Jul
13
My father, my brother, my friend
There is no easy way to say write this. After fighting Lung Cancer for over 6 months, my Father, my Brother, my Friend, passed away at the age of 59.
I haven’t shared the fact that we as a family were struggling with this earlier because I wanted to focus exclusively on giving him all the care and the attention he deserved, which is why everything else in my life had to be “paused”.
I know a lot of you didn’t had the chance to know my Dad, and frankly trying to fit him into any type of description would be as unfair as trying to paint a rainbow with only one crayon. Nevertheless, I would like to give it a try.
Many people come and go from this world without leaving any trace. They are the ones who save money and plan. The lukewarm man next to you in line who is simply waiting for you to step forward when requested. Not my Dad. He was something else.
At the service a lady who my dad went to school with came and said to me: “Your dad was the worse student I ever met, but he also was best buddy I ever had”
He taught me what heroes are made of. How to go in and do what you have to do even when you’re alone, scared and in pain.
As I sat next to his bed through the painful stages of this stupid disease, I saw an amazing human being teaching me how precious life is. I didn’t saw a pale, bald, slow man before me. I saw a father, a brother, a friend. The person who once taught me to always do sober, what you said you’d do drunk.
Thank you for everything Dad, thank you for making me the father, the brother and the friend I am today and most importantly, for giving me a lifetime of teachings to pass to your grandson.
UPDATE: I received this email this morning and I thought it would be nice to share it with you.
May
04
I love Vimeo, what can I say.
Apr
11
Amazing typography work from nkeppol. What are you still doing here? Go check his portfolio!
Apr
11
I just FFFOUND this and made me laugh. Sometimes it’s the simplest things that makes you laugh. Check out Alex’s blog for more funny illustrations.
Apr
08
This is how a good dedicated daddy supposed to be. GOOD ROLE MODEL. Keep it up buddy.
(via @hec_d75)
Mar
15
I’m very very proud to present to you my first born child: Biel Andreu was born on a beautiful Saturday morning 14th March 2009 at 7:01am. He weighed 7 lbs and was 19.29 inches long at birth.
Being present at the time he was born was… an undescriptible experience. Seriously, you can read about it, you can watch Nine Months several times, you can even ask your brothers and friends, but even all those things together will only give you a tiny little glimpse of the real deal.
Gabriele is doing great. I really think it has something to do with her german genes or something - even doctors are amazed at how quick she’s recovering. Me? I’m tired but incredibly happy. We just got the word we’ll be going home Tuesday 10pm. Can’t wait to take Biel home and show him the room we have ready for him.
Mar
12
At last the “sweet wait” is over and the day finally arrived. The Diaper Invasion Tour (insert guitar riff here) is kicking off this Saturday at around 9AM. Doctor says my little boy is probably doing wardrobe tests and some last minute rehearsals as I’m writing this. We couldn’t be more excited about the Tour and I’m pretty sure Biel is more than ready to finish his 9 months journey and eagerly jump into “the next level”, only this time, G and I will be there next to him holding his hand. In other news, I thought it would be fun to commemorate this incredible moment in my life with a Gig Poster just for kicks.
As for work, starting tomorrow I’m going to take some time off and in the next couple months I will be working as effectively as possible (most of the time from the home), focusing only on key process of each project and eliminating distractions as much as I can in order to secure the necessary time my family deserves — BUT I will certainly find the time to tweet/share with you the joys of parenting, oh and yes, the effects of sleep depravation.
Mar
04
My old man asked me to work on a logo for his business. I’m a big fan of isometric shapes so I couldn’t pass the chance to play with the “T” and this is the result. Giving the “T” the earthy look took a bit of work but I’m very pleased with the result.
Feb
24
Flickermood 2.0 from Sebastian Lange on Vimeo.
If there was such thing as a Porn movie made with Helvetica characters instead of actors AND some great drum and bass background music, this would be IT. A MUST see, specially the HD Version on Vimeo on fullscreen. Enjoy.
Feb
10
I’m having a hard time trying to find the right placement for them. Ever since I started using dual displays I’ve always positioned the secondary display (in this case, the MBP) to the left of my main display, but it turns out, the placement of the CD/DVD Drive on the MacBook Pro (to the right side of the unibody) makes it very hard to insert and remove discs when placed to the left of the Cinema Display. No wonder Apple kindly hints the MacBook Pro should be placed to the right of your main display, but then again, as I just found out, what do you do with your mouse? Taking from Apple suggestion, I guess all I have to do now is start using the mouse with my left hand :)
Now, I would’ve shown you more images of the unpacking and stuff, but Martin erased them all along with some other pics I took recently. Just another reason why you shouldn’t co-own a camera. FAIL.
Dec
27
Before I start, let me just say two things:
Ok, having said that, yes, this post means I made it through the 20’s and the day finally arrived: Today I’m turning 30 which is actually weird considering (true story) two years ago I spent 8 full months thinking I was one year older than what I really was. Then one night I was sitting with Kenny and Rebekah sharing our epiphanies in the middle of a full moon I said “Having 29 is so weird-” And Rebekah immediately said “Dude, but you’re 28!”
After some serious math using my fingers and not before calling my wife (who was in Paraguay at that time), we came to the conclusion that I had a mental fart and in fact, was 28 the whole time.
Aaaaaaaanyway, today is official though, I am turning 30 and it’s kinda sad to realize I’m leaving the twenties behind, specially this last year who was easily the most exciting year I ever had and that includes all my 5 past lives as well. I started to blog (more on that later), I got to spent a few months with my friends in Albuquerque, I now know what it feels to drive to Vegas, to hug a Saguaro cactus in Phoenix, to walk in NYC with my wife, to get your first tattoo and last but definitively not least, to experiencing the “sweet wait” while my wife and I plan for Biel’s arrival.
I’m also excited for next year. My baby boy will arrive in March which means I have less than 90 days to achieve what Mother Nature alone couldn’t in 29 years: Start making sense and grow a pair. Talk about a challenge.
Professionally? Next year will be a huge challenge for everybody, but I’m confident this industry will prevail. We just need to start building smart, cost effective tools and technologies that will allow our clients to provide their services and deliver their products in a much more agile, flexible and mobile way. At least, that’s my humble opinion and it’s not… wait, scratch that. Considering the tough times we’re facing, my opinion it is now, in fact, on sale. Contact me if you want me to tell you how much I cherish you, your product, simply if you need me to remind you how good stripes look on you.
Today is also one exact year since I started this blog and I still can’t believe the amount of people who actually subscribed to it or visited it periodically. Not only I rarely make any sense (in any language that is, not just english) but also, I don’t think I was even close at devoting the time Ten Thousand Things and its readers deserve, which is why I’m mentally debating myself day in, day out about the future of blogging all together. Yes, you read that right. I promise to elaborate on this subject extensively in a follow-up post, but all I can say right now is that I find it very hard to believe that blogs like mine will survive in today’s digital ecosystem, at least not on it’s current form and function. Now before you go all “OMG!! The Sky is Falling!” and run to hit the bell, wait up. I will continue to keep this place updated and hopefully find time in the next few months to work a on new Ten Thousand Things, so don’t worry, your daily... weekly, err, make that “almost monthly” fix of nonsense will continue. In the meantime, you will find me posting on Twitter. Apparently 140 characters is more than enough to express an idea. Who knew…
So that’s it. I gotta leave now, I’m throwing a Pool Birthday Party and still got tons to do. Oh, before I forgot! I’m hoping you guys are having a great time among your friends and family these days and I wish you all of us a 2009 filled with projects and ideas! See you guys!
Dec
07
Slowly but surely I’m catching up with my Flickering. These are from the road trip we took with Kenny, Rebekah and Martin to Vegas on Labor Weekend. Needless to say we had a blast. We got to see David Copperfield, a dude dressed like a lady and guy who I’m sure is John McCain lost brother. Go check it out.
Nov
08
Logo for a personal project of mine, "Fútbol a lo Grande" (Super-size Soccer… or something like that) a half blog/half newspaper dedicated exclusively to cover the latest in the local soccer scene, nothing to serious. Since this is more a hobby than a serious project per say, I don’t have much time to invest on it so I just grabbed a few cliche-ey elements from here and there to put this together. I’m still going back and forth between the Green and the Light blue version.
Oct
30
Illustration by frogers
I know we don’t have in common. You guys love coffee, we don’t even have Starbucks down here. We love soccer, you guys find it booooring, but there has to be something that unite us, something more than just the fact that we happen to share the same planet. I like to believe that something is called HOPE. Hope in a better world, with smarter people making smarter choices.
I really don’t care if you listen to Hip Hop or Country music or what God do your pray to as long as you understand how crucial your part is on the historical event of next week.
It is VITAL that you get out and vote, in fact, go vote now if you can, go do it for you, for all the people you know. Do it with joy, knowing you have the luxury of choosing The President of the greatest nation on earth, and please, make a smart choice for us too, the rest of the world who don’t have the same luxury and will only inherit your decision.
Oct
27
We had a huge tropical storm with hints of a hurricane over the weekend down here in Asunción. According to the Weather Service, the eye of the storm passed through the city on Saturday at around 7:30 pm with 95 MPH winds. An hour later and when the power service came back up I went outside and found this big ol’ tree ripped from its roots.
Luckily nobody got hurt. Others however, weren’t that lucky. According to Sunday’s newspaper, several people got injured and some even killed because of falling trees or in some cases, big antennas (like cell towers, radios, etc). Several buildings downtown were also damaged because of the storm.
Rain season hasn’t even started yet and the sky is falling already! At least last season we had to wait until January to see our streets being decorated with people and floating cars, but we are in the middle of freaking October for Pete’s sake! Now, Global Warming, don’t take this the wrong way, but we both know this can only mean one thing: you are suffering from premature ejaculation. So go get some treatment and leave us the fuck alone. Thank you.
Oct
20
BanditAds.com is a simple and cost effective Video advertising solution for the rest of us. I worked with them to develop a brand and website design early this year but I couldn’t find the time to upload it to my portfolio until now.
One of the challenges of this project was that they didn’t want the logo to fall under any clichés like outlaws, guns, etc. but rather to be something that can help you fire up your business and the result is a very strong yet playful logo.
Oct
20
Pimengo is a new service delivered by LimonetiK which is a young company founded in 2007 by 5 people in Paris, France. They are specialized in Internet payment and they have develop Pimengo to be a new kind of gift certificate that is valid on the most famous French websites (and as soon as possible on Spanish websites and American websites).
Today no other gift certificate can claim to be valid on the top 20/30 websites of one given country. Pimengo with LimonetiK technology can offer those websites to its customers. Working with them was very fun and I was very happy to be able to translate that into the pieces.
Oct
20
It turns out, I’m not a creative designer. There, I said it!
Last month I was confronted with this reality over lunch at a NMAF event my dear friend Kenny invited to go. Every month, the NMAF organizes a Monthly Luncheon Event at the Embassy Suites @ ABQ. These monthly lunch/talks are a great opportunity to invite people from the industry to come over to Albuquerque and share their insights. Last September, the nice people at NMAF invited Karl Becker, the President and Founder of Denver-based FL2 to talk about “Traditional and Interactive Agency Partnerships: Why They Often Fail and How They Can Work”.
Gotta be honest with you, although I never heard of FL2 nor of his president up until that day, after reading the invitation I was really excited to go and listen to what he got to say on the subject, specially because as an Interactive Agency we deal with Traditional Agencies more often than not, plus FL2 credentials on the invitation were nothing short of impressive.
Karl Becker is the President and Founder of Denver-based FL2 (www.FL-2.com), a high-end, independent interactive agency known for collaborating with like-minded firms in the B2C space to create cutting-edge, world-class websites, as well as for winning dozens of national and international awards (including Communications Arts Interactive Annual, Webby, SWSX, FWA, American Design Awards, Clio, and Flashforward Film Festival). Their clients include Vail Resorts, The Westin, Sims Snowboards, Vision Street Wear, Forest City Development, and Boston Market.
The room was full and the excitement was growing by the minute. Finally, he was introduced and his keynote started. I want to tell you it was good, but the reality is that I personally, didn’t like it. Well, to be fair, he did talk about his partnerships with other agencies, but nothing too solid or noteworthy.
He did however, enlightened the audience with pieces of FL2’s portfolio. He described in several occasions how “creative” FL2’s approach were and how happy the clients ended up paying huge amounts for the results. How much you ask? Between 70K and 100K (and up).
