…at least, not with a ridiculously persistent head cold.  Then, however, the Interwebs kick up some crazy little gem that makes it all good.  I got this piece of spam today and was unreasonably amused (names omitted to protect the guilty):

Dear John, I am a recruiter for the xxxx Casket Company and I am interested in networking with you.  I am currently seeking a 2 Product Managers (Wood Product Line, Accessories Product Line). Our headquarters is located in [BFE], Indiana, which is commutable from both [cold places where you no longer live]. xxxx Casket Company is more than the world’s leading producer of premium caskets and cremation products, we set the standard for success and productivity. […] I am hoping that you might know of other Product Managers that I could network with that might be interested in exploring these exciting job opportunities!  If you are interested in this position, I also welcome that conversation.  Here are a couple of websites that might be helpful when passing along my contact information: [xxxx]. I appreciate your help in advance and look forward to hearing from you!  Sincerely, [xxxx]

Man, what am I still doing here typing?  Who in his right mind wouldn’t give up Photoshop for Wood Casket Accessories Product Line Manager?  It’s the job of a lifetime–specifically, the end of many other people’s lifetimes.  My ship has finally come in–woo hoo!  Adios, suckkaz!! 😉

Enjoy.  (Meanwhile I’ll work on forgetting connections made between Liquify & the human digestive system. ;-)) [Via Gary Savelson]

Volume 2, Issue 1 of Adobe Magazine, the company’s quarterly design and technology mag, is available for download.  The new issue features Photoshop being used for concept art, architectural illustration, and scientific imaging.  Other highlights:

• Talent for Good - Poster power: Listen to seven diverse designers talk about the power of a poster and how they can be used to inquire, compel, and provoke while maintaining a civic responsibility.
• New Interactive Spaces: Watch New York-based FeedTank encourage people to think creatively by building public interactive experiences.
• Awakening the Web: Explore the new UNIQLOCK site, and see how the creativity of Tokyo based Projector thrives in a world of technological restrictions.
• Digital Imaging Wonders: See how the imagination can take on an infinite variety of shapes, from landscape illustrations to hyper-real scientific images.   

Last month I waxed the car of GridIron Flow, a new workflow management technology designed to work with Photoshop, the Creative Suite, and other tools.  Since then the product picked up a Best in Show nod at Macworld, and now you can see it in action in a video on their site.  In it company CEO Steve Forde shows Flow managing a workflow spreading across Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and InDesign.

Flow isn’t yet shipping, but GridIron is accepting sign-ups for beta testing.

The guys behind Filter Forge, the visual node-based filter creation tool, have released "Filter Forge Freepack 2 – Photo Effects," meanwhile announcing a 20% discount for their flagship product.  According to the folks at PhotoshopSupport.com, "The theme of the second Filter Forge freepack is photo effects and enhancements. The free plugin comes with seven filters, each capable of giving any photo a unique look and feel."

Filter Forge is presently Windows-only (Mac version promised), so I haven’t yet given it a spin.  I’d fire up my copy of Vista via VMWare, but now it’s telling me that because I haven’t run it in a while, "You may be the victim of software counterfeiting!”–and thus refusing to function. Ah, good ol’ copy protection…

Wine, the open-source compatibility layer for running Windows programs on top of Unix-style operating systems, has been updated to offer improved support of Photoshop CS2.  Using the latest updates (of which another has been posted today), it should be possible to run PSCS2 for Windows on top of Linux.

Wine release manager Dan Kegel reports, "As of wine-0.9.54,
Wine is able to install, activate, and run the retail version of
Photoshop CS2 well enough for the average early adopter to use
(with caveats, e.g. you have to install the Times32 font first,
and ImageReady and Bridge aren’t supported yet)."  Check out WineHQ’s Photoshop page for more details.

[Pre-emptive, comment-saving non-disclosure: No, I don’t have other info/plans to share concerning Photoshop on Linux, and yes, we know that Linux folks would like a fully native PS on Linux implementation.  Just thought I’d spare you some typing. ;-)]

I’ve been asked a number of times over the past few months for news on when Adobe Certified Expert exams for CS3 would be ready for trainers, authors, and others wishing to document their proficiency in Adobe tools.  I’m therefore happy to report that the exams have been updated.  Thanks to Jim Mendes for the heads-up.

• Depresso-guru Donny is back with Episode 5 of You Suck At Photoshop, offering some sarcastic advice: "You know, if you want to use your Magic Wand, that is awesome.  You can go grab a juice box and a Fruit Roll-Up and we’ll see you in about six hours…"  It naturally all ends in (very funny) tears.
• Original Demo Gangsta Russell Brown really doesn’t suck at Photoshop and has dropped a whole crop of new videos.  PhotoshopNews has the details, and the vids themselves start about halfway down this page (look for the "New" flag).
• And hey, big news from the crew at Photoshop User TV: the show is moving to real, big screen TV via Fox Business News Channel.  Scott Kelby has the details.  Quite a milestone, guys–congrats!

Even at my most, random er, eclectic, I try to keep this blog focused on Adobe-related things (photography, illustration, scientific imaging, typography, and so on).  I love great design wherever I find it, so in this case I thought it would be worth giving props to a couple of excellent non-‘Dobe-related tools I’ve found recently.  Read on if you’re interested.

• Slingbox is a little contraption that connects to your TV and converts the signal to streaming video.  That enables you to watch live TV, recordings on a TiVo or other DVR, or even (apparently) Apple TV content via your computer, whether you’re in your house or on the road.

Why is that a good thing?  In our case, instead of buying an additional TV to go upstairs for use while working out, my wife scored us a Slingbox AV.  Now any of our laptops can get plopped onto a stand and used to control the TV.  The streaming quality is good, to the point that a standard-def signal arguably looks better on my 17" laptop screen than on the 40" LCD TV.  We’re glad not to have an additional TV (and cable box, and wiring, and remotes) clogging up the scene when they’re not needed.

The only downside is that what you stream is the same as what’s on your TV, meaning that two people can’t watch different shows on different devices.  On the upside, I’ve confirmed that it’s possible to connect to the box from the road, then quietly pop up on-screen menus in front of one’s spouse’s episode of What Not to Wear.  Well, at least I thought it was funny…

• NetNewsWire is a killer RSS feed reader for the Mac.  I know, I know–what rock have I been living under, right?  And yet RSS reading remains a niche behavior, so it’s worth evangelizing tools that make it a pleasure.

I’ve been subsisting on RSS reading in Safari for the last couple of years, and I can’t believe how much better NetNewsWire makes things.  Listing all the feeds & being able to browse them without leaving the app is solid, but God is in the details, and developer Brent Simmons really sweats the small stuff.  The app is chock full of handy little shortcuts for popping links open in Safari, shooting links via email, and more.  It’s also fastidious about respecting behaviors that have become second nature in Safari (putting focus on search, popping new tabs, and so on).

