By Samuel John Klein of Portland, Oregon - Graphic Designer without Portfolio, aspiring artist who dawdled too long.
1603.
Brittney Gilbert caught another one in San Mateo (once again, shamelessly hotlinked):
$5.45/gal for premium. Jaws on the floor yet? This is also why I'll never vote for self-serve gas here in Oregon; if I'm getting skrooed, I want someone to serve me dinner first.
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1602.
Now, I don't know what it is about bass guitars, but they just drive people a good kind of crazy. And, if someone is inspired to build guitars, they come up with these stunningly clever and passionate things.
The illustration (shamelessly hot linked) depicts the Basking Shark model, and if it looks like it has an aluminum fretless fingerboard, that's because it does. Is that not sexy? Is that not sex-ah? Yes, yes it is.
Sadly, not only does Andreas not market to America, the link from the article goes somewhere else now. C'est la guerre, mon cher.
Tags: cool things, bass guitars, andreas guitars, basking shark guitar
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1601.
So you went over to FontStruct because I told you to, because it looks cool and you want to make your own font and it's free. But you have the interface loaded up and you're thinking ... what do I do now?
New programs can intimidate the best of us, even when the interface is simple. So the excellent dudes at FontStruct have provided the following video tutorial, which may be seen, and is rather short and won't waste too much of your time and will really show you how painless it is to use FontStruct to create:
Introduction to FontStruct from fontstruct on Vimeo.
There you go. That was easy, wasn't it?
I've created a FontStruction here. It's sloppy and kind of rough but has a bit of charm. Majuscules only, no minuscules or numbers or any punctuation. I plan on seeing this through but wanted to share what I have now. Feel free to download!
Tags: font design, digital type design, web 2.0, fontstruct
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1600.
Media Blog Queen Brittney Gilbert snapped this pic round her home digs in the greater Berkeley area:
$5.39 premium. Gah. Photo shamelessly hotlinked.
Tags: modren_times, gas prices, peak oil, brittney gilbert
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1599.
FontStruct is a new, nifty, free web-based app (finally, something here about web 2.0!) that combines font-making for the simple font geek with community. I've tried it, and it's passing cool.
Here's the way it works: You register for free, and fill an intuitive graph-paper-based interface with building blocks of a whole bunch of different shapes. Save your creation, download it as a TrueType font for personal use, or share and enjoy in the FontStruct community (where other 'Structors can opine and vote on how awesome your creation is.
Not everything can be built on blocks, though; FontShop hawks its own more sophisticated wares via an ad in various places in the interface. They don't get in the way, however.
I thought FontStruct was great fun, and the price is right. I wrote a bit more detailed account of my encounter on Designorati here.
Tags: font design, type design, digital type design, fontshop, FontStruct
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1598.
Photoshop yahaaaar!
Tags: photoshop, bad humor, puns, double entendres, Art Based On Photos I Ripped Off From Somewhere else.
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1597. Not necssarily coming to a lightpost near you. Inspired by a couple of other memes.
Tags: sam adams, memery, meme, teh_funnay, Sam Adams Has A Posse
1595.
The intro to the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie (a so-called "wheel" series that gave us memorable TV detectives such as Columbo, McCloud, McMillan (pre-gay Rock Hudson) and Wife and Quincy, always stirs pleasant memories.
Of course, I was a real little one at that time, so what I remember most of all was being bored by it. I wanted cartoons and Sci-Fi, not mysteries. Suffice it to say that I've matured a great deal since then.
The intro was remarkable then and is still a one-of-a-kind treat to see. Thank God for YouTube and classic TV geeks for the following:
Man, that Mancini could write a tune! I guarantee you now that you've seen this you'll be whistling that. I, for one, can't stop.
For those of you beyond Gen Fashionable (whatever that may be), these characters may seem like a different language to you. Here's an attempt at a translation, or at least some points or reference for you ...
When You See: Think:
Columbo Monk, without the OCD
Quincy CSI: Curmudgeonly Dude
McCloud Matlock, only younger. With a horse.
McMillan and Wife Bones, only they're married.
Henry Mancini Mike Post.
Tags: Classic TV, Columbo, Quincy M.E., Henry Mancini
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1594.