The pieces of work showcased during the keynote (links below) were according to the president of the agency, creative solutions to their client’s problems.
Now, this is where I started to get uncomfortable. Was I the only people in the room who realized none of the work samples, NOT ONE was a XHTML/CSS site? Was I the only people in the room who instead of applauding the work, was concern about SEO and how those websites would render on other mobile platforms, say… the iPhone? A reality check with my name on it was being handed over to me and the verdict was: I’m not a “creative” designer. Not by FL2’s standard anyway.
What is worse (IMHO) is the fact that Karl made it pretty clear at the beginning of his keynote, how happy and proud they are of their unconventional… style? applied to their designs, specially their own website (which I kid you not, was criticized by one of their own clients according to Karl himself). What do I mean by style? The problem with most flash websites is that their execution forces the message/product to be shaped in a way that fit inside its container, rather than the other way around. Almost like trying to fit a triangle inside a circle.
Well, maybe it’s not a Flash problem, maybe it’s a Designer problem. I come from the first generation of web designers, those who preached the benefits of Flash long before it became trendy or even a mainstream “plugin” (how we called it at the time), but then learned the hard way, the benefits of building a better web. A web that should be transportable, mobile, agile, and what’s more important, easy to use. At some point we realized that our actions (good ones AND bad ones) were not only shaping today’s web, but also today’s users. It is because of what we did (or didn’t) that inherently you know how to “scan” a website, that you will find a link to the homepage if you just click on the logo at the top of the page, that nav bar should tell you where you are at all times, even, where elements should be and how you interact with them intuitively.
So when I see a Flash website, breaking the web I help built, I want to ask whoever did it, was it really worth it? Where all that people in the room saw the “coolness” of having an animated nav bar that doesn’t look like a nav bar, I see people getting frustrated trying to “figure out” how to engage their websites. Where all the people in that room saw an original and creative “style”, I see a Designer trying to put his latest learned-skill to the test. That’s my problem with Flash (and I love Flash!) No matter how well done a Flash website might be, there will always be a percentage of users who will not receive “the message” you were trying to get across, whether it’s because of the long intro, the background music, their browsers crashing because of the full screen video, or might even be as simply as they trying to access it from a flash-impaired device, again… ever heard of the iPhone?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to come across as a Flash hater and I’m not saying that Flash websites should be banished from the World Wide Web, nor am I implying that FL2’s sucks, in fact I believe their ideas and the quality of their art direction is impecable, but I’m pretty darn sure the web I know and I want to continue building is more than just (and I quote) “a slideshow with just 4 photos and ambience sound”.
What I’m saying to all the Designers that love producing 2Advanced-looking-flash-websites is that if you ABSOLUTELY must do Flash, do it in a way that it’s transparent to the user. Always provide an alternative XHTML Version, and ideally, one that doesn’t SUCK compared to the full version. I know this sometimes collide with the budget allocated for the project, but at least try to explain the benefits of it to your clients. Don’t try to re-invent the way people browse the web, it will only look cool for the first 2 weeks, once people get bored used to how it looks, they will expect something more substantial, more intuitive than just a looped video on the background of the page. Want an example? Remember how cool this car looked when the movie first came out in 2001? Can you imagine driving that same car for 4 years? Design is not only how it looks, it’s how it works.
A designer named Jonathan Harris, recently gave a talk at a Flash conference, attended by a community of people that pride themselves on producing amazing work, and his constructive criticism didn’t go over too well (link via: Kottke)
With a number of notable exceptions, most of the work I see coming from the Flash community is largely devoid of ideas. There is great obsession with slickness, surface, speed, technology, and language, but very little soul at the core, very little being said. I believe that in the long run, ideas are the only things that survive.
It’s refreshing to know people are starting to see past the bling-bling of Flash websites. When Karl finished his keynote and after sharing with the audience the 3 links from above, I felt the same way, I’m just hoping I was not the only one inside that room. Design should be about solving problems in a creative way/space. If we just keep reshaping the message/products to fit inside our containers, will never find room to grow creatively, we’ll be just filling our ideas/flavor-of-the-month-flash-effect with the client’s brand and products, and what is worse, charging them for it.
Oct
01
What a trip that was. I finally got to Asuncion today back from my last journey which by the way, feels like it started in 1987.
Boy, that was long, but looking back it was the coolest trip I ever had! Just to give you an idea, here are some numbers of the past 2 months:
Now all I have to do is tackle my Inbox (quick apologize to all my friends and clients for not being able to set up an Auto-Responder in time) and get back on track with all the work and upcoming projects in the next few weeks. All I can say is: THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME.
Sep
05
Good Morning from kwest on Vimeo.
Kanye West’s latest (super awesome) video “Good Morning” by the even awesomer Takashi Murakami. Reminds me of that time were Daft Punk used to do japanese-animated-looking videos.
Sep
05
Joshua Holnagel just sent me this great picture of the poster at the Graphic Arts class where he teaches. Thank you so much Joshua! I feel incredibly honored and I appreciate your taking the time to send this to me. Ok, back to work.
Aug
28
That’s it. I’m canceling my Basecamp account. Why would I need it anyway if instead, the client prefers to just print the website on a paper, write the revision on it, scan it and then send it over email.
Aug
15
So what can Michael Phelps, Seth Godin and this Tree teach you? To be persistent. To not quit. To adapt. To evolve and yet keep going.
Persistence isn’t using the same tactics over and over. That’s just annoying
Persistence is having the same goal over and over
- Seth Godin
Sure you could trade all the stress of running your own company and having to deal with clients for the temporary security and comfort of getting a job and an average “secure” salary, but I believe that people who are willing to make that trade, deserve neither.
I don’t think there is anything more important in today’s world than to be persistent and keep moving forward. Your clients, employees and the economy will thank you for it. Take my word for it.
Aug
15
Believe it or not, the pale kid sitting on his speedos is no other than the greatest Olympian of all time, Michael Phelps. Isn’t amazing what 8,000 to 10,000 calories a day can do to your body? And no, your eyes are not lying to you, the picture on the right does look like a Photoshop Disaster.
Aug
12
With all the buzz around Michael Phelps’s AMAZING race to become the winningest Olympian ever AND after his uh-mazing performance last night, I thought it would be a great opportunity to show you what the Olympic Medals actually looks like, that is in case you haven’t seen them already.
Designed by the Design Professor of Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts, Xiao Yong, the medal for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games is designed with inspiration coming from “bi”, China’s ancient jade piece inscribed with a dragon pattern. The medals, made of gold and jade, symbolize nobility and virtue and are the embodiment of traditional Chinese values of ethics and honor, sending forth strong Chinese flavor.
The medals are 70mm in diameter and 6mm in thickness. On the front side, the medal adopts standard design prescribed by the International Olympic Committee. While on the back, the medal is inlaid with jade with the Beijing Games emblem engraved in the metal centerpiece. The design inspiration of the medal hook derives from jade “huang”, a ceremonial jade piece with decoration of double dragon pattern and “Pu”, the reed mat pattern.
Wow. And to think Michael “I’m just doing my work” Phelps already bagged 3 gold ones. Almost makes me want to close the lid of my lappy and embark on physical activity right away… like doing some curls with the remote control. What? I said “almost”.
Aug
12
via: Monster Munch
Aug
11
So guess what? My wife and I are going to have a baby! Woohoo! Yup, what you just read. I’ve been wanting to break the news for a few days now but with everything that was going on, my endless to-do list, the trip and stuff, truth is, I couldn’t find the time.
Now, let’s take a look at the specs: Little Baby Teixidó is 7 weeks old, 0.27 inches long and it sports a 120 BPM heart rate. Needless to say, WE’RE INCREDIBLE EXCITED!
Right now, I’m counting the minutes to see my wife again. To be honest, I feel really guilty about having to leave her side, specially because of work… specially on this crucial weeks, but hopefully, these next 6 weeks will fly and the 2¼ of us will be together soon enough.
So that’s it. My time has finally come and now I’m Mac Daddy! And by that I don’t mean the pimp-meister kind but the male-who-uses-an-Apple-computer-and-has-fathered-at-least-one-child kind.
Aug
06
Hey everybody! Just wanted to let you know that I’m leaving to the States in a few hours to kick-start two big projects and I’ll be staying in Albuquerque until the end of September which (among other things) means: I’ll have a great time catching up with my Albuquerquian friends aaaand I’ll be ingesting unhealthy amounts of spicy food. Hopefully the last 2 weeks of the trip I will be joined by my lovely wife and we will enjoy a (much deserved) few days off in NYC and South Florida.
So to make this shorter, Payees: come back in 2 months. Wife: will miss you dearly. Employees: Go ahead, I know you guys want to celebrate like the monks on Ace Ventura, just don’t forget I will have to come back eventually…
Jul
29
I remember back in 1997 everyone used either Lycos or Yahoo. The obligatory question back then was not if you “got online yet”, it was “Do you Yahoo?” and if you didn’t happened to know the answer to that question then you probably didn’t know what the Internet was all about. But then there were a few of us, who didn’t like Lycos nor Yahoo at all and instead, we liked HotBot. No, we actually LOVED HotBot. I mean, it was fast, cool, straight forward and it was designed by Jeffrey Veen. WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE?. Then in 1998 Lycos bought HotBot so we went back to square zero: you either had to use Yahoo, Lycos or HotBot by Lycos. Of course there were others like Metacrawler and Altavista, but they shared a minority of the traffic pie.
By early 1999 we were all “Googling” in (pretty much) the same interface and way we do today. So if you think about it, not much has changed since then, which I find funny and interesting enough to write a post about it. I mean, so much has changed since then, the way you listen to your music, the way you get in touch with your family, the way you carry your files (thank God for the extinction of the floppys), the way you take pictures and yet, the way we search for things on the Internet, is the same way we had almost 10 years ago only now instead of looking for news, we Google our ex-girlfriends, our future employees, the possible names for our kids and our chocolate cookies recipes.
So yesterday when I read about Cuil (pronounced “Cool”), it made me think about all those people who might not “get” or “like” Google (the de-facto search engine these days) the same way I didn’t “get” Lycos/Yahoo back in the old days. I was also surprised to know that there are still people who are investing time and effort into finding the next “sliced bread”.
The Internet has grown. We think it’s time search did too.
- Cuil Team
Founded by ex-Google engineers, Cuil claims to be the world’s biggest search engine, with around 120 billion indexed pages, which they believe it’s about 3 or 4 times the size of Google’s index, of course we will never know for certain since Google stop publishing their index many moons ago when they were in the vicinity of 8 billion.
Whether Cuil can dethrone Google or not is impossible to tell at this point, but I can already say that after using it briefly and comparing the same search results, the interface felt really comfortable. Must be the fact that I’m using a widescreen display or just the idea of getting a fresh breath of air, but putting next to each other Google showed me 5 results “viewport”, while Cuil allowed me to see 8 at the same time without having to scroll vertically.
I do agree with the early reviews that Cuil still needs a lot of work to do, but I’m sure they will eventually mature into something really interesting so I’ll just keep it on my radar.
One thing is for sure though: they will never turn their brand into a cool multi-language verb like Google did. Can you imagine someone actually saying: “I just cuil-er my room mate and I found out he’s a trekkie”
Jul
24
Stop the press! This is HUGE, the moment we’ve all been waiting for, the moment where the Redmond-based company would strikes back and strike HARD.
Microsoft this week offered a window into the first phase of a mega million dollar advertising campaign designed to clear up ‘misconceptions’ about the quality of its Windows Vista operating system exacerbated by in-your-face marketing efforts on the part of longtime rival Apple.
That’s right people, go get your popcorn and soda cause THIS is the real battle: forget Batman vs. Joker, McCain vs. Obama, McCain vs. McCain, no, this the real deal (insert Celebrity Deadthmatch intro song here): Apple’s “I’m a Mac” Campaign vs. Microsoft’s “Indisputable Historic Events” Campaign. I’m sorry, I just fell asleep. * yawn *
Lame Steve decided to preview the new campaign at a Microsoft employees-only Global Exchange Conference. Instead of responding directly to Apple’s aggressive campaign, they are taking a different approach, which is to “clear up some confusion and lingering misunderstandings” about Windows Vista. Still confused? Here’s a piece of the campaign spotted by ZDNet.