I won’t claim the app saves me time, as my saved cycles get rolled into more browsing, but it’s certainly far more efficient than my previous methods.  So, get ready for even more tangential ephemera (oh boy).

PS–See Adobe evangelist Terry White’s detailed Slingbox review if you’re hungry for more insights into that system.

Even at my most, random er, eclectic, I try to keep this blog focused on Adobe-related things (photography, illustration, scientific imaging, typography, and so on).  I love great design wherever I find it, so in this case I thought it would be worth giving props to a couple of excellent non-‘Dobe-related tools I’ve found recently.  Read on if you’re interested.

• Slingbox is a little contraption that connects to your TV and converts the signal to streaming video.  That enables you to watch live TV, recordings on a TiVo or other DVR, or even (apparently) Apple TV content via your computer, whether you’re in your house or on the road.

Why is that a good thing?  In our case, instead of buying an additional TV to go upstairs for use while working out, my wife scored us a Slingbox AV.  Now any of our laptops can get plopped onto a stand and used to control the TV.  The streaming quality is good, to the point that a standard-def signal arguably looks better on my 17" laptop screen than on the 40" LCD TV.  We’re glad not to have an additional TV (and cable box, and wiring, and remotes) clogging up the scene when they’re not needed.

The only downside is that what you stream is the same as what’s on your TV, meaning that two people can’t watch different shows on different devices.  On the upside, I’ve confirmed that it’s possible to connect to the box from the road, then quietly pop up on-screen menus in front of one’s spouse’s episode of What Not to Wear.  Well, at least I thought it was funny…

• NetNewsWire is a killer RSS feed reader for the Mac.  I know, I know–what rock have I been living under, right?  And yet RSS reading remains a niche behavior, so it’s worth evangelizing tools that make it a pleasure.

I’ve been subsisting on RSS reading in Safari for the last couple of years, and I can’t believe how much better NetNewsWire makes things.  Listing all the feeds & being able to browse them without leaving the app is solid, but God is in the details, and developer Brent Simmons really sweats the small stuff.  The app is chock full of handy little shortcuts for popping links open in Safari, shooting links via email, and more.  It’s also fastidious about respecting behaviors that have become second nature in Safari (putting focus on search, popping new tabs, and so on).

I won’t claim the app saves me time, as my saved cycles get rolled into more browsing, but it’s certainly far more efficient than my previous methods.  So, get ready for even more tangential ephemera (oh boy).

PS–See Adobe evangelist Terry White’s detailed Slingbox review if you’re hungry for more insights into that system.

So says an angry, angry little man in "Printing’s Alive," a funny, foul-mouthed viral video made by Montreal-based Pazazz Printing.  [Via]

The vid is particularly funny if you’ve had occasion to interact with some of the crustier, more ink-stained members of the printing community (and no, I’m not gonna mention any names).  I remember a few years back visiting printers in Chicago who were out for blood, riled up about some incredibly nuanced aspect of Illustrator output (wanting fourth-digit decimal precision in a certain field, I think).  Fortunately the Illustrator PM at the time, Lydia Varmazis, was the type who could write PostScript by hand, lending her amazing powers to chill these dudes out.  The transformation was night and day, and I felt like we should’ve filmed a pilot for The Nerd Whisperer right then and there.

Speaking of funny and profane, You Suck At Photoshop episodes 3 and 4 have been posted for your enjoyment. [Via seemingly every person & blog ever]

Nothing seems to bring people together quite like mutual dislike, it seems. :-) 

• “Everyone who loves to bitch about crappy design now has RedesignMe,” says Core77, “a meeting place not just to complain and point out flaws, but to offer suggestions on how said crappy design could be better, and at best, push a redesign.”
• Design Police: Bring bad design to justice with the help of these handy labels.  (Nice to see that “Unnecessary use of Photoshop effect” made the cut. ;-)) [Via]
• Gene Gable has amassed quite a collection of vintage badges, and towards the end he dogs the Photoshop family logo (hey, what can I say) and terrible PS filter abuse.
• Not so much ranting about design as using design to rant: Sh*tlist stationery.  [Via Maria Brenny]

Happy airing of grievances,
J.

I always enjoy learning about the history of Adobe, and this video celebrating the company’s 25th anniversary revealed some bits I hadn’t known.  Among them: investor Bill Hambrecht talks about how, during the Adobe IPO process, Bill Gates called looking to buy some stock.  "I thought, ‘Okay, now I know we’ve got a good one,’" he says.  And yes, they let Bill buy some.

In looking at the culture shaped by company founders John Warnock & Chuck Geschke, long-time Macromedia (and now Adobe) veteran John Dowdell had this to say recently on his blog:

Adobe’s social culture is very strongly influenced by the values of its early years — Warnock, Geschke, Xerox PARC, PostScript, the wildly democratizing effect of desktop publishing, the years of work towards portable documents. These events set Adobe’s corporate culture, and shape it to this day. I had heard of this cultural environment when I worked at Macromedia, but really saw it, very strongly, after the acquisition. There’s an idealism, an academic approach towards technological democratization, that you can still see inside Adobe today.

I’ve heard one other bit about the early years (though now I can’t find the source*) that seems worth passing along.  I read that when employees would arrive at their desks, they’d find disassembled shelving units, a screwdriver, and some screws.  The message: unlike at PARC or other big companies, here you do it yourself if you want it to get done.  There’s no room for slacking, and you see quickly the results of your efforts.  I’d like to see us bring back that tradition.

* If I’m misremembering those details, I’d welcome any clarification from folks who were there.

Unless you buy After Effects plug-ins, you’ve probably never heard of GridIron Software.  That’ll change.  This small Ottawa-based developer has unveiled one of the slickest, most potentially transformative applications I’ve seen in years.  My enthusiasm comes from what it could mean to Photoshop & Creative Suite customers.

Called GridIron Flow, the new software is designed to give you “Mind of God” knowledge of where your files are, how they’re related, how long you’ve been working on them, etc.  It consists of two things: a system process that runs in the background, tracking events while consuming minimal resources; and a front-end application (see this pair of screenshots) that displays files & data about them.

Let’s say you copy some vectors from Illustrator and paste them into Photoshop.  Flow, running invisibly in the background, notices the event and sees that there’s a relationship between the AI and PSD files.  When you pop open the Flow browser, you can see a connection between the files–even though Photoshop & Illustrator themselves don’t store or track a link.

If you then place the PSD into, say, After Effects, create an AEP file, and then render an FLV, Flow will create a workflow map–a chain of connections from one file/project to the next.  Right-click any of these files in your Finder/Explorer & Flow will show how they’re related.  If you try to move or delete a file, Flow will pop a message to mention that the file is related to others, offering to show the relationship.  Upshot: fewer broken links due to accidentally misplacing assets.

