DTG News and Else
DT&G: Vol. 14, Number 11, November, 2004 ~ The eZine for Design, Typography, & Graphics   (since 1990)  

Designing The Holidays

November: Designing Holidays

In October we asked Design CAFE subscribers to comment on their favorite holiday promotions, folding cards, and creative ideas. We received a number of great idea starters, and here are a few. Watch for more as the holiday season continues... DT&G readers talk about great holiday promotions.

Fantastic Folds: Part One

Where do you look for creative ideas in crafting a unique, creative holiday greeting and promotional mailing? One of the elements of print media is folding. It comes along with the job, and if you incorporate a unique fold, your piece will be truly memorable. Here's the first part of our series on "Designing with Paper Folds"

Adobe Photoshop CS For Photographers

Martin Evening's latest Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative Use of Photoshop for the Mac and PC is a blockbuster with no padding or fluff -- all solid Photoshop training and pure inspiration for even the fine arts painter. This month's Editor's Choice

Inspiration in a Bottle

Discover sources of inspiration that may just take you to the next level of creativity! Designer/Author Gary Dickson asks: "Where does your inspiration come from?" ... then shares his experiences with Inspiration in a Bottle

The Graphics Master is Back

Now in its 8th edition, Dean Lem's industry bible is simply the best print production workbook ever produced! Through twenty-three printings of seven editions, the latest volume links the new digital prepress applications with essential traditional printing information. If you print, you need the Graphics Master 8

Using Postcards to Promote Your Design Studio

Martha Retallick, "The Passionate Postcarder" -- leading expert on post card marketing shares some important advice on saving a lot of time and money in your marketing. Before you splurge on the Yellow Pages or other media, read Martha's take on Using Postcards to Promote Your Design Studio

Picture Perfect Holiday Postcards

It doesnt take a lot of time, money or effort to create, print and mail a postcard. But when done right, postcards can be enormously effective... holiday postcards!

Color Photos Converted to Text

The Worlds first colour digital photo to colour text convertor is truly one of the most innovative developments in a long time! You simply must see Simon Leung's Artext Photo ConverterSimon Leung's Artext Photo Converter

60-Seconds #169: SpamCop Full Circle

When my spam load hit 1,000 spams a day, I gave up the fight against spam and just started deleting them all. I was ashamed of myself because I had stopped helping my fellow netizen. But then I returned to SpamCop, and that began the rest of the story... 60-Second Windows

Printing Primer for Designers

Originally published in 1989, this printing primer for digital artists has been updated and annotated for today's digital desktop publisher. We've supplied an additional check list for publishing, press-checks, and a collection of references all desktop publishers need to know about: Print Primer for DTP

New Kenn Munk Font: 'Psychophante'

November 1st sees the launch of Kenn Munk's latest dingbat system 'Psychophante'. Psychophante is a follow-up dingbat to Wappenbee from 2003, with which you could build bitmapped crests. Psychophante stays within the bitmapped construction kit context, but this time it's about making medals. Like the medal for a well-groomed afro, the medal for excellent file back-up or the nice-drive-through-the-woods medal ... Psychophante

Babel Color Brings New Color

The BabelColor Company has rolled out the second version of "BabelColor", a color comparator and translator software designed for the Mac and Windows platforms. Babel Color Color Comparator

Beware: Online Criminals at Large

You are drawn into a web site appearing to be authentic with familiar graphics and logos... but wait! Something's wrong with this email... something's seriously wrong! Rusbiz.com's Nowshade Kabir demystifies the emerging crime wave of Phishing for Your Identity.

Current Web Site Critique Briefs

This month readers look at Painting by Anne Stahl; the James Anderson Unofficial Site; Georgetown University, the Black Hills Pow Wow Association and one the reviewer says "sucks" the Internet personals/dating site. See these Critique Briefs sent in by readers

Windows 3D "Covers" Generator

Optimum Performance Limited presents eCover 3D that lets you can create an unlimited number of covers for your ebooks, CD, DVD, notebook and software boxes. This is more than ebook cover software. With many exclusive special effects like 'page flip' in the open book cover. Includes 150 professionally pre-designed templates. Download the fully-functional free trial and try out eCover 3D for yourself. Requires: Win98, WinME, WinXP, Windows2000. Direct Download / Screen Capture, or see: www.ecover3d.com

Red Eye Pilot for Mac

Natalia Blomeier has tipped us to the Two Pilots Macintosh shareware program called Red Eye Pilot. Using Red Eye Pilot, you can remove red eyes from your photos with just a couple of clicks. You can adjust the pupil area and brightness, and preview the results real-time. The program keeps structure of the pupil. Screen Capture / Direct Download - $29.95 for Mac PPC ... www.colorpilot.com

Cfont Pro: Windows Font Management

If you like the new Mac Panther Font management program, but don't have one for your Windows machine this might be of interest: Chris Hascom of Columbia, SC wrote in to say:
      "I have recently released a Font Manager application called Cfont Pro that may interest DTG readers. Please view the website and if you have any questions about the software I would be glad to answer -- Looking forward to hearing from you."
Chris Hanscom is a Software Developer, Microsoft MVP, MCP Veign - Windows NT, 2000, XP, Server 2003. Picture ... CfontPro.com

Fun Site of the Month: JoelPadot.com

Joel Padot, owner of the joelpadot.com blog in Gainesville FL is a self-professed part-time secretary, business owner, full-time student and web designer by profession. He's more of a technology/Internet consultant that does a lot of web design. Joel says: "It's a fun job!" At his web site you'll find two blog catagories where he'll be publishing (occassional) professional articles.JoelPadot.com