Huh? Yes, that’s right. This is how they are trying to convince people that the $ 300 software they bought, it’s not just crap, it’s a round-shaped piece of crap.
Seriously Ballmer, what is next piece? Oh! I have one! How ‘bout “At one point everyone thought Internet Explorer was awesome”
Source: Apple Insider
Jul
23
Well hey there! ‘member me? It’s been AGES. I know, wasn’t you, it was me. I wouldn’t even know where to start. Let’s see.. umm. Well, basically I’ve been COVERED with work and I know it’s not an excuse but the past 3 months have been hectic. The good news is that I’m almost done with everything I had on my plate so I should be able to start getting back to normal and catching up with my digital life.
So what was I doing all this time you ask? As soon as I get permission from the clients, I will start posting the new pieces on my portfolio. Right now, all I can say is I’m glad I’m back.
Jun
12
Santa Fe is one of the prettiest places in the New Mexico and everytime I visit our Albuquerque Offices, it’s always a treat to drive up north and walk around the town, but, the town once known for his famous art galleries and great mix of cultures, might now be known for their “electro-sensitive people”.
It turns out members of a Santa Fe Group wants to ban the use of Wi-FI on public buildings because of the chest pain it’s causing to them.
Arthur Firstenberg says he is highly sensitive to certain types of electric fields, including wireless Internet and cell phones
Really, Arthur? Really? Chest pain? Anyway, if you’re in the search for a good chuckle, go ahead and read Wired’s article here. Now if you excuse me, I need to find my tin-foil hat.
Jun
10
Luftman, Heck & Associates LLP is a Law firm based in Columbus, Ohio. Their current website is 100% flash and they asked SUM a total overhaul so this is how their new site is going to look in a few weeks. I really enjoy working on corporate sites, specially when they give you enough freedom to speak your mind and share your points of view.
One other thing that I found particularly interesting about this project is that I tried to De-Web-2.0-lize (does that even mean something?) the design and stay away from the gradients. I also used lots of negative margins and I chose Verdana size 11 for the copy. Good news is the client is very happy with the result and the site should be launched in the next few weeks. You can view how the inner section looks here.
May
22
It’s nearly lunch time and today’s special is textures. I love textures so when Smashing Magazine announced their Texture Contest, I start digging on my library and found these, so without further ado, I present The Olive stripes curtain, one of my submissions for the Smashing Magazine’s Texture Contest. More textures after the jump.
Ok I’m now officially craving for dry fruit. Be right back.
May
22
This is the new 2008 Gs. 50.000 bill. The new design features the face and work of Agustín Pío Barrios “Mangoré”, one of the greatest guitar player and composer the world has seen.
The old bill used to feature the “unkown soldier” who fought one of the many wars Paraguay had during his history of independence and it can be seen here:
The bill had to be redesigned after a HUGE lot of the C series got robbed by “pirates” from the container inside the ship who was transporting them from France to Paraguay. Yeah, I wish I was kidding.
In case you’re wondering how much Gs. 50.000 the answer is: around $ 12.
May
20
Yesterday I had a surreal trip to the supermarket that included meeting Mr. Robert Eggplant and finding a dog food called “Blog Dog”
May
16
The Obelisco on the 9 de Julio Avenue, the widest street in the World
Here’s a piece of advise for all my friends and readers in the US and across the pond: Sell all your belongings now and move south. I’m not talking about Miami-Kinda-South. I’m talking about south, south, like Buenos Aires South.
José in one of the 3 Web Events held in Buenos Aires last week
For those who don’t know, my brother José (who also happens to be on the Web Scene since IBM OS/2 Warp) and his family just moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina to work with some pretty cool cats down there on a project called Keegy (which looks like a Regional Digg on steroids, in case you haven’t see it yet).
On Keegy HQ unveiling the banners for one of the Web Events, more photos of Keegy’s HQ here
Anyway, José was just telling me the other day how the IT Scene in Buenos Aires is off-tha-chain, so I decided to give y’all a heads up on what’s going on down there. Only last month there were at least 3 Web Events, the Palermo Valley 3.0, Open Social Week(with speakers from Google to Joyent) and StartMeUp.
Not long ago, Argentina was one of the most expensive countries in the world (which lead to an economic disaster and eventually knocked down the current government at the time) but that’s all in the past. These days the biggest companies on IT and Communications like Motorola, Intel, BT among others have not only returned, but made huge investments to turn Buenos Aires into the Latin American Silicon Valley.
Puerto Madero at night
But… no Silicon Valley would be completed without a Google HQ, which why last year Google opened their regional HQ in Puerto Madero, only like *THE* most stylish district in Buenos Aires.
On his visit to Argentina and after meeting with the country’s Vice President, Eric Schmidt (Google’s CEO) said:
Google’s first move into Latin America will be a key towards e-commerce as broadband usage is set to explode in the region, which also happens to be the region with fastest growth in the Internet sector, even before Asia, the U.S. and Europe
Bang! How’s that for a statement.
Photo by: formfaktor
Argentina, the land formerly known for their soccer, tango music, the widest street in the world and excellent steak is now on the verge of becoming a weird mix of Silicon Valley meets MTV Spring Break with VC’s on every stop light and Web Events every 20 minutes.
But wait, the good stuff don’t end there.
Argentina’s Capital City was founded by immigrantes from Spain, Italy and Germany so you get the best food, architecture and culture mix from all three. Not to mention, the mix of genetics between the immigrants and the natives produced some of the most beautiful and athletic people on earth.
Photo by: Simon
So if you’re any good on anything Web/IT related, love hitting the red line of your cholesterol levels with some good steak and are willing to give soccer a chance, then you should stop reading right now and start posting your belongings on Craigslist.
May
16
A bunch of people got together back in 2005 and decided that the internets needed his own dedicated day and for some reason they picked May 17th as the “D” Day (or is it “I” Day). You can read the press release here.
Internet Day is an on-line project which has emerged from society, on account of society, and for society. It is free, and open to anyone who wishes to take part. Because Internet Day is a common task.
Now, I’m bit confused on how are we supposed to celebrate this day. Shall we kiss under a Cisco Router at midnight? Light up some candles on the DSL Modem? Or just chant naked around the official site. OMG I’m so excited! Please let it be the chanting!
You can visit the oficial International Internet Day site here.
PS: Dear Internets, please try to keep your font selection on your Website Design to a maximum of 2 next year. My bleeding eyes will thank you.
May
08
by this excellent poster? or is it an Album Cover? via the always interesting Luke Dorny
May
07
Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.
- Jeffrey Zeldman
I feel so much better now that someone with enough respect and trajectory in the media as Mr. Zeldman shared his point of view on the matter. It remind me of the “100 % Intentional” poster I did for Veerle’s “What is Graphic Design” Poster Competition back in February. You can follow the discusion on his website.
May
06
My friend Mario is the kind of guy you would normally meet once and never forget. I met him back in 1993 while we both assisted to a local Computer School. We later ended up working together in ABC Color.
My friend Mario is the kind of person who hates being “just another brick in the wall”. He can’t just stay in line, nodding his head and smiling just because everyone else does it.
My friend Mario is the kind of father who would give up a 12 years old job as the Chief Engineer on the most successful Newspaper in Paraguay and move to Miami because he knows that’s what it takes to achieve his goals, even if it means taking 3 different jobs to provide for their 2 kids, Mario and Stefanie.
My friend Mario is the kind of friend who would not only run the extra mile for you, but he’ll actually pick you up and carry you down to the finish line if he has too. He’s the kind of friend who will tell you “There is not a single problem in this world, that you can’t solve by listening to some good Salsa music”, would turn the volume up and start dancing around.
My friend Mario was diagnosed with Leukemia and was hospitalized in Miami last Saturday. My wife, Martin and I are devastated by the terrible news and we can’t even imagine how his family must be right now.
I can’t describe the impotence I feel for being 4000 miles south from him, which is why I’m trying to make the necessary arrangements to fly up there so I can be with him in this difficult hours and while I pack, while I get in line at the airport, while I nod my head and smile at the customs officer, I’ll be praying and hoping Mario was right: there isn’t a problem on this earth that can’t be solved with a good salsa song.
Gloria Estefan and Celia Cruz
Apr
28
go to work, send your kids to school
follow fashion, act normal
walk on the pavements, watch T.V.
save for your old age, obey the law
Repeat after me: I am free
This could very much be a dialogue from Fight Club, instead it’s a graffiti found in Bristol, UK. Via: Flickr.
Apr
22
My good friend and former workmate @ Conexion, Victor Cartes, started his own Dev Shop called TIVA and asked me to design a logo for it. His only request was “clean lines and a warm color scheme”. Needless to say I was very honored to fulfill his request, and this is the result.
Probably the thing that I liked the most about this brand is how strong it is, and I guess you can attribute it to the fact that the whole thing was done with only 3 shapes. The “T”, the “I”, and the “V” (doubles as an “A” and also as the icon on the top). So anyway, Thank you the opportunity Victor, I wish you and TIVA many success on the years to come.
Apr
22
I wonder what would happen if I tried the same approach with iStockPhoto’s comp. Via: xkcd
Apr
21
Great Illustration by demolin
Apr
10
Aqua Colbert is a conservationist’s worst nightmare: a bottled water with a carbon footprint that stomps on sustainability and kicks it senseless in its quest to quench America’s insatiable thirst. Ahhh, why do I even try if I can have Stephen itself explain it to you.
Apr
09
Did you ever got feeling that you should be using your abilities in Design to help someone out there? Well of course you have, and that’s call freelance, but I mean, really helping someone and having an impact on somebody’s life, not just their revenue. I know I do, which is exactly why when I found out (too late I’m afraid) about this Charity Project, I was very excited about the idea.
Project Charity:Water is a non-profit organization that helps bringing clean and safe drinking water into impoverished communities, and they just finished a campaign that included a partnership with the World Famous Saks Fifth Avenue. The idea is pretty simple: Design a E-Card, and Saks.com will sell the card and use 100% of the revenues to build wells and give people in Afrika clean drinking water.
http://www.charityis.org/designacard/
Sadly for me this past week has been crazy busy and I didn’t find out about the Charity:Water project soon enough (entry deadline was today), but I still didn’t want to let the project go unnoticed.
Jackson Pollock used to say:
It doesn’t make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.
Amen. I don’t know if that philosophy is just starting to have a stronger effect on me or what but I wish in the near future other Non-Profit Organizations imitate this type of campaigns and allow people to take action in a different way and from their own desks using nothing but their talent and a mouse to make a statement that will have a positive impact on other people.
Apr
09
This is one the ongoing projects that I’m working on and the reason why I haven’t been able to blog this past few days. The Design itself was a real challenge and now that the project has moved to the coding stage it is really starting to take shape. It should be live before the end of the month if everything goes according to plan.
Oh crap. Just because I said that, now nothing will go according to plan. Damn you Murphy.
Apr
01
My wife is turning 23 today which makes me extremely happy. For those who don’t know her, she is an incredible fun and loving human being, OR, she’s an alien from Narcon 5 who’s mission was to marry me in order to learn more about our inferior species , in which case, I’m totally cool with it. Also blowing the candles today, Apple. Yeah, she shares the same birthday as the best computer in the world. That’s how cool she is. Happy birthday Honey!
Mar
30
Well, I bet you’ve all heard about Google going black yesterday. The reason? The Earth Hour. Apparently, there’s enough evidence supporting the fact that White on Black websites consume less power on displays.
As noted, an all white web page uses about 74 watts to display, while an all black page uses only 59 watts, the shift to a black background will save a total of 15 (74-59) watts. That turns into a global savings of 8.3 Megawatt-hours per day, or about 3000 Megawatt-hours a year.
Then again, on the same Google’s Earth Hour Page they explain that the real reason behind the decision on going black is actually more of a publicity stunt than an actual conservation measure.
As to why we don’t do this permanently - it saves no energy; modern displays use the same amount of power.
Wheew, Thank God somebody came in and made everything crystal clear. No, wait, now I’m even more confused :/
Mar
27
Now this is a Birthday Party I’m glad I wasn’t invited to… Yet? That’s right! On a day like this, 10 Years Ago, the US Food and Drug Administration approved Viagra, which in case you didn’t know, was a drug originally conceived as a Cardiovascular aid for its ability to lower blood pressure. Instead, the scientists at Pfizer Laboratories accidentally developed… well you know the rest history. Yeah tiger, you keep looking away like you don’t know what’s going on.