Okay, that’s cool, but it gets more interesting.  Now let’s say you edit your PSD a little, save, edit, save, etc.  Flow (not unlike Apple’s Time Machine) can be automatically versioning your files.  Although only the current version shows up in your Finder/Explorer, in the Flow UI you can see previous versions.  You can use a movie-style scrubber to move your project back in time.

Here’s why this is a big deal: All the data collection and versioning is automatic and invisible, which is the only way designers will benefit from it.  Creative people want to create, not type in metadata, fill out timesheets, etc.  If you force them to do data entry; to work in highly regimented projects; or to use wonky, restrictive tools for check-in/check-out, they’ll generally kick like mules.  (I know: I did just the same thing.)  The beauty of Flow is that it’s like an airbag–unobtrusive unless and until you need it.

I think that if you’ve ever used multiple design tools together, when you see Flow in action you’ll get the value in a hurry.  (I’m told GridIron will post a demo video soon, as that’ll make things much clearer.)  I’m waxing their cars pretty hard, so let me say for the record that I don’t have any formal relationship with these guys.  I was really excited by the concept when I saw an early version last summer, and we’ve been talking with GridIron about how to make Adobe tools play really nicely with Flow.

If this sounds like it’s up your alley, check out the additional feature notes on their site, and maybe sign up for the beta program that’s starting this spring.

PS–The GridIron guys have created a cute little video that sets up the problem they’re trying to solve.  I like that “goatee” has become universal shorthand for “designer.” 😉

I’m on the road this week and hence a little slow on the draw, but I’m delighted to see that Adobe has announced Photoshop Elements 6.0 for Mac, due to ship in the second quarter of the year.  More details are on the new features page, as well as in the press release.

One key detail that’s not clearly mentioned is that yes, Photoshop Elements 6 runs natively on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs (i.e. it’s a Universal Binary); same goes for the version of Adobe Bridge that ships with Elements.  I’ll see whether we can clarify the product pages.

[Update: Macworld has posted a First Look at the new application.  Lesa Snider King writes, "All in all, it looks like Adobe has hit the mark of making photo editing easier than ever. Elements 6.0 seems to be the perfect ‘next step’ choice for anyone wanting to do more with their photos, while giving them plenty of room to grow. [Via Meredith Mills]]

• Congrats to Scott Kelby & his whole crew on the launch of their new video training subscription service.  It looks like a terrific resource for the design & photography community.  Annual subscriptions cost $199 ($179 for NAPP members), or you can pay $19.95 a month ($17.99/mo. for NAPP members).  Previously, Scott writes, "Our online classes used to be around $70.00 each."  Check out Scott’s blog post for all the details.
• Photographer and Photoshop/Lightroom expert Ian Lyons has posted a wealth of info on the subject of printing from Lightroom on OS X Leopard.
• Design a video game cover, win fame and prizes.  That’s the promise of PhotoshopCAFE’s 8th annual design challenge.  Organizer Colin Smith writes, "This is possibly the largest and longest running design contest on the web.
  By the time we are done the prize pool will total somewhere above $12,000 in prizes. Best of all, it’s all for fun. There is no entry fees and no one makes a penny (except the winners).  It’s a true community event."  You can also check out last year’s winners & finalists.

Speaking of Photoshop contests, I groaned while watching Die Hard 4 last night and said to my wife, "Man, they must have been feeding the screenwriters ‘Preposteroni, the Pasta for Hacks.’"  I was all proud of my little funny, but upon Googling the term I found that, yep, someone already thought of it–and amidst a Photoshop contest, and on my birthday, no less. ;-P

Ah, Russia–home to 50-rouble copies of your favorite Adobe apps.  Photoshop team member Heather Dolan recently returned from a service trip there & reports that pirated software remains ridiculously easy to obtain.  When a street merchant learned that she was from Adobe, his response was to double his asking price for the Creative Suite!  (You’ve kind of got to admire the chutzpah…)

Even so, Adobe’s business grew by 260% in Russia this past year.  And what’s more fun, Photoshop was honored at the KinoBlender film awards.  Moscow-based Adobe marketer Olga Manannikova writes, "This award was conferred on the brand ‘Adobe Photoshop’ for most often and successful unintended mentioning in Russian movies in 2007."  The team attended the event & got a groovy little trophy & everything. [Via Winston Hendrickson]

We have quite a few Russian folks on the Photoshop team (Irina, Domnita, Nikolai, Iouri, Alex, plus others who’ve moved on).  I asked localization czar
Iouri Tchernoousko how to render the product name in cool-looking Cyrillic characters.  Ta-da:

ФОТОШОП

Iouri noted, "In Russian, you say it pretty much just like you would in English, but in a much lower tone of voice. :)"

As long as we’re on the subject,

• I dug this illustration in the NYT, from artist Valentin Kalininskiy.  Achieved with the help of ФОТОШОП, maybe?
• Check out this crazy monitor-testing routine.  (Do Russian Circuit Cities keep crossbows lying around?  And whose consumer electronics need to survive ball-peen hammer attack?)  I’m sure I could ask a friend to translate, but the language barrier adds to the inexplicable fun. 🙂 [Via Ellis Vener]

Lots of good plug-ins have emerged in the last few months:

• Alien Skin has unveiled Image Doctor 2.0, a set of tools that tackle a variety of retouching tasks.  The Smart Fill feature in particular promises some nifty results (roll over the image).  They’re offering a 10-20% discount via PhotoshopSupport.com.  More info is in their press release.
• Nik Software has announced the new Color Efex Pro 3.0.  Offering “52 filters and over 250 effects,” the software’s U Point control system “lets you identify and isolate objects within a photograph by placing a Control Point on the object or area to be affected.”  I got to see it in action at PhotoPlus this fall, and it does look cool indeed. [Update: Get a discount & learn more via photographer/instructor Moose Peterson. [Via]]
• The guys behind Filter Forge, the visual editor for creating your own Photoshop filters, have announced Filter Forge Freepack 1, “a set of seven photorealistic metal textures and effects.”  They plan to release seven Freepacks over the course of the coming year; see details.
• Mr. Retro is now offering Vol. I-IV of their Machine Wash image filters in a single bundle for $49.95. [Via]  These filters came in for some love in designer Cameron Moll’s well-known series on “That Wicked Worn Look.”
• onOne Software (publishers of numerous former Extensis products) have announced that their plug-ins are now Leopard-compatible.  The goods include Genuine Fractals, Mask Pro, PhotoFrame, PhotoFrame, Intellihance Pro, and PhotoTools.
• Pixels Vistas’ PhotoLift plug-in adjusts local contrast in images.  According to developer Matthew Hollingworth, it’s “like ‘clarity’ in Adobe
  Camera Raw, but on steroids.”  The plug-in is Windows-only for now, with a Mac version on the way.

