So in some ways XPress 8 is an admission by Quark that Adobe is now setting the standards for how designers work... By going back and re-focusing on the little stuff, they’ve actually made some giant strides forward.

Gene Gable has a First Look at Quark XPress 8.0 over at CreativePro that's worth reading if you're a Quark user thinking of upgrading.

As you probably have guessed by the content here at The Graphic Mac, I'm not a Quark XPress user (though I was for many years). That being said, the new features look quite appealing. However, the new "interface" reminds me of a kid's painting program. Very gaudy and comic book-like, in my opinion.

I came across this commercial for JBS Mens Underwear. Obviously it's a foreign commercial, the topless woman would never fly here in America. The end of the commercial is hilarious!

Father's Day is tomorrow, which means tomorrow is the last chance to take advantage of the XtraLean Software Annual Father's Day Sale.

I wrote about this earlier this week, but just in case you didn't see it, here's the scoop:

Use the coupon code MACDAD08 when you purchase Shutterbug for $29.95 ($10 off the regular price) at the XtraLean store and you'll receive a serial number for both Shutterbug and ImageWell. For more info, read my original article.

WebDesignerWall has put together an extensive list of Web site design trends for 2008 to inspire your next Web design project. These sites which include vintage & retro, hand written note, grunge & splatter, watercolor, and large font styles, are all superbly designed and make heavy use of CSS, color and imagery.

In honor of Father's Day, XtraLean Software is offering a special deal for Mac enthusiasts. Buy Shutterbug at the discounted rate of $29.95 (normally $39.95) and receive ImageWell (normally $19.95) absolutely FREE!

Just use the coupon code MACDAD08 when you make your purchase before June 15th through the XtraLean Father's Day store.

iPhoto Custom Photo Books
If you're an iPhoto book fan, you'll be happy to know that now through June 3rd (or June 8th with Express Shipping) you can get 20% off on custom photo books and cards in honor of Father's Day.

I find that these iPhoto books make great portfolios at a fairly reasonable price when you compare them to printing & binding at your local Kinkos. And the cards can be used as "thank you" cards after your interview or upon completion of client work.


Apimac Slideshow
Apimac Slideshow is a slideshow and presentation tool for multimedia files, movies, sounds and images that allows you to quickly and easily create slideshow presentations and portfolios that can be distributed as freestanding programs for Mac and Windows or as movie files optimized for YouTube, CD-ROMs, the Web, iPod, mobile devices and computers.

Apimac recently updated Slideshow for OSX to version 2. New users can purchase Slideshow for $37 USD for the standard edition for Mac (it creates free-standing presentations for Mac) and $54 USD Professional Edition for Mac (which creates free-standing presentations for Mac and Windows). A free demo is available from the Apimac website.

This little gem also makes it easy to create a nifty electronic version of your portfolio which can include TV spots, radio spots as well as images.


ImageFramer
Apparent Software has recently announced ImageFramer 2.0, their custom image framing utility for Mac OS X. With a focus on ease-of-use, ImageFramer can apply photo-realistic frames to digital images, drawings or any original artwork. Users can add single frames (with multiple mats), watermarks, batch process several images at a time, as well as colorize or adjust Hue, Saturation and Brightness of the frames for maximum flexibility.

ImageFramer 2.0 can be purchased for $39.00 USD (per single computer license). A Family option is available for only $49.00 USD. A full-featured, trial version can be downloaded. This version 2.0 release is a free and recommended update for all existing customers.


Adobe InDesign & OSX 10.5.3
With Apple's release of 10.5.3 earlier this week (which updated perfectly on all the systems I installed it on, and works fine with all Adobe print-related apps), some of the Nav Services crashes in Adobe InDesign have been fixed. Tim Cole discusses it further in this blog post over at the InDesign BackChannel.


Live video coverage of Steve Jobs' WWDC Keynote
The Digital Lifestyle will be providing live coverage before, during, and after Steve Jobs' keynote address at Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference, Monday June 9th. Live video coverage will begin at noon ET / 9AM PT, one hour before the scheduled start of the Keynote. Throughout the Keynote, The Digital Lifestyle will summarize and comment on the latest details from blogs across the internet. The site may take a while to load, so don't get frustrated if you don't see any video immediately.

There are plenty of free icons out there, but most don't include the original vector (Adobe Illustrator) source files. Min's Blog is offer Bright, a collection of 148 hand-crafted icons in vector format, available for download.

Even better, you can use Bright! for personal and commercial projects free of charge.

Adobe did the unprecedented with Photoshop a year or so ago when they offered the next major upgrade available for public beta testing, something they had never done before. Next came Lightroom, Flex, Kuler, Air and Photoshop Express.

Adobe is at it again, offering what will likely be Creative Suite 4 (supposedly being made available later this year) versions of Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Soundbooth.

One of the biggest features, in my opinion, is that the former Macromedia applications appear to have finally gained the Adobe face-lift. Both are sporting a new Adobe-ized interface which promises ease, familiarity and tighter integration.

You can use the betas for 48-hours, at which time former CS3 Suite or Dreamweaver/Firefox users can enter their CS3 serial numbers to receive a new beta serial number. See the notes at the bottom of the linked pages for more info.

Note: A word of caution. A LOT of people had difficulty installing CS3 when it shipped because they had not fully removed the Photoshop beta properly. Who knows what these betas will install, so be warned.

For bloggers and designers who've spent many hours writing copy for a Web site, one of the most annoying things that can happen is to have somebody copy and paste their work word-for-word and paste it on their own site - many times with not so much as a credit link. You own the copyright, but who has time to scour the Internet for content thieves? Copyscape has the answer.

What can I say, this is hilarious. Be sure to stay through the credits for a bonus ha-ha.

Your graphic design resume is going to be just as important as your portfolio, if not more important than your portfolio when it comes to job hunting. This is because most people will examine your resume before they open your portfolio book, meaning your resume is going to be your first impression! You have to remember that the people you will be sending your resume to go through tons of these every day so yours has to be immaculate and memorable, or they wont even bother looking at your portfolio.

YouTheDesigner has put together a Graphic Design Resume Guide to help you make important decisions about your resume, including paper choices, layout, typography and more.

Package design is a highly specialized and difficult niche to master. Thinking in 3D is hard enough, but pulling it off is even more difficult. If you're looking for a little inspiration, check out DZineBlog's Package Design Inspiration article.

Among the numerous resources that can be found over at CreativeBits are a set of image templates for identity design. These "blanks" are perfect for showing off your design ideas to clients.

There are around 200 images in 5 different categories available. The downloads are broken up by category and are anywhere between 7 and 17MB each.

You can download the templates here. The download links for each category are below the photos.

Let's say you're on the road and don't have your personal computer with you, or you're working on someone elses computer, or you're at a (gasp) Windows workstation, and you need to get some large files sent to your printer, your home computer or other location — but there's no FTP application on the computer.

AnyClient is available both as a web based service requiring no software installation, and as a downloadable application that you can install locally.

AnyClient is a free platform independent FTP (file transfer) application that supports all major file transfer protocols including FTP/S, SFTP and WebDAV/S.

Just click the Applet tab at the top of the page and you're off and running.

Today, QuarkXPress 7 has tighter integration with Photoshop and Illustrator tools than ever before, and through standards such as HTML and CSS, QuarkXPress users can publish across media — both independently and alongside Adobe Creative Suite applications such as Adobe Flash and Adobe Dreamweaver.

In this article you’ll find out how Creative Suite 2 and Creative Suite 3 users can get the best possible interaction with QuarkXPress. You’ll be surprised how easy Quark has made it to unlock the full potential of all your design software.