But one thing that was found during those trials is that people didn’t want to give the medication back because of the side effect of having erections that were harder, firmer and lasted longer
Isn’t that funny? I can imagine how the test patients responded 20 minutes after initiating the test: “Yeah, you know, about writing our reports can we do that tomorrow? I just remembered there’s something I need to do back at home, seee yaaaaaaa!”.
So let’s hear it for the Greatest Health research Accident in History! (for some people, you know…)
PS: I can already see my Page Rank going to the flush for using the word Viagra too twice. Dang it. That’s three times. Oh well…
Mar
26
They are here! FINALLY!. It took some time (just imagine, from Halifax → Miami → Asunción) but it worth the wait. MAN this things are beautiful. Seriously I don’t think I can explain how detail, sharp and vivid this posters are. I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out what the heck did James used to print these. Anyway, a little less talk a little more action, Here are the pictures!
Mar
23
You can file this under “Hey Apple, wouldn’t it be GREAT if you include this tips somewhere in your manual?” category. Anyway, found over at CreativeBits, this audio setting tip is pretty useful, at least to me.
If you own a laptop, you probably use the Volume key shortcuts (F4 and F5) to adjust your volume, rather than visiting the System Preferences or Volume menu item.
Every time you press the Volume key, a full block of volume is raised or lowered in the Volume bezel on your screen. If the amount it is raised or lowered is too much or not enough, you can adjust the amount by a quarter of a block at a time.
Well, it turns out you can fine-tune the Volume adjustment, by hold the Shift and Option keys while hitting F4 or F5. Gee, I did not know that.
via: CreativeBits (which for some reason seems to be down)
Mar
22
Three Car ads that caught my eyes the last few days. I always find interesting to see what will Agencies come up with next.
Mar
18
Wheew… that was exhausting. The posters finally arrived and I just added the SHOP section to the site using ExpressionEngine’s Fairly Complicated Simple Commerce Module. I just hope everything is tied up the way it should be and I’m not making a someone in Nigeria even more richer.
In any case, I just uploaded some PrOn over at Flickr where you can check, among other things, how thick this guys are or how good they look on a dark background.
Also worth mentioning, is the hidden “thank you” message to everyone who participated on this flickr post until the day I sent the file to the printer. So if you wrote anything before this, it means your name is printed on the poster.
What’s not to like?? Now go get yours!
Mar
13
Hi guys, sorry for the lack of updates. I know I promised that I’ll call write, but seriously it’s not that I didn’t wanted to, I just got caught up with two new projects, a few kernel panics, 3 clean Leopard installations and a hard drive failure. Seriously, it’s not you, it’s me. I just needed some time. Sheeeeeesh… I’m starting to sound like Janice. Anyway, I thought to chime in this morning and illustrate my last few days.
Let’s start with the Kernel Panics shall we? Seriously, I don’t know what the heck is going on with the Mac OS X 10.5.2 update. Clearly, I’m not the only one suffering, there are tons of reports about people updating their Macs and then later getting the gray screen of death. I know it happened to my MacBook Pro already, but on the iMac it got to a point where I had to reinstall the whole system 3 times. I already tried memtest and TechTool Pro and every test was passed flawlessly. So anyway, because I was getting a lot of kernel panics (which forced me to restart the computer by pressing the Power button for over 3 seconds or so) it seems like I damaged my external Hard Drive.
Yes, *THE* external hard drive with my 130 GB iTunes Library and the 80 GB iPhoto Library. At one point it just didn’t mounted itself anymore. I got a lot of “Do you want to Initialize this Drive?” dialogs and Disk Utility wasn’t being too useful either. Not even TechTool Pro 4.6.1 could’ve fix it, it was like possessed!. That is, until Disk Warrior came along. Cue for Def Leppard’s “Rock of Age”
After this, I was able to gain access to my data, but half my iPhoto library was gone. If you think that’s sad, wait til my wife finds about the Wedding Pictures and the Wedding Album that I had there.
Poor sucker, look at him. It looks like Robocop. I had to take it out of its original IOMEGA External Case in order to mount it on a different case and format it on a PC, after which the PC reported the hard drive is totally fine. And this is Janice’s cue for…
Even so, I won’t even trust this hard drive with our Frankenstein iSight photos, from now on, this sucker is condemned to be The Official Torrent Archive Hard Drive. You know… for the… ummm… Readme Files and Software Manuals that I once download from the internets.
Yay! We got the proof from the printer on Monday and I they look amazing. They are printed on a 18 x 24, 100# Gloss Cover High Quality paper with Satin Varnish AND I specifically ask the printer to use the special fruity-scented ink that repels Zombies. I don’t know if you knew this, but someday, Earth will look just like the I am Legend movie, and when that day comes you better have one (or two) of these hanging on your walls. Don’t tell I didn’t warn you.
Anyway, Except for that last part about the fruity zombie-repellent ink which I totally made up, they really look amazing.
I’ve been feeling a little bit burnt the last few days and besides my mud-wrestling sessions with the iMac (and the external HD) the only thing left to blame was my messy desk. You ever get that feeling that you need to change things a bit in order to jump start your creativity? I know I do. I like keeping my workplace organic, change things around, switch back to Windows once in a while, ok maybe not that, but I hope you know what I mean, so today I came armed with a Zen philosophy and a clear goal: to clean up my desk.
Act without doing;
work without effort.
Think of the small as large
and the few as many.
Confront the difficult
while it is still easy;
accomplish the great task
by a series of small acts.
- Lao-Tze
I just finished and Boy am I enjoying it. Let me tell you, while it’s sill too early to see if I got my groove back, I already feel a lot less contaminated.
This is how my desk looks like right now and it is as uncluttered as it’ll ever be. I only hope it last until the afternoon. DISCLAIMER: Now, contrary to what it may look like, Martin isn’t just picking his nose. He’s bringing back the lost “Pick your Nose whenever someone next to you is having a Zen Epiphany” tradition of the old Zen Monks. As you can see, he’s very devoted to that.
In the middle of everything I was working on a new project for a client of us, called PERMASPACERS. Their product is a Permanent Ceramic Tile Spacer that is not only is easy to install but also helps reducing time and costs. Pretty nifty huh?
So the whole layout was organized in a way that will reflect the symmetrical distribution of tiles on a 120px by 120px grid. I’m very excited to get the client’s approval and start coding it.
In other totally irrelevant news, today I got a new record high of 9km (5.5 miles) on the treadmill… doing the Michael Jackson Moonwalk. Gotta tell you, it’s actually harder than it sounds, specially when everyone laughs at you. Ok I’m done. Vent mode = off and now I need some breakfast.
Mar
06
Today I went to pickup my mail from the (stupid slow) Mail Forwarding Service I have down here in Paraguay. Little did I know the ISO50 Posters I ordered last week were already sitting there waiting for me. Warning: Poster Pr0n content ahead.
UPDATE: In the spirit of providing a full review, I just ate the “Soft’N Chewy, Hard ‘N Fruity” candy that came inside the mailing tube with the posters, and here’s the verdict: Gooood. After finishing it, my wife made an interesting remark: “I just hope it was Scott who put the candy on the tube and not just some random candy the mailman (or anybody else) dropped” Oh crap.
Mar
04
I just finished installing Umbra’s “Invisible Book Shelf that Floats Large Books” that I got in exchange for $ 16.50 on my last visit to Duke City. Man that was hard. While it does come with it’s own pair of screws, they are definitively not appropriate for the concrete walls on the studio, so I had to drill, use a plastic bracket first, and then screw the thingy to the wall.
In the process, I somehow ended with two big ol’ holes that despite my great efforts on measurements, end up being too close to each other. Yeah, I know, it sounds like a HUGE endeavor just to put this dang thing up on the wall, but I did it! Woohoo!!.
Now that I think about it, my CSS books are actually floating left. Mmm… interesting.
In case you are wondering where to get one, visit the Umbra’s website here. I just found out they have other neat things too. Can’t wait to start putting more holes on my wall.
Mar
03
You get mad at your .PSD for weighing more than 25 MB. On Saturday I re-did the Winning Poster from the scratch on 18 x 24 @ 300 DPI and prepare it for printing and every CMD + S took about 5 minutes. Photoshop CS3 ate about 10 GB on temporary scratch files. Boy am I excited to finally send this to the printer.
If anyone wants to be notified when they ready for their debut, be sure to let your email on the comments. Thank you!
Mar
03
Thank you so much for visiting my office this weekend. I hope you had a great time trying to break my door. Gotta admit I’m impressed at your finesse and style. I bet you must feel really disappointed for not getting the part for Ocean’s Thirteen. Pfff, it’s their loss. I am certain they wont find your your white-gloves skills anywhere else.
Anyway, I’m sorry you couldn’t actually break in. If there’s one thing I learned from Web Development is that you have to pick the right tool for the right job. Next time bring an axe. Or grow some muscles.
What I find interesting though, is how you broke the entire lock, and yet didn’t manage to break in. Maybe you’re either too weak or too dumb. Which (contrary to my expectations) are clear signs that you’re not Catherine Zeta Jones. Oh crap. I guess we both loose ey?
Anyway, if it makes you feel any better, thanks to your incompetence, now the door has no lock so neither you, or I have entry.
Love,
- The owner of the studio you couldn’t break into.
So this morning I got to the studio as usual, and I found that someone (unluckily for me, NOT Catherine Zeta Jones) tried to break in over the weekend. My first thought was:
“OMG MY DATA!”
Then my second thought was:
“OMG MY ITUNES LIBRARY!”
As a burglary victim myself (back in 2001) I don’t think I ever felt a more bitter moment on my career than the moment I realized all my belongings and my digital existence was stolen. That’s why I have so many few works from back in the day. I lost all the photos, mp3 and documents I had from 1995 til 2001. It pretty much SUCKED BIG TIME.
So after we manage to get in and 10 seconds before going into DEFCON 4, I ran to my office and I got a huuuuuge relief when I found everything was untouched, just like I left it on Saturday.
After the 2001 incident, I learned a few things that, while this time didn’t help to avoid the attempt of burglary on my studio, may help you in the future:
I know technology will always get cheaper, but you can’t take the risk of losing all your equipments and not having a way to get a backup soon enough to finish your client’s work. Remember, even the most open-minded, easy-going client will understand and cut you some slack, but they won’t be able to cancel their event or website launch because you went mustang on your office security.
Unless you have one mean Pit bull (the dog, not the rapper) doing night shifts at your studio, there’s nothing more effective than locks when it comes to keep people out from your facilities. If you just moved in, replace the locks. If someone at the studio needs to stay behind to finish up some work and you need to leave, install an extra “employees-only” lock. Your employees will only have keys for that lock, but not the main one. That should be only reserved for you (and if you’re like me) your wife :) That way, when they leave they will be able to lock the door. If you’re bit of OCD like me, you can later stop by and lock the main lock too.
If you’re on a small building like I am, talk with the neighbours and explain that security is a matter that should concern everybody. If you can, change the main door entrance lock too. Who knows if an old neighbour didn’t just lost the key and someone found it.
One of the undeniable proofs that technology is getting cheaper each days are thumb drives, hard drives and optical media. I remember paying $ 949 for a 1X SCSI Sony CD Burner back in 1996. If you think that’s a lot, think about the box of 10 blank CD-R’s sold for $ 99.99.
These days, most computers already come with a built-in burner and you can get a whole tube of blank DVD-R for less $ 25, which equals to 47 GB of backed up data. Seriously, if you think about it, it’s even dumb not to do it.
Even the latest OS from Microsoft and Apple have built in backup solutions right to on the core, so you just need to add an extra hard drive and backup those early Britney Spears album that you like so much. Don’t worry, you’re secret is safe with me. “I’m not a giiiiirl… not yet a woooooman”. Ahh… timeless.
Wait, not done yet. After you backed up everything, DON’T LEAVE THE BACKUP AT THE STUDIO. Yeah, I know it might be obvious, but I know a lot of people who store their piles of burned DVD’s on their cabinets.
Also, forget about the spare key. This is not your bachelors apartment.
I’m not talking ONLY about your computer, operative system, directories, etc. If these guys managed to steal my equipments, not only they will gain access to all of those things, but also to my Washington Mutual, PayPal, Ebay, Flickr and Gmail accounts. Why? because I’m so cool that I don’t like to retype my passwords every time. That’s why I always check the “remember me” option on each of those services.
