C2 Gallery Night Returns - with Community High School!

The "Layers - Distilling Excellence" program is a collaborative effort with C2 Graphics and Community High School showcasing students work using Adobe Photoshop. The images explore both the internal and external forces that shape the “essence” of our self and represent how these influences have contributed to each student’s layers of memories, thoughts, dreams and opinions.

The exhibit is the result of a digital media/graphic design course provided by C2 Instructors James Fritz, Kevin Stohlmeyer, and Angelo Vasta with C2 talent Brad Krause and CHS Staff members Jason O'Brien and Roxanne Mayeur.

Each students art is unique both in their artistic expression, but also with the story that accompanies each piece. Students that would normally not have an opportunity to express themselves creatively in digital media really took to using Adobe Photoshop® and create spectacular works.

The exhibit is from 5-9 pm tonight (April 17) in the lobby of our offices at 222 E. Erie Street. All 21 Students are scheduled to be on hand to showcase their work, so please stop by and show your support to these young artists.

Shown below are some of the works from the show.

Adobe Photoshop 1.0

Before you hesitate upgrading to Adobe Photoshop CS4, take a look at this video and contemplate how far we've come in 19 years. (Yes Photoshop is 20 next year!) This is version 1.0 from 1990. The amazing advances from 1990 to today is one of the reasons I love what I do. (and you should too!). So sit back, take a relaxing breath and be happy that Adobe is coming out with better, faster, greater products for all of us to enjoy. Now go forth and upgrade.

Fireworks CS4 Tips and Tricks

This month, C2 Instructor Jake Stroh is sharing some great tips and tricks for Adobe Fireworks. Read up on this exciting addition to any designer's arsenal.

The key to profitability in web design and development is to build great prototypes for your clients, arrive together at a sign off point on the interface and then begin the build-out process.

This process can be further aided by demonstrating your prototype as a clickable PDF, where the navigation actually takes the user to the corresponding page of the prototype, or by exporting your Fireworks page layouts as a “demo” which produces a clickable flash slide show as a way to sell your design ideas to your clients.

Exporting a clickable PDF:

Once you have designed a navigation system that you like, it would be a good idea in an effort to save time, to create a Master page of this. To set your current page as a Master page, goto the PAGES palette and by using the palette pulldown menu, select “Set as master page”. Now when you create a new page all of your master page items will already be on the page.

Once all of your pages are prototyped you can then return to your master page, select the “Rectangle Hotspot tool” in the WEB section of the Tools palette. Drag a rectangular box across each navigation button. Once created you can select the cyan colored box and go to the inspector and select from the LINK pull down menu. This link menu will give you options to the names of each of your pages. If you took the time to name them (by clicking on the default names “01 PAGE” and typing in your own name), then it should not be all that hard to associate the named link with the proper Hotspot area.

With all of the hot spots LINKED to the proper pages, select FILE, EXPORT, Export as PDF. This will generate a multi-paged PDF that will jump to the proper page when the user clicks on the hotspot area.

Demo current document:

Another way to create an interactive slide show of your prototyped website, is to simply select COMMANDS, DEMO CURRENT DOCUMENT at any point during your design process. This will bring up a prompt that will give you the ability to CHECK which pages you wish to include in your presentation.

The benefits to this approach are: The presentation is viewed in a web browser and can be uploaded to a staging area for presentation on the we. A clickable thumbnail navigation appears when mousing over the bottom portion of your web browser and disappears when mousing off of the thumbnail navigation, which is a great non-intrusive way to present and navigate your designs.

Be mindful that this approach produces many files in order to work: Thumbnail and presentation images, HTML, XML, SWF and JS files produce this simply elegant way to present your ideas.

On a soapbox for public art

Day-to-day I represent professional artists: graphic designers, photographers, creative directors, production artists, copy writers and most related creative professions. Many of these professionals also paint, sing, dance, play instruments, write, sculpt, garden, weld, sew, bead, sketch, build furniture or otherwise immerse themselves in the arts to feed their souls. Lots of these creative-types and artists subscribe to this mailing list, as well as those of us who hire, train, educate, administrate and serve as vendors to these folks. Today I find myself on a soapbox talking to all of you about public art. I enjoy being surrounded by thoughtful architecture, colorful sculptures, paintings, photography and the energy of a city that appreciates art. Controversial as public art may be, it creates jobs, adds character to neighborhoods and promotes lively conversation.

