February 3, 2010

Staying Cozy in 2010

Go Canada Go!

Olympic Cowichan Sweater won't be knit by First Nation

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January 13, 2010

Stinky, Bad Photoshop

While cruising through the Sandals site to explore their site design, I came across the above image. It freaked me out right away but I was having trouble putting my finger on the root cause.

I guessed it was because as a viewer (and potential customer) I was supposed to see myself as this yahoo in a pool getting happy over the thought of a guy in a soaking wet suit and gloves shaking a cocktail for me; the pure joy of slipping off my chair in the shade in order to find the most pretentious way imaginable to order a drink.

But all pessimism aside, I think the true uneasiness comes from the fact that this is such an obvious photoshop job... it sets off all my designer's spidey senses.

What the hell happened to the water-waiter's legs?

More bad photoshop examples (insert simple Google search) here:

Detached arm for Sandra Bullock and pasted on head for Bradley Cooper!

Crazy, wacky kids... I mean the ones that were paid to do this layout work...

"10-4 good buddy... can I stop hiding down here and maybe you can hold this yourself for a while?"

"Awww... that's adorable... he's got his daddy's legs!"

And I guess these examples exist because someone hired a bogus designer or rushed a deadline or ran with a tiny budget... all harmless fun. It's examples like this below one issued from Sepah News, the media arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards news site that are really scary:

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December 22, 2009

Exploring language's "Meminine" Side

They're popping up everywhere... words or terms more traditionally associated with women - now being re-tagged and adopted for men. I can't say if it's a blurring of the gender lines or too many Seinfeld references playing havoc with our daily lives, all I know is that the pursuit of the ever-changing vernacular is moving faster than the pace of old Miriam Webster.

Mandate:

a gathering of ONLY men.

Activites during mandates include cruising, playing madden, going to wendy's. When one is one a mandate, one must show the mandate symbol. This is done by crossing the middle finger and the ring finger so the hand resembles an "M". 

Example: "Damn that mandate was off the hook"

Mimbo (or Himbo):

A mimbo is a good looking male who either is or acts like he is extremely stupid. The female counterpart of the mimbo is the bimbo.

Example: "He's hot... probably can't hold down a job, but I like dating mimbos like him because they don't give you trouble or try to control you."

Manzeer (or "Bro"):

Word describing a bra designed for men that possess droopy, saggy, or otherwise oversized pectoral fat. Such men could be said to have "man boobs".

Example: "If Jack's man cans get any bigger he is going to need a manzeer to keep from getting black eyes."

Murse:

A man-purse; very fashion-forward right now, seen on many hipster guys. Some like to call it a European Carry-All, but it's really just a bag for boys.

Example: "Wow, Snoop's new laptop fits perfectly into that small bag he carries"... "Fo shizzle ma nizzle - great murse!"

Note: The term "murse" has also been commonlyassociated with a Male Nurse... made famous by Ben Stiller as Gaylord Focker in Meet the Parents.

Mantyhose:

Support hose for men, used by those who've found a passion for pantyhose, claiming they wear the hosiery for support, comfort and aesthetic purposes. Instructions on how to put them on can be found here.

Example: "Until I found mantyhose, I had a hell of time holding it all together."

Have I missed any others?

I hope you'll let me know if I have...

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December 18, 2009

Making Personal Holiday Cards

I know, I know... this blog is supposed to be a place where we offer up bits of info relating to the business of design; our business of design, to be more accurate... But the reality is that I know the stats to date so far - and this forum is still in its infancy and traffic is about 3 steps below a crawl at this point so I could really hang up anything right now and it wouldn't matter.

So what the hell... here's some shameless personal self promotion showing our family's Christmas card for this year. We've been doing it since my first son was born in 2002, so welcome to the 8th version of our annual tradition. Happy holidays.

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December 16, 2009

The Photoshop Police are Cracking Down!

It started out as a joke... scan in some twenties then email them to a friend who's been waiting on the 200 bucks I owe him.

The scanning part was easy. I've done it before when I scanned a crisp $100 bill then photoshopped my 100 year-old aunt on to it, output it to a 4' x 8' banner and brought it to her birthday party. I've even scanned in loonies, twoonies... probably a few more I can't recall... all part of the job, really.

But today, when scanning in this fistful of twenties, I tried opening the file in photoshop only to get this error message:

Click on the INFORMATION link and you get told that:

"The counterfeiting of currency is a crime, and any reproduction of banknote images – even for artistic or advertising uses – is strictly forbidden."

and then this last line: "The Bank monitors Web sites for abuses."

YIKES!

Apparently I've now opened myself up to the possibility of "imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months and a maximum fine of $2,000"

OUCH!

And because I'm so curious, I did a quick Google search to see how The Bank was doing at their website monitoring and got these 2 million + results in .21 seconds:

Not too hard to find top-surface criminals... my favourite is Obama and his twenty bucks.

I can only imagine the reaction that would come to that new counterfeiter when the realization that all of his hopes and dreams are dying in front of his eyes as his scan is blocked from the gates of Photoshop... the great big "doh" that would ensue... the tears, the sound of crumbling dreams - all ruined by those meddling kids at Adobe.

Of course, it only took me a couple of clicks and a screenshot to get my path to incarceration started... and this blog post waving in the face of the The Bank Monitors isn't going to help. Anybody know of a good lawyer?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And just for fun,... here's that $100 bill with my great Aunt Ivy on it:

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