Even though this has now been out for two months, here are some photos (finally!) of the finished product. It’s available at Arise! (and soon some other local spots) for purchase. Only $6!

Though I didn’t do the drawings (that was Dylan, Michelle & Jasmine), I did all the layout and design in Indesign, dropping in all the locations we exported from the google map in the Drupal site. I traced all the bike routes, which nearly gave me carpal tunnel.

Check out the website: atlas.arisebookstore.org to make additions for next year!

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

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.

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.

Roger & I launched a new site earlier this week. It was a long time coming, but I think it turned out nicely, mostly due to Roger’s clean design!

As I sifted through old photos tonight, Bryan pointed out the awesomeness of this photo. It’s so weird and off-center, with large color blocks. Plus how could I not be interested in design growing up with a kitchen that looked like that? This is Missy, circa early eighties in Arden, DE.

New site launched, for my friend Gabriel and his new book, Calling All Radicals, out on Nation Books.

Also found some inspiration by this article in Print about Local Projects. There are so many interesting things happening in the world of museums and interactive storytelling… I hope to be a part of that!

Current jams: destroy all monsters, hex dispensers, underground railroad to candyland

I’ve been pretty busy with making sites lately — more of these posts to come in the next few weeks.

Roger did the design and I made the site and set up the shopping cart — my first shopping cart. I used OSCommerce, a free open-source cart, which was simple enough, but I spent a lot of time taking out ugly clip art that was hard coded into the PHP, which was a little odd. I also found the plug-ins to be precarious — they aren’t self-contained packages, so you have to edit code in your pages and run the risk of making other add-ons stop working. That made me a little uncomfortable! But, so far so good!

As promised, the poster we designed for the Naked Raygun show. Word is it’s selling out fast, so I’d get tickets while you can!

I think it turned out pretty well, except after staring at it for a while I started thinking about the classic movie Inner Space. Not good.

Better late than never — this is the poster we designed for The Ex show in Minneapolis in December. One of the best shows I’ve ever seen — the fourth time I’ve seen The Ex, and certainly the best. Very happy to get to do this poster!

I think this is the first time I’ve put together a three-color job… and considering that we got most of the image from a Japanese kimono pattern, I’m pretty proud!

The next in the series will be Naked Raygun for Extreme Noise’s anniversary. Another show for a legendary band…

I’ve been playing around with the embroidery machine at work.

As I ran out the door this morning I did the whole frenzied check for my keys, wallet, bus card, phone, coffee thermos and bike helmet and then happened upon this little well-worn heart stencil to see what I could do with it.

I know that being a photographer is more about seeing a shot than the act of snapping the photograph, but sometimes one has to wonder about naturally occuring (or unintentional) patterns and colors. Looking for photos makes one more attune to organic design.