Brand New’s article on it.

ISO 50′s reaction and a list of user submitted logo designs (David Airey’s is my favorite. Haha.)

Gap’s response on their Facebook page.

Thanks to Joel for making me aware!

Avoiding Design Burnout

A Freelance Graphic Designer’s Burnout and Ways to Avoid It

Thanks,

Check it out here…

Well, it seems that the people over at LateNiteSoft are feeling a little generous as they prepare to launch they’re newest product, Squeeze, and are offering it up for free over at MacHeist.  But hurry up and snag it now, because come March 2nd, LateNiteSoft will be officially selling this nice little space-saver and it’ll be gone for good from the MacHeist site…

Updating a site using a CMS is usually fairly simple. It can be likened to composing an email in a web-based mail program. The user logs in to the system, selects the page to edit, changes the text in the text area and saves the changes. Most editors allow users to add simple formatting, such as heading tags, bold or italics. Images and links to other pages within the site or other sites can be added as well.

At JLB, we realize that there isn't a one size fits all solution when it comes to web sites. Therefore, we use a few different content management systems depending on the needs of the client and the design of the site.

Textpattern is a straight-forward, easy to use, free CMS that works well for publishing text. Many people use Textpattern for blogs and sites that have a set text block on each page with navigation on either the right or left side. Sites using Textpattern include: the JLB blog, Valkyrie Consulting Group, Gray PR's Blog and Creekstone's News.

Site Mason is a more complex system that takes a little time to learn. However, it has many features and allows more design flexibility and additional options for adding sections and pages to a site. Site Mason has allows form creation, file uploads and image editing through the content management system interface. Bolen Dodson and Associates and Southern Exposure Magazine both use Site Mason to keep content current.

Drupal is an open-source CMS that we began using this summer. It has the ability to handle content, users, polls and a myriad of other features. There are also modules that other developers have created that can be plugged into Drupal to make the options with this CMS seem endless. Roadmap to America: The Last Best Hope is an eLearning site running on Drupal.

I cannot tell you how many hearts I have broken over the years with the news that “there is simply nothing I can do to recover your data” due to a dead hard drive. I have worked in repair shops and with student computing enough to say that more than any other problem, this is the most devastating yet the easiest to avoid. Unfortunately, in all my years of repair, I have yet to come across anyone who actually had a solid backup.

The prices of hard drive continue to fall so much that even the most frugal computer owner can add a backup drive to their system these days. To ease my pain after the tragedy, I added a pair of 1TB (yes folks, that’s 1000GB times 2) hard drives to my computer system, one to replace my fallen drive and one for the sole purpose of backup. I paid about $130 each for the pair from Buy.com around three months ago, but you can find the same drives now for around $100.

Your backup options are numerous. Depending on your needs and your system you might be able to set up your drives to mirror each other as in a “raid” configuration as I have. Your drives or system may also come with special backup software that can automate the backup task for you. Or, at the very least, you can add a new drive and just drag and drop the things you value most on to it. If you are not a techie, or don’t have a techie friend, don’t worry. You can also pick up external hard drives that need only a cable and possibly a power plug to get you up and going for only a little more.

Whatever route you choose, just do it. I promise you will not be sorry, even if you never need to use it. The alternative could be the road I am currently on. I am waiting to find out if a data recovery center will be able to retrieve the first nine months of video clips of my newborn that I had created, edited and stored on the drive. If I am lucky enough to be able to get any or all of them back, it will only cost me around $800. Now, how many backup drives would that have paid for?

As a youngster, my mother made several attempts to help me keep a cleaner room.  On one occasion, she bought four or five Rubbermaid bins and designated each one for a certain kind of toy. So maybe one had written on it in black marker, “Action Figures.”  Another would be “Vehicles” and another “Dinosaurs.” This noble plan of hers always broke down when I came across a toy of mine that didn’t fit in to any of the categories.  If I had an action figure that was also a dinosaur, where did it go?  Was it more action figure or more dinosaur?  What if I couldn’t decide? That toy usually went on the floor.

