Wow, I Got Smashed!

Yes, we can...
Here's one from the "Stick to it, you can do it" Category... Way back in March of this year Smashing Mag started featuring stunning desktop wallpaper created by amazing artists and designers working on the web. I was hooked on Smashing since they rolled in the Fall of '06, and they really crank-out great articles, resources, how-to's, fonts, tools and all sorts of stuff that really does "make your life easier" if you work on the web (or if you geek-out just for fun, huh?).

In March I was so inspired by the amazing artwork that I took on a personal challenge to try and see if I could get Smashed too at some point — and I set out to try and make some decent desktop wallpapers whenever I had time. Finally, in November I submitted a wallpaper just to see if my stuff would rank, but that set wasn't chosen (the calendar was too difficult to see). No biggie I figured, and I churned-out another set for December just for chuckles, submitted them and went about my boring routine just as I always do and thought nothing of it...

Feelin' Pretty Good Now
I returned from a rare, and invigorating brief traveling jaunt and checked my email and deleted my typical SPAM messages (sorry: it's actually large enough, I don't need a mortgage or a mail-order bride, and I don't need an expensive watch, etc.) and then did my typical web surfing and feed reading. Then, I remembered I had submitted my wallpaper, and went to see if the fine folks at Smashing had posted for December with my fingers crossed and there I was, SLAM I got Smashed and it was a great feeling. Nice.

One Ant and One Giant Rubber Tree
Here's what made the grade, and I called it "Violet Night" because it sorta sounded good and seemed to make sense at the time. I dressed it up in some fancy phrases to make it seem like I actually had a concept when in fact I was really just messing around with Photoshop.

I think I can, I think I can!
I think I'll try to do something again next month since it's really kinda fun and I like rubbing pixels with some of the best on the web — makes me feel like I am somebody, really. Maybe I'll actually get some traffic and a few ad clicks on this stupid blog after all these years. That's another long-winded long-term goal, but I've stopped holding my breath waiting for a check from Google.

Check out all the fantastic stuff they've got at Smashing Magazine, and add them to your feeds — heck, why not try and submit your stuff? It's good for you and 100% natural without all the weird side effects, fast talk and fine print...
:-D

Smashing Magazine: Nov '08 Calendar

I finally set aside some time to make an effort to submit something to Smashing Magazine for their monthly roundup of stunning desktop wallpapers. I haven't had a lot of spare time lately, but then who really has any idle time these days right? That said, I was able to churn this set out, and I hope they select it for inclusion in their November, 2008 collection. Earlier today they already had 53 submissions and I'm sure they're all really juicy and beautiful. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Anyway, the basic concept is:

Falling forward...
The cold North Wind blows
Remaining leaves of frozen bitter branches
Carry the old towards the new.

+ 1920x1200

+ 1680x1050

+ 1600x1200

+ 1280x960

All of the ones in this set have a calendar. I wanted the color palette to be monochromatic: dull, dark and dreary like a cold November night. I figured I'd start with something simple and see if they include it, then make more time next month and do it again if they do. I have a bunch of my other desktop wallpapers available on my flickr account if you are interested in some of my other stuff.

Cool Tool: VectorMagic

A few weeks ago, my co-worker DH sent me an IM "Have you seen this?" with the URL for Stanford's Vector Magic Online Bitmap to Vector Project. I was busy when he sent it and only just gave the site a quick visit, a bookmark and figured I'd visit again and blog it when I had more time.

Wow, this is an extremely cool tool! In a nutshell, The site converts bitmap images to vector art for you. It's an "online auto-tracer" built using Adobe's Flex2. To use it, just upload your image or photo, and the tool will create vectors for you. You can then save your vector art to EPS, SVG, or PNG format. You can use VectorMagic to process your image and then tweak the results as needed as well, this keeps all the heavy processing on their end, and you can focus on the fun stuff! Vectors are scalable because they are "geometric primitives" made-up of points, lines, curves and polygons — whereas raster graphics are a "map of pixels" (hence the name "Bit Map", or BMP). Vector files are also smaller in file size, and they can be scaled without a loss of quality. Find out more info on vector graphics on Wikipedia.

Here's an example of my first VectorMagic output. I took my avatar and ran it through their tool and got great results. Then I was able to play around with the SVG output to size my avatar as needed. I have the original Photoshop file so I can do that anyway, but this machine is getting old and slow, so it's nice to have a backup option. They also make it really easy to share your results to help spread the good word (you can play with my vectors made by VectorMagic, but my artwork is ©2006ptamaro so don't use it for your own purposes).

Also, if you don't have the original artwork in a vector format you won't be able to get good results if you need to change any of the elements, colors or size. In this case, you can vectorize the rastered artwork and then use the vectors to make the changes you need. Have fun, and let me know what you think of it!

    » Visit VectorMagic

DIY: Instructables Makes "Making It" Fun!

I'm finally getting around to blogging the instructables web site even though I've been visiting the site for some time now. It's an amazing resource of fun, interesting and resourceful projects you can do at home with your family. The DIY trend (Do It Yourself) is only going to become more popular as product prices and the overall cost of living continues to rise... Even the evening news has started to mention "inflation", so it's either on it's way for sure or it's already here.

At instructables you can delve into projects like making your own top-down blinds, or if you're courageous enough, you can even build a Mongolian Yurt! Categories include: Art, Craft, Food, Games, Home, Life, Ride, Offbeat, and Tech. They also have slideshows, videos, forums and groups so you can meet other "makers" as well. If you are looking to solve a problem or make something on the cheap -- or, if you need to find something productive to do on a rainy day, then this is the place to go!

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that they have a robot on staff...

"I am the Instructables Robot. My job is to alert you whenever someone leaves you a comment or sends you a private message. I spend most of my day sending email. I like sending email."

The instructables web site is community driven and it's completely free, so if you're into making stuff why not join up? I did! The site is one of the many successful projects by the fine folks at Fluffco.

Simplicity, complexity, John Maeda & design.

Take a look and listen to this TED Talk by John Maeda. In it, he discusses daily life, technology, and design -- all mixed together with topical points of complexity and simplicity from the perspective of design and how it relates to daily life. His talk is engaging, and the examples are funny and well-worth the watch.

His new book Laws of Simplicity presents ten rules and three keys to working and living simply -- in the talk he brings it down to just one simple way to be...

Elegant Simplicity.




> Watch this talk on ted.com

Item #76b: Random Interface elements.

User Document and a Mockup for AspenCloud.com

This one has a bit of a "dry and chalky" feel to it -- and it has a nice silky powdered look to it.

The inner-glow is too strong though, and the bevel is too sharp on top. It also needs a name/data area on the bottom to get to the next level.

The perspective of the bottom-right corner is a bit off too.

NEW UPDATE 03/06/07:

Mockup for AspenCloud (www.aspencloud.com)

i digg photoshop

Fiddling with Photoshop

I'm finally getting back on track and starting to do fun stuff again. I gave myself a challenge to do a quick exercise and create a Photoshop file that makes it easy for me to pump out sized icons and other artwork as "sets".

The idea was to make it easy to open the file, churn out some artwork based on a current need (someone needs a particular icon or whatever), and then create a set of similar stuff in a consistent style. I'm also working on getting faster with the process. Here's one example...