pikemurdy

A few examples of awesome 1940s typography in this Retronaut collection.

Color Photographs of Billboards, Nashville, 1940s

Computer generated bods

H&M designs a body that can better display clothes made for humans than humans can, then “dresses” it by drawing on its clothes, and digitally pastes on the heads of real women in post-production.

I have to admit, I’ve never heard of H&M. I also have to admit, I probably would not have noticed that the models were computer generated, as it seems like every photo I see of a fashion model is so heavily airbrushed, it might as well be computer generated.

So it’s not really surprising or new, just the next step down the path we’re already on.

H&M Puts Real Model Heads On Fake Bodies

Of Nasty Moose and Antisocial Elephants

Odd bit of research on infant morality.

They were following a simple rule: “helpful moose = good moose”. But the eight-month-old babies were savvier.

Infants prefer a nasty moose if it punishes an unhelpful elephant

Building trust with your website

“Trustworthy” is a word that gets thrown about with little care these days. I recently read an article titled Building trust is the key to promoting your organisation online.

It’s the typical marketing/SEO/Let’s-do-some-business tripe that crosses the internet constantly. To be clear, there is nothing specifically dangerous that is mentioned in the article. It’s the vacuous ‘sentiments’ masquerading as business help that I find annoying.

For example, one tip for success mentioned is to use “quality photography”. There is not a thing wrong with this advice. Indeed, it’s good advice. At least it’s good advice in the same way “Don’t wear sweat pants to work” is good advice. It’s obvious. It’s so obvious that it need not be stated.

Keep your website fresh. Get your copy right. Treat your customers well. All good advice.

Other advice is just odd, “Include an About Page”. Again, there’s nothing wrong with this. Sure, include one, I have one too.

Allow me to give a bit of my own very, very obvious piece of advice: The internet is fast. Attention spans are short. You have (anecdotally) about two seconds to capture a user’s attention. The user should know what your site is about, and by extension what you are about on the entry page. If they have to go looking for an about page, you’ve lost them. Keep it, sure. But don’t expect it to build trust for you.

The problem with these sorts of articles is that they offer advice that is tied up in neat, pretty packages. They’re the self-help business books of the internet. You can’t really argue with them because they’re not really saying anything.

Elvis Costello’s Box Set

Writing about his own new box set:

Unfortunately, we at http://www.elviscostello.com find ourselves unable to recommend this lovely item to you as the price appears to be either a misprint or a satire.

Steal This Record

Were you to ignore Costello’s request, you can buy the record at Amazon..  They also have what Elvis recommends.

Inside the Sketchbooks of Famous Artists

A peek at the sketchbooks of Andy Warhol, Guillermo Del Toro, John Lennon, Tim Burton and the like.

Terry Gilliam Talks about Spielberg

It’s Gilliam’s birthday, so I’m linking to this. Gilliam comparing Spielberg and Kubrick.

Even after Gladwell’s “10,000-hour rule”, research says natural talent still matters.

By age 20, the students whom the faculty nominated as the “best” players had accumulated an average of over 10,000 hours, compared with just under 8,000 hours for the “good” players and not even 5,000 hours for the least skilled.

Those findings have been enthusiastically championed, perhaps because of their meritocratic appeal: what seems to separate the great from the merely good is hard work, not intellectual ability….But this isn’t quite the story that science tells. Research has shown that intellectual ability matters for success in many fields — and not just up to a point.

Sorry, Strivers: Talent Matters

Adobe

Sometime in 1997 or 98 I clicked an icon that looked like an eye. I was a still a student. It was the first time I opened Adobe Photoshop. The software was amazing to me. I don’t remember which version it was, either 3 or 4, but I remember being simply amazed by the fact that I could adjust the contrast of a photo without going to a darkroom.

A short time afterward, I changed my major from Mathematics to Art. After that, I concentrated on graphic design. Nearly instantly two companies dominated my computing world: Apple and Adobe. Apple made the hardware tools. Adobe made the software tools.

Apple produced crap. Adobe produced gold. I was not well versed in computer history. I knew who Bill Gates was at the time, but I don’t recall knowing who Steve Jobs was.

Since 1997 (or was it 98?) my attitude about the two companies has reversed. At the time, I didn’t give Apple too many more years to live. I knew that Adobe was a company with its sights firmly set on the future.

I recall being very, very excited about everything Adobe did.

Times change.

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Looking at blogs and technology sites, you wouldn’t guess this: but graphic designers rarely spring for the latest software. It’s expensive, and rarely does it make a significant impact on workflow and efficiency. Most of us are concerned more with what helps us create, not what is shiny and new.

In late 2003, I acquired Adobe CS (Creative Suite 1). This was a rare thing. Brand new software. State-of-the-art software.

I recall being very, very excited about it. New features. Faster. Shiny.

Not long after version CS2 was released. After that, Adobe bought a company called Macromedia (who made Flash). When CS3 was released, the company I worked for purchased it, but it was mostly out of compatibility issues (and Quark seemed less and less like the horse to ride).

I’ve not been excited about any version of any Adobe product since Creative Suite 1.

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One fellow from Knoxville, Tennessee being not “excited” about a product is hardly enough for a company such as Adobe to be worried about. But CS1 came out in 2003, and I’ve not been optimistic about anything Adobe has done for eight years.

I don’t get excited about new Adobe products, I get worried about new Adobe products. With each upgrade more features are added. Usually features that do not help me. With the passage of time alternative products start to replace the bloated, expensive software that Adobe produces.

Graphic Design is not there yet.

—

Now I get excited about new Apple products. I worry about Adobe products and wonder how much longer they have left.

Adobe recently stopped production on its mobile version of Flash. To me, this seems like a step in the right direction. They also seem to be throwing their weight towards open standards, creating products like Edge.

Flash crashes constantly. Photoshop is a bloated mess. Dreamweaver is… Dreamweaver. But lets not give up on Adobe yet. This is the company that created Postscript. There may be some awesome to come. Hopefully, Adobe is just going through some growing pains, the same as Apple did in the nineties.

Lets hope.