Blog: Ramblings and Rants

Sorry the Saturday Slant was late today—14:45 PT. We attended a memorial service this morning.

The service was in honor of a woman who passed last Friday, 18 February. Her seven year-old daughter attends school with my seven and nine year-old step-daughters (to be).

Though Strawberry Blonde had helped the woman, Debbie, and her daughter, Noelle, a few times, and we had all met the entire family, we did not know them. The family was… different. I’ve tried half a dozen times to explain that statement, but no matter kindly how I try, it feels to me like speaking ill of the dead. So, I will not explain it.

Of the handful of times I saw Debbie, one fleeting, barely noticable moment stands out in my mind; it is a moment that, from the recollections of her family and friends at the memorial service, is obviously the best—and typical—of the late mother.

I got official word yesterday that the publisher liked my proposal and outline for an Illustrator CS 2.0 (aka Illustrator 12) how-to book. So, pending my conversation with the acquisitions editor about contract and scheduling—which shouldn’t pose any issue at all—I’ll be writing my first book.

As I see it, my main job with this book is to make the graphic arts community’s scariest tool fun and inviting.

For a moment, I am going to dip into web design to illustrate why Deep Green Crystals is an example of extraordinarily bad blog design. More accurately, I am not dipping into web design; I am illuminating basic facts about readability, for the web or anywhere.

In doing some research about tags and services like Technorati and Del.icio.us that index blog content via tags, I ran across Deep Green Crystals, Martin Tobias Musings.

I will reiterate: Deep Green Crystals is an example of very bad blog design.

Why is it so bad? Visit it (or view the screenshot). Roughly half of you will have to scroll horizontally to read each line. All of you will be forced to scan your eyes horizontally far beyond their comfort levels.

Deep Green Crystals blog presents text that is far too wide for comfortable reading.

Human eyes have an average limit of lateral gaze around 160 degrees. As gaze does not include peripheral vision, which is not directly involved in reading, that means our eyes can track a maximum of 160 degrees horizontally before rotation of the head is necessary. Regardless of the maximum range of lateral gaze, our comfort level rests around 35 degrees; if we have to move our eyes from side-to-side more than 35 degrees, the effort begins to strain the muscles of the eye—both muscles involved in movement and in focusing.

I’ll spare you the anatomy and logistics lessons and jump from A-Z without boring you with the points between.

Both TigerLilly Tatto and Nike are local to my Beaverton, Oregon neighborhood.

Tattoo artist calls foul on Wallace ad

A Portland man who put a tattoo on the right arm of former Trail Blazer Rasheed Wallace is suing to stop the forward from displaying the work in ads for Nike basketball shoes.

Matthew Reed from TigerLilly Tattoo and DesignWorks claims he owns the copyright for the design of the tattoo. Reed’s lawsuit wants the Nike ad featuring Wallace and the tattoo off the air and the Internet, as well as damages.

Oy!

Neat! Quiet, I’m sleeping creatively

In some hotels, three-dimensional objects petition for privacy in lieu of [do not disturb] signs. Guests at Kinnaird Estate in Perthshire, Scotland, for example, place a teddy bear outside their door; the pecan-colored bear wears a blue knit sweater with a “Do Not Disturb” button. At the Lodge at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, Calif., a pine cone does the work. A black velvet sack embroidered with a sun and moon hangs from silver door hooks at the Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain in Scottsdale, and at the Watermark Hotel & Spa in San Antonio, a black leather “Shhhh” pillow prevents unwanted intrusions.

Screaming brats, Expedia’s horrible “recommended” hotels, squalorish motels, and my girlfriend who came to the rescue.

I have to say, I am overwhelmingly grateful for Strawberry Blonde. Last night I would have slept in a roach-infested, urine-stinking, falling apart motel room if not for her. More likely, I would have lied awake all night watching the walls move in a roach-infested, urine-stinking, falling apart motel room.

To help make a client’s budget I chose an Expedia.com package of flight, hotel, and car. This is contrary to how I normally book travel: Book a flight through Expedia, Orbitz, or Travelocity, then separately book a Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, or other Holiday Inn-brand hotel, and then rent a car through an agency that recognizes my National Association of Photoshop Professionals discount.

This time, as part of the package, the car rental rate was comparable to what I normally get ala carte. But the budget required the extra savings of booking the hotel as part of the package. What a mistake…

Busy, busy, busy.

Man, these have been a busy two weeks. What have I been doing with myself, one might ask. Well, I might respond, let me tell you.

Here’s the overview (in no particular order); details are below.

• Revised a book proposal and outline (twice).
• Spent nearly an entire day—7.5 hours—booking travel.
• Working on year-end taxes, receipts, etc.
• Spent three solid days buying and returning a new car and fixing Strawberry Blonde’s SUV.
• Wrote my regular columns on Quark VS InDesign, The Design Weblog, The Magazine Weblog, and (Unofficial) Photoshop Weblog.
• Contracted a computer virus, reformatted, and reinstalled everything for three days.
• Prepared to teach classes in Mac OS X and QuarkXPress 6.
• Spent time with my kids.
• Approved the applications of 21 new members of the Graphic Design Resource Group (and denied three).
• Trouble-shot a CSS issue on this site (still working on that).
• Negotiated a partnership with a stock photography agency.
• Answered a ton of e-mail (after wading through thousands of pieces of spam).
• Bought a new Mac Powerbook G4.

Warning: Babble to follow.

Completely by accident I stumbled across this—follow this link, about 1/3 of the way down the page.

For me, this is professional validation as a journalist! As, if not the number one, one of Adobe’s top 5 fans, it’s also a personal thrill. I’m so elated!

Adobe’s clipping service found my story, and someone in the PR department read it, chose a quote, grabbed my column’s logo, and chose to publish it in a particular order on Adobe.com.

The Design Weblog

Adobe drives the VDP bandwagon with new VDP Resource Center

“Now that the marketing, advertising, and design industries are finally beginning to understand the value of VDP in the print world, Adobe is, typically, already sitting in the driver’s seat.”

— Pariah S. Burke

Grin.