I’ve recently become fascinated–fixated, maybe–by watching my Mac’s resource usage numbers.  I’ve got a pretty cherried-out MacBook Pro (top of the line a year ago), and yet more often than not the system lags as I hear my hard disk thrashing.

I’ve traced the problem, I think, to Microsoft Entourage and Rosetta.  I can boot up my system & see a nice big swath of unused memory (all green) ready to rock.  Almost immediately, however, the blue "inactive" memory slice starts ticking upwards, at a rate of several megabytes per second.  I rebooted my machine this week, then took a shower; when I was done, here’s what I saw (note the blue). I’m running just a Web browser on a system with 3GB of RAM, and yet I’m down to 16MB free? Super!

The problem seems to be that the invisible Entourage "Database Daemon" app bleeds memory like a stuck pig.  Killing the process arrests the inexorable growth of the blue inactive memory.  I don’t know whether the fault lies with Entourage or with the Apple Rosetta emulation technology on which it runs.  Doesn’t matter much to me, though: my expensive computer bogs terribly as a result.

Facing this situation, some of my colleagues have given up and moved to Apple Mail.  I’m sure Mail is great, but it doesn’t play well with our Outlook-centric calendar system, and I’ve got 8 years worth of mail organized in Entourage. Switching horses isn’t a small matter.

Now I’m drumming my fingers more than ever, waiting for Microsoft to release–at long last–their Intel-native upgrade to Office for the Mac.  I couldn’t care less what other features it offers, as long as it stops bringin’ me down (ELO-style).  It’s kind of sad to hit that point: I was once a great fan of Entourage (so much better than Outlook), and of its Mac Outlook Express forebear.  It was thoughtfully designed, replete with useful shortcuts, and able to handle whatever I threw at it.  Alas, the app hasn’t received much love in many years.

So come on, Office team: tell me to keep hope alive!  The new year–and new software–can’t come soon enough.

Adobe’s famous Russell Brown has created three new video tutorials meant to help get the best results when printing from Photoshop CS3 (with the 10.0.1 update) to various popular printers:

• Printing to the Epson Stylus Pro 3800
• Printing to the HP Photosmart Pro 9180
• Printing to the Canon Pro9500

Russell points out that many of steps shown in the HP & Canon tutorial steps can apply to other printers from those manufacturers.  Links to the latest drivers from each manufacturer are on Russell’s site (scroll down to the Photoshop CS3 Tutorials section).

Meanwhile Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty has posted info about printing on Mac OS X Leopard with Lightroom 1.3.1.  Tom talks about geeky bits like the Mac’s transition from "Tioga" printer drivers (introduced in 10.0, now unsupported) to CUPS-based drivers (now required).  The upshot, says Tom, is that for proper results you should "seek out a fully Leopard compatible printer driver from the printer manufacturer."

There’s an interesting article on TechCrunch, saying that according to software usage tracking company Wakoopa, "women spend about twice the time in Photoshop than men." [Via]

I’m not sure how they arrived at this stat, and I don’t see evidence of a gender-based usage difference in Adobe’s internal research numbers.  Here’s a funny one, though: women responding to those surveys seem more likely than men to have pirated Photoshop.  In fact, whereas women comprise 46% of the legal responders, they comprise 64%–nearly two thirds–of the suspected pirates! 

This finding prompted a chorus of "Aaarrghs!" from the women of Adobe Research, not to mention some ill-advised plays on the word "booty." ;-)  [Via Claiborne Brown, Julie Baher, & Bryan Hughes]

Mac OS X Leopard introduced a rather handy feature called Quick Look, offering the ability to preview a number of file formats right in the Finder, without opening additional apps.  (Select a file, then tap the spacebar–slick.)  Unfortunately Illustrator (.AI) and InDesign (.INDD) files aren’t supported right out of the box.  That’s where the $15 SneakPeekPro comes in, adding EPS, AI, and INDD file support to Quick Look.  I’ve taken it for a quick spin, and it seems to work just as advertised.  [Via]

As someone helping steer Adobe Bridge, I was initially concerned that Quick Look might erode Bridge’s reason for being.  After all, if you’ve got quick previews in an app you’ve already launched (the Finder), why launch another?

Now that I’ve lived with Leopard for a month, however, I feel confident that each tool has its place & its unique value.  Bridge offers rich metadata display and editing; file rating & filtering; richer PSD previews (no composite required); Camera Raw integration; hand-off to Photoshop, InDesign, and other Suite apps (for automated vectorization, contact sheets, Web galleries, etc.); integrated slide show; floating Compact Mode; and quite a bit more not present in the Finder/Quick Look.  That’s not a knock on the latter, of course; as I say, different strokes for different folks.

We now need to keep working on Bridge’s launch time (making it feel as much like a no-brainer to launch as a Quick Look window) while revising the interface to help people discover the good stuff that’s already present.  And, wouldn’t you know it, that’s what we’re doing. 🙂

[Update: John Gruber points out this free QL plug-in for displaying the contents of ZIP files. Works great for me.]

• Sachiko Kodama & Yasushi Miyajima have created Morpho Towers, a beautiful ferrofluid sculpture–liquid metal that moves together with music.  Check out the amazing video. [Via]
• NY MTA employee Luis Torres makes sculptures using recycled Metrocards; here’s the photo set. [Via]
• I stumbled across the detonated (artificial) head of Ferdinand Marcos–kind of a post-apocalyptic Mt. Rushmore.  A little digging unearthed more info about its destruction, with before & after pics, via the BBC. [Via]
• Celebrating pulp & paper, the Canadian ’67 way. [Via]
• “Artist William Burge has found a way to artfully reattach all of the little pieces that have fallen off his 1968 Volkswagen Beetle,” says AutoBlog.  Check out the resulting VW “Phantoms” ultra-modified sculpture-Bug.
• In another metal insect-related vein, peep Mike Libby’s clockwork bug sculptures. [Via]
• Lindemann Glass sculpts some amazing glass sea creatures. [Via]
• I imagine the nihilists from The Big Lebowski enjoying this bench with seat made from pencils. [Via]