MailBag: Whither TypeStyler

Chuck Hooker of Daphne, AL writes:
      Hi, we read on line the not so recent but presumably still meaningful D'Lynn review on TypeStyler, a program we've long had but one we feel very under utilized in our office. Efforts to track down a How-To guide, similar to the raft of books for PhotoShop, have not paid off.
      Dear Chuck: No, there are no books about TypeStyler that we know of. But after your inquiry we contacted the Striders to see where they stand on TypeStyler. YES, you'll be happy to know they're still on board with an OS X version ready to launch -- and, yes, we're happy to report that several popular book authors are interested in doing "How-To" books about TypeStyler. So watch the pages of DTG and you'll be the first to know! see: D'Lynn's 1998 review of TypeStyler

MailBag: Submitting Your Web Site

Please, folks -- if you wish to submit your web site for a visit from DTG editors, make sure there's something there for us to look at. This month we visited 35 broken web sites. Although the authors begged us to visit, we got there and found either nothing to see or no domain at all -- the dreaded 404. Don't submit until there's a good reason for readers to visit. Thanks. Submit at:Webdesign-Review.com

MailBag: Desk Copies of Books

David K from Revere, MA writes: "Does your publishing company offer desk copies of books? I teach a web design course and I'm looking to add to what we currently offer to the kids. Photoshop for Right Brainers looks interesting." David, thanks for writing but no, the Design Bookshelf does not publish the books. You'll find an "educators" link at almost all of the publishers' web sites where you can register your school and class and get all the free books you like. It's how I get most of my books, as a design and typography instructor at JMU. Oh yes, for that book see: sybex.com

Design Associations

P.E.Waters writes from Princeton, NJ: "...what are some of the popular professional association that Graphic/Web Designers join? Are there any major conferences that they attend. Your assistance is greatly appreciated."
P.E.: try: www.dmoz.org/Arts/Graphic_Design for professional associations. Surely the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) and the Graphic Artists Guild are the top picks. There are 83 others. But beware of wannabees and sharks -- many so-called "professional" associations are there just to extort money from you and offer very little in terms of member benefits. We could not find a listing of all conferences and tradeshows -- perhaps our readers can submit their favorites. submit their favorites

MailBag: Shapes Collections for PS and PSE

Andrew Buckle from Kent UK writes in pointing us to the Graphicxtras web site with 100 spiral themed custom shapes for use in Photoshop CS 7 6 Elements MACOSX/PC 'Shapes Pack 3'. Also available as a separate item, custom shapes collection. They're priced from $5.99 US. There isn't much in the line of demos for freebies, but you can download a freebie: psshapes1.zip. See this picture, or take a look at ... graphicxtras.com

Mac virus?

Lynn Wegley reports in his November 1 "InfoManager" column:
      It had to happen. Someone has finally written a Mac virus that could attack Mac OS X. I said could, because while the script has been written, it apparently hasn�t been released. So it is a good time to remember to setup your firewalls and put in virus protection. Read all about Opener (AKA SH/Renopo worm) at the following sites:
www.itweb.co.za/
www.macintouch.com ... and Mac News.com.com

Apple Introduces iPod Photo

As you know, I've always said I wouldn't buy one of those pocket gizmos until they got a lot more features. Well, Apple is getting close. Last week they introduced the iPod Photo that lets you take your entire music and photo library with you wherever you go, with up to 25,000 digital photos, and display them on its stunning high-resolution color screen. With some other add-ons, the iPod is approaching the "be-all" device. It's already the most handy 40-GIG external drive available for the Mac or Windows PC. Now, maybe it's worth another look...

Shareware/software: Photos, Body Painting, etc.

As you know we don't do much on shareware in the Design Center. There's just too much to cover. But if you're a Mac person, you may want to check in on my part-time column at the User Group Network. Each week, the "Shareware Manager" does a quick round-up of likely shareware winners. This week: Photo Albums, prints from iPhoto, BodyPainting; and some new personal productivity updates in Alarms, examining your files, and the clipboard. Mariner is here with new stuff and we end with your garage sale on eBay! Shareware Manager

IMAGINA 05 - Digital Creation Show

Mark your calendar for February 2 to 5th and plan a trip to Monaco for the IMAGINA 05, The European Digital Content Creation Trade Show featuring movies and videogames creation - Graphic Processors; Virtual actors; HD/ Postproduction / Digital Cinema; Real time 3D architecture; 3D Models; videogame design. Visit the IMAGINA 05 website for more info. Here's a short swf movie: tv.swf ... www.imagina.mc

"DIGITAL DECEMBER" Contest:

While we want to continue getting your favorite Fantastic Folds for Greeting Cards, our December topic will shift slightly to great ideas using your digital camera. So, we're asking you to share your unique and creative discoveries for using Digital Cameras for the Holidays. Just answer any of those questions at our PRIZE REGISTRATION PAGE and you could get your comments published and be a lucky prize winner in "DIGITAL DECEMBER"

Holiday Loading Dock Opens

The Publishers's Warehouse has opened it's holiday section for 2004 with traditional goodies accumulated over the past ten years online. Updates and new items have been added in clip art, fonts and the DTP Jumpstation so come on in and enjoy. This month just add the word "celebrate" to the Graphic-Design.com/ address and you'll be whisked there pronto.
      Have a great November -- Next month we'll launch the Holidays with lots of new stuff for you... a great way to wrap up the year.

Don't forget to enter your own resources so we can include them in the next issue.
      Come on in and enjoy.

Thanks for reading... go forth and be creative!

Fred Showker
Editor / Publisher, DT&G Magazine

Parting words...

"Treating your adversary with respect
is giving him an advantage
to which he is not entitled."
            Samuel Johnson

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