critiques.

While the model isn’t perfect, I value the opinions of the typical Facebook user. Both the perspective of the potential customer and viewpoint of other designers (albeit for different purposes) are invaluable to a successful design.

It is great to receive a personal opinion, but this should not be confused with the perception of what a customer needs or wants. If you must offer your personal view, just express that distinction. Beware of buzz terms like “clean lines” “retro” “old” technological” and “friendly,” since they may have a different meaning to you as they do to me. If you have trouble putting your thoughts to words, talk about the impressions and feelings a design leaves you with.

My hope is for critics to ask questions (rather than making single recommendations).

“Instead of saying, ‘While I think those flyout menus are slick, I recommend you nuke them and put the links in the center of the page,’ the critic might ask, ‘What alternatives did you consider for the flyout menus?’ By moving the conversation to talk about the bigger picture, everyone can discuss how this element (the flyout menus) is contributing to the total experience.” ~Jared M. Spool, User Interface Engineering

Here are questions as a guideline for a critique:

1. Did you understand what the design was trying to communicate, or did it leave you feeling confused?
2. Can you suggest alternative examples?
3. What stands out the most when you first look at the design?
4. What leads your eye around from place to place?
5. What is interesting about the design?
6. What could the artist revise to have a more successful composition, flow, character development, etc.?
7. Would you purchase this product?

As always, I will provide data and research to help everyone agree on the likely customer perspective on different ideas. Remember that there are many factors involved in a design, some of which I have little or no control over.

Click on 'Become a Fan' to start a critique. Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/dsinelab

Me ke aloha,
~d*

A powerful logo design:

• has a strong, balanced image with no little extras that clutter its look
• is distinctive and bold in design, making it easy to see at a glance
• has graphic imagery that looks appropriate for your business
• works well with your company name
• is done in an easy to read font
• communicates your business clearly
  
• looks good in black and white, as well as in color

Me ke aloha,
~d*

Perhaps one of the most telling aspects about your online presence is not so much the website as a whole, but the URL you use to advertise it. In a marketer's point of view, the URL is really the first thing people will see –- maybe on a handbill or poster, or on television or heard in a radio commercial.

It has been quite a feat for me to distinguish myself as a freelancer. I no longer represent the philosophy of a larger model or report to higher-up who ultimately publishes (or doesn't publish) my work. When I started freelancing in 2005, I actually hid under my family's company name, Inman Productions, LLC., hoping to replicate the corporate atmosphere I was so accustomed to.

But my design philosophy has matured over the last two years. After working in three different creative services departments, then on my own, I have come to learn a lot about business solutions -- clear communication, efficiency, and reliance on customer feedback -- rather than approaching designs with idea that I'm going to give them a little bit of "d*'s art."

I am no longer the artist's artist. All my life, I have been surrounded by art, but I realize that "art" can only go as far as the translation. "Design" goes much further, incorporating specified market appeal, call to action, and time in history. If you want to criticize a newcomer's use of Photoshop Elements or SwishMax, then ask yourself if you want to design for business, or design for yourself. Both have their purpose, but designing for business must take YOUR market into consideration. Microsoft Word IS a better format for letterhead design than InDesign, and Adobe Acrobat IS a better presentation tool than Microsoft PowerPoint. I will elablorate in future tutorial posts.

In 2010, I will post QUICK GUIDES on various desktop publishing software that may change the definition of design, especially for those of you who want to become more than the artist's artist.

To make my site easier to access, I finally changed my URL to reflect my break from Inman Productions to my own philosophy that art is math with d*Sine Lab - www.dsinelab.com.

Me ke aloha,
~d*

View Imagery in Various Preset Manipulations

I was trained to develop concepts to be followed by digital recreation. You should almost never start a design project by playing with software filters in hopes that you accidentally create something you respond to with "Hey, that looks pretty cool!" Effective artwork starts in your medulla oblongata -- not on your computer screen.

I stand by that. In fact, never, never, never use a Photoshop filter on an entire photo as a finished product. It's not just a waste of time on browsing, it's cheesy. Adobe developers created Filters (aka mathematically generated fills and fractals) because they could. It doesn't mean you have to use them.

But every once in a while, you get a client that doesn't know what they want, so YOU don't know what  they want. This is one of the rare cases I would use color manipulation presets in order to present some comps without wasting time going in the wrong direction. Start with carefully selected images (most likely from the client), and apply ATNs to generate a few options to quickly display for your client. You should be able to narrow down the scope of the need for that project. Refer to Photoshop Support if you're new to action scripts.

I recommend these basic Photoshop Actions:

At this point, you are still far from done. But at least you will save yourself from designing something that the client would never want. This is not to say that all projects are going to be dictated by what the client feels they want -- because sometimes, what the client thinks they want isn't necessarily what they actually want. Tip: If you're planning on going with a "comic" theme, don't use the Action for the final product. These are for quick idea comps only. Be sure to explain this to your client. Besides, you wouldn't use a downloaded Action that you couldn't create on your own, would you!

Remember that some Actions generate 100+ steps -- too many to undo with Command+Z (Ctrl+Z) -- so be sure to save Snapshots and create presentation comps on a separate canvas. Every image is going to be work differently, so apply Actions wisely. There is no substitute for the creative process.

Me ke aloha,
~d*

My first boss at my first real job out of college for a multi-million dollar computer manufacturing company once said to me, "Donya, I can tell that you work very hard. But you don't work smart." I had just graduated in the top 6% of my top-tiered university, having always put in extra work to ensure I got my A++'s. For someone to tell me I wasn't smart really stung. I slouched in the cushioned chair in my boss' office on the opposite side of her executive desk, wondering how she could fault me for working hard. She explained that the perfume box-sized model I built as miniature sample of my package design had excelled her expectations, but that I had put in more hours than the value of that project.

She was right! Over time I've learned that, even we designers shouldn't design everything from scratch because, in addition to hiring us for our knowledge of design applications and quick turnarounds, clients actually pay us for our collection of tools.

Over the years, I have downloaded a lot (thousands, if not millions) of fonts, photos and brushes that others were nice enough to share with me to make my job more efficient. I want to give back, so I'm going to start posting custom shapes (.CSH), actions (.ATN), and brushes (.ABR) -- tools for professional and amateur graphic designers alike -- that made my last job quicker and easier to carry from concept to final output.

Some will be my personal presets, and some will have been originally shared by fellow designers. These downloads and download recommendations won't always be free, but any tool that I purchase myself would never cost an arm or a leg. This is just a test, so the ABR's below are in a simple list, but I'll display the downloads in a much more functional presentation in the future.

Me ke aloha,
~d*