• Sachiko Kodama & Yasushi Miyajima have created Morpho Towers, a beautiful ferrofluid sculpture–liquid metal that moves together with music.  Check out the amazing video. [Via]
• NY MTA employee Luis Torres makes sculptures using recycled Metrocards; here’s the photo set. [Via]
• I stumbled across the detonated (artificial) head of Ferdinand Marcos–kind of a post-apocalyptic Mt. Rushmore.  A little digging unearthed more info about its destruction, with before & after pics, via the BBC. [Via]
• Celebrating pulp & paper, the Canadian ’67 way. [Via]
• “Artist William Burge has found a way to artfully reattach all of the little pieces that have fallen off his 1968 Volkswagen Beetle,” says AutoBlog.  Check out the resulting VW “Phantoms” ultra-modified sculpture-Bug.
• In another metal insect-related vein, peep Mike Libby’s clockwork bug sculptures. [Via]
• Lindemann Glass sculpts some amazing glass sea creatures. [Via]
• I imagine the nihilists from The Big Lebowski enjoying this bench with seat made from pencils. [Via]

Knowing how I love to wikichet, my boss Kevin shared a little anecdote from China back in July:

I kid you not, “wikipedia” actually was the English translation for one of the dishes at a Chinese restaurant I just ate at in Beijing. Apparently, this restaurant believes that a wikipedia is some kind of mushroom, because there were two pages of the menu devoted to mushroom-focused dishes, and wikipedia seemed to be sprinkled liberally throughout.

He pointed out the restaurant’s site, but as it’s in Chinese it proved unhelpful, and I never got around to posting the story.  Now via Boing Boing I find that another dude made the same discovery–and this time he brought a camera.  Turns out that “wikipedia” goes great with everything from BBQ eel to bean curd.

In other funky Asian/English language news:

• My photographer friend Clare is dating a guy from Okinawa, and he points out that the now-ubiquitous term “bokeh” (lens blur) refers not just generally to fuzziness in Japanese, but also Alzheimer’s disease in particular. The usage is apparently insulting.
• From China comes the amusingly (and unintentionally) bizarre Benign Girl. [Via]

I’ve long admired Wacom’s Cintiq line of pressure-sensitive flat-panel monitors, and I’ve watched professional animators and retouchers really rock out on them.  At 20"/$1999 and up, however, they’ve remained mostly in the league of dedicated pros.  Whenever I’d see Wacom folks, I’d encourage them to find a way to make the technology more broadly accessible–only to get a knowing, "Patience, grasshopper," smile and wave.

That’s why I’m really happy to see the Cintiq 12WX debut.  It’s built around a 12.1" LCD, and its $999 price should help make on-screen drawing a reality for many more artists.  The tablet weighs 4.4lbs–roughly 2/3rds the weight of my MacBook Pro–and the 1,280 x 800 pixel resolution should make it useful as a secondary monitor.

PhotoshopSupport.com has more info, specs, and photos.  On the whole it’s great to see this new option for digital artists.

Every now and then I try to share info related to hardware developments that may eventually impact Photoshop (e.g. What’s up with Photoshop & 64-bit computing?).  Lately I’ve been hearing more questions about solid state drives.  As Photoshop architect Russell Williams notes,

The access time to get a
random piece of data would be significantly less [than for traditional hard drives]. A disk has to move
the read/write head to the correct track and then wait for the right spot
on the disk to spin around (not unlike Arlo waiting for the right spot in
the chords to come around again so he could sing the chorus of Alice’s
Restaurant).

I’ve spotted some related news that’s worth passing along:

• Price drops are ahead for solid-state drives, reports CNET. [Via Adam Jerugim]
• Think your latest Compact Flash card is spacious?  BiTMICRO can now pack up to 1.6 terabytes of storage in a 3.5″ disk. [Via John Peterson]
• Meanwhile the ioDrive from Fusion-io “provides access rates comparable to DRAM with storage capacity on par with disks — being able to improve both memory capacity and storage performance by 100x.”  The price?  A cool $19,000 or so for the highest end (640GB) model.  (A Slashdot wiseguy chimes in, “640GB ought to be enough for anybody…”) [Also via Adam]

Now, I should note that we can’t yet characterize the performance impact of using these exotic tools (the team is accepting hardware donations ;-)), but we hope to be able to share more info after we’ve done some testing.

…these are a few of my favorite things.

• "When is Photoshop unethical?," asks Freelance UK.  I’d make it "When is Photoshop use unethical," in the sense that "Guns don’t kill people; people kill people."  The article doesn’t really break any new ground, I think.  For something a little meatier, check out rules and guidelines from Reuters governing the use of Photoshop, posted in the wake of the 2006 image manipulation scandal.  [Via John Dowdell]
• Providing a different take (from an artistic as opposed to journalistic perspective), Scott Kelby shares his Photo Editing "Code of Ethics."
• In any case, whatever you do, please don’t use Photoshop to defame nice old cat ladies.  They’ll send you to the psych ward for that!  [Via]

…these are a few of my favorite things.

• "When is Photoshop unethical?," asks Freelance UK.  I’d make it "When is Photoshop use unethical," in the sense that "Guns don’t kill people; people kill people."  The article doesn’t really break any new ground, I think.  For something a little meatier, check out rules and guidelines from Reuters governing the use of Photoshop, posted in the wake of the 2006 image manipulation scandal.  [Via John Dowdell]
• Providing a different take (from an artistic as opposed to journalistic perspective), Scott Kelby shares his Photo Editing "Code of Ethics."
• In any case, whatever you do, please don’t use Photoshop to defame nice old cat ladies.  They’ll send you to the psych ward for that!  [Via]

Just a brief note, but one of interest to folks printing from Photoshop on the Mac: Epson has posted an FAQ and schedule for compatibility with Mac OS X Leopard.  As always, it’s a great idea to make sure you’re using the latest driver for your hardware/OS combo.

Thanks to Bryan O’Neil Hughes pointing this out.  For reference, see also the details on printing fixes & changes in Photoshop 10.0.1.  Bryan and the team continue to track the issues & user experiences reported here and on other forums, so thanks for the feedback.  We plan to share more details on what we’ve learned here later in the week.  In the meantime, feel free to drop Bryan a line to report issues if you’d like.

[On a related note, if you use HP printers with the Mac, see MacNN’s article HP verifies Leopard printer driver delivery via OS.]

As many of us Americans remain lolling around in a turkey-stuffed haze, I’ll do my part to distract from the inlaws by trotting out a smorgasbord of stuff I’ve been amassing over the last few months–stuff that’s just never quite made it to the table on its own.

