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I can’t stress enough the importance of saving your Photoshop and Illustrator files as native .psd and .ai files, rather than the old standby .tif and .eps. While these older formats will work just fine for most uses, when you place native files you get the advantage of full transparency support and most times, smaller file sizes. Let’s say you have applied a drop shadow to an object in Illustrator. If you save it as an .ai file, the shadow will appropriately darken whatever color or object that is underneath it in your InDesign document. If you save the same Illustrator file as an .eps you get unexpected results – usually a white bounding box behind the shadow either on screen, when printed, or both.
Use native graphics files when placing into your layout
Use native graphics files when placing into your layout
Huge collection of grunge fonts available for download
Huge collection of grunge fonts available for download
If you read my article at Macworld about Bulking up your font collection, you’ve hopefully visited some of the great font sites available out there and found a few gems. One of the hardest type of fonts to find to your liking is really good grunge fonts. Many times they’re either overdone and too hard to read, or not “grungy” enough. Enter daFont member named Gyom Séguin (a.k.a. Last Soundtrack). This talented font designer has a collection of grunge fonts like none I’ve come across. Virtually every one of his over 30 grunge fonts is well-crafted and ready to use in your design, including the superb Bleeding Cowboys font seen in the sample above. Check out Gyom’s collection of grunge fonts here.
Digital photography tip roundup
Digital photography tip roundup
Digital Photography School has posted a roundup of digital photography tips from around the Web, as well as a few great ones of their own. Among those is a great breakdown of some popular DSLR lenses, and how to take great group photos. If you’re shooting your own photos for ads, or you are just getting into digital photography as a hobby, Digital Photography School is a great resource.
Design choices can cripple a Web site
Design choices can cripple a Web site
AListApart has an old article by Nick Usborne titled Design Choices Can Cripple a Web site. While the article is quite old, it still argues a point that I feel (almost) exactly the opposite about. I believe that the content of a Web site provides the site its worth – the design has to be at least acceptable and pleasant to the eye, but it is not the major reason for me to visit. Nick appears to favor the design of a site over the content (at least, that’s the conclusion I’ve drawn after reading). As designers we tend to focus on the design, the bells & whistles and the functionality of a site. But we must not forget the content. You can’t make a promise with design that you can’t deliver with content.
Finding a mouse for the creative Mac Pro
Finding a mouse for the creative Mac Pro
Behind the Mac itself on the list of most important pieces of equipment to buy, I generally find the input device as the uncontested Number Two. It’s what you use to communicate with your Mac. When considering an input device in the design business (and probably audio/video editing), not only is comfort a consideration, but the feature set ranks pretty highly as well. Recently, I found myself wanting a new mouse and decided to dig out some of my old hardware and try out some new stuff. In this Macworld article I review Apple’s Mighty Mouse, the Kensington Expert Mouse (trackball) and Logitech’s MX Revolution.