DTG News and Else
DT&G: Vol. 14, Number 6, JUNE, 2004 ~ The eZine for Design, Typography, & Graphics   (since 1990)  

JUNE: Design Vacation Month

 

June: Design Vacation

JUNE: Design Vacation

It's June, and in many places, people will be planning or embarking on summer vacations! When the designer goes on vacation, all design problems may be left behind at the office or studio -- or, perhaps a little bit of the studio will come along. During May, DTG readers were asked to relate tips, stories and antidotes about their reflections on taking a vacation. Do you get away from it all -- or do you continue to think about design in your travels? So, take a look at how June's winning designers take their vacations...
Congratulations Winners...
Steve H Takes a book along... Roger E also takes along books... David C "Degauses" his mind... Jackie gets her best ideas on vacation... and Sarah tries to leave it behind -- but doesn't always succeed!in the Creative Networking Department

From the Editor: Digital Photo Vacation

Packing up and heading out for vacation this summer? Take your digital camera and take some great photos with these brief Digital Photo Tips.

Digital Photo Management

While we're at it, I'll also steer you toward a free digital photo management program, and provide some links to other shareware/freeware downloads for your digital life. FxFoto

60-Seconds: Photo Ethics?

Then, 60-Second Window this month asks if you think it's getting more difficult to recognize reality in photographic journalism these days... #168 Ethics in Digital Photography

Special Guest: Beauty Retouching in Photoshop

How do you remove blemishes from photos, give skin the glamour look, or just get the fashion magazine look? Well so many people ask that question, we went straight to the source: Suzette Troche -- The Glitter Guru for "Beauty Retouching"

Editor's Choice: Logos & Fonts

I predict this book by Leslie Cabarga will become a required classic for the graphic artist, designer, desktop publisher and signer. RUN, don't walk to get this book NOW: The Logo, Font & Lettering Bible

DTG: Benefits Of A Buddy For The Solo Designer

Are you a home-based studio or freelancer? The benefits are many, but feeling isolated can spell trouble. Janet Bertucci and Julianne Nardone recommend you find a Design Buddy!

Designing Women: Carey Jones

This month we visit the studios of designer Carey Jones, from Greenwich CT, with her own brand of hard-hitting graphic design: Balance Design. Carey displays a varied range of designs from packaging to logotypes that show off a true balance of design!

Tutorial: The Gentle Art of Feathering

Quite often we get calls to the Photoshop 911 hot line wanting to know how to make those nice gradual gradient edges to photos. Most of the time people call them "fogged" edges. Whatever name you give them, you can do it with Photoshop or Elements Feathering

Joyce Evans: Tomatoes anyone?

This month Joyce takes a look at the Tomato-Cages web site with a healthy reminder of the right recipe for success. Even Fred can't argue, all web designers need to look at Tomato Cages.com.

Feature Web Sites for June:

DTG and WebDesign and Review readers have posted their sites for your review and comment! Please pay particular attention to our non-profits, and education sites -- they have requested specific help. Give them a look in the the Web Reviews Department

Living Digital

Most people forget about their digital camera until photo-ops come along. That's certainly a shame; because most of the best opportunities happen almost every day when you are living photography

Mail Bag: Rollovers Revisited

You may remember last year's series of articles on evaluating and analyzing rollover buttons for web sites, and what's the best way to produce rollovers with the least amount of code. (See: "What's a rollover cost?" )
      Reader Jeffrey Russell writes: "Dear Mr. Pixelsmith: In response to "What's a rollover cost?" -- I have the following answer, which uses less code than any demonstrated on your page. [WOW... it works!]

Mail Bag: Silver and Gold Colors?

Reader R. Abraham, from New Delhi India, writes: "How I can get Golden and Silver color from Photoshop tell me the % of color ... the last month only i got this site from google now-a-days it is helping for us thanks
      Well Mr. Abraham, Photoshop cannot reproduce "metalic" colors the way you can with actual PMS colors, and after all, these colors will be subjective. A good starting place for gold will be: PMS 130 "Gold" C=0, M=27.5, Y=100, K=0, or PMS 124 Gold which adds about 6% black to 130. Silver is tougher. If you want "warm" silver try: C=0 M=6, Y=6, K=15; and for a 'cool' silver try: C=8 M=0, Y=0, K=24. Remember, to have a metalic look, both will need highlights and shadows. ... Got Questions?

