Gimp Brainstorm

I really want to use Gimp, but I can't deal with the interface. Tried GimpShop but it's really unstable. There's some hope... a new release is due (finally), and there are some nice design mockups that may inspire developers.

PhotoShop online... because everyone else is doing it

From Business 2.0:

Adobe Systems (ADBE) CEO Bruce Chizen said earlier this year that the company would release a Web-based Photoshop product, and on Thursday at the Photoshop World conference, the company gave the first peek at its efforts to do just that.

But don't throw out your shrink-wrapped version just yet. Details are scarce so far, but it's already clear that Adobe's online product, Photoshop Express, won't be a replacement for the real thing.

NOT A SUBSTITUTE
Just because of the inherent differences between PC software and online apps, the online version of Photoshop is sure to be slower and less capable of multitasking than the other versions. Those limitations will be enough to keep Adobe's base of professionals and enthusiasts paying for the more complete versions to run on powerful computers with high-end chips from Intel (INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) that run operating systems from Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT).

So why is Adobe doing an online version of Photoshop at all? I talked to CEO Bruce Chizen about that earlier this year. I gathered that it's a defensive move as much as anything.

PLAYING DEFENSE
Companies like Google (GOOG) and Microsoft are increasingly using the Web to chip away at established software franchises. For example, Google's Docs & Spreadsheets application is a challenge to Microsoft Office; and Microsoft's Silverlight platform, which competes with Adobe Flash and Flex, might allow Redmond to challenge Adobe's standing as a supplier of rich Web 2.0 developer tools.

Chizen sees the handwriting on the wall, and doesn't want to wait for Google or Microsoft to roll out their own online Photoshop competitor – or wait for them to buy one of the many that already exist. (See Fauxto, Picnik, PXN8, Snipshot and others.) By stepping out now with its own online Photoshop clone, Adobe hopes to set the standard for online image editors, and learn a lot more about Web-based apps along the way.

iPhone buttons: less is more

From WSJ.com:

The new Apple cellphone famously does without the keypads that adorn its rivals. Instead, it offers a touch-sensing screen for making phone calls and tapping out emails. The resulting look is one of the sparest ever for Apple, a company known for minimalist gadgets. While many technology companies load their products up with buttons, Mr. Jobs treats them as blemishes that add complexity to electronics products and hinder their clean aesthetics.

The spirit of simplicity extends even to Apple retail stores. The elevator in Apple's popular Tokyo store, for instance, has no floor buttons. It stops on every floor of the four-story building. "I got used to this," said Hiroshi Kawano, 40-year-old employee of a printing firm, on a recent visit to the store. "It's simple, and I like it."

At an Apple event two years ago, Mr. Jobs mocked the complexity of traditional remote controls for consumer-electronics products, including "media center" computers designed by Microsoft Corp. and its partners. He showed an image comparing media center remotes that had more than 40 buttons each next to a new Apple remote control for playing movies and music on Macs. The Apple remote had just six buttons.

Users often seem to quickly adapt to quirks in Apple's designs. When the company introduced the iPod in late 2001, the most common calls to Apple's technical support lines for a time were about how to turn the device, which lacked a clearly defined power button, off and on, says a former Apple executive.

When asked on stage at a recent conference sponsored by The Wall Street Journal whether there was any debate internally about the decision to include a virtual keyboard with the iPhone instead of a physical one, Mr. Jobs had a suitably minimalist answer.

"None," he said.

Outdoor Photography

From CreativePro.com:

Whether you're traveling, enjoying a backyard barbecue, or recording a graduate's moment of glory, summer means outdoor portraits. A few simple picture-taking tips can soften and flatter those harshly lit, squinty-eyed
faces.

New Web Column

Creative Pro has a new a monthly column on Web design called View Source.

There's an article about the virtues of the PNG file format:
Compared to GIF and JPEG, the PNG file format has a lot to offer: smaller file sizes, higher quality, and superb transparency. All you need are a few guidelines and techniques to expand your design toolbox.

Creative Workflow

From CreativePro.com:

Workflow is not a traditional photography concept. The idea came into the photography world alongside Photoshop's rubber stamp tools, the Raw format, and the practice of shooting more pictures in an afternoon than film photographers used to shoot in a month.

Film photographers do have workflows, of course; they just don't describe them as such. But making contact sheets, circling selects with a grease pencil, choosing to process some images by hand and send others to a lab, developing elaborate notations for describing processing instructions -- they all constitute a workflow.

In the digital realm, workflow is a bit more complicated because of the higher volume of images and our higher expectations when shooting digital. When it's possible to keep, search, and sort everything, we think that we should keep everything, and have it all accessible. Since we can create a perfect, lossless image backups, we demand the ability to do so. (In the film world, backup was costly, time-intensive, and impossible to do without a quality hit.) All of these expectations, along with all of the vagaries of digital image editing, mean that photography workflows are now often more complicated than they were in the film world.

