The Email Standards Project

While I have not been designing a great deal of HTML emails lately, I have been periodically checking the status of the email-standards project. I am happy to announce that the project has been launched and we now have a great resource for standardization of email design and development practices. As listed within the "what can you do" section of the site, I am using my extremely small portion of the Internet to raise awareness for this project.

the project takes a two prong approach to creating standards for HTML email. The first is to educate designers about the importance of standards in email design. Secondly is to provide assistance to the email client providers to create a compliant piece of software. This is no easy task, and without the support of the community this project may fall behind the pressures of bureaucracy faced by the software developers creating our favorite email applications.

Any designer who has been commissioned to create a HTML email for a client has undoubtly run into the issues this project hopes to resolve. This is especially true since the unveiling of Office 2007 and the infamous Word based Outlook rendering engine. Which has according to some web professionals "Thrown HTML emails back into the dark ages of tables and spacer .gifs." (Shudders)

I am whole heartedly suggesting that every web professional visit the site to find out more and spread the word!

Best Holiday Gifts for Creatives (and Geeks) Part One:

Books, Magazines, & Journals:
This is part one of a four part series detailing the my picks for the best holiday gifts for creatives. I am picking my most wanted items for this holiday season.

I'm a Lebowski, You're a Lebowski: Life, The Big Lebowski, and What Have You
What is the to say other than "The Dude abides."

How to Win a Fight with a Conservative or
How to Win a Fight with a Liberal
No matter what political party you belong to, it never hurts to be right (or at least appear it).

Moleskine Small Squared Notebook Writing Journal
All creatives need a place to store their sketches and thoughts. However not all journals are made alike, nothing has the geek-cool factor and quality of a Moleskine.

Cabinet Magazine
Art & culture magazines are a great source of information for creative professionals, and Cabinet Magazine is no exception.

Graphic Design: A New History
A solid knowledge of design history is an essential for any designer. Whenever a new book can give a new spin on Design history it is always worth a read if not only for a refresher.

Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines
Knowing how and what to price for your services as a graphic artist is an important thing to know and get right so that you may prosper as a business. There are numerous sources of information on this topic, however none as complete and straight-forward.

Dead Children Playing: A Picture Book (Radiohead)
Radiohead is in my top 10 bands of all time, their music and the album artwork has always been a huge source of inspiration for me. This book showcases the work of Stanley Donwood and Dr Tchock the duo that creates their amazing cover art.

Futurama Conquers the Universe
Futurama is in my opinion one of the best written animated shows of all time, with the deepest and most developed story lines ever. This new book should serve as a great hold-over until the alleged new season begins.

How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer
I am a huge fan of "Design Matters" with Debbie Millman, and I can't wait to read this book. Her comments on design practices have inspired some of the deepest thoughts I have ever had about the profession.

New Vintage Type: Classic Fonts for the Digital Age
Finding new fonts is always a great way to find inspiration for your projects, especially when they are not new at all. This book serves as a great resource for breaking that Helvetica, Garamond, Futura funk

Sleevage.com: Cover Art Disected Through Discussion

Sleevage.com is a relatively new site that I happened to stumble upon today that is based around discussing album cover art. Art is categorized by the Musical Artist, Record Label, Cover Artist, Genre, Design Studio & Era. This makes it extremely easy to find links between your favorite designers, and artists. Even though this site is relatively new, it appears that there is already a large user base and a decently sized number of articles. I wouldn't be surprised if this really takes off, as music fanatics and creatives can both find the topic of discussion very interesting.

Open letter to developers: The IE6 Death Blow

I was perusing designfloat.com today when I came across this great article. In "Open letter to developers: The IE6 Death Blow" by mentallyretired.com James Thomas proposed this first really interesting idea regarding the abandonment of IE6 that I have come across to date. He suggests that everyone stop supporting the IE6 on May 1st 2008 along with the css reboot. The reason this is interesting however, is because it allows for a defined date, and web designers will place a link informing the user that they are seeing the site still just not in a supported browser and that by upgrading they can view the site as intended. This is a lot less harsh than most of the articles I have read where people are asking web designers/ developers to just forget about the browser starting today. For the full story please visit: http://www.mentallyretired.com/2007/11/23/open-letter-to-developers-the-ie6-death-blow

Greatest Holiday Gifts EVER: Flight of the Conchords DVD !!!

Bret.... Present
Jermaine.... Present
Murray.... Present

In anticipation of my holiday gift guide for designers and other creatives, I have to post a link to the DVD for the first season of Flight of the Conchords. Mostly due to the fact that Amazon has the full season on DVD for less than half price with free shipping!!! Click the link at the bottom of this post to view the product page.

Flight of the Conchords has to be the best new show that I have seen in a long time. If not for this show and HEROES then I would have given up on TV all together. The blend of witty humour, and hilarious music will make you laugh for hours. Every time I have see an episode I find something new to laugh at, along with a new quote...