The sketchy economy being a constant source of distraction, I couldn't help but notice the following item.
It would appear, in order to give homeowners in distress a little breathing room, the Sheriff of the City and County of Philadelphia, PA, has, considering the upcoming Sheriff's sale of foreclosures, said – for the time being, mind – said "I prefer not to":
More of our neighbors, our families and our friends are falling behind on their mortgages and losing their homes to sheriff’s sale. My staff and I watch the suffering every day and witness the heart-wrenching scenes as families lose their primary means of wealth-building and face eviction.
In the last few years, layoffs, corporate downsizing, and an increase in the number of second and third mortgages have fueled a dramatic increase in mortgage foreclosures in Philadelphia and across Pennsylvania, and increased the number of properties sold at sheriff’s sale to repay the mortgagor’s debt.
Recent trends are disturbing, according to Erik Randolph, budget analyst for the state’s House Committee on Appropriations, which recently released a report stating that the number of mortgage proceedings initiated in Pennsylvania is now at levels not seen since the mid-1980s, and Pennsylvania’s rate now exceeds the national average.
The full text of the Sheriff's message can be read here.
This, in conjunction with the message on the front page that the most recently scheduled sale, for 1st April 08, was postponed until further notice, suggests that the office is taking a more active role in giving homeowners breathing room to try and arrange some way to stay in their homes.
Which I think is a good thing. While it's fashionable to think that the only people who are in foreclosure trouble are people who were too foolish (or stupid) not sign mortgage papers they shouldn't have, the reading we're doing and the news that the foreclosure crisis is spreading to people who have good credit and traditional mortgages suggest to us that there's much more going on here than people spilling ink they had no business to.
Tags: modren_times, foreclosures, weak economy, Philadelphia, Sheriff Green
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Well, children and people everywhere, it's been a while. In honor of our acquisition of our two Federally-subsidized digital conversion boxes, I realized it was time to seal the deal and get through the last two spots on your obsolescent VHF dial.
Here we go ... with number 12.
I always appreciate it when a PBS affiliate includes its number in its branding. and 12 is just a cool looking number ... it goes with everything. KBDI, Denver:
Channel 12, Beaumont TX, has the requisite accessories for Texas broadcasting: Red, White, Blue, and Star. The More. Local. News. part of the design looks like three buttons you have to choose one of. I mean, I know what you get when you press "News" and maybe "Local", but what do you get if you hit the "More" button? Do I want to know? Or is like a command-key and you use it to modify one of the other two? So many choices!
KCCW, Walker MN, rebroadcasts WCCO-Minneapolis' signal, which explains why a small-market station has such a sophisticated look (we've found that usually the opposite is true)
KCOY CBS 12 isn't all that coy ... they'll take you, anytime and anywhere ... but presumably only if you're somewhere around Santa Barbara CA. But I do enjoy the letterforms here. Yes, I am a letterform slut. Now, it can be told. Take me, KCOY, take me!
Oregon's other channel 12 is located in Medford, KDRV. It's a nice look. Probably won't win any awards, but very appropriate. Nice color palette too.
KEYC, Mankato MN, is The One To Watch. I love slogans like that. Nobody ever calls a radio station that. Very steely look to the serious logo. Note a very clever point, and that point is between the words one and two in the tagline, and it's repeated between the 1 and 2 in the logo. One, two, 1, 2, One 2 Watch, 1 two watch ...
KFVS, Cape Girardeau, MO, has a solid looking design there:
KUAM is the PBS station for Guam. Before it adopted its curent look, it had this funky cool look going on, looks rather hand crafted and parochial, but in the charming way:
Silas Lyons, editor of the Redding Searchlight-Record, had it that one of my blog entries back on 1st April was a subtle dig at Redding. I differ, but reasonable people can do this (actually I envy Redding for having a Calatrava-designed bridge, but we're digressing here). My dig toward KHSL 12's logo isn't so subtle: Blah. And would someone please fix the kerning between the R and the E in the word "redding"? It's kind of like a hot poker in the eye. I cry a little and die a little inside whenever I see things like that.
Joplin MO's Channel 12 has Action 12 News, which is very serious. The logo is executed rather cleverly, with the bevelling giving it a bit of a sophisticated feel, and note the way the word NEWS is executed in four different weights in the red stripe. I enjoy that. It's kind of hokey, but I enjoy it.