To pretend this all has something to do with my job, let’s start with the Photoshop bits:

• Some useful PSD-handling tools have been announced:
  • PixelNovel has announced the useful-sounding ComparePSD tool (haven’t gotten to kick the tires yet myself). More info is in their press release.  These guys also make FlickrShop for uploading directly from Photoshop to Flickr. [Via]
  • If you’re a fan of Layer Comps–a really simple, lightweight way to store multiple design variations within a single PSD file–check out this Layer Comps plug-in for InDesign . [Via]
• In other Photoshop news:
  • Thomas Knoll gets a lifetime innovator award.
  • Fishing and Photoshop don’t mix. [Via Rob Corell]
• Face/Offs
  • FreakingNews.com features rather unsettling partial face transplants, each mashing up the mugs of two well-known individuals. [Via]
  • Oh, and taking it up another notch, Selfkiss features people kissing themselves through the power of Photoshop.  (NB: Not for the terribly squeamish.)
• Typewriter bits
  • Jeremy Mayer creates typewriter-based sculpture. A bit more info is here. [Via]
  • Chris Dimino’s press forms typewriter-shaped waffles.
  • Andrew Macrae makes ASCII art using a typewriter. [Via]
• Japanese curiosities
  • A green roller coaster?  Okayama’s pedal-powered Skycycle seems to be just that. [Via]
  • We’re stuck with Howie Mandell while these guys get a “Human Tetris” game show?  Can we at least bring back American Gladiators?  (Don’t tell me you don’t miss the pugil sticks.)
• Vehicles
  • Something Awful rocks out imaging (and P-shopping) all kinds of alternate Transformers. [Via]
  • An unnamed Brazilian ad agent sculpts choppers from old watches.
  • Business Week readers rag on the world’s ugliest cars. (Featured: Pontiac Az(z)Tek. Oddly absent: Chevy Assalanche.) [Via]
  • Car Design News’s Studio Photos collection seeks to provide the perfect 3/4 shot of any car, nicely isolated on a plain background. [Via]
  • This crazy 1873-vintage monocycle looks amazing. [Via]
  • Automotive sweetness goes VDub in CNET’s Beetlemania gallery.
• Sculptures
  • The hard-core plane geek in me vibes with these MotoArt tables, constructed from reclaimed bits of aviation history (e.g. a bomb + a B-52 turbine = the “Get Bombed” table).  [Via]
  • I love this crazy little creature made from rolled-up newspaper [Via]
  • Art Lebedev’s “Copilcus piggybank” reshapes the traditional slot–because “‘Plus’ savings are far better than ‘minus’ savings.” [Via]  They also make the way-cool Folderix folder-shaped flash drive.
• Crafty ads
  • This ad for the BC Highland Games cleverly meshes 2D & 3D.  You can almost feel the hernia.
  • Worth1000 fine art ads. Dig the Shout & Diet Pepsi entries especially.
  • I’m feeling these simple yet effective ads for Off bug repellant.
  • The World Wildlife Fund uses a balloon to depict your car’s pollution cloud.
  • You want a zoom?  Leica’s got it.
• From the ever-growing world of whack-job printers:
  • Target’ll get you printing on toast. [Via]
  • To keep things smaller, try printing on peanuts.  [Via]
• Finally, here’s an amazing 3D rendering of “The Last Elf.”  CG Arena provides details on the model’s creation. [Via]

Now, if that doesn’t leave you feeling logy, head back to the Remains of the Bird. 😉

As many of us Americans remain lolling around in a turkey-stuffed haze, I’ll do my part to distract from the inlaws by trotting out a smorgasbord of stuff I’ve been amassing over the last few months–stuff that’s just never quite made it to the table on its own.

To pretend this all has something to do with my job, let’s start with the Photoshop bits:

• Some useful PSD-handling tools have been announced:
  • PixelNovel has announced the useful-sounding ComparePSD tool (haven’t gotten to kick the tires yet myself). More info is in their press release.  These guys also make FlickrShop for uploading directly from Photoshop to Flickr. [Via]
  • If you’re a fan of Layer Comps–a really simple, lightweight way to store multiple design variations within a single PSD file–check out this Layer Comps plug-in for InDesign . [Via]
• In other Photoshop news:
  • Thomas Knoll gets a lifetime innovator award.
  • Fishing and Photoshop don’t mix. [Via Rob Corell]
• Face/Offs
  • FreakingNews.com features rather unsettling partial face transplants, each mashing up the mugs of two well-known individuals. [Via]
  • Oh, and taking it up another notch, Selfkiss features people kissing themselves through the power of Photoshop.  (NB: Not for the terribly squeamish.)
• Typewriter bits
  • Jeremy Mayer creates typewriter-based sculpture. A bit more info is here. [Via]
  • Chris Dimino’s press forms typewriter-shaped waffles.
  • Andrew Macrae makes ASCII art using a typewriter. [Via]
• Japanese curiosities
  • A green roller coaster?  Okayama’s pedal-powered Skycycle seems to be just that. [Via]
  • We’re stuck with Howie Mandell while these guys get a “Human Tetris” game show?  Can we at least bring back American Gladiators?  (Don’t tell me you don’t miss the pugil sticks.)
• Vehicles
  • Something Awful rocks out imaging (and P-shopping) all kinds of alternate Transformers. [Via]
  • An unnamed Brazilian ad agent sculpts choppers from old watches.
  • Business Week readers rag on the world’s ugliest cars. (Featured: Pontiac Az(z)Tek. Oddly absent: Chevy Assalanche.) [Via]
  • Car Design News’s Studio Photos collection seeks to provide the perfect 3/4 shot of any car, nicely isolated on a plain background. [Via]
  • This crazy 1873-vintage monocycle looks amazing. [Via]
  • Automotive sweetness goes VDub in CNET’s Beetlemania gallery.
• Sculptures
  • The hard-core plane geek in me vibes with these MotoArt tables, constructed from reclaimed bits of aviation history (e.g. a bomb + a B-52 turbine = the “Get Bombed” table).  [Via]
  • I love this crazy little creature made from rolled-up newspaper [Via]
  • Art Lebedev’s “Copilcus piggybank” reshapes the traditional slot–because “‘Plus’ savings are far better than ‘minus’ savings.” [Via]  They also make the way-cool Folderix folder-shaped flash drive.
• Crafty ads
  • This ad for the BC Highland Games cleverly meshes 2D & 3D.  You can almost feel the hernia.
  • Worth1000 fine art ads. Dig the Shout & Diet Pepsi entries especially.
  • I’m feeling these simple yet effective ads for Off bug repellant.
  • The World Wildlife Fund uses a balloon to depict your car’s pollution cloud.
  • You want a zoom?  Leica’s got it.
• From the ever-growing world of whack-job printers:
  • Target’ll get you printing on toast. [Via]
  • To keep things smaller, try printing on peanuts.  [Via]
• Finally, here’s an amazing 3D rendering of “The Last Elf.”  CG Arena provides details on the model’s creation. [Via]

Now, if that doesn’t leave you feeling logy, head back to the Remains of the Bird. 😉

Inspired by shades of Fall:

• Dustin Spicuzza has created one seriously geeky love note. [Via]
• To ensure a proper coffee:cream ratio, MyCuppa offers a Pantone-like matching system. [Via]
• Speaking of that system, check out Chris Glass’s crafty Pantone leaves. [Via]
• Chris notes that his work was inspired by this Pantone matching photo set.
• I’ll neither confirm nor deny squandering my time with certain furry little dudes; all I’ll say is "Hex LOLcats."

