This post was originally posted on July 6, 2009 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
A few months ago, I came across Ponoko, a New Zealand-based online fabrication service and marketplace. People make everything from jewelry to furniture. Ponoko offers a marketplace where people can sell products or plans.
I decided to make a small bookshelf for my office based on a bookshelf I made in Shop Class in the seventh grade. After signing up for a free account, I downloaded the “Making Guide” that explained the whole process.
My bookshelf, assembled, with an assortment of books and DVDs.
Basically, you upload an Illustrator EPS with your cuts and pick your material. They laser cut the material and ship it to you. Using their template, I marked my cuts on an Illustrator file. You use different line colors to mark cuts and burns. Once I was done, I uploaded the file to their server and selected materials. Materials include various types of wood, acrylic, metal, felt, leather and cardboard.
I had one minor problem when ordering. I planned to have the piece made at their San Francisco shop to save on shipping. So I designed the shelf to use 6mm bamboo that was only available from the San Francisco shop, but when I went online, I could only use the New Zealand facility which didn’t have the material I wanted. (The San Fran shop is relatively new and I’m assuming, slammed.) So I had to change to another 6mm material - an Italian Poplar plywood - and pay a little extra for the shipping.
A close-up of the laser burning, The edges are darker from the laser cutting. The “B” is burned in at medium strength.
It was a few days before they started processing the job. But when they started working on it, everything progressed quickly. And once the shipped it, it once took three days to get here from New Zealand. (And I didn’t pay for express shipping.) Total time from order to arrival was about two weeks.
I opened the box and started to assemble it. When assembling, I figured out that I made a couple of very minor measurement errors that made a couple of pieces a tight fit. A little sanding and filing and everything fit.
Based on the prototype, I’m going to make some changes to the design. The slots need to be slightly bigger. And with heavier books, there is some slight bowing, so I’m going to modify the support under the shelf. (Or look at a thicker material).
If you are interested in designing and creating 3-D objects, I highly recommend looking into Ponoko. The online experience and process is very well thought out. Everything is documented so it’s very accessible to designers who maybe aren’t familar with the fabrication process.
Update on 2009-07-08 13:10 by Bob
So, it’s really easy to switch to the San Francisco location… I was just looking in the wrong place. I just published a follow-up post to explain how to switch between fabrication locations.
This post was originally posted on June 1, 2009 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
One of the defining design characteristics of a ship in the Star Trek Universe is the forward viewscreen. And in the J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek, the entire concept of the viewscreen has also been reimagined.
By looking at how our vision of the future has evolved, we can often learn more about how we as a society have changed. And I think by looking at how the concept of the viewscreen has changed over the last four decades, I think we can draw some conclusions about how we have changed as culture and where we are going.
The new Enterprise viewscreen display various data, including speed. Image via startrekmovie.com. Copyright Paramount/CBS.
The Original Viewscreen
In Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek TV Show, the view screen was primarily a giant screen showing the outside. Very rarely, the screen would be used to show scientific data.
A rare instance of the original Enterprise using its viewscreen to display data from the ship’s computer. Image via Memory Alpha. Copyright Paramount/CBS.
At the time, in the late 60’s, that concept was enough to seem futuristic. TV’s were still a relatively young technology. A screen that size providing live pictures with the ability to show content from the ship’s computer… That was the future. Computers were room-sized devices with limited capabilities. The whole concept would have seemed very advanced.
The expectation was that interaction with a large viewscreen would be passive. It was something to watch, more like a TV than a computer interface.
To the big screen and back to the small screen
When the Star Trek series moved to the big screen in the late 70’s and into the 80’s, the viewscreen concept was only slightly refined. The expectation was still that the viewscreen provided a passive experience. Some odd touches were added, like a digital clock over the screen.
Nothing says the future like a digital alarm clock. Image via Memory Alpha. Copyright Paramount/CBS.
With the success of the movie franchise, Star Trek: The Next Generation launched into syndicated television. Because the series took place even further in the future, they took the established concepts and “enhanced” the technology. The viewscreen evolved, but only from a technical level. The screen was now “holographic.” (Note: I’m assuming this means the images were more realistic.)
The way the crew actually used and interacted with the screen was still passive and static. And through the three series that followed, the viewscreen never really did much more than provide pretty pictures.