“Yeah but I have a laptop so, it’s cool”. EEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRGN. Wrong, it’s actually even worse, not only you can get your laptop stolen, but I know of people who lost them instead. Same as with your iPhone. How would you feel if you find out someone just wire all your money from your account and there’s nothing you can do about it.
From this moment on, I refuse to use the “Remember me” option on all those websites, and so should you.
Anyway, the locksmith just finished replacing the door lock and I need hug him so, may you all have a great (safe) week!
Feb
27
Photo by Zsolt Vajda
I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you all here and I understand you have more important places to be, so I promise it won’t take more than 10 minutes. I will ask you however, that you let me finish what I have to say before you start bashing me.
The reason why I asked everyone to come here today is because I wanted to ask you that you please STOP ACTING LIKE DIVAS ALREADY!
Photo by dorywithserifs
There, I said it. Seriously people, what’s wrong with you? I don’t know where exactly, but somewhere in between Saul Bass and Joshua Davis, a new breed of designers was born. A breed with tremendous talent (most of them anyway) but with one big flaw: they developed an arrogant attitude and started acting like Divas instead of acting like the professionals they were supposed to be.
Rockstars Designers and Web Superstars, put your talent to a good use and start giving something back to our industry, when requested, help other colleagues, educate, instead of promoting your latest book, try to connect with your audience for a change, if anybody, it is them who put you there, it is them who will buy your next book and invest their money on your talent. You owe them that much.
Photo by Andy Woo
Be nice and graceful to the people who want to learn from you, like with everything else in life, you will too feel curious about someone more talented or experienced than you down the road. How would you feel if they ignored you?
Photo by Sebastiano
If you want your readers, clients and the industry to respect you, you first need to know the secret recipe of respect and understand that it is not a birth right. It is something You have to earn, and in order to do that you need:
Quick, grab a mirror or turn over a CD (if you don’t have one close) and look at yourself while asking, “WHAT AM I?” (Not to be confused with “WHO AM I”).
Photo by camerondaigle
You are a communicator. That’s what you are and at the end of the day, you communicate through design with other people. It should be a lot more important to remember WHAT you are, instead of repeating all day WHO you are.
I bet you’ve heard or seen “Devils Wears Prada”. Remember Miranda Priestly? Well, you’re not gonna like this, but that’s how project yourself. Yes, your work is AWESOME, Yes, I’m one of the thousand people out there who bought one of your books and your websites will still be one of my daily reads, but seriously, you have to get rid of the whole “Don’t waste my time, I’m the 8th Wonder of the World” attitude.
(This Reminds me of this AWESOME Ad Michael Bay did for Verizon)
We are living in a time where the quality to listen and switch perspective is a core value in personal and professional ethics, a time where titles, diplomas and other stamed recognition have become practically irrelevant.
Understand that you don’t need to be cocky, arrogant or have attitude to justify your rates or your trajectory, your work should do that for you. People like Veerle, Lynda Weinmann, James White, Johan among a few others great Designers have no attitude and they have proven that you can be a successful, respected professional in the industry without one.
Yeah, yeah, you have a 100.000 users visiting your site every day, and they aaaalll seems to have a valid opinion or question about something. DEAL WITH IT, and by “it” I don’t mean the press “the delete key”.
What’s the point of having a Contact us section on your website if you’re not going to let anybody contact you?
Photo by sugarfreak
I don’t think there’s something more rude in this digital era that
not answering emails. This is special annoying when it comes to Tech Support email (Hear that David Watanabe?).
If you’re swamped in work thanks to your amazing talent and can’t absolutely email back, at least have the courtesy of setting up a free auto-responder, at least that way people will know their email went out fine and that you’re just not available.
Hi, it’s World’s 8th Wonder here
Thank you for contacting me. I’m currently up to my eyeballs in work and I might not be able to answer all the emails I get, so I ask for your understanding in case I don’t get back at you. If you need urgent assistance or response, call me at + XXX XXX XXXX.
I apologize for the inconvenience and I appreciate your understanding in this matter.
Sincerely,
- You
Photo by vanluven
Dear Colleague, If you made it this far, I appreciate your time. I believe there are still some things in you that reminds you how you were before you turned into Ms. Priestly. It probably means that the next time you check your email, instead of deleting people’s opinions and questions, you might even answer a few. It means you will be able to put your experience, achievements, awards on a side and allow yourself to successfully connect with someone.
Now, Isn’t that a good feeling?
- Your fellow Designer
Here’s a prediction: This article will probably be the most unpopular article I have written so far, but I don’t care because I had to get it out of my system.
It is an open letter to My Colleagues and their immature and cocky attitude they developed lately. I’m not writing this based on envy or anything else but frustration and shame. How many times you wrote to people that you admire asking something or simply giving your support to their work and never heard back? Me? Hundreds. That is why I thought about writing this article and apologize myself on behalf of this beautiful profession we chose.
Feb
22
FEB 25TH UPDATE: I just got two new mentions on Smashing Magazine. One on the “Gallery Of Date Stamps And Calendars” article and the other one on the “Breathtaking Typographic Posters” article. Woot! Woot!
This morning my brother tipped me about the “45 Excellent Blog Designs” article on Smashing Magazine and guess what, Ten Thousand Things made it on the list. Maaan I Wish every Friday were like this!
PS: Please Don’t mind the Kanye West looking dog, I just couldn’t resist to post him, plus I owed him a favor. Don’t ask.
Feb
22
Contrary to the ordinary course of nature, today I actually won something. Not just anything, I won 1st Place at the Veerle’s “What is Graphic Design Poster Competition”. Seriously, this is really incredible for someone who never won anything (well except for that one time when I won the “Get a Haircut from your Older Brothers Lucky Draw” and end up looking like a Gremlin for a whole month).
Veerle has always been one of my favorite Graphic/Web Designers and a tremendous inspiration both in Design and Web Technologies (in case you don’t know, she’s a terrific XHTML/CSS/EE coder) ever since I found out about her blog like 4 years ago, so really just to be part of the competition was an honor already.
The winning piece was “And you can take that to the bank” which you can view here (as well as my other two submissions) but now that the competition is over I would like to take the time and display my favorite entries (in no particular order) from the other competitors.
Finally, I would like to thanks (again) to Veerle and all the people who participate or watched the competition. Thank you!
Feb
21
What can I say, I do like’em, so I put together a inspiring collection of 10 Cubes I found over time. Cube lovers, rejoice!
UPDATE 03/03/08: giackop took this amazing shot and it deserves to be on the top shelve. Kuddos!
Scott found this great Cover called The Future. Really nice.
Very nice image, found on Andy’s Blog and original file via flickr.
Architecture by Moshe Sadfie. Originally he had planned to duplicate this design (concept of a 3 dimensional modular system) in other countries and cities (Puerto Rico, Tehran, Rochester, N.Y. and Baltimore) However none were ever completed - except for this one. via flickr.
Cobo Convention Center - Detroit, Michigan ...from a slightly different angle. via flickr
Not sure what it does, but I love it. via flickr.
Ship containers. via flickr.
Side view of a storefront in downtown Geneva. via flickr.
Roof pattern. via flickr.
Cubes on the floor. via flickr.
Inside the 2005 Ice Hotel in Kiruna. via flickr.
Feb
20
I’ve been meaning to send you this letter for quite a while now. I’m sorry I didn’t find the time to write it sooner, it was only because I was either too busy replying your 5th email about the new, updated Creative Brief for the website, or listing the 14 reasons why adding a Flash Intro to your homepage is not “cool” anymore.
As much as I love working on your projects, there are a few things that I think we should talk, but first keep in mind that I’m only writing this letter to you because:
That being said, let me continue by listing the issues We need to solve and/or avoid for this and future projects:
So here’s the deal. I’m not Dr. Nick Riviera. You probably don’t know him by name, but as soon as I tell you that he is always the cheaper alternative for medical procedures in The Simpsons, you’ll go “ahhh yeah.. the Mexican looking Doctor”. Exactly.
I really like doing business with you, but Client, I don’t appreciate every time you compare my rates with your Flavor of the Month Designer in India. It makes me realize I made a mistake by not being clear enough in the beginning about two things:
If I do either of those two things, it will mean that I haven’t learned anything at all from this past 11 years working in Design.
It would be like accepting the fact that higher paid projects should deserve a better quality than lower paid projects.
It would make me focus more on the rates, than on the project and it’s goals and I will probably work faster, not because I will be devoted to the deadline or the project, but because I will be trying to land the next project as soon as possible to make it up for the lower rates.
The knee bone’s connected to the something. The something is connected to the red thing. The red thing’s connected to my wrist watch… - Dr. Nick
If I were him, I would probably be OK with everything I just said, but as a serious professional, I can’t.
Do your homework: Research and Plan. It is very important that you do your part of the work before We sit to discuss Colors, Flash Intros and Buttons. The project must be fully planned before We can begin. No matter how tight your deadline is, neither of us can afford to shoot, and then aim.
Setup a list of websites you like, websites that you dislike and be ready to discuss them with me. Keep your competitors close. It’s totally OK to Google the heck out of them, research them, find the things you liked about their approach and try to identify what is their weakest link.
Let’s say your car broke down so you’ve taken it to the Repair Shop and after explaining to the mechanic for 30 minutes all the details about the sudden loss of power and how the transmission gets stuck in reverse, he tells you to park the car near the pit and come back tomorrow.
On the way back, just after paying the cab, you realize the keys are inside your pocket. Because you forgot to leave them at the Shop, you already know the car won’t be ready tomorrow. Obviously you can’t expect the mechanic to move or fix your car without the keys now can you?
That’s exactly what happens when after all the meetings you still forget to provide the copy and images for your website. How serious can a designer be if he just go ahead and uses a generic logo, with generic copy and generic products images to design something that is supposed to be tailored to YOUR needs, YOUR company and YOUR customers.
How safe and secure would you feel if you find out your mechanic picked the lock of your car and moved it anyways? Think about it.
Oh, and while we’re at it, please understand that when I request your logo, I don’t mean the one printed on your business card, and for the last time, NO, I can’t just “scan and enhance it” like the dudes on CSI.
I understand you’re very passionate about you Powerpoint slides and your Word headline fonts (and colors)... I really do, but when it comes to Design, I need you to understand it is my responsibility and obligation to advice you about what direction would be best for the project.
Now I don’t mean to be rude, but seriously, I’m the Designer and one of us need to let go off the wheel. Like Sean Connery said in Highlander, “there can only be one” and you will have to learn how to trust on my abilities and experience.
Think about it for a moment. What if you would go to the Doctor and said:
Just because you know your body, doesn’t mean you know how to identify symptoms or how to treat them. You are right on one thing though: chicks do dig scars.
Yes, I got your last week email about former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan warning that American economy might slip into recession by year’s end (by the way, how did I end up on your “Financial Easy Reading Club Mailing List” anyway?)
Well… whilst it may be true that the U.S. economy is at risk, I think there is another thing that you should worry more about before Greenspan’s predictions, and that is: Ideacide. Ideacide will bring many Businesses to their knees before the recession does.
i•de•a•cide: | n. | The killing of an idea by person or persons in a corporate setting
Don’t look at me that way, I know and You know we’ve all been in one of those meetings where an idea is killed for being too “something”, too “fast”, too “unproven”, too “far beyond the corporate image”.
Allow people around you to constantly provide feedback and suggest new ideas. Reward that behavior and remember ChangeThis’s Manifesto about ideacide:
In today’s business world, a company’s most important asset is still it’s ability to continually come up with new ideas.
I know helping you is my job, (and believe me, I wouldn’t be sending you this if I wasn’t trying to help you) but I can assure you We will get results a lot sooner if you understand that success it’s a shared responsibility.
Thanks for your time,
- Your Web Designer.
(The letter every Web Designer always wanted to write but never did)
Feb
15
And that’s, NO. On the last February issue of FAST COMPANY, I found a great BMW ad that I wanted to share with y’all. I know some of you have probably see this already, but for those out there who haven’t (like moi) so here it is.
Two letters. A word that transcends every language.
A word that is simple to enunciate, but sometimes hard to say
No closes doors. But when used to break convention, it opens many more.
No, we will not compromise ideas.
No, We will not do it the way everyone else does it.