I don’t play with action figures much these days, but similar dilemmas still crop up. There are so many different types of information that I deal with on a daily basis here at JLB Works, and this information doesn’t always fall into categories as neatly as I would like.

Invariably there are some odds and ends that seem important that don’t quite fit under any particular project heading or documents folder. Sometimes I just need to capture an image or URL or text snippet in the middle an unrelated task and don’t want to be slowed down. While my system for dealing with bits of relevant info is (and probably always will be) still evolving, I did recently find a tool that makes the task much easier for me.

Shovebox, by Wonder Warp Software, allows me to collect those stray bits of information and arrange them (or export them) as necessary. One characteristic of the application that I love is that it can accept so many different types of input.  I can drag and drop in virtually any common document format, from PDFs to RTFs to JPGs.

The beauty of Shovebox is that its design meshes speed and flexibility. It makes it quick and easy to capture a bit of important info, so that I can keep moving on the larger task at hand; but there are plenty of option for organizing. It lets me compose a “quick jot” to speedily get down a line or two of text or create a “text note” for longer entries.  I can also snag an image directly from iSight or import the contents of my clipboard (really handy for saving URLs).

While I can collect information without much thought and have Shovebox arrange each entry in simple chronological order, it also allows me to get more organized as I go.  I can create as many folders as I need to, and can flag and label entries by color.  I would like to see keyword tagging capability added in a future update, but content stored in Shovebox is searchable from within the program, which is good enough for now.

There is plenty more to like about this application, such as its export ability, its unobtrusive position in the taskbar, and its fast learning curve. However, rather than detail those features in this space, I recommend that Mac users (unfortunately, not available for PC) check out the free trial version of Shovebox and see if they find it as helpful as I have.

Since the aluminum Macbook Pros were too far out of my price range, I settled on the black finish.  Imagine my annoyance when I learned  that the matte black exterior shows every touch of the human hand as a prominent oily smudge.  So, Apple gives its aesthetically oriented customers a choice between two beautiful, sleek machines that will both look filthy if they are actually used.  Every computer manufacturer can make a flat black machine that doesn’t show prints, so why can’t the groundbreaking folks at Apple?  In addition, Apple charges more for a black Macbook with the same features and specs as a white one.  Are they artificially creating a conspicuous consumption situation?  If so, this seems to go against the pseudo-populist image that they push through their advertising.  Nevertheless, I was set against the white version for the previously mentioned reasons and decided to go with the black.

Sadly, the black finish had already begun flaking and peeling of the corners of my machine. My frustrations don’t end with appearances, however. The Macbook comes with only two USB ports.  Considering the variety of devices (card readers, printers, iPods, iPhones, external mice, hard drives, etc.) that require a USB port to connect to the computer, a mere two seems pretty stingy.  Further, after only eight months of gentle use, one of the two ports stopped functioning.  A friend of mine has the same notebook that is one year older, and has had to replace his screen twice.  Since Apple charges comparatively more than PC makers for a machine with comparable specs, one would expect more hardware reliability.  It doesn’t make much difference if my computer can connect to external devices without complicated setups or handle images well if the USB ports don’t work or the screen has dead pixels.

In August, I received an iPhone 3G as a gift . I probably wouldn’t have purchased one myself, but I was intrigued to try one out.  I liked the idea of being able to check e-mail, look up a debated trivia fact, or verify my bank account balance from virtually anywhere.  So I drove over to the Apple store, designated gift money in hand, to take home the new iPhone.  The store was emblazoned with posters trumpeting the life-changing features of the miraculous device.  A table was outfitted with a full arsenal of demo phones. “Please buy this thing,” Apple was pleading with me, “you need it more than you could ever imagine.”  So I asked a sales clerk what I needed to do to get one. “Oh, we don’t have any,” they told me. When did they think they would get more in? I wondered.  “Oh, we don’t know.  You can check availability online every night after nine PM, and if we are getting a shipment, you can come wait in line and hope that we don’t run out before you get one.”  I see, I thought, without saying aloud, you either didn’t make enough (which means you released it prematurely) or you intentionally want a shortage to create a buzz for your product (which is not a very customer-centered business practice).