Reimagining the Viewscreen
When Abrams and crew started work on the reboot, they faced a challenge of honoring the style of the past and while projecting a modern, futuristic feel:
We had the weird challenge of having to take a 43 year old vision of the future and make it a current vision of the future. I wanted the movie to feel as tactile and tangible and as real as possible, but given what our computer interfaces are like now, its preposterous to assume that hundreds of years from now there won’t be some version of holographic screens and things that seem almost ubiquitous now in science fiction.
-Abrams in an interview with Memory Alpha
We as a culture have evolved to expect more from our “viewscreens.” Many of our TV channels have crawls and information graphics. Look at what CNN produced during the elections or what ESPN News does on a daily basis. Our computers provide constant updates. Even our cars and phones have interactive interfaces. We expect modern screens to do more than just show us pictures. We expect them to inform us.
The new Enterprise viewscreen displaying a warning. Image via startrekmovie.com. Copyright Paramount/CBS.
That old concept of a passive viewscreen has been discarded in the new Star Trek movie. The giant viewscreen acts as a heads up display for the ship. Warnings, current speed, the health of the away team, status of the ship and more appear over the top of the screen. And the information that is provided is contextual, only appearing when needed or applicable.
We have become a viewscreen culture
Looking at the new Star Trek viewscreen, it feels futuristic. And what that really means is that it feels like a radically advanced version of where we are now.
I think that we have become a viewscreen culture. We have become comfortable interacting with screens in a way that wasn’t comprehended in the late 60’s and wasn’t fully understood even in the 80’s and 90’s. In fact, we are more than just comfortable. We now expect our screens to provide us information and feedback.
As the web, digital television, phones and computers evolve, our cultural expectations of the screens and surfaces around us with continue to change and evolve. We as designers are already starting to see this. People expect more from their web sites and other digital interfaces. They expect these tools to interact with them. To provide the information they need when they need it.
What designers need to remember is that this is just the beginning. People will continue to become more and more comfortable with screen-based content. And we must continue to push the limits of the medium to provide the interaction and capabilities that our society is beginning to expect.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
This post was originally posted on May 5, 2009 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
NOTE: While this page may have useful insights, be aware that it was published more than 10 years ago and may not be relevant for current software versions.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that in InDesign CS4, you could use nonbreaking hyphens and spaces to control bad breaks in phone numbers and proper names. And you can, but this week, I discovered an even easier technique.
Step one: Highlight the text you want to keep together.
Step two: Go to Character Palette and from the flyout menu, select “No Break.”
And that’s it. I’ve looked back and this feature is in CS3 as well. It’s probably been there all along and I’ve never noticed…
This post was originally posted on May 5, 2009 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
I had the privilege of moderating the AIGA South Carolina Web Panel discussion a few weeks ago. The panel featured a number of local web designers and developers - Gene Crawford and Jay Berry from Period Three; Matthew Smith from Squared Eye; Jason Beaird, Greg Lunn and Ken Seals from Cyberwoven; and AIGA SC Vice President and hired gun James Miller.
We had a really fascinating discussion about trends in web design and how web designers work. A few quick reflections:
Continuing education. The web is constantly changing. And for web designers, that means that they need to keep up with the most current techniques and methods. Most use internet resources to keep up with new concepts and the web design industry has essentially created a virtual cooperative to share information online.
Personally, I think this commitment to continued learning and sharing is one of the most fascinating parts of the web development community. I feel like the online print design resources are focused mainly on inspiration. The web community has managed to merge the inspiration element with technical knowledge and information on best practices. There really seems to be a dedication to improving the quality of the industry as a whole.
Side projects. Pretty much everyone on the panel has a side project. Matthew has Pattern Tap. Gene and Jay have Unmatched Style. Jason has Publix for Pennies. As I look around at other established web professionals, they all seem to have developed side projects as well. The goals for these side projects are very rarely profit. These projects are essentially client-less projects that allow for exploration and experimentation. A chance to use the skills that you have learned to contribute back to the community in some way.
(Honestly, we really don’t have an equivalent to these side projects in the print design world. The printing process is so expensive, you really need to have some sort of client to foot the production bill… Our closest parallel is probably working pro bono.)
IE6 sucks. Really, if you are still using Internet Explorer 6, upgrade now. Firefox and Safari are fine options. And free…
Client relationships. In the print world, client relationships are often simple transactional affairs. There is a project beginning and a project end - usually resulting in a deliverable of some sort. In the web world, you have to find a way to deal with the ongoing maintenance of the site and other issues like hosting and email. With web work especially, a good contract is vitally important.
