We Are Designers

artzmania art magazine

I’m always looking at design magazines, mainly in print, but I thought I would share a really cool one that I’m always looking at online, Artzmania. With over a dozen different issues touching on different topics, everything from Web 2.0 to Graffiti, Artzmania is definitely a source for inspiration.
The only caveat I have with this online magazine is that it is in an EXE. It use to come in both a PDF and EXE but now the publisher’s software, Spotbit, only supports EXE’s, which is a true shame.

goverdose art magazine

Although early last week I stumbled across another online magazine that seemed to have some decent content, Goverdose. There’s only one issue but it could be another winner if they keep pumping out more issues. They use a company called Issuu that uses Flash to display the pages and gives you the option to save a page as a PDF for your archives.

metacreations

Back in “the day” I was a huge fan of Kai’s Power Tools by MetaCreations. Pretty much whatever was release by Kai Krause became an instant success, at least that’s how it seemed to me at the time. Kai’s Power Tools was such a useful set of plug-ins for Photoshop, of course there where a lot of useless ones but still handy none the less. I’m still not exactly sure why MetaCreations sold all of it’s applications to other companies back in the late nineties but something must have happened.

corel

Yet what confusses me even more is WHY did Corel get so many of these programs!?! Even in the late nineties they where a low end company who’s products seemed to be only marketing to amatures. So how the heck did they get the Kai applications as well as Painter!?! I don’t know, but I wish I did. To this day I still think Adobe was absolutely stupid for passing up these apps and not integrating them into the family.

Seriously though… The last update to Kai’s Power Tools, renamed KPT, was back in 2003. Okay sure the software still looked the same, no major upgrade just all the smaller applications bundled into one large pakage, everything functioned just as expect and it actually supported OS X. So why the rant?
Well 2003 was 5 years ago and the blasted software does even work on Photoshop CS3. Heck I don’t think it even worked on CS2. I heard some people getting to run but I never could. I mean like what the heck, this use to be a flagship product for MetaCreations and virtually nobody has heard of it today. That’s a shame.
I’ve called and spoken to techs over at Corel regarding this and they keep giving me the run around. *Shaking my head* I just don’t understand. Heck the interface and apps don’t even need to updated with new features or a new interface, just support for new applications and maybe multiprocessor so I can pump out more mathematical fractals, would be nice.

So is there a company out there could could actually release a decent set of plug-ins reminiscent of KPT? All I know is it sure won’t been Alien Skin. A company that I thinks makes wonder plug-ins for Photoshop is a company called On One Software. I’ve grown to love their Genuine Fractals for enlarging images and Mask Pro for complex image cut outs. They make very fast, very clean and easy to understand tools that keep on winner award after award. I have no doubt in my mind that if they made somethng similar to the old KPT Collection they would have another winning program to add to their arsenal.

colormunki monitor calibrator

So what exactly is Colormunki? Well to be exact it’s a product from the joint efforts of X-Rite and Pantone, the leaders in colour measurement and colour management. In essence Colormunki is a spectrophotometer, a tool that captures and measures colours from the world around us.

Not only does this cute, fits in the palm of your hand, unit calibrate your monitor(s) and printer(s) but it allows you to capture colours from any surface in the analog world and inputs those directly into your computer. These pallets of colours are then imported into Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign or Quark for use in any document you want. On top of all is the software that comes included. The colours are sorted and stored in a variet of ways and phots that are imported into the software have custom colour pallets created around them. This alone is worth the MSRP of $499.00 to me.

So before I ran out to replace my outdated Spyder 2 Pro, which I haven’t just yet, I started doing a little more digging and finally found some videos on YouTube that gave some reviews. I’m really finding it hard at the moment not dropped some cash for this little guy and start putting it to some good use.

Jackie Chan and typography both took some time to grow on me in the beginning, but now I’m fully addicted to both. Not a day goes by when I’m not working with typographic elements, so when I stumbled across the video “Enter the Serif“, a short clip spoof from the movie “Drunken Master“, I instantly feel in love with it. Definitely something any kung fu typographer will enjoy.

EXTRA BOLD!

So your wanting to create the next killer app for the iPhone, you have the technical know how, you have the time to dedicate towards it, but you don’t have the skills to mock up the interface from scratch. That’s where iPhone GUI Template from 320480.com comes in handy.
This fully customizable PSD file is ready at your disposal for mocking up the main elements of your kill app at the flick of a mouse click.

Now if you want to add even more customization to your iPhone GUI the fine folks over at Teehanlax, a Toronto based web design firm, have created even more elements. This set of elements works in conjunction with the 320480.com interface design file so you can add even more flash to that killer iPhone app.

And the best part of it all is they are both FREE! Yup… I sure do love free stuff.

Are you ready for Photoshop World 2008 in Las Vegas? Well if you are like the rest of us and the answer is no and your not even attending due to the $699.00 price tag then do I have an a solution for you.
Free Photoshop World Tickets! Yes that right! Free as is no money down, pass go collect $200!
However there is just one catch. Isn’t there always. This deal only gets you into the epxo floor space. That means you will not be able to attend any of the seminars or conferences. But hey, this is Photoshop World 2008, the largest expo to date, so why not just explore the floor. I’m sure theres more than enough to see on the expansive floor space.

Less than 10 days to go and Photoshop World 2008 is already sparking a lot of interest for people. With rumors of Creative Suite 4 having a launch day, as well as additional information about Photoshop CS4 and other products in the Creative Suite 4 line, this should be one of the most exciting Photoshop World Expos to date.
There is still a lot of speculation weather or not the MAC version will be a 64 bit version. Again, many rumor mills site that the PC version shall have 64 bit capabilities but the OS X version will remain 32 bit.

One rumored feature that is really catching a lot of attention, and I do hope to see, in the new Photoshop CS4 is the ability of it taking advantage of the GPU. If this feature is to be intergarted into this version we should see a significant boost in rendering times for all digital files. I guess time will only tell whether or not these rumors will come to pass.