JabberWocky!

A craftsman’s tools are important. They are well chosen and well cared for. A designer’s tools should be no different. Choose them with care, set them up properly, maintain them regularly. Graphic design used to be a hands on profession. Cutting and pasting required a knife and glue. Our tools were things like paper and knives, wax and production cameras the size a room. A lot of young designers don’t even know what “cutting color” means. Now our tools seem somehow less substantial. They are computers, and monitors. We receive projects for people we never meet, and send them to printing presses that we never see. Our tools however, are just as important as they always were.

Computers can be an incredible resource, or an incredible pain. It depends on what you need, and what you have. A designer’s computer needs aren’t the same as everyone else’s. You need know when to ask for more, and when not too. A faster processor is great, but if it has no RAM, you’re in big trouble. The latest and greatest software is cool, but if it’s incompatible with everyone you work with, what’s the point?

Here’s some general guidelines I’d suggest.

• A steady reliable computer. Two steady reliable computers is better, you can’t afford downtime.
• As much RAM as you can put in the machine. The size of graphic files can be immense.
• More storage space than you think you’ll possibly need. Those pesky graphics files again.
• Consider multiple hard drives in any workstation. Graphics software, Adobe products in particular, love multiple hard drives for use as scratch disks.
• Choose software carefully. You don’t need industry standard software, but you need to be able to produce industry standard work. Software that looks too expensive may save enough time in productivity to pay for itself.
• Set up your software carefully. Improper settings or setup can be the death of any project.
• Maintain, maintain, maintain. This includes not only proper filing, backups, archiving of old files, but regular computer maintenance and upgrades to things like anti-virus, firewall, etc.

Being a graphic designer requires knowledge, talent, and a lot of time and effort. The tools we use can make our jobs easier, or much more difficult. Taking the time and effort to choose and care for your these tools can be an incredible benefit to any designer. Failing to do this can be an incredible drain on your time, energy, and your wallet. Never forget that while you may have all the time in the world to complete a project, you may be only one computer failure from missing that deadline.

A talented person can make do with less resources than you think possible. The wrong hardware and software choices can make what should be an easy project, much more difficult, if not impossible. So, while I’ve never thought that hardware and software was the key to a designer’s success, I have recognized that the wrong hardware and software choices can be the key to a designer’s failure.

HDW

I just found out from HDW that Kat, from CatHouse Chat, has suffered a tragic loss. I’m sure she would appreciate a visit and condolences from everyone.

Kat, you and your family are in my thoughts and prayers.

I’m not even going to try to explain this, it is pretty self explanatory…Maybe?????

Huhhhhhh? Say What?????

And just think…she is 3rd runner up! She must have made her parents Very Proud!!

That’s all for me today! Be sure you check back tomorrow for T.G.I.F. & U.F.O.’s with HDW for the 2nd in his series of Art and Design only here at…

One of rock ‘n’ roll’s founding fathers, 78-year-old singer-guitarist, Bo Diddley, is said to be in stable condition at a Florida hospital after suffering a heart attack.

Diddley, known for the “Bo Diddley beat”, complained of dizziness and nausea during a routine medical checkup Friday. He was taken to a Florida hospital where he spent last weekend in intensive care. He has now been moved to the cardiac care unit of the hospital.

“He is conscious,” his publicist, Susan Clary said. “The situation is very serious.”

Diddley has had more medical problems in recent months. In May he was hospitalized after suffering a stroke after a casino performance in Iowa.

Diddley has been an icon in the music industry since he topped the R&B charts with “Bo Diddley” in 1955. His other hits include “Who Do You Love,” “Before You Accuse Me,” “Mona” and “I’m a Man.”

Diddley, known for his black glasses and low hanging guitar was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and received a lifetime achievement Grammy Award in 1998.

That’s it for me today! Hope to see you back again tomorrow for more…

I seem to remember about a year or so ago President Bush was in another country, I can not remember which one, but anyway, while he was speaking a protester from that country stood up and started disrupting his speech. At that time security from that country began going towards that protester but the President spoke up and security stopped to hear what he had to say.

He then made a statement that went something like:

“that’s what I love about America, everyone has freedom of speech”!

Of course at that time the tension in the room eased up, almost everyone let out a forced laugh at his attempt to be clever, the protester stopped and the President continued, uninterrupted until he finished his speech.

Isn’t it wonderful to live in a country where you always have “freedom of speech”, and if you are at a Presidential rally you can demonstrate if you wish to? Why? Because the President said to an entire other country and to billions of people watching television all around the world that he loves “freedom of speech”, right?

WRONG!!

Did you know that a White House manual that came to light recently gives presidential advance staffers extensive instructions in the art of “deterring potential protesters” from President Bush’s public appearances around the country?

Among other things, any event can only be open to people with tickets tightly controlled by organizers. Which doesn’t mean to say that the White House is against demonstrations…just as long as the President does not see them!!!!

As it turns out there are squads placed in strategic areas around the rally to look for demonstrators and if the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out the protesters by chanting something like, “USA!, USA!, USA!” etc., and as a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event site!

Whatever happened to “freedom of speech”? Or…you are more than welcome to have “freedom of speech” as long as it is pre-approved by the President?

More on this very interesting story can be found at:

White House Manual Details How to Deal With Protestors

Well! That’s if for me today! Hope to see you back again tomorrow for some more…

The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is Elegance alright! It is where collector car sales topped $100 Million at the Monterey auctions during the Pebble Beach Concours a couple of week-ends ago. The most “Elegance”, (a 1959 Ferrari 250 GT LWB California Spyder), fetched a cool $4,455,000.!

It seems that during this week-end the “beautiful” is not the women and men parading around in their bathing suits that people are looking at, but rather these “beauties”! I already have my eye on a certain sweet little number, how about you??

Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance 2007

That’s all for me today, hope to see you back again tomorrow for more…

I’d like to share with you three secrets of being a good designer. They’re simple in concept, but can be difficult to put into action. In order to be a good designer, you need to:

1. Be able to visualize what you want
2. Be able to understand what is required
3. Be able to see what you have

These sound simple, and to some extent they are, but putting these words into action can be difficult.

Visualizing what you want in and of itself isn’t difficult. Most people can do this to some extent. The problem is in the details. Can you put this visualization into practice. Now with web design for instance, there are technical skills that must be learned, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Can you take this mental image of what you want, and make it real to others. Can you write it down, can you draw it, can you verbally explain it to someone? You need to both be able to visualize something, and to define it. To write down your ideas, or draw them, to be able to explain your vision to someone else. That’s a skill that’s much more difficult to learn.

Defining what is required is also not a difficult task, but is often underestimated or overlooked in some way. There are a wide range of possible sources for these requirements. The client is an important source of requirements. In starting the project, they have likely defined a series of requirements that you must meet. There are other sources though. Technical specifications for instance. If you’re creating a website, you have technical requirements that you must meet in order for the site to work properly. Print designers must deal with the technical specifications of printing presses and file submissions. In order to be a successful designer, you must be able to clearly define what is required, so that you may successfully complete your project. Too often in the past I’ve see otherwise well designed projects fail, because the designer overlooked some minor requirement or specification.

Seeing what you have. What could be simpler than that… a lot of things actually. This can be one of the most difficult things to teach an aspiring designer. Seeing. Not seeing what you want, or seeing what you need, but setting aside all you know about the project and just looking at what you have. Surf the web any day and you’ll see catastrophic failures of design. The designs may be pretty, they may function smoothly, and be technically brilliant, but they’re failures. Failures because the designer couldn’t see what they had. You’ll see corporate websites without contact information, and online advertisements without street addresses. You’ll see “contact me!” pages without contact information. The list is seemingly endless. Seeing what you have is just as important as visualizing what you want. If you can’t see what you have, how will you ever know if it’s what you want?

Visualize, define, and see. Three simple concepts that are much more difficult than you might think. If you can put those three simple concepts into practice, you can do just about anything.

-HDW

Stop by at my site and say hello, or next Friday come see the next in my series on Art and Design here on…

I thought I’d take a few minutes to introduce myself. I blog as HDW, which is just simple abbreviation of the name of my blog High Desert Wanderer. I’m a designer by profession, though I was a working cowboy for a number of years.

Sage has graciously offered to let me write a few posts here, and I thought I’d do a series of posts on art and design. While I have an idea for my first post, we’ll have to wait and see where the series takes us.

If you’d like to know a bit more about me, check out my About High Desert Wanderer post on my site. Of course, don’t forget to come back here and see what else has been posted on…

Yesterday Google announced an extension to Google Earth called Sky. Whereas with Google Earth you are in the sky flying around looking down, with Sky you are on the ground looking up into the heavens as seen from Earth!

People that use Google Earth now can stroll through the sky as well as navigating easily through 100 million individual stars and 200 million galaxies. Users can access the Google Sky service by clicking “Switch to Sky” from the drop down menu on their Earth screen.

Google said that the interface for Google Sky as well as its navigation is similar to Google Earth. By working with experts, they have been able to transform Google Earth into a virtual telescope!

If you wish to access this new service you will need to download the newest version of Google Earth at:

Google Earth

Well! That’s if for me today! Make Sure that you stop by tomorrow because it is going to be a Very Special T.G.I.F. & U.F.O.’s! High Desert Wanderer, (HDW) will be here to start a brand new weekly post that can only be read here on…

A lot of kids are preparing to go back to school soon and with that, as we all know, there is a Lot of preparation to be done! It is one of the most stressful and important days of the year to your child. Everything must be Perfect! Everything is shiny and new, and everyone is excited about starting a new year. The impression that you make on your first day is the one that you will carry with you throughout the entire school year…and in some rare instances your entire school life!

So! To make sure your child starts out on the best foot possible this year I have discovered some interesting back to school sites for different school ages. There are a few things thrown in there for parents and teachers out there also!

Kinderkorner Back to School contains resources from a teacher of Kindergarten and 1st grade. Includes first day of school activities and stories, beginning of year assessment, first day checklist and more.

Teens Health Back to School is a site that gives your teen tips on making the transition from those “lazy, crazy, days of summer” to the sound of the alarm bell announcing it’s time for their first class of the new school year to start. There are so many more topics on this site about body, mind, food and fitness, sexual health, drugs & alcohol, staying safe and much more. In fact this is an entire site devoted to Kids Health which not only includes a Teens site but a Kids site and a Parents site as well! This is well worth your time to check it out!

Yahoo!. Events Back To School offers information for the end of summer and going into the fall semester. There is a Summer Guide, Videos, Games, Shopping, Study Tools, Tech gadgets and a Conversion Calculator to name a few. Well worth looking into. I did find it more for a little older child rather than the elementary school age but I would check into it anyway even if you have younger children as you never know what you will find and you might get information that you can use later on!

Off to School Countdown to College talks about everything you need for college from school supplies to dorm decorating tips, everything you need to prepare for college, roommates compatibility, finding money for college, college study habits, things to avoid and anything else you may need or want to know about.

And last but certainly not least USA.gov is a site full of resources for students, parents and educators in preparation for returning to school in the fall. This site not only tells you where to find the different resources that you may need but also has sections on problem areas that plague children such as bullying, food safety, mental health, preventing drug abuse, vaccinations and more!

That’s it for me today, I hope that this has been informative and helpful for students, parents and teachers alike and when you do go back to school…Have a Great & Productive Year!

Hope to see you back again tomorrow for some more…