Who says we need our logo on every slide?

From PresentationZen.com:

“Brand” is one of the most overused and misunderstood terms in use today. “Branding” is perhaps even more misunderstood. Many people confuse the myriad elements of brand identity with brand or branding. PowerPoint critic Edward Tufte, for example, has referred to the simple (and admittedly annoying) act of placing logos on every PowerPoint slide as “branding,” implying that branding doesn’t go much deeper than catchphrases and identity symbols. A logo, though, is but one visual symbol of a brand. The logo is an important part of the outward expression of a brand (part of brand identity), but the meaning of brand and branding goes far, far deeper than simply making one’s logo as recognizable as possible. Though logo placement itself is not branding, I do share Tufte’s distain for logos/trademarks appearing on every slide of a presentation. If you are presenting for an organization try removing logos (and other clutter) from all except the first and last slide. If you want people to learn something and remember you, then make a good, honest presentation.

Is it finally time to ditch PowerPoint?

From PresentationZen.com:

Last week an article appearing in The Sydney Morning Herald entitled Researcher points finger at PowerPoint generated quite a stir. The article highlighted findings by researchers from the University of New South Wales, including John Sweller who developed the Cognitive Load Theory back in the '80s. One of the findings mentioned in the article: it is more difficult to process information if it is coming at you both verbally and in written form at the same time. Since people can not read and listen well at the same time, the reporter suggested, then this may mean "the death of the PowerPoint presentation." The assumption being (apparently) that a presentation made with the aid of slideware such as PowerPoint or Keynote necessarily includes lines of text projected on a screen that mirror the spoken word of the presenter.

I am assuming that what Professor Sweller means is that the way PowerPoint is used should be ditched, not the tool itself. Suggesting we abandon PowerPoint because it's often (usually?) misused and abused to produce awful presentation visuals is like saying we should dump the idea of 24-hour cable news because so much of it is vacuous rubbish. But whether we’re talking about bad TV or boring presentations, shouldn't we blame the content producers not the content medium?

So, is it finally time to ditch PowerPoint? Hardly, but it is long past time to ditch the use of the ubiquitous bulleted-list templates found in both PowerPoint and Keynote. And it’s long past time that we realized that putting the same information on a slide that is coming out of our mouths usually does not help — in fact usually hurts our message. Next time you plan a presentation, then, start by using a pencil and pad, a whiteboard, or a stick in the sand — anything except jumping headfirst into slideware on your computer with its templates, outlines, and content wizards that may point you down a path you wish not to go. And as you examine your work from previous talks remember this rule of thumb: if your presentation visuals taken in the aggregate (e.g., your “PowerPoint deck”) can be perfectly and completely understood without your narration, then it begs the question: why are you there?

More fun with Processing

Earlier I posted about Processing, a language for real-time data driven animation.

Here's another cool example of what you can create with it.

Presentation Design 101

Presentation Zen has a great analysis of a presentation given by the CEO of Whole Foods.

Excerpt:

Mackey's presentation in Berkeley is a wonderful example of a presentation by an intelligent, personable, and passionate leader that easily could have been insanely great but was not. "[Mackey] raced through the slides like a Ph.D. student presenting his dissertation," said the UC Berkeley reporter in the audience. It was not a disaster by any means, based largely on Mackey's sincerity and the courage it took just to show up at all, but it's a shame the presentation itself was not better planned and delivered given the importance of the topic and the profile of the speaker. Frankly, when you're trying to change the world, there is no excuse for being dull.

How could it have been better?
There are so many ways in which John Mackey could improve his presentation. Here are just three:

• It's a story. This topic screams "Story" yet there was no story that I could follow. There were bits and pieces (some of it interesting) and way too much history and data-without-purpose.

• Make it shorter. Cut the presentation part of the evening to 20-25 minutes and spend more time discussing on stage with the host, taking questions from the audience, etc. This is when the evening really got interesting.

• Make it visual. There are no boring topics, but this topic is especially interesting and provocative. There is no reason in the world to make this dull visually or otherwise, but he did. (Although the movie he showed in the middle was shocking and provocative.)

Adobe CS3 Launch Event

From Adobe.com:

A new era in creative expression is about to unfold, freeing us to color outside the lines, to think in multiple dimensions, to engage audiences like never before.

On March 27, 2007, at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time, Adobe Systems will host a webcast of the official launch of Adobe® Creative Suite® 3, live from New York City. To participate, bookmark this page and join us back here on March 27.

Cool student animation reel

Victor Navone, who animated his way into Pixar, mentioned in his Blog a while back about a site called Animation Mentor where industry pros teach animation techniques via the net. Here's the 2007 Student Showcase. Pretty cool work!

From their website:

Animation Mentor is an 18 month animation program (six 12-week quaters) designed to teach the skills necessary to obtain a job in character animation.