I want our creative community to step up and support the already funded and art board-approved public arts project that the Milwaukee Common Council has yet to approve. This effort necessitates timely support, as deadlines for supplies needed by the artist fast approach. Please read the summary of the situation below and join me in supporting public art in Milwaukee!

From an email written by Christine Harris of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Milwaukee:
Many of you may be aware that a public art project, which had gone through the proper process of selection and approval, was taken to task by some of the City Council's Aldermen earlier this week at a Department of Public Works Committee meeting. The project was shelved at least until the next meeting and may be in jeopardy. The Cultural Alliance and many others in the cultural community believe this action has hurt the cause for public art in our community. We are asking you to communicate with the committee Aldermen in support of approving this public art project by Janet Zweig. For more background on the project, please go to Mary Louise Schumacher's blog site http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/entertainment/artcity.html.

The Cultural Alliance is taking the position that Bob Bryson and Alderman Bauman thought they had the votes to move this project forward and therefore didn't need to rally the troops. We believe we should be thanking Ald. Bob Bauman for his support. In addition, we will be working behind the scenes to help problem solve together with the Aldermen. Hopefully, the combination of grass roots impact and 'grass tops' communication will move this project forward. Both are needed.

In addition to your personal point of view, which is an important expression, here are some talking points:

This public art process was put in to place years ago and the project has been moving forward according to all of the guidelines. The money has already been approved.

The public art committee was comprised of people with the background and commitment of the public interest to make an artist choice that will serve our community well and meet the budgetary requirements.

The chosen artist, Janet Zweig, has committed to spend the $60,000 matching dollars being approved with local artists, thereby giving very valuable jobs to our city and helping to make the project community-relevant. Furthermore, she has a stellar international reputation for her work and a Milwaukee background.

We (the Cultural Alliance) believe that a well structured public art program is critical to having an interesting, culturally diverse community and that it not only adds to our quality of life but it helps to distinguish our region by reflecting our unique expression.

Please, please, please be respectful. We are not going to change attitudes or behaviors by beating people up - that only escalates negative visibility, as we can see by the opening comments being quoted in today's Stingl column. We have learned we still have much advocacy to do. I would like to share some comments from Brad Lichtenstein's well crafted letter to his Alderman.

"We can raise the entire cultural capital of Milwaukee in part by takings risks and supporting public art. You don't need to personally like every piece of public art that you vote on. Art is a matter of preference. You just need to like the idea of crafting a first-class city that can compete in these trying economic times. Art goes hand in hand with better transportation, business development and all of the other efforts to bolster our economy. I hope you'll reconsider your sentiments and support this project. Oh, and by the way, the part the city would pay for supports local artists by giving them jobs." Brad Lichtenstein

Contact information for the Aldermen is below. If you need to see which district you reside or work in so you can make the letter more personal, please go to: http://www.ci.mil.wi.us/router.asp?docid=304 . If you wish to contact YOUR Alderman in support of this project, please do so. Mail Address for all is City Hall, Room 205, 200 E. Wells, Milwaukee, WI 53202

Ald. 4th District Robert Bauman, Chair; rjbauma@milwaukee.gov voted in favor

Ald. 11th District Joe Dudzik, Vice Chair; jdudzi@milwaukee.gov

Ald. 7th District Willie C. Wade; wwade@milwaukee.gov

Ald. 8th District Robert G. Donovan; rdonov@milwaukee.gov

Ald. 9th District Robert W. Puente; rpuent@milwaukee.gov

We also believe that on the larger Common Council, Ald. Mike Murphy and Nic Kovac will likely be supportive.

Next Steps: Once we know the date of the next meeting where this project will be discussed we will get that information to you, along with a suggested strategy.

Thank you for being advocates for our furthering the reputation of our region by being a strong and mobilized creative community.

Photoshop 3D fix

Ok, I know a lot of you have not used the 3D feature in Photoshop, or have had issues with bringing in the really cool Collada files from Google 3D warehouse. If you are not aware, when you currently import a Collada file into a 3D layer, the surface opacities come in at 0%. This means it is invisible and you cannot see anything until you go through the significant struggle of changing all surfaces to 100% opacity (and guessing which ones should be less than 100% ie. glass, etc.)

Well a new script has surfaced thanks to John Nack at Adobe via his blog post today. Download this script file and load it into Photoshop. Run the script on your Collada file and BOOM! Corrected opacities! Righteous!

Here is the tech doc.