kuler - beautiful color themes

Adobe just launched their new CS3 suite yesterday. ... lots of improvements. They bought Macromedia awhile ago with ownerships over Flash, Dreamweaver, etc. Now Photoshop & Illustrator will be able to communicate with Dreamweaver & Flash more seamlessly ... which means more great designs on the web & seamless flow between print, web & video. I'm pretty excited about the new changes. ... To watch their webcast of yesterday's launch, go here.

One really cool thing I found during the launch was Kuler - technology for picking color themes & palette. (Try creating a color scheme.) You can save color schemes, share them with friends, have their RGB, CMYK & Hex/Web codes ... really cool. They have a mac widget that you can download too. I like the RSS feeds for the most popular & highest rated color schemes.

They also annouced a spry widget to easily put ajax/javascript tools into a website.

Here's an article on what "Web2.0" is about ... a term I was introduced to when I went to SXSW ... interesting article.

a site for caffé medici

I finished a website for Caffé Medici, the Espresso & Coffee House of my friends Michael & Alison. I'm happy with it, and I think it serves their needs well. (They have some really good cappuccinos & lattes too!) The trickiest part was learning how to integrate a blogger engine into my CSS design ... but it was amazingly easy (the dynamic parts worked automatically on my server; I just had to tweak my design a little bit; it even helped me make some of the typographic decisions for the rest of the site). It took a little push to finish it, but I beat their baby out (who's due date is today). :) Enjoy. (I also designed their beautiful logo.)

sxsw07 interactive notes

I finally compiled my list of notes from the South by Southwest 2007 Interactive conference. There were so many great ideas, people & inspiration that it would've taken too long to type out all my ideas/processing. I ended up scanning my notes and just putting in hyperlinks to the various websites & articles. (I hope you can see the green underlines. If not just try clicking on something you find of interest ... The titles are all linked to the SXSW panel pages, for example, among the 346 links within it.)

Hopefully this PDF can serve as a useful reference for the various topics in design, typography, web development, business and the next generation. (I plan on using it that way.) :)

Creative Summit & BBQ

Next weekend (March 30/31) is the 22nd annual Creative Summit in San Marcos, Texas. It's a great conference and student show about graphic design, illustration, photography and creative professionals. I'd like to make the whole show, but I might make only make it for a little bit (silent auction, design show) ... and I plan on making the alumni BBQ shin-dig down in Riley, TX. It should be a good time. Hopefully I can catch up with some alumni design friends and maybe play some horseshoes.

sxsw brain-spinning

I'm back from SXSW ... wow! what an experience - great people, ideas, discussions, etc. It was over-whelming at times - too much information & people, but really good. I got to see a few friends/alumni who had moved away, hang out with my co-workers and listen to some of the most forward-thinking people in creative technology. I took notes on the panels & will try to share them soon ... there was lots of information. I'm trying to bring as much inspiration & ideas back into my workplace, and hopefully make things even more productive & enjoyable. My brain is kinda fried right now. I'll come back later with more. (I think I have enough ideas to keep me busy for the next year at least.)

One thing, yesterday I saw the world premiere of the movie Helvetica ... which was a great documentary film about how helvetica came to be out of the swiss design school and how it has (positively & negatively) shaped our society from different people's perspectives. There was a Q&A at the end with the director Gary Hustwit & designer David Carson. Whether or not you're a designer, I think you'll like it a lot.

2007 SXSW Interactive!

After 3 years of living in the beautiful city of Austin, I'm finally able to attend SXSW Interactive! I'm excited ... it's always been too expensive for a post-college student freelance designer/coffee shop barista to attend ... It's always all the hyped-up out-of-town people flying in from all over the world to "be cool in Austin." In many ways, SXSW has gotten bigger than the city of Austin (maybe not the name of Austin, but the majority of folks who live here). It does bring a lot of business in ... and more people come in to appreciate all that Austin has to offer - creativity, independence, youth, big horizons/opportunity, down-to-earthness of Texas ... a convergence of smart technology and personal uniqueness/creativity ... which is what is pushing a lot of society right now. It's cool to be in the middle of that, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the creative revolutionaries are doing & saying ... to be able to actually take part in this larger-than-Austin-but-herald-of-all-things-Austin event ... to let that new invigorating enthusiasm spur on new ideas for creativity, new projects, new inventions, new ways of solving old problems, and languages to communicate & solve what these common problems are in our society & communities. ... Now I finally have my feet on the ground (since someone finally decided to hire me & train me in business matters & the pratical creative process of a team/business - which differs tremendously from a college individual's creative process). Now I can finally partake of this excitement & party of the present & future of creativity & technology. (Maybe some year I can jump into all the arenas - interactive, film & music.) It's a great place to be ... and it's in my backyard. Pretty cool. ... So that's where I'll be for the next 4 days ... might post a few things that I find interesting.
Peace out, for now.

german type foundry

I ran across this cool type foundry based in Essen, Germany today - Cape Arcona Type Foundry. I like their work - folky, funky, foreign, some industrial & experimental. (For experimental/degraded fonts, I also like Misprinted Type.) ... a few good free fonts to download too. :)

architect website + sxsw

I finally finished a website for Michael Hsu Design Office. I designed the logo and website interface, shot some photography for the front page, and developed the whole site in CSS & HTML. I really like the way it came out. It was wonderful working with Michael since he already has such great design aesthetics. Check his environmental design/architecture work out. It's really good and all over Austin.
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getting stirred on ideas for some more blogging ... I'm also going to SXSW Interactive for work next week ... so I'm getting excited about technology again (had a break for a few years) ... so I look forward to doing new things with my blog soon - new design, new stuff ... thanks for checking back