"This is David Bowie from Ziggy Stardust Bret... Wear an Eye Patch Man"

Flight of the Conchords - The Complete First Season

asuseeehacks.com: Customize your EEE Further

Currently fellow blogger blog asuseeehacks.blogspot.com has some great tips on their blog that go a step further than my themes for customizing your EEE. They have steps on how to change your windows appearance, and how to change font sizes. Check out the details by going to: Asus Eee News, Mods, and Hacks: Hacking the Eee PC

Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device

So the Amazon Kindle is now available for purchase, which I find very interesting. I had originally skipped over the device for the EEE PC due to the lack of a color screen and the inclusion of EVDO over wifi, however that was before I found out that the EVDO is FREE!!! Now I am not exactly sure of the details, however the marketing materials present on the amazon website say that it will automatically download your blogs to the device. This alone would be enough to have made me buy the device...

My original reason for buying the eee was to have something to do while on the train during my daily commute. While I am very happy with my EEE and I realize that the Kindle does not have a full browser, this device still just seems amazing (all though not very attractive). I will edit this post to include more information about the kindle and I find out more info.

edit #1
After doing some basic web surfing I was able to find out that the Kindle costs a service fee of 2 dollars a month for rss feeds. However, you can use the web browser on the device to reed the feeds for free! Also the browser is a mozilla variant.

To purchase the kindle, or to find out more information on the official product page click the link below. Also, be sure to check out the video on the page which gives a great walk through of how amazingly user friendly and convenient this device looks! Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device

EEE PC Interface Skin Design Beta 2.0

I have just released the second beta of my custom interface design for the ASUS EEE PC. You can download a copy of it directly from my website at: http://www.zinnidesign.com/eeeskindesign/index.html I have listed below some example screenshots from the release. Also, have have made some more progress on the complete set of replacement icons for the EEE PC that I hope to release in the near future.

There was a slight issure with the files that I am happy to say is fixed now, thank you to those who have brought this to my attention.

Sunset


Silver


Blue


Green

EEE PC Interface Skin Design BETA 1.0

Finally, after a couple of days of delay, here is my newly designed interface with a new shutdown dialog look. I could not put off releasing this any longer, mainly because of my own excitement. Because of a very full freelance schedule, I am going to release this skin in 3 timed releases. The first one (this release) includes the skin for the sunrise theme, and the custom shutdown dialog. In the next release I will be adding the other 3 themes, and then finally I will release the full skin complete with a new set of icons.

Please visit: http://www.zinnidesign.com/eeeskindesign/index.html to download the skin. Detailed Installation instructions are listed below.

Please note that the installation of this interface is done completely at your own risk, and that as part of the install you will be replacing original operating system files. I suggest that you follow the first few steps of the tutorial very closely and make a backup of the original files.

Section #1 – Backing up your original files. (This step is necessary if you would like to restore the original interface skins at a later time)

1. Begin by hitting CTRL-ALT-T to open a copy of the terminal.
2. next type “sudo XandrosFileManager” (case sensitive) to open the file manager at the root permission level.
3. Navigate to the folder /opt/xandros/share/
4. Insert a usb stick and many a copy of the “AsusLauncher” and the”AsusShutdownDialog” folders on it. (I am suggesting that you copy the files to an external source for backup due to the already limited size of the eee pc's hard drive.
5. Transfer the files to another computer for safe storage compressing them with winrar or winzip if you desire.

Section #2 – Installing the new interface skin files.

1. Extract the .rar or .zip file containing the skin files you downloaded to your usb stick.
2. Insert the usb stick into your EEE PC and press CTRL-ALT-T to open a copy of the terminal.
3. Type “sudo XandrosFileManager” (case sensitive) to open the file manager at the root permission level.
4. Navigate to the extracted files on the usb stick and copy both the “AsusLauncher” and the”AsusShutdownDialog” folders.
5. Once again, navigate to /opt/xandros/share/ and paste the 2 folders.
6. When prompted select to replace all the files.
7. Restart your EEE PC.

Section #3 - Selecting the new interface skin.

1. Once your EEE PC restarts, click the "Settings" tab. (you should notice that the icons on the top bar have changed already)
2. Click the "personalization" Icon, and select "sunset" under the Desktop Theme item.
3. Click the "OK" button.

You theme is now installed.

EEE PC Custom Interface Skin Design

This post is to show the current status of my custom EEE interface design, which can be seen in the accompanying photo. Currently I have been able to modify the orange version of the "Easy" interface to give it a completely new design asthetic (Click the Image to View Actual Size). Due to time constraints, I am in the process of collecting a complete set of icons to replace the default ones that ship with the EEE. Once I have finished this I will be uploading a beta version of the interface design along with a full set of installation instructions. Once again I must state the following...

I also would like to thank the following people for the use of their free icon sets, which will be appearing in the beta version of the interface.