Here’s a little reason to give thanks this year: the forthcoming Firefox 3.0 (now in beta) will enable color-managed browsing.  That is, the browser will read color profile information saved in images, take your monitor’s particular characteristics into account, and adjust the pixels on the fly to give them the proper appearance.

The look of images differs between managed and unmanaged applications (screenshot of the same image in Safari vs. Firefox 2), so FF getting on board with color management is great news for designers & photographers who value consistency.  For more background on why this is an important advance for the Web, see my notes on the color-managed Safari coming to Windows.

Now, if we can get Internet Explorer & the Flash Player on board, it’ll be Snoopy Happy Dance time for everyone. 😉

Happy Turkey Day,
El Tryptophan

• Claasen & Partner make the Berlin Bulb, depicting the city’s skyline on illuminated glass. Paris, Munich, and other cities are due to follow.  In a related vein, see also their Moby Dick Tub Tattoo. [Via]
• Mounir Fatmi has created three variations of Save Manhattan–skylines comprised variously of books, VHS tapes, and speakers.  Two copies of the Koran cast shadows that recall the Twin Towers.  (Click the small black dots beneath the image to see & read more.) [Via]
• I’d love to see The Adventures of Prince Achmed–the oldest surviving feature-length animated film, made in Germany in 1926 using silhouette animation.  Assorted stills are scattered around the Web. [Via Maria Brenny]
• Speaking of German silhouettes, Axel Broetje’s animated Fische und Schiffe won a 2007 Adobe Design Achievement award for student work.

• Claasen & Partner make the Berlin Bulb, depicting the city’s skyline on illuminated glass. Paris, Munich, and other cities are due to follow.  In a related vein, see also their Moby Dick Tub Tattoo. [Via]
• Mounir Fatmi has created three variations of Save Manhattan–skylines comprised variously of books, VHS tapes, and speakers.  Two copies of the Koran cast shadows that recall the Twin Towers.  (Click the small black dots beneath the image to see & read more.) [Via]
• I’d love to see The Adventures of Prince Achmed–the oldest surviving feature-length animated film, made in Germany in 1926 using silhouette animation.  Assorted stills are scattered around the Web. [Via Maria Brenny]
• Speaking of German silhouettes, Axel Broetje’s animated Fische und Schiffe won a 2007 Adobe Design Achievement award for student work.

As I mentioned last month, the Photoshop team has been working to address printing problems reported by customers using Photoshop CS3.  My fellow PM Bryan O’Neil Hughes has been driving this effort, and he and the technical writing team have posted a detailed explanation of the changes made by the update.  Bryan’s introduction is below.

In Photoshop CS3, we made a significant effort to improve the printing experience for our users. This resulted in many changes to the printing code, improvements to the print interface, new color management functionality, and support for new features in the latest printer drivers and operating systems. Throughout the project, we worked closely with printer manufacturers to ensure the best possible integration with their devices.

A number of issues have come to our attention since we shipped CS3, and we are now releasing a maintenance update to address many of those that are without an easy workaround. We have also discovered that some problems can be averted by minor refinements to a user’s workflow and we have done our best to describe some of those here. Please read on in this document for specifics. — Bryan O’Neil Hughes, Photoshop Product Manager

• If you take this whole digital photography thing way, way too seriously, consider making a print from your ashes.  [Via Rob Corell]
• Philips encourages kids to paint on the wall with light.  Engadget has a bit more info. [Via Tom Attix]
• Martin Frey has developed SnOil (Snake + Oil), a physical interactive display that utilizes ferrofluid, a liquid that reacts to magnetism.  See it in action. [Via]
• Speaking of ferrofluid, NatGeo has posted a really striking pic of the juice from Felice Frankel.  Here’s a bit more info about how she made it. And check out Wohba! for some intriguing videos. [Via]

• If you take this whole digital photography thing way, way too seriously, consider making a print from your ashes.  [Via Rob Corell]
• Philips encourages kids to paint on the wall with light.  Engadget has a bit more info. [Via Tom Attix]
• Martin Frey has developed SnOil (Snake + Oil), a physical interactive display that utilizes ferrofluid, a liquid that reacts to magnetism.  See it in action. [Via]
• Speaking of ferrofluid, NatGeo has posted a really striking pic of the juice from Felice Frankel.  Here’s a bit more info about how she made it. And check out Wohba! for some intriguing videos. [Via]

The Adobe Design Achievement Awards, created to honor great new student work, are now accepting entries.

The loot on tap is not too shabby: Individual category winners in each of 12 categories receive $3,000 cash, a winner’s certificate, round-trip airfare to New York City and two nights’ stay; tours of professional studios; and a copy of the Master Collection (BYO forklift on that one ;-)).  Plenty of other prizes are up for grabs, too.  You need to be a full-time student to enter, and the work has to be fresh (done after May 1 this year).  Submissions will be accepted online through May 2, 2008.

See the FAQ for more info, and also check out the 2007 winners. [Via]

"Every once in a while," enthuses my fellow Photoshop PM Bryan O’Neil Hughes, "a piece of hardware comes along that is truly a must-have; within days of using it, you suddenly wonder what you ever did without it.  I can’t imagine not having a TiVo, an iPod or a Web-enabled cell phone…and now I can add my Drobo to that list as well."  I’ve included the rest of Bryan’s review as a guest posting in this post’s extended entry. –J.
Continue reading →

• The always-interesting United Visual Artists have erected the beautiful Triptych light installation in Paris. [Via]  The blazes of orange light make me think of Danny Boyle’s Sunshine.  For lots more UVA bits, see previous.
• Michael Young’s Sticklight is available from design company Innermost.
• Finkbuilt (Finkbuilt? How do I end up on these sites?) has a tutorial on making one’s own lightsaber.   Meanwhile eBay hosts auctions for Graflex flash guns like those used to create the original lightsaber props. [Via]

Do you think gigabytes are the new megabytes?  Do you think 4 gigs of RAM is an appetizer?  Do you covet more RAID than an exterminator?  If so, we’d like to meet you.

We’re always looking for new ways to make Photoshop faster, so we’d like to talk with people who put the application through big workouts.  If you’re interested in helping speed up Photoshop for your needs, please contact my colleague Adam Jerugim, the performance testing lead for Photoshop.  He’ll take things from there.

[Related: If you haven’t already, check out the latest performance tuning guidance from Adam & engineer Scott Byer.]

