Tuesday Creative

Consumer Electronics Purchasing Woes

nobody@vox.com(Tuesday Creative) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:24:04 -0700

I recently purchased a new monitor for my home office and boy was it frustrating. The thought of buying something new is fun and exciting and I'm envious when I see others getting boxes of goodies at work. Of course I couldn't just buy the first monitor I saw, I had to do tons of research to avoid buyer's remorse. I started my exploration for the right monitor with high spirits. By the end of one week, my spirits were crushed. Not only was I drowning in conflicting reviews from "experts" and users, but the manufacturers seem to number their products with the goal of confusing consumers. Why can't they just number their models intuitively and make it very clear what the differences are?

Especially with electronics, consumers can have dozens of products with dozens of features to choose from. Having to choose can get overwhelming and confusing. It would seem like making the buying process easy would benefit everybody. I had an easier time buying a new car than buying a new monitor. It came down to asking some very tech savvy friends for recommendations to narrow things down. My buying adventure ended a few weeks later on a weekend trip to Costco. I saw what I thought was one of the recommended models. It's wasn't even on the Samsung website at the time yet it's an update to a previous model. See what I'm saying? After all the frustration there was a happy ending, I'm very pleased with my choice.

- S. Osako

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Review of VECTORTUTS

nobody@vox.com(Tuesday Creative) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:31:31 -0700

Traffic Light Preview

VECTORTUTS brought to you by PSDTUTS is a great resource for those of you who are in need of Illustrator help. Much like PSDTUTS, the site has tried and true tutorials with loads of tips and tricks that even the savviest user could benefit from. When I personally tested out one of the tutorials, I was amazed at how it broke down complex illustrations into steps that I could understand and grasp quickly. It gave me the tools to be able to create illustrations with simple shapes and shading techniques. Even if you’re not a talented illustrator, you could pull off realistic Illustrator drawings by knowing how to implement these techniques. There were a couple of points I felt needed improvement. For example, the tutorial asked the user to choose a few different shades of yellow without citing the exact Hex number. Missing crucial color information can really change an illustration!

Regardless of your skill level, I highly recommend trying out one of the tutorials, even if it’s just to practice your Illustrator ninja skills!

- C. Lin

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Marvel Productions and The Incredible Hulk

nobody@vox.com(Tuesday Creative) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:50:22 -0700

Norton-hulk

After seeing marvelous Marvel characters such as Daredevil, Elektra, and Ghost Rider get not so great reviews on the silver screen, Marvel comics has decided to take matters into their own hands and create Marvel Productions. This new force to be reckoned with in Hollywood has already achieved groundbreaking success with the recent release of Iron Man, as well as the release of The Incredible Hulk. Even fans were unclear how much this new installment had to do with Ang Lee’s ‘Brokeback’ Hulk from 2003. Will it be a sequel or a completely different re-imagining? Marvel did have more creative control over this film than the other; bringing this installment closer to the original continuity. After gaining a solid reputation as a director from his high-octane Transporter movies, Louis Leterrier promised to direct the kind of action-packed Hulk movie that comic book nerds across the planet have been aching for.

When I watched the Incredible Hulk, I was blown away by the intense action, and a very pleasing aesthetic. The new Hulk character design in the movie bares a much closer resemblance to the way he had been illustrated in recent issues — specifically to the way he was portrayed by popular comic book artist Michael Turner, (who just recently passed away at the age of 37). The Incredible Hulk was a non-stop action thrill ride, without a lot of time misspent dwelling on Bruce Banner’s irrelevant psychological issues, despite the obvious. The movie was only about 110 minutes long, unlike its predecessor; it got right to the point, even bringing the viewer up to speed on the story during the opening credit montage. The plot does not really have much to do with Ang Lee’s version. It is based mostly on a mix of the comic book continuity and the 1970’s television show starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno (who incidentally both make cameos along with creator Stan Lee).

There were also rumors of several Easter eggs in the Hulk. For example, in Iron Man, there was a quick view of Captain America’s iconic shield on Tony Stark’s. I kept my eyes peeled throughout the Hulk staying after the credits, only to learn later that the Easter egg featuring an actual appearance by Captain America frozen in a glacier was cut from the movie altogether. While Cap failed to make an appearance in the theatrical release, a nice bit of fun for the fans was the appearance of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. Tony informs General Ross about his plans on assembling a team. With the slightest bit of comic book knowledge, we can assume this is alluding to an eventual Avengers movie. In order for that to happen, the Avengers roster might need to be established first in several solo movies like Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye, Ant-Man and the Wasp, as well as other Avengers like the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and the Black Widow.

