Adobe Solicits Input on Managing Complex Documents in Photoshop

Ratings

2 of 5 stars
What’s this?

“Designers — and Web designers in particular — create some of the most complex, intricately layered Photoshop compositions possible. How could we make the management and navigation of these files more efficient?” Blogger John Knack floats several intriguing ideas for modifying and adding to the layers feature in Photoshop, and offers a quick poll.

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Dan Benjamin: Why Your Avatar Matters

Ratings

2 of 5 stars
What’s this?

“One way you can stand out, especially on sites like Twitter, is to have a great avatar. A great avatar will help people remember you instantly. And you should use it everywhere, across the board. Use it on your blog if you have one (you should). Use it on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, everywhere. Even if people don’t automatically remember your name or your website, they’ll remember your avatar and make an association. When they see it again later, on another network or site, they’ll be more likely to pay attention, to friend you, and maybe remove a few of those degrees of separation.”

I’m sure he’s very right. But, jeez, must we all become salesmen for our own idle musings? (Please follow me on Twitter.)

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Marketing in a Minute

Ubiquity LogoAza Raskin is one of the smartest people I know, but sadly I have not kept up with his endeavors since before he and some of his colleagues at Humanized joined Mozilla Labs last year. In recent days, he’s popped up on my radar again because his latest product, Ubiquity, has garnered a lot of buzz on the Internets.

While I have great faith in Aza and his team’s talent, and while I’m pretty sure that the product itself is almost certainly worthwhile, I have to be honest: I have no idea what it does. As of this writing, I lack a clear understanding of its function or purpose. This is largely because, though I’ve come across references to it many times, the marketing hasn’t worked for me.

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What Willis Was Talkin’ ’Bout

The parallel between design and the movies is one that’s commonly drawn, with not a lot of false modesty at play when the duties of an art director are likened to the work of a film director. Both are aesthetic managers, of a sort, charged with negotiating the realities of production, personnel and money in order to realize artistic visions that must resonate with an audience. However, the more I read about film, the more I wonder if there’s not a more appropriate similarity between an art director and a cinematographer.

Pursuant to my ongoing fascination with the work of cinematographer extraordinaire Gordon Willis, I recently dug up a lengthy profile that the author James Stevenson wrote about him in the October 1978 issue of The New Yorker. Given Willis’s impressive résumé, it’s strange that there are no book-length studies of his work; as a result, I read whatever I can get my hands on.

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Eli, No!

Ratings

5 of 5 stars
What’s this?

A thoroughly charming children’s book, written and illustrated by the talented husband-and-wife design boutique EightHourDay out of Minneapolis. The winningly simple narrative recounts the misbehavior of a family dog; I can completely relate. Sadly, the book has not yet been published, but EightHourDay have made the entire contents — cover to cover — available on Flickr.

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LegiStyles

Ratings

4 of 5 stars
What’s this?

Four new, free themes for NetNewsWire from the apparently sleepless — not to mention abundantly talented — AisleOne proprietor, Antonio Carusone. “Much attention has been paid to the design and typography of the styles to improve legibility and readability, and to enhance the overall reading experience.” It’s true; they’re beautiful.

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New Tumblr Theme Garden

Ratings

3 of 5 stars
What’s this?

The Tumblr staff have “just pushed a newly designed Theme Garden, and we’re working on approving the backlog of (several hundred!) theme submissions.” As each day passes, Tumblr can make a more and more compelling case that it’s the true blogging platform for the masses.

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