The panelists were going to pool a number of resources and publish them online. I’ll link to them as soon as the list goes live.
Stone details. Stonework outside the Wade Hampton Building at the South Carolina Statehouse.
Originally published on Flickr.
Caffeine Free Diet Mountain Dew. Seriously, what’s the point?
This post was originally posted on March 17, 2009 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
NOTE: While this page may have useful insights, be aware that it was published more than 10 years ago and may not be relevant for current software versions.
I tend to use a lot of solid color blocks in my designs. One of my favorite tricks in InDesign CS4 is to create a type of vignette using the “Basic Feather” effect. (You can actually do this in CS3 as well.)
Sample of boxes with and without the vignette highlight.
Create two boxes, one on top of the other. The top box should be slightly lighter than the one underneath it. For easier editing, make the rear box a little bigger than the one in the foreground.
Apply the Basic Feather (Object > Effect > Basic Feather) effect to the top box… and instant vignette. Adjust the size of the feather, noise, choke and corner types to tweak the look.
The options dialog box for the “Basic Feather” effect. (Click the image to see the box at full size.)
I used Photoshop for this effect for years, but every time you changed the size of the file or area, you had to go back to Photoshop and render a new file. The InDesign method is faster and more flexible.
And in case you are wondering, I’ve sent files to press with this effect many times without problems. Adding a little bit of noise will limit any banding you might see on press. I’ve got a few other variations on this using photos and blend modes that I’ll try to post soon as well.
This post was originally posted on March 16, 2009 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
Journalism was my first love. Eventually, working with newspapers led me to my love of design and to my current career. The newspaper will always have special significance to me.
But the newspaper as we know it is dying.
I tell my students every semester that newspapers have survived the introduction of radio, television and 24-hour news coverage. They’ve changed and adapted, but newspapers have survived. But with the closing of the Rocky Mountain News and significant cutbacks in the newsrooms around the country, the verdict is out on whether the newspaper industry can survive the growth of the internet.
The only way for the industry to survive is for the journalists to become entrepreneurs.
How did we get here?
In the not so distant past, newspapers were locally owned (and often family owned) businesses. Their primary objective was to serve and educate their community. Newspapers were a primary advertising outlet and were profitable.
Corporations started gobbling up these papers to form massive media conglomerates. They used their size to leverage efficiencies and become more profitable. With size also comes the inability to change easily and respond to competitive threats - like the internet.
As more and more readers got connected to the internet, subscriptions started to drop. And as subscriptions dropped, revenues from ad sales decreased. This forced the papers to cut back on staff and the size of their publications. The perceived decrease in quality causes more people to drop subscriptions… and the death spiral continues.
So what is next?
The continued decline of the newspaper will leave a void. Newspapers are excellent at providing in depth and investigative reporting. And local papers provide news that you can’t get from national or regional outlets.
Where there is a void, there is demand. And where there is demand, there is opportunity.
Many of the journalists getting laid off across this country are brilliant, capable people. And most of them have a love for what they do… It’s not a job, it’s a calling. They’ll want to continue to cover the news.
To continue to cover the news, they will need to become entrepreneur journalists. Starting their own outlets and news services. Figuring out where the demand is and creating a product that readers and advertisers will embrace. Creating products that marry the internet with the printed page. Finding a business model that will be profitable and serve the community they are in.
Unlike their corporate counterparts, these entrepreneur journalists can be agile and quick to adapt. They can experiment. Like all startups, many will fail. But someone will figure out how to adapt the newspaper to today’s competitive environment and be profitable. And eventually, the industry will be reshaped and the newspaper will survive.
It just won’t be the newspaper as we have grown to know it.
Rough curb. Waiting for my wife, I looked down and found this…
Originally published on Flickr.
Palmetto on Isle of Palms. Beautiful blue sky with some palmettos in the foreground.
Originally published on Flickr.
Tide coming in at Isle of Palms in South Carolina
Originally published on Flickr.
Moon over the beach at Isle of Palms in South Carolina.
This post was originally posted on January 7, 2009 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
I finally got around to entering the Save Polaroid t-shirt contest that I mentioned a few weeks ago. Save Polaroid will be selecting finalists and readers will be able to vote for their favorites. I can’t wait to see what other designers came up with…
Design on t-shirt template from Save Polaroid.
As I thought about Polaroids, the main thing that came to mind with the iconic nature of the print itself. So I played off that and created a type treatment with a Polaroid print as the “o.”
Close up of the type treatment.