While being a very entertaining movie experience, the ending of the Hulk might leave the viewer with some questions like, “how did all those pedestrians and army guys end up on that roof-top all of the sudden?” or “after seeing how powerful Abomination was, how was Hulk able to simply knock him unconscious by choking him with a chain? He is left alive, so how can something with that kind of strength be safely imprisoned?” Regardless of a few contradictory elements from the movie, I generally declare The Incredible Hulk to be a success, while not as large of a success as Iron Man, this new Hulk movie more than makes up for the last one.

For those of you who enjoy the movies based on comics that have been in abundance over the years, I (and many other nerdy fanboys) strongly urge you to pick up some comics and start reading the stories that spawned these multi-million dollar franchises. These movies, for the most part, are always quite excellent, but ask any reader, and he or she will tell you that the original stories are way better!

- J. Tepper

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iPod Earbud Addiction

nobody@vox.com(Tuesday Creative) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:02:29 -0700

Earbuds

I’ve noticed an epidemic of people wearing their iPod earbuds to do just about everything. Even during situations that require higher degrees of concentration, like studying, writing and programming. Go to any coffee shop and you’ll see it. As much as I enjoy music and can do many things with headphones, I feel that people are harming themselves by constantly reaching for their mp3 player when they need to focus. Case in point—imagine you are a high school student with dreams of getting into a prestigious college. You are sitting down one Saturday morning to take the dreaded SAT exam. Even if it were allowed, would you really want to strap on some headphones during the test? Unless you don’t want to attend the college of your choice, this probably isn’t the wisest move. When people are doing math homework, reading a history book, or writing a term paper, however, they don’t seem to equate decibels with lack of concentration. Trust me, your concentration is being affected. Next time you’re sitting down to do some serious work, maybe try it without the headphones. Save your battery for the gym.

- S. Running

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Feeds: Friend or Foe?

nobody@vox.com(Tuesday Creative) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 11:33:34 -0700

Feed Icon

For those of you who are living under a rock an RSS or Atom feed is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content from for example a blog, news site etc. in a standardized format. You have seen the little orange icon on blogs or the blue icon in the new Firefox window. Let’s say you have a favorite blog that you read everyday. You can subscribe to its feeds by clicking on the icon and then selecting a type of reader that you want all of your content to appear on. This gives people quick and at a glance access to updated content.

Google Reader

I love the convenience of feeds and there is a list I subscribe to. But one question: why are most of the reader’s feeds so ugly? I know that it is just content that users are signing up for. After all, that is the whole point of a feed. But what does that mean for designers who labor over sites knowing that for some viewers it will boil down to a mere feed? There’s no control over how they’ll look in the end. Feeds do not have distinguishing design elements; they are simply content. Feeds are sites without a face. How does this affect design? And what does it mean to have zero control over how your content is seen? Is it liberating or is it frustrating?

Personally, I find the convenience of feeds overpowering the frustration. But in the end, I am still annoyed that my feeds don’t look very good. And I find myself really missing the face of my favorite site’s personality.

- C. Lin

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Women Runners Unite!

nobody@vox.com(Tuesday Creative) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:03:29 -0700

Traxee

I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about a social networking site that we released into Beta a few weeks ago called Traxee. In late 2007, I was having a discussion with a friend and colleague about how she had in her early thirties, been an out of shape chain smoker, in poor health, and a person who could hardly jog 100 yards. Even worse, she didn’t think she had the power to do anything about it. One day she thought to herself, maybe I can run 10 yards – so she did. Then she tried to run 20 yards, then 100, then 1,000 and so on. Flash forward to the present, she (her name is Beth, by the way) runs 4 plus days a week and is currently training for the San Francisco marathon.

Beth is a marketing executive by day. Part of her bag of tricks is to spot trends and to understand how to relate to a mass audience as well as communicate effectively. Mixing her marketing perspective with her viewpoint from the shoes of a woman runner, she noticed that the majority of society grossly diminishes women’s sports as compared to men’s. Perhaps even more disappointing is the way women athletes are commonly portrayed in women targeted media: women’s fitness articles tend to be about losing weight or sports fashion. She identified a gap in the industry. Namely, that the huge community of focused women runners did not have an online place (nor, arguably, an offline place) to exchange ideas, offer support to each other, and to arrange real-world interactions. To have a place just to connect with like-minded women who love to run.

She created the concept of Traxee as the online community designed for the needs of a woman athlete. It would be a platform for women to create posts, make friends and even log their daily miles into the ‘Trax Log’. Once she had her vision, she enlisted our team at Tuesday Creative to be her social networking architects. I’ll save the behind-the-scenes technical details of how we did it for another post, but we are very proud of what we were able to accomplish for Beth and her crew of dedicated runners.

We invite you to check out Traxee and – especially if you are a runner who happens to be a woman – encourage you to create an account and start logging your miles. Hopefully the Traxee community will break a million miles in the near future!