Out mentors are working professionals from all over the country. They are currently working in major animation studios such as Pixar, Disney, Industrial Light and Magic, PDI / DreamWorks and Dreamworks Animation.

PhotoShop Reloaded

From CreativePro.com:

...I was surprised to learn that Adobe plans to make a free version of Photoshop available online within the next six months. Does that mean you can pocket that chunk of cash you set aside for Photoshop CS3?

The answer is not yet. Read on:

I predict that we creative pros will be using the desktop version of Photoshop for years to come, but we should keep an eye on its online development. Adobe hints at that evolution in this blog post from its public relations team: "Bringing Photoshop technology online would simply be an extension of our strategy to deliver the right Photoshop for Adobe's diverse user base. And by Photoshop 'branded' we don't mean the professional version of Photoshop -- at least not initially. A Photoshop technology online offering would at first, most likely, be targeted at the consumer market."

In other words, the future is coming.

Then in their weekly newsletter, CreativePro covered the announcement of PhotoShop Extended. What the heck is that? Here's what they had to say:

Photoshop Extended CS3 will have everything that's in Photoshop CS3, plus lots of new tools for people in film, video, and multimedia, and for designers using 3D and motion. (Doctors, scientists, and engineers will also benefit, but they'll have to read about features aimed at them in their own newsletters.)

Like Photoshop CS3, Extended will have non-destructive filters, better selection tools, easier conversions from color to grayscale, and more powerful alignment options. Extended ventures into new territory with its ability to edit and render 3D content, which you can add to 2D compositions. You can also paint and clone over video frames. You'll be able to export animations in several formats, including QuickTime, MPEG-4, and Adobe Flash Video.

Adobe's mum on Extended's price until the official Creative Suite 3 announcement on March 27. Stay tuned to creativepro.com and this newsletter for much more information on all the new applications then.

Seems like Adobe's trying to find new ways to use their products to generate more revenue. Going online is a new approach, but they could make the same mistake as many dot-com's and not have a business plan behind it. Making a "pro" version so they can charge more is an old school trick. I wish companies wouldn't do that. It's silly to make arbitrary distinctions, and becomes a difficult game to play as your so called "low end" version starts to get functionality close to the high end. That's what happened with AfterEffects. They used to have a high end version that cost almost twice as much as the standard one. Only time will tell which strategy or strategies will pan out.

Wickedly Cool Visualization

Motionographer has a story about Robert Hodgin and a project called Flight404. These are some really amazing animations. I want to learn how they were done.

Moving Type

Here's a cool example of how powerful typography can be as a motion design tool.
NOTE: Harsh language!

Comments on the page reference Motionographer, which seems like a cool site. Also, here's the same video on YouTube.

Logo Tips

In working on logo designs for my company over the years, I've learned alot about making logos that both function well and look good.

Of course you want something unique. Do some research on existing logos and symbols. Don't make the mistake that Quark did a couple years back.

It's important to keep the design legible at both small and large sizes. A good idea is to make samples for letterhead, posters, business cards, web link buttons, etc. and see how well the design holds up. Sometimes this means sacrificing details that might turn to mush when the image is scaled down. You could also make separate versions for different uses, but it's hard to enforce that if you have different sales & marketing people making their own creative decisions.

Large companies have a "Logo Police" department that watch over usage. Smaller ones don't have that, which can be a good thing (more creative expression) but on the average is bad (poor consistency). Lack of consistency a bigger error than having a bad design. It's an expression of the company's character. People either don't care, or they don't understand how application of design affects perception. This also affects how easily your trademarks can be defended. The more consistent you've been, the better case you'll have.

Don't try to do it all yourself. I'm a good sketcher, but not the best at making finished designs. In the last round of logos we tried to make decent Windows icons, but they didn't look so hot. This time we hired an excellent designer who made our logos look just as good (or better) as anyone else's icons.

I like embedding multiple meanings into things. Like the "hidden arrow" in the FedEx logo.

Color choices are important, but realize that your logo will have to work in black and white, photocopied or faxed (or both!). If you understand color theory, you can use this tool to pick color palettes for your designs.

I'll also come up with other graphical elements (backdrops, dividers, boxes) that fit with the logo's style. From this "design kit" you can make mouse pads, banners, return address labels, etc. This also keeps others from making their own design and choosing incompatible colors or styles.

Apple (re)Invents the phone?

Article on CreativePro.com

Are You Ready for the Small Web?
If Apple's iPhone becomes as ubiquitous as the iPod, many millions of people will view Web sites on screens very different from the computer monitors most sites are optimized for. What are you going to do about it?

Adobe Logos

Article on CreativePro.com

Inside CS2: MetaDesign Shares Its Secrets

Creative Director Brett Wickens reveals the process behind the packaging for Adobe Creative Suite 2. While we might not all have the resources to x-ray a bus, we can all benefit from this case study in brand evolution.