Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Design Thinkers 2011

I'm extremely excited about attending the Design Thinkers Conference this year (actually next week), especially because I am one of the few lucky people that won the Design Thinkers Scholarship 2011.

As one of the winners, I will have the opportunity to meet with one of the guest speakers, and the guest speaker I get to meet is Stanley Hainsworth, Chair, CCO of Tether!!! So excited!!! Previously, he was VP Global Creative of Starbucks where he oversaw all creative aspects. He has also been a Creative Director at Nike and Global Creative Director at the Lego Company in Denmark, where he oversaw a total visual overhaul of the Lego brand from top to bottom, including packaging, the web and retail stores.

(More information on the conference, guest speakers and the scholarship: http://www.designthinkers.com/index.php )

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Monday, October 10, 2011

Landscapes by Dustin Farrell

Spectacular time-lapse photography.
"Landscapes: Volume 2 is the second of a three part series (probably). Every frame of this video is a raw still from a Canon 5D2 DSLR and processed with Adobe software."

An incredible viewing experience!
PLEASE WATCH IN HD FULL SCREEN w/SOUND.


For more information, visit http://www.crewwestinc.com/

History Panel in Photoshop

One of the best tools in Photoshop is the History Panel. I cannot work without it, so I created this tutorial hoping someone will find it useful. I think that everyone that works with Photoshop should be aware of it and know how to work with it properly. It can save you hours of work.


In Photoshop, you can easily undo your last actions by going to:
1. Edit -> Undo or Command+Z (Mac) / Ctrl+Z (PC). This will allow you to undo your last step.
2. Edit -> Step Backward or Option+Command+Z (Mac) / Alt+Ctrl+Z (PC). Allows you to go further backward.

By default, Photoshop lists the previous 20 states, and deletes the older steps in order to free more memory. To change the History States go to Photoshop Preferences -> Performance. A good number would be between 1-200, depending on your computer and its performance.


By working with the History Panel, you can see all the steps you took to get to a final image, and go back over several actions at once to any recent state of the image.*You should note that this History information is available in the History palette only during the current working session.
To open up the History Panel go to Window -> History.


Linear History

Each time you make a change to an image, the state will be added to the bottom of the list as the most recently performed action. If you select one of the states, the image will revert to how it looked like at that state. You will notice that by selecing a previous state, the states below are still visible but highlighted in light gray. You can go forward or backward and see how your image looks like at different stages, but if you now make a change to the image, the states below will be automatically deleted, and once a History Step is removed, it cannot be retrieved.
By default, Photoshop is set up to work on Linear History.


Non-Linear History

The advantage of working with the Non-Linear History lies in the fact that ALL the changes you make to an image will be available to you in the palette, and nothing is deleted. If you go back to a previous state and make changes to your file, the new step will be added at the bottom of the list, while preserving the other actions as well.

To allow for Non-Linear History open up the History Panel in the corner of the History Palette and select History Options. In the pop-up window select “Allow for Non-Linear History”.


Snapshot

If you know you’re going to work on a big project and have a lot of states that you want to be able to see, but you do not want the History to affect your file size or the Photoshop performance, a good idea is to do snapshots that allow you to go backward at any state in time when you did those snapshots.

When you open a document, Photoshop will generate a first snapshot representing the original state of the image. You can create a snapshot every time you make a major change to your file, and go back to that state at any time. By creating multiple snapshots, you can also compare different actions applied to your image.
To create a new snapshot go to the History Panel -> New Snapshot and type a name for it.


History Log

You might want to remember the steps you took to get to a final image, either so you can apply those steps to another image, or to share them with someone. While the History Palette allows you to see all the steps you have done to an image, you cannot see all the details for each action, and once you close the document, the history is cleared. The History Log allows you to to record all your steps you took to get to the final image.

Before you start working on an image go to Preferences -> General and select the History Log checkbox. Log items can be saved to the image Metadata, to a separate text file or both. If you choose text or both, you will have to name the text file and choose a location for it. From the Edit Log Items dropdown list select Detailed, as this option will record all your actions with all the settings.


If you chose to record the data in a text file, you can later open it with a word processor or text editor. If you chose Metadata or both, to view the History Log Metadata you can use Adobe Bridge or the File Info dialog box File > File Info > History and you can read details on the changes you made.


Resources:
“Work with the History panel.” Web. <
http://tinyurl.com/6eko9pl >.
“How To Keep A Log Of Your Work In Photoshop.” Web. <
http://tinyurl.com/3q2uo7r >.


Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Joe Hill

3D Street Art. 3D JOE & MAX travel worldwide to create your 3D anamorphic street paintings. These 3D illusions can be completed in one day, but this varies with larger campaigns.

Spec Work

Every designer, especially young designers, as well as clients, should be aware of what spec work is and what are the risks of speculative work.

AIGA, the professional association for design, has a clear position on spec work: “AIGA believes that professional designers should be compensated fairly for their work and should negotiate the ownership or use rights of their intellectual and creative property through an engagement with clients. To that end, AIGA strongly encourages designers to enter into client projects with full engagement to show the value of their creative endeavor, and to be aware of all potential risks before entering into speculative work. “

By entering into speculative work, both the designer and the client are faced with potential risks like compromised quality, as the designer and the client do not have a direct relationship in working on the project together to understand the vision, values and the strategy of the client, resulting in a poor final product. Also, the designer risks being taken advantage of. For example, some clients may see this as an opportunity to get free work.

In an interview for NO!SPEC, Debbie Millman, President of the National AIGA, says: “Speculative work denigrates both the agencies and the designers that participate. If we give away our work for free, if we give away our talent and our expertise, we give away more than the work. We give away our souls. “


On October 12, 2010, AIGA posted an article “How do businesses balance crowd participation and design?”.

The article talks about how one of the biggest corporations, Gap, engaged in crowdsourcing by introducing a redesign identity on Facebook, asking the public to share their own designs.
AIGA immediately contacted the representatives of Gap to inform them about the risks of crowdsourcing and asking them to reconsider their redesign and how to handle it.
In the end, due to the considerable feedback received from the public and customers, Gap announced that the company would keep the old logo. “This also allows Gap to step back from a process of crowdsourcing a new design that could have put at risk Gap's long-time commitment to strong, effective and consistent communication design. “