I've heard of the following station somewhere, I just don't know ...
Seriously though, when KPTV went from being Oregon's 12 to FOX 12 Oregon, I was actually happy. Not because it had gone from being one of the most remarkable independents in the country to being a FOX station, but because it looked very much like they were going to strip it of every vestage of local flavor and color. The styling of the digits and the inclusion of the word Oregon in the logo is a very welcome nod to the history KPTV has with Portland, and most importantly, it's not the yawn-a-licious FOX empire style.
Now, KPNX makes what might have been a rather boring logo interesting by abstracting in the western border of the state of Arizona, a state whose outline has always been visually interesting to me.
KSAT in San Antonio TX deserves credit for having a logo that connotes action without having to use the word ACTION as a crutch somwhere. The little fast-forward double-arrow reinforces the notion with admirable cleverness.
KSLA TV doesn't have a particularly groundbreaking logo, but the treatment of the 12 is effective. Making the logo a solid object and skewing it from the POV of the viewer makes for dynamic interest.
KTRV, Boise's channel 12, also makes the uninteresting FOX empire style interesting. I enjoy the lighting effect and the gradient treatment on the notional surface of the logo.
And there's a nifty version that nods to the history of the station, which is also cool because everything is not centered and it still works.
I think we've visited this little network before. In collecting these logos, I've found that this is a common treatment across the intermountain west.
KVOS is a station in Bellingham WA that serves both that city and Vancouver BC as well. The interesting thing about this is that it's cool even though it doesn't include the numeral 12. The positive-negative space is a zoomed-in part of the K. Very nifty.
KWCH Wichita has that nifty bowshock that stands in for actual design work. I swear, by now I've seen it so much ... do they get that design at KMart or WalMart or 7-Eleven or what? What a yawner in branding.
KXII is one of two stations in the nation that uses the roman numeral to create its call-sign, which is cool. Serving the mythical land of Texoma, it has THE MOST, as the Star-treky font declares. And First News! So assertive!
KXMB, channel 12 in Bismarck/Mandan ND, is part of the KXnet, a handful of stations that serve the state of North Dakota in a "micronetwork", which we've found is a common approach where the distances are wide and the population low.
WBNG, Binghampton NY, has a effectively-done logo which adapts well to screen bugs and lower-third display. I enjoy the way the 12 is reversed-out space.
WBOY is located in central West Virginia, and keeps it simple and sophisticated, and is also lower-third optimized:
WCTI serves northeastern North Carolina, and even though the POV design is kind of uninspired, I like it. It does create dynamic energy in the logo, which is an important job in News logos ... always on the go, always ready to cover it, whatever it is.
WDEF in Chattanooga may be DEF, but the bowshock is strictly YAWN. The gradient does class it up a bit.
Wilmington DE's public station, WHYY has one of the coolest callsigns available, and no mistake. Even though they don't use the channel number in the logo, they do an incredibly cool thing with the last letter. I'll let the design speak for itself:
Erie PA's WICU doesn't have the most exciting logo in the world, but a little shadowed gradient does make it interesting. And I do enjoy it when the call sign and channel make it into the logo.
Let's get the joke about the tagline out of the way; WISN, Milwaukee, WI. One of America's leading ABC stations. Someday, it hopes to be two of them. Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I really enjoy this logo. The abstracted 12 canted within the square is actually kind of daring, and it looks good. Cutting off parts of forms like that attracts your mind's interest; whether you know it or not, your brain works to complete the parts that were cut off. You can't help it. That's why designs like this are engaging. Tilting it creates tension and energy.
But they do have what they have the "straight" version.
Which is still pretty cool because that abstract version of the 12 rocks my world.
WJRT, Flint MI, keeps it simple and sophistcated?
WJTV Jackson MS: sew the shock, reap the bowshock ... but hey, it's a Media General company! That counts for something somwhere. Somehow.
I'm required by law to make this joke.
Baby, if you've ever wondered/Wondered, whatever became of me/I'm living on the air in Cincinnati/Cincinnati's WKRC.
Actually, I think I made that joke before. Nevermind.