No, we will not give in to mass-market vanillaism.
At BMW our independence gives us the ability to say No for all the right reasons.
And while most companies choose to hide behind No, we see it as a way to say Yes - to ideas that inform not only our cars, but every aspect of who we are.
And then there’s the obligated car pictures, etc. etc. but again, the core message is SO VERY important these days. I can’t count the times I’ve been asked to do certain things that would potentially jeopardize an entire project, and even so the client wanted to go ahead anyways.
Here’s for the people and companies that acknowledge the power of NO.
Feb
15
After a lot of great positive feedback from the community in the “What is Graphic Design Poster Competition”, I decided to add my 3 submission to the Portfolio section under a new Print category (hopefully there will be more print stuff in the futuer), including the freshly baked “100% Intentional”. Images after the jump. Enjoy!
Feb
14
Happy Valentine’s Day Everybody!
Feb
08
Paso de los Toros (which translates to something along the lines of Bull Pass and tastes like Canada Dry) is produced by PepsiCo (and its probably the most popular Tonic Water brand in South America), just launched a new Valentine’s themed Campaign made by BBDO. You can find the Ad after the jump.
“Stop with all the sweetness”
“Sweet won’t make the thirst go away”
“Paso de los Toros”
“Runs over the thirst”
Feb
06
I’m pretty sure after yesterday coverage of Super Tuesday a lot of you are wondering what’s the deal with that humongous iPhone looking multi-touch screen they have in the Situation Room. No? Ok, maybe is just me then.
CNN likes to call it “The Magic Wall”, and I have to say it’s amazing gestural interface (a la minority report) not only sets a milestone on data visualization but also provides a total different perspective for the audience, so I decided to research more on the technology behind it and I found a few interesting things about it.
What makes The Magic Wall tick is a unique technology invented by Jefferson Han, founder of Perceptive Pixel, the company who sold the solution to CNN.
But this not a typical touch screen. It’s complex proprietary operative system respond not only to gesture movement but also to different types of pressure and friction coming from multiple touches/users.
The advantages of this are enormous, since it allows the people on the studio to interact with data, manipulate video and explore maps in real time.
How long you ask? 2 Years. Jeff Han presented (for the first time publicly) the high-resolution multi-touch computer screen at TED 2006 Conference in Monterey, CA in February 2006. Keep in mind the iPhone wasn’t even announced until January 2007.
The demo, which drew spontaneous applause and audible gasps from the audience, begins with a simple lava lamp, then turns into a virtual photo-editing tabletop, where Han flicks photos across the screen as if they were paper snapshots.
You can watch Han’s TED presentation here:
All you need to get is $ 100,000, at least that’s what CNN paid for the entire solution, and according to it’s Senior VP, Daniel Bohrman “We will be using it a lot over the next year”. Heck, if I pay 100 grand for a screen I will probably even drive it to work every day.
Here’s the official Perceptive Pixel Technology Reel.
You can find out more about it by going to www.perceptivepixel.com
Feb
05
It is finally here, so prepare to get all your senses hammered by the media coverage, specially if you’re a fan of The Situation Room. I dunno why but it’s hard for me not to do the Strong Bad Burninator’s voice every time I say “The Situation Room”. There I did it again.
Anyway back to our regular schedule, today I wanted to share with y'all a few links I found about Design in today's Political Landscape.
Speak Up
Very interesting analysis on the Obama '08 brand, developed by Chicago-based Sender LLC and mo/de. Also included in this article, a link to The New York Time's "Reading Tea Leaves and Campaign Logos".
Hello I'm James
Or in other words, How Obama brought Hope to Political presence on the web. Seriously, his website is one of the best I've seen lately. Looking forward to Part Deux.
The New York Times Blog
Touché or should I say Ouch! Either way, the NYT Blog brings an interesting question to the table while comparing Obama's and Cliton's website.
command + shift + 3
The guys at command + shift + 3 made a great comparison of all major Presidential Websites. I bet you'll never guess who got 2nd Place.
Slate
Not so much to do with Design, but definitively interesting to see how every single detail is taken into consideration by the people. It turns out the reason behind the "authoritative but comforting, rich and resonant and wise" voice of Obama, is the nasty habit of smoking. Who knew.
AIGA
AIGA, the professional association for design, asked designers from across the United States to create nonpartisan posters that would encourage the American public to participate in the electoral process, and to vote for a presidential candidate.
Feb
04
Yesterday my favorite team failed to deliver and got beaten by the NY Giants. The minute the game was over, Michael Strahan was already sporting his NY Giants 2008 Champions hat, which lead me to wonder what where do the Patriots t-shirts and hats go?
Thanks to Google, I now know.
Jan
31
After my “Bring your Dog (and her offspring) to Work Day” post the other day, I couldn’t think of a better follow up than Mark’s: Ten Reasons why your Dog is Smarter than You.
Disclaimer: Normally I would just put a link to Mark’s website here, but apparently he’s having some sort of 500 Internal Server Error going on (maybe his dog learned about the article and sabotaged the server) so for the time being you can read the transcribed post here. Firefox’s Cache is useful after all… mmm… who knew.
Maia getting a massage session from me.
Is your dog smarter than you? Tell the truth.
Jan
28
G just gave me a really cool surprise this morning. It turns out she made arrangements with the Pet Care Shop next door to bring Maia (our female Dachsund who has recently became a mother of 5 new puppies two weeks ago) for her monthly check and also to give the puppies their first shots. As soon as the Vet finished, she brought the whole gang to the studio and gave the “Bring Your Dog to Work” Day a whole new meaning.
More pics after the jump.
Maia and the 5 puppies at the red couches.
Shrek trying to steal one puppy while Maia was getting ready for her photoshoot.
The cutest thing in the world with one of the puppies.
This is the same puppy 2 weeks ago the day they were born.
Jan
28
There has been a lot of criticism involving the World’s Thinnest Notebook just launched by Apple on last MacWorld. It’s still uncertain whether this could be a winner, or join the infamous list of Apple inventions which flopped. (Apple Puck Mouse anyone?)
Be that as it may, I found a bunch of useless (but funny) contents regarding the Macbook Air…head.
The strategy used by Apple this days is to pitch the Macbook Air to the road warriors, the ones who need to travel light, work on the run and don’t even care about notebook cases cause they will carry their notebooks with their super sensitive/expensive/vital data, inside a manila envelope. Gotta love Steve’s keynote punch lines.
The guys at Put Things Off (a recently launched productivity blog) wrote 5 Rules about why You really don’t need to keep up with the Joneses and get a Macbook Air now.
My personal favorite is Rule #1:
No Technology is Worth Going into Debt for. I don’t care if it fits in an envelope. I’m not fussed if it has eleven touch screens, brings you toast, teleports you into bank vaults and blows cute bubbles in the shape of Keira Knightley whilst styling your hair. If you’re buying it on credit, you shouldn’t be buying it at all.
You can find the article here: http://putthingsoff.com/index.php/buy-a-bigger-envelope/
Yes the MacBook Air is thin, REALLY thin, but that’s about it. Besides being one of the most expensive pieces of hardware, there’s another great flaw on the Macbook Air and that is, the lack of hardware.
Among other things, the Macbook Air lacks of:
Plus, you can’t replace the Battery yourself, but don’t worry, Apple Geniuses will replace it for you free of charge on an Apple Store, that is, if you live within the United States, London or Tokio.
Yet if you compare it side to side with a Commodore SX-64, it will still be a clear winner.
Finally, if you’re sill not certain whether save $ 1799 or get the new MacBook, maybe this video we’ll help you.
Yeah, why the hell not. Plus, John Mayer just got one and he’s loving it.
Am I the only one surprised that he flies in coach?
Jan
23
Studio Pizazz is a cool Dance Studio in Albuquerque. They asked SUM to develop a new brand and website for their big opening in early February. This is a mockup of a proposed concept for the website and may not represent the final approved design.
Jan
22
Are you a Gmail, Basecamp, Flickr or Facebook 20 times a day? Do you have 20 or more browser tabs open at all times? Are you tired of some random Flash ad crashing your browser and causing you to lose your (say) Google Spreadsheets data in another tab? Then I got great news for ya!
Meet Fluid, your next favorite Mac Application. This great little (free) app will let you wrap each of your favorite webapp in it’s own separated window, just as if you were running an independent Application.
To me the advantages of this are numerous, just to name a few:
Fluid also comes with a bunch of neat features like tabbed browsing, color badges to display unread items (a la Mail App) or even customized PNG App Icon (or if you automatic URL favicon discovering) which you can later drag it to the Dock.
After testing it myself with Gmail I can say it works just as Mailplane. Below it’s a quick tutorial on how you can start enjoying this great app today.
You can grab it from here.
After unzipping the file, drag it to your Applications folder.
In order to create your Site Specific Browsers you need to type the URL right on first field. For this tutorial we’ll be using:
Then, choose a name for the Website, in this case:
Set the location where you want Fluid to create the App Icon. I chose to leave it on the default Applications folder.
Then select whether you would like to use a custom PNG for the App, or let Fluid import the Favicon from the URL provided above.
In this case I’ve set up a Ten Thousand Things PNG Icon to use with Fluid. You can grab it here.
Final step, click on Create. After a few second you’ll be represented with a pop up telling you your Desktop Application was successfully created.
Now go grab your new App and drag it to your Dock and voilá!
One other cool thing about Fluid is that it has it’s own Flickr Group where people share icons of known webapps that you can use freely. I took the liberty to download 3 of them and place it here to save you some time.
Enjoy!
Jan
21
Remember last week when I had a Jerry McGuire moment and I wrote how it is our responsibility to educate our users and costumers?
Well, turns out today while catching up with my RSS after my communication black-out day I found this short amazing post from Seth called Dumbing down on which he explains why it is important to resist the pressure to oversimplifying things in your business for the lowest common denominator.
Think about the stuff you hear on the radio or read about in mass market publications. When they attempt to cover something you really know about, they seem pretty stupid, don’t they? Oversimplifying to the point of getting it completely wrong. They’re busy pandering to the masses, dumbing things down for the lowest common denominator
You’re under pressure to do that with your restaurant and your spiritual advice and your stump speech and your non-profit pitch. There are gatekeepers pushing you to dumb it down for the average.
The thing is, when you dumb stuff down, you know what you get?
DUMB CUSTOMERS
For a lot of businesses that’s exactly what they’re looking for, until they realize Dumb Customers:
Biggie already said it 14 years ago “Dumb rappers need teaching”, and now so your clients.
Jan
18
I’ve been thinking a lot on Design lately; specifically what it means to me, what it means to my clients and what other colleagues think about it.
It all started last week after my brother shared this quote with me:
Web Development can be really frustrating because customer expectations are hard to define due to the subjective nature of Art
After 11 years of working on this field I couldn’t agree more, yet everyday I convince myself that it can’t be like this forever, that at one point people will understand that like all forms of design, visual design is about problem solving, not about personal preference or unsupported opinion. As developers we are both part of the problem and part of the solution, the sooner we understand that, the sooner we’ll be able to asume our responsibility of educating clients and users.
In late 18th Century people were amazed by this new invention called the telephone. It totally changed the perception they had on space and time at that point. Just being able to communicate with someone who was not physically in the same room, blew their minds.
But they communicated with other people, they didn’t talk to each other.
Why? Well, before there were telephones, the most similar approach of communication at that time was the was the telegraph, so everything users knew about communications when the telephone came in, was inherited from the telegraph.
Instead of talking to each other, they communicated as if they were redacting a telegraph:
Urgent stop. Need Groceries stop. Your parents dropped by stop.
Hello this is the bill collector, is your mommy home?. “No”. And your daddy?. “He’s also hiding.”
It took time and education from the media itself to make users understand that they weren’t charged by the letter, that they could in fact establish a normal dialogue between the other party just as if they were both in the same room.
Users will learn if care to teach them.
The most important thing I learned in all this years of Web Development is that design is NOT art.
Coming from a Motion Graphics and Editorial background, to me this was a really hard concept to grasp and I promise to write more in depth post about it, but thanks to Google, today I found a much simpler way to explain this through the philosophy of the furniture-making shakers:
Don’t make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful, don’t hesitate to make it beautiful
The Shakers, a religious group from the 17th Century (probably more remembered by their design achievements than by their religious beliefs) had a very interesting philosophy: Their main priority was to build something that was necessary and useful (problem solving), and then focused on making it beautiful.