Zhukov Alexandr
Chad Jackson ~ http://www.eyeofthetempest.com
JJ.Ying ~ http://www.jjying.cn
deleket ~ deleket [at] gmail.com
panoramix ~ nsm3000 [at] gmail.com
Hora ~ http://imotion.freezee.org/
Bumpy ~ http://1bumpy.deviantart.com/
Phytonix ~ http://phytonix.deviantart.com/art/Ricebowl-22605468
Studiomx ~ www.studiomx.eu
Rokey ~ www.rokey.net

Disclaimer: Any and all modifications listed here in this or any other article on zinnidesign.blogspot.com are done entirely at the users risk. I am not a trained linux professional and cannot be held responsible if by doing this you cause harm to your computer.

modifying the eee pc and the creation of a theme...

After browsing the forums of eeeuser.com I have learned that it will be possible for me to change the appearance of the default “easy” mode that ships with the device. It appears that even a novice linux user like myself with a knowledge of raster based image editing software (photoshop, fireworks, etc...) can pull this off. Because of the knowledge I have gained ont this subject and my love of design, I will be releasing a how-to article about the process and a design that I have created.

For those who are interested and adventuresome, the eee pc actually has a rather simple skinning solution comprised of a .jpg image for the background and .png with alpha transparency for the icons. By replacing these image files, it is possible to “skin” the appearance of the device. These files can be found by navigating your file manager to: "opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher". Remember that you will have to be a root level user in order to overwrite the files. In order to do this with the file manager press CTRL-ALT-T, anf then type: “sudo XandrosFileManager”

Disclaimer: Any and all modifications listed here in this or any other article on zinnidesign.blogspot.com are done entirely at the users risk. I am not a trained linux professional and cannot be held responsible if by doing this you cause harm to your computer.

That being said, have fun and the full guide should be up some time in the near future...

the "super mario" image featured above is actually in the directory along with all the other icons, leading me to believe that at one time there may have been an emulator for the eee in the works!

Initial Impressions, or What I discovered...

It appears that after one day of using the eee there is more here than meets the eye. Being almost completely new to Linux, the interface supplied make the transition almost completely seamless. Also, the extremely portable nature of the device really means that it can be used almost anywhere (I am typing this right now on an crowded rush hour CTA train). At this point I would have to rate the device a 8.5 out of 10. However the purpose of this article is not to review the device but explain to potential new buyers what to expect.

First I will discuss the obvious; the screen and keyboard. Overall I would just sum them up as small. This has proven to be a double edged sword. The size of the device is what impressed me with the device to begin with. As can be assumed it does have its drawbacks though. The keyboard takes some time getting used to, and with time you develop more of a 3 finger on each hand typing style. The screen also proves to have both its drawbacks and advantages. First of all the brightness and clarity are more than I had expected, however the small resolution leads to almost illegible system menus in the open office suite (scaled to fit in the small available resolution). Where the screen really shines however is in its brightness level and clarity. After a few hours of use my eyes were not tired and strained like they are when I use my massive 19 inch dell laptop.

The operating system has proven to be quite satisfactory, however the inability to uninstall the default applications have proven to be quite annoying. With such a small amount of internal storage, removing the games would really free up some space. Hopefully this will be fixed when ASUS releases the “advanced” desktop. Which brings me to the most obvious fault of the device, the lack of the advanced desktop. While you may argue that the installation of another operating system could be easily achieved, and possibly save even more space, this still is a rather large inconvenience. At this point, I think that the majority of the people buying the eee are those who do not fit the intended market of the device (the elderly and children). Rather power users are purchasing the device as a much cheaper UMPC equivalent.

Overall, this device has proven to be very impressive as long as you are looking for a mobile device to use while away from your main computer. The only major downfall of the device would be the limited operating system which should be fixed by ASUS in the near future (and if not the growing community surely will).

40 Free Days of Art

"Fear no Art" while this is a little bit of old news, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago has been allowing free access to celebrate their 40th Anniversary. Being relatively new to the city, this was a prime opportunity for me and Marin (my girlfriend) to see the museum.

The current exhibit entitled Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967 which runs from September 29, 2007 – January 6, 2008 is quite amazing. With my area of expertise obviously being graphic design, the highlight of the exhibit for me was some original concept work by Peter Saville for the back cover of the New Order album "Power, Corruption and Lies." This piece was just amazing as it gives an intimate look into the process of Peter Saville. The concepts drawings even show the proper CMYK values for each of the colors on the color wheel.

I suggest that anyone go check this show out regardless of the free entry or not (even though this is a huge motivator). For more information please visit: http://www.mcachicago.org/40/index.php?page=home

EEE PC - Mine comes on Monday!

As a very part-time blogger, my excuse for not blogging more often has been my lack of time. This however is no longer an excuse. Just yesterday I ordered a new ASUS EEE PC which for those who don't know is a very small (about the size of a notebook, and less than 3 pounds) fully featured (linux or windows based) laptop. This thing is going to be insanely portable and now I have something to do on the train every day. Because of this, I have decided to either re-design this page or actually upgrade my portfolio site to a wordpress based blog.

In the spirit of the EEE PC, I will be also creating a separate style sheet just for the small resolution of the
EEE PC's screen.

For more information on the EEE PC visit: eeeuser.com where there is already a very large group of active forum members.

These words are being typedd from me eee that I just received :)