The good folks at Photoshop User Magazine have announced a call for entries into this year’s Photoshop User Awards.  The grand prize winner gets to go on a five-day photo shoot in Hawaii with the assistant of his or her choice, and the winners in each of 11 categories get their work shown in the magazine while picking up a prize package valued at over $2,500.  So step to it!  [Via]

Just minutes ago, Apple’s Mac OS X 10.5–"Leopard" to its friends–went on sale.  Congrats to everyone at Apple on what looks like a terrific release.

So, what does this mean in terms of running Adobe software?  The good news is that most Adobe apps don’t require updates in order to run well.  That is, the CS3 versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and other apps are good to go for Leopard right now.  Rock out.

The CS3-generation applications that require patches are After Effects, Premiere Pro, Encore, and Soundbooth (due to go live in early December), and Acrobat 8/Reader 8 (due in January).  Although Adobe is working on these updates, here’s a key line from the Adobe Leopard FAQ (PDF):

Does Adobe recommend running Production Premium or Master Collection before its
updates are available?

A. Yes, we are comfortable recommending this. Our testing revealed a few issues in specific
workflows when running the video professional applications on Mac OS X Leopard. Many
video professionals would not encounter these issues on a day-to-day basis, but we want to
provide updates in December 2007 to address these issues and meet our standards of quality.  You can evaluate the issues by visiting www.adobe.com/go/support and searching the online
knowledgebase for more information.

What about older versions of Adobe software?  The FAQ says,

While older Adobe applications may install and run on Mac OS X Leopard, they were
designed, tested, and released to the public several years before this new operating system
became available. You may, therefore, experience a variety of installation, stability, and
reliability issues for which there is no resolution.  Older versions of our creative software will
not be updated to support Mac OS X.

I can’t speak for other app teams, but while we naturally concentrated our testing on Photoshop CS3 (and beyond), we also tested CS2 a fair bit.  The only significant problem we discovered is that Photoshop CS2’s Web Photo Gallery module can crash while running under Leopard.  We plan to post an updated version that fixes the crash, but that won’t go up until Monday.  In case you’re impatient, I’ve attached the file here.

And that, in a nutshell, is it.  Have fun.

[Update: Adobe evangelist Terry White is one of the most deeply knowledgeable people inthe world when it comes to the Creative Suite applications. He’s been logging his Leopard upgrade experiences on his blog: see The Road To Leopard, parts 1, 2, and 3. On the whole, things seem to be going really well.

Per a note in Terry’s third installment, I’ve gotta say, I’m deeply disappointed that Time Machine now apparently won’t support backups across a wireless network. Good thing I rushed out and bought a new AirPort base station in February, along with a new USB hard drive (given that the base station doesn’t support the Apple-designed FireWire standard)–all in anticipation of wireless household backups. Here’s hoping the planned functionality will be enabled in an update.]

Sometimes I see an article that I wish I’d written, as it just nails something I’ve been thinking for a while.  Joel Spolsky’s piece on the phrase "Designed by Apple in California" neatly captures my thoughts–especially on the idea of California as an idea (very resonant for someone growing up in rural Illinois).  Thank you… thank you for giving a damn.

As for the Zune team apparently aping Apple’s phrase with their "Hello from Seattle," I feel like pulling the Conan O’Brien move that occurs roughly 2:20 into his brilliant visit to ILM, stamping the whole effort "SAD!" [Via]

PS–The "Hello" thing was charming in 1998, too.

Sometimes I see an article that I wish I’d written, as it just nails something I’ve been thinking for a while.  Joel Spolsky’s piece on the phrase "Designed by Apple in California" neatly captures my thoughts–especially on the idea of California as an idea (very resonant for someone growing up in rural Illinois).  Thank you… thank you for giving a damn.

As for the Zune team apparently aping Apple’s phrase with their "Hello from Seattle," I feel like pulling the Conan O’Brien move that occurs roughly 2:20 into his brilliant visit to ILM, stamping the whole effort "SAD!" [Via]

PS–The "Hello" thing was charming in 1998, too.

Of stop motion & time lapses:

• 150 t-shirts + 150 iron-ons + one heck of a lot of precision ironing = the Human Flipbook, created for sandwich chain Erbert & Gerbert. [Via Dustin Black, “Chief Simian Liaison” @ Colle+McVoy]
• Ironic Sans tells the story of Art Binninger, a Star Trek fan who made stop-motion animated Star Trek parody films from 1974 until Paramount put the smack down in 1986. [Via]
• The boxes be flyin’ in "Platform," a stop-motion film.  (The stack’s got kind of a Q*bert look to it.) [Via]
• Legos fly together Busby Berkeley-style to create the Millenium Falcon. [Via]
• CNET hosts a gallery of more Lego stop motion. Bohemian Rhapsody ain’t bad.

Of stop motion & time lapses:

• 150 t-shirts + 150 iron-ons + one heck of a lot of precision ironing = the Human Flipbook, created for sandwich chain Erbert & Gerbert. [Via Dustin Black, “Chief Simian Liaison” @ Colle+McVoy]
• Ironic Sans tells the story of Art Binninger, a Star Trek fan who made stop-motion animated Star Trek parody films from 1974 until Paramount put the smack down in 1986. [Via]
• The boxes be flyin’ in "Platform," a stop-motion film.  (The stack’s got kind of a Q*bert look to it.) [Via]
• Legos fly together Busby Berkeley-style to create the Millenium Falcon. [Via]
• CNET hosts a gallery of more Lego stop motion. Bohemian Rhapsody ain’t bad.

Having just stumbled, sleepy & scruffy*, out of an NYC taxi, I’m amused (and more than a bit sympathetic) to see the drubbing being doled out to the city’s new taxi logo.  Having absorbed, oh, ~850 flame-throwing drive-bys about the Photoshop family logo and the CS3 icons, I can empathize with the poor suckas who created this taxi thing, or who just had the, ahem, pleasure of playing the messenger.  Sam Potts points out the typically blistering comments visited on the work (and on his & other designers’ takes on it):

Why not open it up to ACTUAL high schoolers? Seeing the work they do, I’m betting they can come up with a much more clever solution than these half-brained doozies some wanna-be designer came up with on his bathroom break.
— Posted by Real Designer

Yeesh.  I’m reminded of a joke James Darnell passed along in conjunction with the Photoshop logo flare-up: "How many graphic designers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Any number really: one will do the work and the rest will stand around saying I could’ve done a better job."  God help anyone with the guts to put their work up on LogoPond & the like.  

I do get a kick out of Sam’s bullet-riddled taxi design.  Travis Bickle would feel right at home. [Via Sam]

* Red-eye flights seem to be the universe’s way of punishing my chronic failure to learn that, boy oh boy, it sucks to spend one’s night wedged between ripe, sullen strangers.  You’d think I’d get the hint by now.