For the first time in many years, I alphabetized my records — and counted them. I have 276. A modest number — I’m not a collector by any means. The high counts? Elvis Costello and the World Inferno Friendship Society each with 5, Guts Pie Earshot with 6, The Smiths with 7, and the Clash with 8. No duplicates, and only one that was still sealed.

First, make sure your site (or page) is very stripped down. Take out anything that might make it complicated — like javascript or anything dynamic. You can add functions back in later.

We’ll start with a page that looks like this as an example:

http://www.pinkslipmedia.org/ideacoop

It’s pretty simple. You have two menus (one won’t be dynamic since it is image-based and the other in a sidebar that can readily expand with other blocks) content title, content, images, and a footer.

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Credit where credit’s due — The Art Lab’s original post about this “maintainable gallery”. I’m only updating this with adding on how to do multiple galleries.

First: a fresh install on Drupal 5.8 (Drupal 6 modules aren’t QUITE there yet, I tried!)

Enable Clean URLs

Required modules

• CCK
• Imagefield
• Image API
• Imagecache
• Views
• View Bonus Pack
• Thickbox

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Drupal Daze is this weekend. I’ll be posting my presentation notes here shortly as I prepare. Very exciting!

So pleased to be able to make this poster. I’m so psyched for this show, even a month in advance…

** Forgot to note, this show was July 21, the date was corrected before it went to print! **

Please listen to Always Wanting More. You will be.

What is your experience with the software?

Anything in particular you want to learn how to do today?

When to use Illustrator, Photoshop or Indesign?

Print process things to remember:

Color - how many colors? What kind of colors?
Dimensions - Bleed and margins
Fonts - embed or outline
File types - Tif for photos, EPS for illustrations, PDF for documents going to the printer
Image resolution - 300 dpi for photos; 600 dpi for line art (bitmapped)
How to proof for print (Acrobat, Indesign)

The basics, for people more familiar with web design

Drawing in Illustrator

Example Logo:

Guides
Shapes (pull it apart) - look at strokes
Type is outlined
Color
Size

Basic drawing exercise — a skull! This will help you learn the pen tool.

Make road maps — turn lines into brushes

3-D text effects tutorial on Illustrator Techniques

Inspiration!

Learning Photoshop

Example image file

How to prepare and save for print:
Resolution
Color
Light/dark
Size
File type

** Use stamp tool to clean up photo

How to prepare and save for web:
Resolution
Color
Size
File type
Quality (size trade-offs)

Example layered file

Layers
Masks
Layer style

We did this today, after an exhausting weekend of having a yard sale. I also spent a little time at Art-A-Whirl. It was a busy weekend! We decided on the raised bed “square foot” method because of the arsenic in our neighborhood and because we don’t know much about gardening and this seemed like a simple method. We’ll see!

I finally finished Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I left it at work over the weekend with a mere 20 pages left, and I was itching to see it out. It was very moving for something super surreal, leaving it very murky what is real and dream — the blurred lines were nice. You can read the first chapter here, and I enjoyed this NY Times review.

Also got the latest Bidoun — what a fabulous magazine! It never fails to provide something that strikes me. Alas, the article about Eldridge Cleaver isn’t online. It’s quite something. Where else could you find a story about “taqwacore” — a Muslim punk/hardcore. (Clearly, The Taqwacores needs to be next on my reading list.)

Back to my failing Ubuntu installation…

I owe a couple people several beers for their help with the lightbox. You know who you are! Roger’s design is, of course, beautiful.

Jay Reatard at my favorite spot on the Lower East Side, Cake Shop. I just want it here so I can play it a lot.

A few sites I’ve done for the Learning Technology Center at the Science Museum as of late. They are both Drupal, and very similar concepts. The other exciting thing is that these sites (and a few others) are all part of a Drupal multisite just for the LTC. So these are all pointing to the same Drupal installation! Very happy with that.

We’re painting the porch, peeling the cool-but-aged wallpaper & painting in the stairwell this weekend. Here’s some before-photos from scraping the porch. Fun! Lead!

A first legitimately spring day… bike ride to Minnehaha Falls.

Bryan came into some furniture from a customer who just wanted it moved. My favorite is the television, which I wish we could just use as a shell for our current television, but he won’t let me take it apart!

I received my artwork from Laser Rosenberg this week, in exchange for coding his website. Here’s a poor photo of it — you’ll find a better example here. It’s called “Eliminating Negative Thoughts,” which goes well with one of my favorite X songs: I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts.

I’ve always found what lurks between buildings more interesting than the buildings themselves. Pardon the composition, I just liked the colors.