Beacon Rock Hike

[gallery link="file" columns="2"] Went for a hike at Beacon Rock this weekend. Nice easy hike with some amazing views. You would have to work hard to take a bad photo so there are a few more here.

Copy Paste copy paste copy copy

Similarities - a set on Flickr

Albert Einstein once said, “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The pairs of images in this "Similarities" set are similar visually in one way or another. They are presented without judgement as to the motives of their creators. The viewers of the pieces can form their own opinion(s) about what they see.

Recent Design work

[gallery link="file" columns="2"] So here are some recent Design projects I have been working on. Can't post a lot of the Photo Illustration work due to legal stuffs but this I can post.

Very happy with the retro feel of the Barrio Tiger artwork. It is going to be nice to see that as actual real deal album art work. Not a CD, not download, but a real record. The Ditchweed sticker was fun because it's such a strong bright typographic image that still feel a bit country.

Fun stuff.

Why the office is anti work.

Why you can't work at work.

With its constant commotion, unnecessary meetings, and infuriating wastes of time, the modern workplace makes us all work longer, less focused hours. Jason Fried explains how we can change all of this.

After more then a few years in offices I can back this up 100%. Now that everything we do is over the internet we get so much more done it's silly.

Good lord, what a thought...

I'm quitting the Internet. Will I be liberated or left behind? (1) - By James Sturm - Slate Magazine

Over the last several years, the Internet has evolved from being a distraction to something that feels more sinister. Even when I am away from the computer I am aware that I AM AWAY FROM MY COMPUTER and am scheming about how to GET BACK ON THE COMPUTER. I've tried various strategies to limit my time online: leaving my laptop at my studio when I go home, leaving it at home when I go to my studio, a Saturday moratorium on usage. But nothing has worked for long. More and more hours of my life evaporate in front of YouTube. Supposedly addiction isn't a moral failing, but it feels as if it is.

I would last two days before my life crashed around me.

The rise of The Poison Picture

Fair Trade Photographer: Microstock: why would a reputable company do this to themselves?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, this one has a lot to say. It says microstock. It says perfect-people perfect-world lowest-common-denominator cookie-cutter pile-them-high sell-them-cheap image.

Why would a reputable company want to be associated with those words?

And from the comments:

This is another technology game-changer... it is always impossible to know what will come along and how it may turn an industry on it's head. This is something that I believe will turn microstock on its head and put it in its place - which is on the websites of micro-companies and fly-by-nighters, and not on the website of any company which values its image.

Picture buyers (and designers) who think they can get away with using microstock images have now got to contend with the fact that with one click of their mouse, anyone can find many many examples of the same image being used across the web. And that just makes it far too easy for a company's reputation to be ridiculed.

Major corporations are already aware of this and that is why you will no longer find microstock images on their websites.

Say hello to the era of the Poisonous Picture....

Good write up if you ever have to sell a better image to a client.

Thanks Charlie!

Puppet warp in CS5

Interesting to see how this works with high resolution files. Content Aware Scale introduces way to much artifacting so I have no faith in Content Aware Fill. This might be useful though.

On a side note, how long till we have a icon which denotes a picture as a Illustration versus and real Optical Photograph?

Print is dead, long live Print.

Popular Science+ – Blog – BERG

Working with the Popular Science team and their editorial has been wonderful, and we’ve been working together to re-imagine the form of magazines. Art direction for print is so much about composition. There are a 1,000 tiny tweaks to tune a page to get it to really sing. But what does layout mean when readers can make the text disappear, when the images move across one another, and the page itself changes shape as the iPad rotates?

We discovered safe areas. We found little games to play with the reader, having them assemble infographics in the act of scrolling, and making pages that span multiple panes, only revealing themselves when the reader does a double-finger swipe to zoom across them.

Bad content will not work in this context. I think we may be able to merge what was great about old media, great art, design and well written content with the instant always on internet culture.Very interesting to see how this plays out.

Soon to be.

The iPad Launch: Can Steve Jobs Do It Again? - TIME

It is possible that the public will not fall on the iPad, as I did, like lions on an antelope. Perhaps they will find the apps and the iBooks too expensive. Maybe they will wait for more fully featured later models. But for me, my iPad is like a gun lobbyist's rifle: the only way you will take it from me is to prise it from my cold, dead hands. One melancholy thought occurs as my fingers glide and flow over the surface of this astonishing object: Douglas Adams is not alive to see the closest thing to his Hitchhiker's Guide that humankind has yet devised.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1976935-4,00.html#ixzz0jsoyT6fS

As soon as you stop thinking of it as a computer, you kinda realize that this thing is gonna be awesome.

Modern Music thoughts

Interview With The Austin Chronicle for SXSW on Musicians and Social Media | Dave Allen of Gang of Four's Music and Media Blog

DA: I think it’s completely pointless to simply release a CD. Think of that 8 year old girl I mentioned earlier – does she want a CD? I doubt it. So what’s required is first and foremost the release of music as an “event.” Do not follow the traditional, worn out methods. Reinvent the idea of what a release of an “album” should now be. Cirque De Soleil is a far cry from Barnum & Bailey’s…