But it is a well-working logo. and if you go to local12.com and mouse over that button, it will depress and light up. Niftycoolwebsitetime!
WPEC West Palm Beach: not a bad effort despite being kind of trope-y. The difference is angling the 12 up ever-so-slightly. This is what I mean by a little design going a long way. Sometimes it takes just one little move to make something ordinary into something interesting.
Channel 12, WPRI Providence RI, proudly serving Quahog, is a well-done logo. Why I can't stop seeing it as one of those little turtles in the Mario game? I don't know. But it is well done.
WRDW, Augusta GA, makes their logo interesting by extending the white stripe beyond the 12 on the right. The colors are chosen very well – the warm red contrasting with the cool every-where else.
The 12.2 subchannel – MyNetwork – isn't all that groundbreaking, but I like the way they executed it.
WSFA, Mongtomery Alabama:
WJTX TV is another provider in one of America's insular (that means island, folks) territories. The playful unself-consciousness of the design is a real winner, and reflects the easy island lifestyle of the US Virgin Islands. They even have a lizard as the station mascot ... very playful for a PBS station.
The difference in this logo is the subtle way in which the 1 is baseline shifted up a little, which makes it unexpectedly interesting. WTLV, Jacksonville FL:
WWBT, Richmond VA ... meh. Does its job. No design going on though.
WXII, channel 12 in central North Carolina does the same thing as WTLV does but backs it up with a red square.
And, last for this go around, WYES in New Orleans LA. This picture I really wanted to share; it's on the WYES Wikipedia page, and WYES doesn't really use this as a logo, but the dim lines you see across it? Those are high-water marks from the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Never forget, people!
For the video to play us out, here's a reporter at WXII in North Carolina, having a close-encounter of the redneck kind. Hope she got paid hazard pay for that! So, until next time ...
1592.
I've been taking Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 out for a spin and I've really been enjoying it. The most exciting thing to me so far has been the ability to construct really slick looking PDF Portfolios, with clever front ends, welcome splash pages, and web-style navigation.
I wrote about it today here at Designorati; long story short, Acrobat 9 does all the PDF-licious things you like in Adobe Acrobat, and the presentation improvements allow you to do more cool things than before.
Tags: adobe, adobe acrobat, acrobat pro 9, pdf portfolios
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1591.
17 Feb 2009 is less than a year out, and if you have a good ol' analog TV, if you don't do something about it by then, what you'll have after that is just a TV monitor.
We're not the type to really get too excited about TV ... most of our entertainment comes from YouTube these days anyway. But we do partake of the morning news and our TVs allows us to partake of things like Hell's Kitchen, so we'd like to be able to use them rather than just have them taking up space.
When it was announced that the government was subsidizing purchase of up to $40 of set-top converter boxes on boxes that were expected to cost not less than about $60, we were irritated; if Unca Sam can front us $40/box for 2 boxes, why not make 'em free, if having digital TV is so darned important to have? But, we couldn't justify the cost of a new TV much less afford it, so it was off to the government to apply for those coupons they were giving out (also apparently limited).
We got our request in early, and got our coupons about two months ago. They were set to expire at the end of this month.
And they weren't paper coupons ... they were nifty little plastic cards, gift/credit card-sized, complete with a cute little anti-counterfeit hologram on one end of them. Very upmarket. Wish I could have kept one just to show off.
Now, we were going to do our buying through Radio Shack. We just like the Shack, and if you need something and don't need help to be shown how to use it, the Shack is the place to go ... you just walk in, find what you want, and walk out the door (provided you've paid for it first). And they had two models to choose from that were supposed to be fairly good.
One was a Zenith, the Zenith DTT-900, the other a brand called Digitalstream, the DTX-9900. I had a good impression of the buzz, and it was that the Zenith was the better product by a nose, but were harder to find. This much was true. The only two Zeniths we could find the the greater Portland area were at the Radio Shack in ... Canby. Which actually wasn't a bad thing; the drive was quite lovely today. Both boxes had the exact same price points ... $59.99 ... so by buying the two now we paid about $40 for the both whereas if we had waited and bought them full-ride price, that's $120.00 down the hole.