That’s how they invented among other things, the circular saw, the washing machine and the flat broom. Their furniture design and sales techniques in the mid- 19th century left a huge legacy for today’s Scandinavian design. IKEA anyone?
A great example of this design/problem solving philosophy can be found on this US Navy Pilot Training Manual, called Flight Thru Instruments published in 1945 and designed by the Graphic Engineering Staff at General Motors.
The US Navy needed an effective way to teach pilots, aeronautical navigation concepts and techniques, so their approach was to create useful data visualizations (also known as info-graphics) and the results is this 63 Years old beautifully illustrated manual. I know very few books (and even websites) that look half this good nowadays.
Design is not art. Design is about solving problems in a creative way/space.
When people enjoy Art, they look at it and their response is “I like that”. When people enjoy Design, their response is “This works well”, and US Navy manual certainly accomplish that.
If you would like to enjoy other great examples of data visualizations, check out Smashing Magazine’s latest Mondays Inspiration series.
Jan
15
Yes, and it’s called crappy font choice. The copy on Apple.com today seriously looks like, well, very un-Apple. As Cameron already pointed out before, Apple is apparently ditching Myriad Pro Regular for the Light version, probably because Microsoft is using a typography strikingly similar to Myriad. I like how the Light version looks on headlines, but when it comes to copy, maybe they should have gone with a easy to read font.
One tip I learned over time when dealing with very light fonts is to duplicate the font layer and give it 50 % opacity. It enhances the contrast and provides a more solid aliasing without looking choppy. But you probably already know that.
In other related news, today’s the big day. There’s a lot of speculations on what will His Steveness announce today. Me? I’m more excited to see next weekend SNL’s Weekend Update with Fake Steve Jobs “Introducing the new Macbook Air”.
Follow the live blogging from TUAW on twitter here.
Jan
14
Speaking of tennis, The Australian Open, the first of the four Grand Slams held each year, started on Monday in Melbourne, although this year it looks a lot different from the previous editions. Here’s why.
The Australian Open started in 1905 as Tennis tournament played on grass courts (like Wimbledon) but in 1988 at the risk of losing irrelevance, the aussies decided to move the tournament to Melbourne Park.
At the same time they ditched the grass court for a revolutionary (at that time) green hard court made out of rubber, fiberglass and asphalt, called Rebound Ace. 20 Years later they decided it was time to do some changes again.
The first thing they did was a total rebrand of the Grand Slam. It’s not everyday you can see a legendary sport event go that route, so it’s safe to say it’s a pretty big deal.
The new logo included a more bold and fun typography as well as a more stylized tennis player icon in the middle. They also got rid of the predominant black color used all over the previous brand and switched to a more vivid and joyful bright light blue as the brand main color.
But they didn’t stop there. The State of Victoria and the City of Melbourne got a major rebranding too. With a cost of $ 750.000 and 18 months in the making, designer Ken Cato (www.cato.com.au) says the idea behind the logo is to show the visitors there are more dimensions to the city than they anticipate.
So we’re kind of saying it’s a bit like an onion — each time you peel back a layer there’s a better bit underneath
Pretty clever if you ask me, but I still get the feeling I already seen this before. I wonder where…
Oh that’s right… Apple’s COVERFLOW!
After 20 years of using the green Rebound Ace surface, this year they installed a spectacular bright blue new surface called Plexicushion. Man that sounds cool. Plexicushion. Gotta love it.
The primary behind this was to reduce the heat retention of the court while maintaining the medium, to medium fast pace of the previous surface.
Craig Tiley, Tournament Director said after the annual review of the courts, they established a major rebuild was required.
The blue court looks better, it will be easier for everyone to see the ball and the vibrancy of the color just lifts the entire venue. It is fresh and contemporary”
The decision on the color followed months of testing. Several options were evaluated, with tennis officials eventually settling on two tones of blue, a darker tone for the court itself, surrounded by a lighter tone.
The initial reaction of the players has been nothing but positive, although some player like Andy Roddick couldn’t care less:
I don’t really care, half my family is color blind anyway, so it doesn’t matter, I think that’s something where people are watching on TV so I don’t think it really matters to us too much
He then added ”...just to make things clear, I don’t care”.
So as you can see, there’s a lot more than just watching listening to Sharapova going into labor with each volley (or better yet, watching Djoikivic’s impression of Sharapova), on this edition of The Australian Open so be sure to tune in and follow the live updates on their website www.AustralianOpen.org.
Jan
11
Yesterday was one of THE hottest days of this 2007/2008 Summer here in Asuncion. So, armed with my Digital Camera and sporting my Indiana Jones uniform, I decided to walk 2 blocks from my office and take a photo of the digital thermometer on the corner of Lillo and San Martin Ave.
At 4PM the thermometer was showing 46 degrees Celsius, which equals 115 degrees Fahrenheit. Although 1 degree below The 2007 Hottest Day registered in October, it still felt like I was being slowly boiled.
UPDATE: Big picture after the jump.
UPDATE II: After last Thursday’s 115 F, Friday brought a huge rain storm. It poured 5 inches in less than 2 hours. In Asuncion, that can only mean one thing: cars floating everywhere.
via: ABC Color Newspaper Article (in spanish)
Jan
08
Unless you’ve been living under a very large rock, you probably know this is that time of the year were everyone feels obligated to provide advice about what’s good, what’s not and what’s just plain stupid.
So lately I've been debating with myself about whether or not I should write an article about Web Design Advice and Tips, mainly because:
Then yesterday, while catching up with my RSS feeds, I found a great (and sadly true) post from Greg about how hard is it to find good talent in today's industry.
As an employer of a growing number of full-time and freelance workers I can tell you that it's becoming increasingly difficult to find good people. I have had several conversations with persons of top stature in the web design business who are of the same opinion. Their own businesses' have been slightly crippled this year due to work demand vs. human supply.
I don't see there being a quick turn-around for this problem but it will escalate if we don't spend time and resources to proactively help improve the situation
After reading Greg's post (and experience it several times myself), I decided to help, to be more proactive and write an useful list of resources that could simplify what I learned over the last 11 years in Web Design. Who knows, that old Spanish Proverb might be right after all:
The Devil is wiser because he's old, not because he's the Devil
Below there's a set of 25 links I gathered from my bookmarks. On this links you'll find not only very useful tools, but also real mind opener tips and information about Web Design, ranging from Typography, Creative Tactics, Design Principles, Tutorials, and great inspirational examples.
Smashing Magazine's
"The importance of typography in design can’t be overestimated. The accuracy, precision and balance of geometric forms can give letters the elegance and sharpness they deserve"
PSDTUTS's
"Web design can be deceptively difficult. Getting a design that is both usable and pleasing, delivers information and builds brand, is technically sound and visually coherent..."
A List Apart's
"My first design job was with a small print design agency in Manchester that produced work in varying media: packaging, publications, and marketing support materials, and… direct mail"
PSDTUTS's
"When I put together designs I usually do so in two phases - Layout and Polish. During the layout phase I place the main objects on the page usually finishing with something that looks relatively complete."
Smashing Magazine's
"35 designers. 5 questions. 5 precise answers. Result: 175 professional suggestions, tips and ideas from some of the best web-developers all around the world."
FreelanceSwitch's
"Everyone who hasn’t encountered designer’s block, raise your hand. Just as I thought. Well then, chances are you could use some places to get inspiration for those days when the pixels aren’t aligned and your mouse finger isn’t clicking like it should"
SEOmoz's
"Web design can be incredibly frustrating. You'd think that with the infinite possibilities of what-goes-where it'd be pretty easy to land a design that works, yet somehow we've all been stuck before."
Smashing Magazine's
"Regardless of what it is that you’re selling, in order to remain competitive, you have to know exactly, what’s going on in the field you’re working in. More than that - actually, you have to know what happens next, which trends are coming up and which technologies will become big in the future."
The Photoshop Roadmap's
"Let’s dive today into a sea of brushes. Hundreds of thousands of sets are lying undiscovered like pirate treasures all over the web. "
Smashing Magazine's
"It’s not hard to design a weblog, but it’s getting harder when you try to achieve a unique weblog design. It doesn’t matter what weblog-engine you are using — frequently used themes tend to become boring over time, and they also don’t necessarily reflect the unique identity of the blogger. "
WebSiteOptimization's
"Free web site speed test to improve website performance. Enter a URL below to calculate page size, composition, and download time. The script calculates the size of individual elements and sums up each type of web page component."
Hell Yeah Dude's
"So you want to start discussing the theories on your mind? But you have no where to do it? No problem, don’t fall into the free blogging platforms that display all their ads on your blog!"
Smashing Magazine's
"Have your e-mails already been flagged as spam, although you’ve sent a seemingly legitimate proposal to your client? Have you ever wondered why the efficiency of your newsletter campaigns suddenly dropped down? In both cases you deal with a problem which is harder to get done with than you think it is: bulletproof e-mail delivery."
Vitamin's
"Glossy buttons, ornamental backgrounds, futuristic interfaces. We’ve all been guilty at one time or another of committing the 7 design-isms in this article from Larissa Meek. But that’s okay, she tells us, they’re classics for a reason."
Tutorial Blog's
"These are a tricky site to get right and design can give way to conversions, which is after all, the reason they are there - to make money."
Campaign Monitor's
"Not everybody has an email client that can show HTML, and some people just prefer plain text. We got permission from the creators of three really well designed plain text newsletters to share modified forms of their format with you..."
Smashing Magazine's
"Well-documented and readable source code is essential for every collaborative project. Logically structured, well organized and nicely formatted, the code can speed up the bug hunting... "
Clear Function's
"A particular strategy of Web design that emphasizes accessibility, semantic markup, and external stylesheet and scripting technologies...."
Smashing Magazine's
"Designers have only a fraction of a second to attract users’ eye and win over their loyalty. Clear visual structure, thought-out typography and moderate use of images are extremely important..."
Very useful tool when your client doesn't know...
"Who Is Hosting This is a tool that enables you to find out who is hosting any web site. Simply type in any domain name, and you'll get a link to the company that's hosting this particular domain. It's that simple! "
A List Apart's
"My first design job was with a small print design agency in Manchester that produced work in varying media: packaging, publications, and marketing support materials, and… direct mail"
Smashing Magazine's
"It’s quite easy to get stuck in creativity blocks, but it’s damn hard to get out of them. Particularly if you are out of time and don’t want to compromise your professional principles..."
Liquidicity's
"Being a successful creative has a lot to do with the way you work. Sure, you can’t teach good design, but it never hurts to learn a few new tricks, or simply make the most of your talents."
How does "affordable stock images" sounds for a change
"iStockphoto is the world's preeminent collection of member-generated royalty-free images, at the world's best prices. There are no subscription fees or extra costs. Just the best Stock Photography, Vector illustrations, Flash Files, and Videos, at prices for everyone"
Smashing Magazine's
"Business companies tend to impress visitors with solid site structures, precise navigation and the credibility of presented content. Therefore business layouts are usually quite unspectacular, mostly informative, but not attractive.
Yay for SUM Agency appearing #1 on the list!
While this probably not the Ultimate and Definitive way to do it, If you go through each and one of them, you WILL take your talent to a different level.
Enjoy and good luck!
Jan
06
For any big Football Fan, January has a very special meaning attached to it. Is that time of the year again when you start developing bonds with your TV and your Fridge, more than in any other time of the year.
It’s even more special if you happen to be a Design Junkie, not only because the next 5 weeks will be filled with the Cream of the Crop in Advertising, but also because it’s time for the National Font League Playoffs.
No one can deny the important role that Marketing and Design plays in today’s sports, but I think we can all agree Football has a lot more of this two than any other sport. What’s even more, Football Fans love to consume Marketing and Design. It’s not a coincidence the millions they spent in merchandise every season, nor it is the millions the league invest rebranding the Super Bowl every year (which is also the most expensive air time in the history of TV).
So last night I was watching the AFC Wild Card Game between one of my favorite National Font League’s Team, the Steelers and the Jacksonville Jaguars. As they were playing the 3rd. quarter, I was thinking to my self “It must’ve been hard to fit the Roethlisberger on the back of that jersey”. There’s definitively a kerning and size difference between Big Ben’s jersey and the other team mates jerseys. It’s funny that most people won’t even notice it, but behind Ben’s difference in Kerning and Size, there’s a designer solving a problem in a creative way.