The letter designs take their proportions directly from the print itself. The stroke is based on the width of the sides and top of the Polaroid print. And the width of the “C” and “N” is equal to the width of the print.
This post was originally posted on December 22, 2008 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
I’ve owned three Apple laptops… a Powerbook G3, a G4 iBook and now a new MacBook. Digging through my attic looking for Christmas wrapping paper, I came across the old laptop boxes. The comparison to the new packaging was pretty amazing and the size difference was especially dramatic.
Apple touts the new, smaller box size as an environmentally-friendly feature. Smaller boxes and packaging use less resources to create and transport. But when comparing the box to the packaging from the last few generations, it really is impressive to see the change.
From left to right: MacBook (2008), iBook (2004) and Powerbook G3 (2000)
From the side, you can really see the size difference between the boxes.
I also pulled out my old Powerbook G3… honestly, it’s still a pretty impressive design, but compared to the new MacBook, the thing is massive. I may post a few more detailed comparison shots later. I think it’s interesting from a design standpoint to look at the progression of elements like latches, ports and trackpads. Here’s a shot with all three laptops stacked…
That Powerbook G3 on the bottom looks massive compared to the newer models.
This post was originally posted on December 8, 2008 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
Design competitions are a common grassroots tactic to encourage involvement from readers, volunteers or supporters. Asking for designs from the public involves them in the creation process. With the advent of the Internet, seeking out designs and allowing online voting is easy and further builds a connection to the product or movement. The side benefit is, of course, cost savings.
Professional design organizations like NoSpec and AIGA warn that design competitions are often a form of spec work. An attempt by a client to get design services without compensating fairly for the work provided. Spec work lessens the value of design because it treats it as a commodity instead of recognizing the time and effort that goes into providing design solutions for business.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of design contests and side with NoSpec and AIGA on the matter. But I also understand the PR side of the argument. Design contests are not going away. (In fact, with the growth of social networking, they are more popular than ever.) But professional organizations have a valid point. Contests are asking for designers to work with no guarantee of compensation and the quality that results from these contests is often subpar.
An Acceptable Framework?
I came across a competition the other day that provides a framework for what I think is an appropriate way to build a competition. When I posted my Polaroid/iPhone article last week, I linked to Save Polaroid, a site dedicated to ensuring that someone continues to manufacture film for Polaroid instant cameras. They have a t-shirt design contest that they have clearly thought through and that I think provides a fabulous structure for when a contest is appropriate.
Its goal is to provide issue awareness. Save Polaroid is a volunteer, grassroots organization. They are using the contest to raise awareness about the importance of instant photography and to advocate for companies to continue to support the industry. I think motivation matters here. Yes they are going to print shirts and yes, they hope that they will see some profit. But the main objective is obviously not profit; it’s engagement and promotion.
Contest is for a one-off design. This contest is for a t-shirt design. To me, in this case, a t-shirt design is a fairly simple thing. It does not require a massive understanding of the industry or strategy. And it will have a limited shelf life and a limited run of less than 100 shirts.
It’s not like a logo for a company. Or a license plate for a state. These things need to designed with a clear understanding of strategy and planning and would be inappropriate for a contest. But in the case of a one-off design, like a t-shirt, I think it can be appropriate.
They provide compensation for the winner(s). It’s not cash, but it is a prize. The prizes - a Polaroid camera, film, limited edition posters - all reinforce the contest’s connection to the issue.
All rights remain with the creator. All rights to all designs, including the winning design, remain with the creators. Most competitions do not address this, but this is a key issue.
If an artist is going to design something for no or limited compensation, the artist should retain the rights. Many contests do not clearly spell this out. And some require the artist to turn over all rights as a condition of entering - even if they don’t win. In a contest like this, all rights should always remain with the artist. Anything short of that is unacceptable.
Moving Forward…
I think this provides a functional framework for an acceptable design contest - part of grassroots effort to promote an issue, one-off design, appropriate compensation and responsible treatment of artist rights.
And who knows… I may just submit a design or two.
To learn more about the problems with spec work, visit NoSpec and read the official AIGA statement on spec work.
This post was originally posted on December 1, 2008 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
Kodak Instant Print of a future art director on his Big Wheel. (Taken with an iPhone.)
Everyone loves Polaroid prints. The shape and format is iconic. The quality wasn’t that great. You couldn’t really enlarge or frame the prints. And the camera itself didn’t offer anything that even remotely resembled bells and whistles. But the great thing about Polaroids was that the moment you took a picture you were ready to share it.