Once we got them home I connected one up to the TV in our bedroom. After misconnecting one lead and troubleshooting that, it was up and running. It takes no time at all, really, to connect these up: plug in the box to the mains, connect the antenna (in this case, a dusty ol' pair of rabbit ears) to the antenna input, and the antenna input from the TV to the TV output on the box.
And we were up, just like that. The onscreen setup made it all very easy, and scanned the airwaves for all digital broadcasts. We had 22 channels on our TV. Yes, just like that.
But what was amazing was the way it made me feel like we'd gone out and bought a new set. From a simple, beat-up, dusty, old set of rabbit-ears we were getting clear signal on every channel. On-screen menus and program guides made me feel almost as though we had cable. It was astounding. This TV set – a 19" model – was bought at Stuff (you know, the 'lectro-pawn place down on SE 82nd and Otty, next to the 7 Eleven store and the Krispy Kreme) some years ago for $50 or so. It's still going strong, and will continue to be useful. Our big 36" living room set will have its life extended similarly.
I'm actually quite pleased at the quality of the broadcast signal we're now getting.
I'm still a bit skeptical that DTV isn't, in some way, a way for The Man to carve a few extra bucks out of my thin wallet. But we are getting value for money here. DTV is bringing us more content (watching Bob Ross on OPB's digital subchannel at 10 pm was something else again) and better picture all round. Mind you, the quality of that content still tends to vary, of course.
And I wouldn't call myself a DTV "believer" ... it is television, after all.
But I think anyone who's thinking about the upcoming switch and doesn't feel like getting a new TV really should seriously get round to getting one of these boxes. They're really pretty cool, and when 17 Feb of next year rolls around, you'll be good to go.
We recommend the Zenith, of course. Has just one light in the front of it. Looks kind of like an old-school Cylon there.
Tags: DTV, DTV Switch, digital to analog converter, DTV converter box, Zenith DT-900
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1590.
(Cincinnati.com) This should be the punchline to a joke, but it isn't; this is for seriouslys.
Frederic J. Baur was a food scientist who invented the idea of storing Pringles Potato-crispy-thingies in that tennis-ball-can-shaped can.
He was rather proud of his work:
Dr. Fredric J. Baur was so proud of having designed the container for Pringles potato crisps that he asked his family to bury him in one.
His children honored his request. Part of his remains was buried in a Pringles can - along with a regular urn containing the rest - in his grave at Arlington Memorial Gardens in Springfield Township.
As far as I can tell, this isn't a goof. This apparently really happened. It's too late for an April's fool joke.
We should all die as proud of whatever it is we've accomplished in life ... I suppose.
Well, yeah, actually!
Provided it's something you should be proud of, of course.
Tags: so weird it's true, ironic news, frederic j. baur, pringle's potato crisps
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1589.
This, my friends, is one hot bit of software. It is also pretty cool.
PDF Porfolios, dynamic content, new preflighting, analysis, fixing-up, and collaboration tools ... this thing is killer.
Read all about it here, you peoples (I overview at Designorati)!
Tags: Adobe, Adobe Acrobat Pro 9, Creative Suite 3.3
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1588.
Fafblog is back! And it's bad!
For those who know, no explanation is necessary.
For those who don't, no explanation is possible.
So dive in, and become one of those who know.
Actually, for those who know, no explanation is possible either. But those who know don't need one ... do we?
Tags: fafblog, political blogs, absurd humor, fafnir
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1587.
Noting in passing that The Tom Peterson Alarm Clock would be a kickass name for a band (apply to me for permission to use it ... baby needs a new pair of shoes ... a new computer ... to pay the mortgage ...) ... Again this blog gets a tip from the forums at OLive, this time, ironically, in a Blazers thread. Nifty!
The Tom Peterson's "Wake Up" Alarm clock is indeed the stuff of legend. Lucky are you who have one. They are occasionally available, but vanishingly rare: there's one right now on eBay that you can buy outright for $250.
But for those (such as me) who are poor and can't afford anything right now, I combined a picture I had of one with the sound file thoughtfully supplied by Blog Heroine Judy at Persistent Illusion. Hit "play" and relive the memories:
Tags: Portland Advertising, pdx_legends, pdx_history, pdx_people, Tom Peterson's, Tom Peterson and Gloria's Too
