Be Aware 2

Welcome to the second installment of our Be Aware group posts.

Donovan Beery ��� Web Tips

website _ file _ naming _ for _ search _ engines.html
When creating your website files, take the extra few seconds to name files properly. Rather than naming something “image.gif,” changing the name to. For example, “graphic _ design.gif” will help search engine rankings for “graphic design.” But remember, spaces and special characters like “&” can cause problems with old browsers, so leave these out of your file names. A simple underscore (_) will be read as a space by search engines, so use them instead.

Drew Davies: Seen and Noted in the Design World

Let’s face it. As designers, we hate being called “graphic artists” or worse yet, “commercial artists.” Rest assured that’s still true for me, but recently I’ve been taking note of the work of the people who still wear those badges proudly. These days they’re calling it “window splash,” but we know it as custom, hand-painted type and images. You’ll find it on big signs, sides of vehicles and vast windowscapes, and often associated with pawn shops and quick check cashers. It’s the epitome of “commercial art,” and some of it is downright gorgeous.

If you haven’t recently, stop by one of these places sometime soon and take in some of this art. No, it doesn’t involve heady concepting, deep strategy, or any “brandscaping.” (Bless his heart, my grandfather did huge, custom-lettered banners for local grocery stores for years, and still never quite understood what I do for a career.) But if you find the right piece, you’ll see that it’s crafted with a honed skill that is almost extinct in our digitally-evolving world. Only a few people are left who really do this well, and their work should be celebrated.

Travis Gray: Flash Animation

With the advent of Flash it has become very easy for anyone to produce their own animated cartoons and shorts. And since I wanted to be an animator before I wanted to be a designer, I still occasionally get the urge to animate a few characters every once in a while. So here are a few references and resources that you might find helpful if you also animate for a hobby.

Books:
Hollywood 2D Digital Animation by Sandro Corsaro & Clifford J. Parrott
The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams
Stop Staring: Facial Modeling and Animation Done Right by Jason Osipa
Timing for Animation by Harold Whitaker and John Halas

Websites:
Macromedia Flash Animation Examples
Flash Filmaker
Cold Hard Flash
Sound Dogs

Adrian Hanft – Alternative Photography

An easy way to create a unique photo is to use different lenses. Here are a few very unique (and relatively cheap) cameras that use non-traditional lenses.

The Horizon 202: A swing-lens panoramic camera that captures 120 degrees
(buy here, gallery here )

Fisheye Camera: The only camera with a built-in fisheye lens.
(buy here, gallery here )

Oktomat: A camera with 8 lenses
(buy here, gallery here )

Holga 120s: Don’t forget the classic Holga with its plastic lens.
(buy here, gallery here )

David Kadavy – Design and Technology

A post and conversation at The Long Tail examines blog design in the age of RSS, and hints that with RSS, maybe the graphics aren’t as important anymore. If so, this would make clear typography increasingly more crucial. Personally, I stopped using an aggregator because it gave me RSS-induced ADD, but I’m sure Aldus is jumping for joy in his grave over the accelerating rate of information transfer.

Tom Nemitz – Awesomely Bad Website

Billy Zabka. You know him as Johnny Lawrence of the Cobra Kai dojo, and the guy who loses to Daniel-san at the end of Karate Kid. Prepare to know him as the subject of a bizarre club — The Fraternal Order of Zabka (FOZ).

From a design standpoint, you’ve got to, um, love the sloppy site navigation and the unnecessary frame-action which forces you to scroll about twice as much as you’d really need to. And the quote from Billy’s dad, “Good job with the website!”, is classic. But what seals the deal on this being an awesomely bad website is the photo of The Godfathers of the FOZ.

Sweep the leg, indeed.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 1st, 2005 at 8:51 am and is filed under Be Aware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.