The iPhone and other camera phones are becoming the modern equivalent of the Polaroid instant camera.
The photographer in me hates my camera phone. The iPhone camera has 2 megapixel image quality, no flash, no zoom, no control over exposure. My digital SLR is far superior as a camera. And yet, I still take pictures with my iPhone all the time. Why?
It’s because I want to share what I’m shooting. Right then. I take a shot of something and I’m able to email it to someone, post it to an online gallery or Facebook. I’m not planning on making prints or enlargements. I’m not expecting great lighting.
I am capturing a moment and sharing that emotion immediately. Just like with the Polaroid.
This post was originally posted on November 29, 2008 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
InShow is AIGA South Carolina’s annual design competition. While most design competitions have plaques, statuettes, acrylic blocks and other mass-produced awards, InShow has the “cube.”
Every year, the cube is manufactured from a different material. It’s been aluminum, concrete, cardboard, acrylic, ceramic and wood and is always roughly 5 inches.
The final prototype for the 2008 InShow Cube.
This year’s cube
The cube for the 14th Annual InShow was manufactured out of electrical boxes and carriage bolts.
I actually built the prototype for this year’s show as a backup for last year. The wood cubes had been shipped, but there was a slight possibility they would not arrive in time for the Gala. So I went to Home Depot and assembled a quick prototype from off the shelf parts. Something we could assemble quickly if the wood awards did not arrive.
However, the wood cubes did arrive in time, so the electrical box prototype was saved for the 2008 show.
Original prototype with duct tape hiding gap in the center and black labeling.
The challenge of the custom award
I was at least partially involved with the last five cubes: cardboard, acrylic, ceramic, wood and now electrical box cubes. And I’ve learned a lot from the process. There are several specific challenges to building a custom award.
Find a material. For the InShow cube, we use a new material every year. And every year, we go through a bunch of concepts and ideas. The cube needs to have a certain aesthetic value - after all it is an award - so the material needs to look nice when completed. And budget is an issue, too. An expensive material or process can completely throw the budget off.
The parts for the electrical box cubes came off the shelf from local hardware stores. We debated a few finishing options - like using duct tape to hide the gap between the boxes or some different combinations of parts. But in the end, we went with the cleanest execution of the concept.
The last five InShow cube prototypes.
Now make 60. It’s one thing to make a prototype. It’s another thing entirely to make 60 awards. Whatever concept you settle on has to scale. Building 60 cubes can be a massive undertaking, especially if you don’t think it through completely. Part of the design process is figuring out the most efficient way to build a larger quantity.
However, 60 is also too small of a number to be efficiently produced using a large-scale manufacturing process. So much of the work is done by hand.
The only scale related issue with the electrical box cube was finding enough electrical boxes. This is not a commonly used box size and is not stocked in large quantities. And with 2 boxes per cube, we were looking for 120 boxes. I had to buy all the stock at three different hardware stores to find enough boxes.
Whose award is it? The hardest and most time consuming part of building a custom award is personalization. The award has the name of the winning firm and title of entry. We also have a handful of judge’s awards that need to look a little different than the regular award.
I used a Dymo 3-D label maker to put the names on the awards. On the prototype, I used black labels and spray painted a black InShow logo. I wanted the label to look more intentional and so I experimented with different combinations. I finally settled on silver labels - which meant I had to spray paint the completed labels. I was a little more time consuming, but I felt the more subtle effect from silver labels on the silver box was worth the extra effort.
I changed the color of the InShow logo from black to dark gray (although most people still thinks it looks black). The special judges awards sported magenta logos - an accent color we picked up from the Call for Entries mailer.
Four prototype faceplates for the awards.
So what’s next?
I have no idea.1 Lots of concepts have been thrown around, and every year, it becomes that much harder to find another concept. But inevitably, someone will come up with a material and an execution that will work.
Okay, I have a few ideas. And even a few more prototypes… ↩︎
AIGA Gain Conference.
Shot of the stage from back center.
Originally published on Flickr.
Sagmeister with Egg. Sagmeister with one of Marius Valdes’ Egg Shotskis.
My bookshelf, assembled, with an assortment of books and DVDs.
A close-up of the laser burning, The edges are darker from the laser cutting. The “B” is burned in at medium strength.
Design on t-shirt template from Save Polaroid.
Close up of the type treatment.
Kodak Instant Print of a future art director on his Big Wheel. (Taken with an iPhone.)
