It was finally time to integrate the blog with our site theme and brand. The old blog needed a serious facelift, and unfortunately the version of WordPress that was installed on my server was antiquated. So, I upgraded it, tried to install a new theme, and… ta-da! Database failure and blog crash. Therefore, we are starting fresh.
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I recently ran into another pre-press dilemma for one of my newsprint clients. Of course the phone call came in the day after my print deadline, while I was in the eastern Utah backcountry. So there I was, standing on a rock, trying to get enough cell reception for a 5-minute phone call. There wasn’t much I could do 1,000 miles away from my office, but the problem was this: I often use colored boxes or gradient sidebars with black text on top of them. I find it helps give color to the page, and adds some visual interest to an otherwise monochrome copy space. I had never had a problem with these in the year and a half that I have been designing this particular publication. Yet, the printer informed me that this time the black text was overprinting, causing rich black text in the colored sidebars.
Read more →Okay, I feel kind of silly. I never really liked Photoshop brushes. I felt they were rather limited in scope, and it was difficult to get the effect I wanted. I ended up doing a lot of rotating of the image, a lot of copying and pasting and free transforming. And now I find out all that work was for nothing. Adobe, being the geniuses that they are, include an entire options window for brushes. I noticed it before, but never really explored it fully. So, I’m passing on this incredibly simple tip to you… Window>Brushes produces the Brushes toolbox window. Click on “Brush Tip Shape” (the cleverly hiding option without a checkbox) at the top of the Brush Preset menu list on the left hand side of the window. And ta-da! Here’s what you get: Using this option panel you can rotate the brush to acheive the effect you want,
Read more →Almost every week, I hear of another print publication folding under the immense pressure of the economic pinch. The Rocky Mountain News of Denver and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer just went out of business completely. The Chicago Tribune, LA Times, and Philadelphia Inquirer have all requested bankruptcy protection. Christian Science Monitor, PC Magazine, and several others are moving to online-only publication. Even iconic publications like Rolling Stone are making major cuts. So is it too late for print media? Can magazines and newspapers weather the storm of declining ad revenues and decreased newsstand sales?
Read more →After several weeks of graphic design and back-end development, Keen Graphics has launched a complete website for its client, Grace Requires Understanding Inc (GRU). Based in Las Cruces, New Mexico, GRU provides services to developmentally challenged individuals and their in-home care providers. They came to Keen with the desire to improve the look and functionality of their existing website. In conjunction with the skills of a talented web coder, we developed a color scheme with the client, recreated an old logo with a slightly updated look, and set to work developing a fully-functional website that would provide GRU with: Login permission groups with access to different member services, including announcements, policies blog and downloadable PDF forms Secure file management system for confidential records CMS system for adding and editing content Another project completed! To learn more about GRU, or to view the site, visit MyGRU.org.
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