This morning I started researching more about it and I couldn’t find almost any information about the subject. What I did found was a lot of people trying to figure out the name of the font used on their favorite team’s jersey.
So today I decided to play a tribute to one of the most important elements in the NFL. The jerseys, and more specifically, to the font used by every NFL team.
Unlike with it’s cousin, the Real NFL, on the National Font League there’s no need to root strictly for your hometown’s team, in fact you can root for as many teams as you want, as long as you like their font. This are my favorite National Font Teams.
I love their whole imagery. They have an excellent use of font, with both vintage and modern looking fonts as well as their Flying Elvis Logo, which is by far my favorite on the league. Plus, they are also my favorite team on the Real NFL.
Despite having the most boring logo in the league (seriously, hypocycloids on a logo?) The Steelers definitively bring something else to the table. Back in 1967 they experimented with a uniform based on the Batman TV Series and even as of today they are the only team in the whole league to sport their logo only on one side of their helmet. The excellent choice in typography (Futura) and the great high contrast color scheme in their uniforms, makes the Steelers one of the best team in the National Font League.
I have very good friends and colleagues in Albuquerque and they told me if you’re from New Mexico you can only root for either the Cowboys or the Broncos. I happen to like both, but when it comes to the National Font League, there’s clearly one favorite. They say third one is a charm and this team knows more about that than any other team. Back in the 60’s their original uniform wasn’t not well received by the public. It consisted of brown helmets, brown pants and white and mustard yellow jerseys. It think it’s safe to say they were running hot dogs. By 1962 they redesigned their image with white pants and orange jerseys. But it wasn’t until 1968 when they debuted the orange, white and blue horse. Finally by 1997 they introduced a radical change, incorporating a new logo, new font and greater use of navy blue. I really like the whole package of the Broncos, but I think most importantly than anything, I like the way they pay attention to the little details, like the stripes on the top of the helmet or the font outline on the back of the jerseys. If I would ever buy merchandising from a NFL’s team, Broncos would be it.
Although it shares a lot of the attributes of the previous 3 teams, the Titans have an Ace under their sleeve. Simplicity. They achieve the same quality the other 3 have, with a lot less effort, which translates into a strong logo with a great two toned blue and red accents color scheme. They are also one of the few teams in the National Font League that broke the mold and decided not to fall into the University-looking-font cliche for their jerseys.
If you would like to pay your own tribute, grab this ZIP File with all the fonts used by the NFL teams. You can use it to do wallpapers, posters or even your design your own t-shirts.
Click Here to Download the NFL Jerseys Fonts
Jan
01
Happy New Year And Best Wish to Everyone!! This year I’ve decided to make some changes in my life, so leave me a comment, and if I don’t answer it…you’re probably one of the changes.
Now, on a more serious note, I wish you can achieve all your goals this year (or at least the important ones) and be blessed with health, love and work.
By the way in case you were wondering, those 4 people in the pictures are My Brother José (32), My Niece Chantal (11), My other Niece Arami (4) and My Sister Rocio (24). We originally wanted to write Happy New Year, but you know, since I don’t speak English we decided to stick with the Spanish. I’m telling you, trying to explain how to write letters in the air to a 4 year old was a lot more easier than I thought it would be. You can find High Res versions on Flickr
Dec
28
...People will actually watch it and pay attention to it instead of wrestling other passengers to see who gets the arm rest. Virgin America’s Safety Video after the jump.
The agency responsible for the work is Wildbrain in San Francisco.
Dec
27
Via: PlaneBuzz.com
We all knew this one was inevitable when the latest iPhone commercial rolled out—now didn’t we?
“Oh joy! I can’t wait for the next ground delay or long taxi due to weather somewhere to get a smart ass with a freakin iPhone shoving it in my face saying “It’s NOT raining there… SEE !”. Too late ... already happened to me.
We push back, get advised of a ground stop in MEM due to storms in the area. Go to the penalty box and wait. My Captain does the lecture over the PA… not one minute later, we get dinged from the F/A:
Some guy with an iPhone says the weather is good, and wants to know what the real reason is for the delay. Is something wrong with the plane?
I want to tell this clown what he can do with his idiotPhone - but the Captain does it even better. He gets on the PA and makes the following announcement :
If the passenger with the IPhone would be kind enough to use it to check the weather at our alternate, calculate our fuel burn due to being rerouted around the storms, call the dispatcher to arrange our release, and then make a phone call to the nearest Air Traffic Control center to arrange our timely departure amongst the other aircraft carrying passengers with iPhones, then we will be more than happy to depart. Please ring your call button to advise the Flight Attendant and your fellow passengers when you deem it ready and responsible for this multi-million dollar aircraft and its passengers to safely leave.
Needless to say, the pax was pretty embarrassed. The F/A later told us the rest of the plane was outright laughing at this dude. What a clown.”
Source: PlaneBuzz.com
Dec
27
Must be the fact I’m turning 29 and I’m a bit more touchy than usual, or maybe just the fact I found this while cleaning my bookmarks and I wanted to share it with the world. Whatever the reason is, this IS the best video you will get to see today
(Yes, I know it’s an old video. I said it was the best video you will see today, not the newest)
It turns out the song came out after an Australian producer read this Chicago Tribune column.
Dec
27
This is the first time I’m starting a blog for myself. I know, it is almost like getting a Color TV in 1998, which is funny cause I’ve developed quite a few blogs for friends and clients in the past but I never built enough courage to actually start and maintain one for myself.
Until now. Well, more like, until 6 months ago when I started brainstorming different names for it.
I didn’t feel very comfortable using my name as the URL, so after thinking about it (a lot) and asking myself what will be the blog about? The answer was clear.
Last August I was reading a magazine someone forgot at an airport chair. In there I found an article about The Tao, which is a Chinese character often translated as “The Way of Nature” and it is described in the Chinese culture as “simply the way and order of the Universe”. Even if I wanted to explain it, I couldn’t. As the Tao it self says: “Those who explain the Tao, don’t understand it”.
When Lao Tsu (the fine looking gentleman to the left and legendary author of the Tao Te Ching) wanted to illustrate the greatness of Tao (an impossible tasks according to the Tao itself), he often explained that everything, the whole universe arises from the Tao, and in order to illustrate that belief, he needed the biggest figure, the biggest concept known to men, and so he referred to it as: The Ten Thousand Things.
“All things arise from Tao. They are nourished by Virtue. They are formed from matter. They are shaped by environment. Thus the ten thousand things all respect Tao and honour Virtue. Respect of Tao and honour of Virtue are not demanded. But they are in the nature of things. Therefore all things arise from Tao. By Virtue they are nourished, developed, cared for, sheltered, comforted, grown and protected. Creating without claiming; doing without taking credit; guiding without interfering - this is Primal Virtue.
The phrase generally means “everything”. But there is an inherent depth to this set of words, and I can’t tell you exactly what it should mean to you, I can only try to illustrate what it means to me.
This are my Ten Thousand Things. This are the interesting (and boring) things I already share with my friends using other channels, like for instance… post-its. Although I would probably have to stop doing that, being Christmas and all, there’s so much things to share that I will need to get a Post-It Family Pack at Cosco to keep up.
I also wanted to use this space to honor all the special moments I had this past year. For a lack of better expression… IT WAS OFF THE CHIZZLE!
Seriously, I got to see snow for the first time (A LOT), I visited my partners in Albuquerque twice, I accomplished my long time dream of visiting New York, I was invited to speak at a Design Conference in Asunción, and on top of everything else, I enjoyed my first year of marriage with my lovely and beautiful G.
Wheew…
It’s exciting when you look back and see all the things you have done and accomplished in the past years, but its even more exciting to look ahead and realize there are still Ten Thousand Things waiting to be discovered and accomplished.
One thing is for sure: whatever the future brings, I have now found a way to share it with the world.
So what’s next?
You might want to grab the RSS feed at the bottom so you can get notified of updates and new articles. That’s it! Welcome once again and enjoy your stay.
Oh, I almost forgot!
Today I’m turning 29! woohoo! So feel free to buy me all kinds of gifts.
Dec
27
VOX is a Cell Phone provider in Paraguay owned by a Japanese Corporation called Toyotoshi. They felt their old website didn’t reflect their heritage properly so the client requested two main things: a) A Flash Website and b) Greater use of the brand colors.
Dec
27
United Way of Central New Mexico asked SUM to redesign their website. A big part of the work had to do with Information Architecture and the objective was to make the site more accessible/useful to the donors and the media.
Inner section of the site.
Dec
27
The United Nations Population Fund asked to develop a website in order to help them build their presence in Paraguay. Without a doubt this was the longest website project I’ve ever been involved with. The Information Architecture on this site took nearly 8 months. The whole project took more than 10 months. It was definitively a big learning experience on both personally and professionally.
In case you were wondering, the UNFPA is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.
Dec
27
United Way Central New Mexico asked SUM Agency to develop the 2007 campaign. The creative team came up with the concept of GIVING as an actual product. The packaging itself was carefully design and would become the center of the campaign. We even did some TV Spots as well (you can find those on the trygiving.com website).
When the time came, I designed the concept using elements from the campaign and the box itself, which later turned into a resolution independent flash website. It was pretty fun project and I was very honored to be a part of it.
Dec
27
TMD is a division of SUM Agency dedicated to provide affordable Motion Graphics to anyone. We wanted to make the brand as organic and simple as we could. This is the final result.
Earlier in the process I developed a couple wallpapers to explore the brand attributes.
Dec
27
This time I had to develop a Flash Multimedia Presentation, pretty much like the one I did for ABC, with voice over and lots and lots of info. The idea was to launch the new GSM product line.
Back in 2003 this Sony Ericsson T616 loooked sooooo coool.
They also requested a series of telecommunications related icons to be used in the launch campaign.
Dec
26
This is actually very rare. In all this years I’ve done very few flash games, but this one is my favorite by far. Telecel a cell phone company wanted a Flash Game that allowed their customers to participate by sending SMS Text Messages onto a big screen. We came up with the idea of a penalty shot with 9 coordinates.
The costumer had to pick a number between 1-9 and send it over SMS to a specific number. The system would receive the request and then Virtual Player would kick the ball to the desired coordinate. Everything sounded great but: 1) We didn’t had ANY budget to get actors and produce the photo shoot, and obviously because of that, 3D was also out of the picture and 2) We only had 2 weeks until the big expo where they were expecting to display the game at the big screen on their booth.
“Hey Martin, here’s an idea. Why don’t we get a $ 50 goalie equipment, dress you up and I kick the ball and shoot the photos”
Yes, as you imagine, Martin ended up as the goalie, and I took the photos with a cheapo tripod and a digital camera. We got a permit from a local stadium (which looked like crap at that time, which means I had to digital correct tons of stuff, see below) and we shot the entire sequence in 3 afternoons. By the time we finished Martin had bruises all over.
The net had to be digitally removed and then put it back digitally in order to place Telecel’s advertisings on the billboards. Also, every frame of the goalie had to be photoshoped, croped and treated as layers. That was definitively the most time consuming part of the whole process. Oh yeah, that and putting everything together, actionscript and all in Flash MX.
Dec
26
In October of 2006 SUM Agency was founded with the solely idea of providing creative solutions that help our clients succeed and obtain their goals. This is by far the most fun I have ever been while actually working.
Our website received very good feedback from media and it was featured on several design galleries and websites, including #1 position for The Smashing Magazine’s 11 Almost Perfect Business Layouts and most recently being picked to appear in the upcoming Design Meltdown Book.
This is a our Reel section on the SUM Agency website.
Inheriting the same concept from NOS, we chose a colored pattern to communicate the versatility of the company.
Dec
26
One of our first SUM Agency’s client. The New Mexico Santa Fe County was a total challenge for us. Huge amount of Information Architecture was required to make this website not only more easier to use but also more useful to the citizens of Santa Fe.
Dec
26
Every now and then you get to work on project for a huge important company, with huge budget, great assets and total creative freedom. This is one of those projects. Ricky Sarkany (the equivalent to a Cavalli in South America) opened their first store in Asuncion and I got to design the mini website for it.
I know it’s hard to tell being a picture and all, but she’s totally into me. Shoo Shoo… Hawt Ricky Sarkany Model, I’m already taken.
Dec
26
This is a quick logo I did for a Tuning Portal of a friend of mine.