- S. Running

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The Future of Skateboarding is Elemental

nobody@vox.com(Tuesday Creative) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:03:30 -0700

Element Skate Deck

Element just “pushed” the evolution of the skate deck with the introduction of their “Push Construction Positive Negative Series;” which is a really long name for a series of skate decks…but seemingly worth every last syllable. The deck is a very intricate and scientific combination of carbon fiber and helium, weighs next to nothing and is more durable than any deck in production.

So, why is someone who hasn’t done an ollie in about 20 years, let alone ever attempted a shove-it, so fascinated with the announcement of a new deck? Well, there are two main reasons and this new deck takes both of those thoughts into consideration.

Construction. Even though I don’t try these stunts at home, I LOVE to see someone bust a crazy, hardcore trick without thinking twice about it. Radical stuff no one would have even thought of trying 20 years ago. The Push decks are crafted from a carbon fiber, which is a virtually indestructible material. Infuse that material with helium and you get a material that is super lightweight. Super durable + light as air = a killer deck that won’t let you down…ever.

Design. I love good design. Who doesn’t? Not only is the actual construction an example of highly creative thinking, but the monochromatic design is pure minimalist perfection, combined with a simple variant wood grain veneer on the top screen. To top it all off, it is totally eco-friendly! Element stays true to it’s “green” values by using wood from selectively harvested trees.

Don’t take my word for it though, check it out for yourself!

- P. Tade

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7-Point System for CS3

nobody@vox.com(Tuesday Creative) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:29:33 -0700

7-Point System to CS3

It’s all but impossible for me to go into a bookstore without doing a pass at the design/computer section. When it comes to Photoshop, you’ll typically find a glut of titles that usually do a halfway decent job of listing all of its features with brief instructions on how to use them. There is certainly nothing wrong with these books, and I own several such titles. In fact, that’s why I almost didn’t even leaf through the copy of Scott Kelby’s 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3 at my local Border’s.

Judging from the title, I was expecting it to be a beginners-only book. As it turns out, the book assumes you already have a comfort level with the finer workings of Photoshop. The underlying concept of the book is that all other Photoshop books simply dissect the various components of the application and tell you how to use them. Do you have a dark image? Use levels to lighten it. Have a blurry image? Use Unsharp mask. Want to get rid of a blemish? Use the rubber stamp tool. The issue that Kelby addresses is that many digital artists don’t know how to assess a photo and determine what needs to be done to it overall and in what order. In simpler terms, the question becomes how to make a good photo a great photo. As a master Photoshop user, Kelby audited his own process as he worked on hundreds of images. He realized that the majority of photos required a combination of the same seven steps. In the book, Kelby breaks down each of those seven steps and applies them to real photos using detailed tutorials.

The 7-Point System is actually a complete course in a book. Readers are “required” to work their way through the entire 21 chapters, with each chapter detailing all the things you need to “fix” the tutorial image. Chapters take about 10-20 minutes to complete. Initial chapters walk the reader through each detail of the correction, for instance, how to do an appropriate amount of Unsharp Mask followed by a Fade Unsharp Mask to Luminosity. In later chapters it simply will say, “then do Unsharp Mask as before.” This technique keeps the pace of the book up so you don’t get bogged down in repetition.

If you are a Photoshop user, your first instinct when looking at the book might be: “yeah, I already do all this stuff.” Perhaps, but the book tells you how to most efficiently use the various tools and techniques. It also helps cut down on lots of trial and error work when it comes to correcting images (should I lighten in RAW, with Curves, by Dodging, etc).

This is certainly one of the most enjoyable Photoshop books I’ve purchased for some time. Even if you consider yourself to be an advanced user, you would benefit from checking it out.

- S. Running

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Why Creative Commons is a Good Idea

nobody@vox.com(Tuesday Creative) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:16:47 -0700

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization which provides free licenses to copyright holders to use when releasing their works on the web. The idea is to avoid current copyright law issues when dealing with the sharing of information. CC sort of clears the clutter and confusion of copyright infringement for web users and creators. They are also really good at visually organizing these complex copyright laws in a very digestible way. Besides, the group has a nicely designed website and their free licensing icons are beautiful. The free software and open-source web world is in need of these guidelines! “We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them – to declare ‘some rights reserved.’” – Creative Commons

- C. Lin

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MUTO: Stop-motion and Graffiti

nobody@vox.com(Tuesday Creative) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:50:53 -0700

MUTO

What do you get when you combine stop-motion video and graffiti street art in Buenos Aires? MUTO! Graffiti artist Blu created this cool animation, MUTO, based on some of his public art. The video is a constant evolution of his artwork across the city streets of both Buenos Aires and Bade. The flow and transformation between each character is fascinating to watch and the video itself is a nice tribute to street art.

- P. Tade

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