Suffice it to say that after several weeks, a number visits, and many unhelpful conversations with employees that were as sick of the shortage as I was, I got my hands on an iPhone through an AT&T store.  So how is the hard-won device?  In many ways, it is a useful thing to have in one’s pocket throughout a given day, when it functions as it should.  Yet, it doesn't always function as it should. It has terrible battery life, much-needed firmware updates have been slow in coming, the touted 3G network has been inconsistent in reliability (an AT&T problem, allegedly , but they are the only approved service provider), and the touch screen is finicky.  There is inconsistent use of the cool landscape keyboard mode in built-in applications, no copy and paste, no Flash capability, and few features in the otherwise great camera.  Also, Apple tends to restrict applications from third parties that address the company’s own oversights.  I can’t help but wonder if Apple denies the implementation of certain features in order to have more features to whoop and holler over when they release the next version of a product. How will they get their fans to run out and wait in line for the latest release if they were too thorough on the previous one? Is this an example of Apple's planned obsolescence, perhaps?

Next time: a regular guy's prognosis for Apple and the future…

The term "business casual" was coined in the 1970s when, as a response to the energy crisis, managers let their employees take off suit jackets and ties to be more comfortable in warmer office buildings. After the dot com boom in the late 1990s, business casual got a little more casual, with many companies allowing jeans or kakhis instead of suit pants. Some companies took on "casual Friday" policies allowing employees to dress down one day a week. Now, few industries expect true business dress from their employees on a daily basis.

With all the talk about what to wear, does it really make a difference in how you work? Studies show that most people feel that dressing more casually increased productivity. In companies where employees work on computers for much of the day, casual clothing allows them to be more relaxed and better able to concentrate on the work at hand. People who dress casually at work are often viewed as more artsy or creative by their clients and peers. While those in business suits are assumed to be sales people or consultants.

These days, dressing for success in the workplace is more of an attitude than a style. Even though we're still figuring out our JLB style, there is no doubt that we are passionate about our work.

As my interest in photography, and the subsequent editing that all good digital photography involves, has grown over the last couple of years, my computer's ability to handle images has become more and more important to me.  So when the time came to buy a new notebook, I chose to venture into the previously unfamiliar territory of Apple.  While no doubt there are exceptions, Macs seem to be far and away the preferred option for photographers, graphic designers, artists, or anyone dealing extensively with images on a computer.  

However, the company and many of their customers also struck me as insufferably self-congratulatory.  Apple products of the past several years have been designed to look svelte  and iconic, placing high value on simplicity and clean lines. While few would argue against the statement that Apple makes a nice-looking machine,  the previously mentioned more visually-oriented users don't let anyone forget it as they bop around the usual hipster hang-outs, fully accessorized with American Apparel hoodies and white Apple earbuds. There is nothing wrong with having an attractive, functional computer or portable music player, but it's odd to me that doing so would become part of a person's identity to the extent that they would affix a little white Apple sticker to their car.

I also hesitated to buy an Apple product based on previous, if limited, experience. The times that I had been stuck using a Mac in the computer lab at college or checked e-mail on a friend's iBook, I always found myself totally lost amidst the “intuitive” operating system — Wait, how do I change the printing preferences?  Where did my file just save to?  

But I made up my mind to take the plunge, and in January of 2008 I scraped together my small amount of savings and Christmas money and purchased a black MacBook. So far I've been happy that I did, for the most part. After a few weeks, I had the hang of OS X. It isn't more intuitive than MS Windows — it's just different. It certainly looks nicer, and there are things I've grown to love such as the Exposé feature and the greater resistance to viruses and malware.  

I can also say that the OS at least feels more solid and stable than the PCs that I've used in the past.  I haven't lost huge bodies of work because of a program crash and I've almost never had the system freeze up. This is significant for me, because I just want my computer to do what it's supposed to do without a lot of extra effort. It's enough work to become and expert on whatever task that I'm trying to perform on my machine without first having to become an expert about the machine itself and its operating system.

Next time: The cracks begin to show … and venturing into 3G territory …