Mail Bag: Thanks for the Pencils

Reader Joshua says: "To Mark Clarkson: Your black and white pencil sketch was awesome. (first time I needed to do one, ever) I had a few difficult ways that didn't look half as good. Sometimes it is hard to keep things simple. Thank you for your contribution of work!" . . . you're welcome, Joshua, we aim to please... (See Article)

Spammer Sent to Slammer: 3 to 7

Remember when we told you that the notorious junk e-mailer Harold Carmack had been nabbed? Well, now we can celebrate! New York has finally clinched the 'Buffalo Spammer' with long arm of the law. Eliot Spitzer, spokesman for New York's Attorney General has announced that Carmack has been slammed with the maximum sentence for 14 counts of identity theft and forgery -- he'll spend at least three-and-a-half years and as many as seven behind bars. I hope he gets a lot worse than that once he's in the clink for sending out 825 million spams using stolen identities and forged addresses. Full story: The Age.com

MAC OS X: Welcome to the real world

Remember we predicted it was not 'if' but 'when' X's UNIX underpinnings would come under the scrutiny of security attackers? Reuters reported yesterday that while Apple has patched one of the vulnerabilities in its Mac OS X operating system, it did not address what is known as a disk URI vulnerability, which could allows malicious Web sites to silently place code on a user's system. Niels Rasmussen, chief executive of Denmark-based Secunia, says that "Apple MAC OS X Is Still Vulnerable" No comments yet from Apple. Full story: Yahoo News

Gmail fingers in cookie jar

You thought Google was your friend, right? Back in February we told you about their new 'free' email service - "Gmail" - well, according to Wired, Google had intended to scan your e-mail for key words and concepts then use them to place targeted advertisements in your personal messages. Hats off to the California state Senate who voted in favor of a law designed to protect your privacy. The law will bar Gmail from collecting personal information for third parties. Keep your fingers crossed that the California Assembly will vote it into law. Full Story: Wired News

Another Nikon arrives...

With all this talk about digital cameras and vacation photos some people will shrug and say "I don't have a digital camera." While we try to keep our photography tips generic enough for film shutterbugs too, if you haven't yet joined the digital world, now might be the right time. The new Nikon Coolpix 4100 boasts a slew of user 'help' features like Scene Assist, In-Camera Cropping and Blur Warning to help you get the shot right. Since it's 4 megapixeld, with PictBridge, they're saying you should get perfect prints up to 11 x 17. (Of course we'll believe that when we see it.) Most importantly, at under $300 it's also called "affordable" Here's a picture Forgive me for not sharing the Nikon link, but their site is so raft with shrouded links, there's no way to get there from here. Full story at: News Wire

Better back it up

Recent revelations about security under OS X might just be trying to tell you something. Like: "Back it up!" ChronoSync seems to have the right idea with their automated synchronization and backup application. So sync all your computers and external media. It keeps track of every file between multiple sources so only files that have changed get updated. Deleted files can even be saved just in case you made a mistake. You can also synchronize files between Mac and Windows. Get the Picture? ... visit their web site: econtechnologies.com

Humor: iTune Mixes that Suck

On Wednesday, Dan Kois, writer for MSN's "Slate" magazine said "You spend a couple hours recording a wicked awesome mix tape for a friend... later, you ask how much she loved it, and when she shrugs, you feel a hot flush of shame. Face it: Your mix tape sucks." Kois takes a humorous look at the celebrity playlists featured on Apple's iTunes Music Store... Slate.com

Getting Ready for July "Patriotic Design"

I wish to thank everyone for participating in this month's issue, the more creative input we get, the more benefits everyone will get out of it!

JULY is the patriotic month in the U.S.A. because it was in July of 1776 that our Declaration of Independence was signed. In all countries however, designers are called upon to design patriotic images for that country's celebration. This August the Olympics will travel to the original location for the Olympics, Greece -- a super opportunity for designers around the world to promote their homeland. Now, share your ideas, examples and favorite Patriotic Designs...

  • Favorite posters, book covers, magazine covers on Patriotism
  • The approach you might take in a patriotic design
  • Favorite variations or themes using your country's flag
  • Designers: Pros and Cons of patriotic design
  • Opinions: when is patriotic design good? Bad?

During JUNE, the Publishers' Warehouse team will be getting ready for all the JULY celebrations, and for that they've gotten into 'flags' ... so, you'll want to visit graphic-design dot com, with a slash and the word 'flags' in lower case.

During July we'll also show you the inside story on "TOTAL TRAINING" and Deke "Dr. Photoshop" McClelland's finest hour. We'll also give away a whole collection of Total Training DVDs featuring Deke himself. You do NOT want to miss that.

Thanks for reading... go forth and be on vacation!

Fred Showker
Editor / Publisher, DT&G Magazine

Parting words: on the subject of Leisure...

"All intellectual improvement arises from leisure"
     Samuel Johnson

Don't forget to see this month's winners on "Design Vacation" and sign up for this month's giveaway!

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