Ah, technology!

What did we do before email and the interweb? How did we accomplish anything? Did we actually try to do proofing remotely using FAX copies? Oh dear.

I was forwarded the link for http://www.conceptshare.com, an on-line proofing service. I think it's extremely cool. I encourage you to check it out too. Keep it mind for remote client proofing.

HELVETICA

Love it or hate it. Helvetica has been a lasting part of graphic design since its inception. You see Neue Haas Grotesk (the original name until 1960) on a daily basis whether you know it or not. Its relationship with designers has pushed its popularity into a feature film, "Helvetica" and now the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is presenting a new exhibit "50 years of Helvetica".

I myself have weighed in on Veer's "Love/Hate" Helvetica blog (I went for the love it). I feel that anything that can polarize a designer like this font deserves its moment in the sun and for Helvetica that time is now.

I have to admit there was a time where I was anti-H. I still wear a t-shirt from college that our class designed that simply states "Screw Helvetica". But as I get older, and hopefully wiser, I look at Helvetica like a warm blanket or an old friend. It is a constant, it has never changed with the times or been redesigned to the "new, trim, or fun" version. Helvetica has its place in our lives and as a writer from the BBC put it "Helvetica means your train is on time, your flight will not crash, your life will go on.".

So happy 50th Helvetica and congratulations.

Photoshop's Reformed Brightness-Contrast Tool

If you attended any of our Photoshop classes in the last 10 years (or any Photoshop class in the nation) you were warned NOT to use the Brightness/Contrast dialog box to correct images - it was a very poor correction tool, the levels and curves caused much less damage than Brightness/Contrast. Well, things change. The new Brightness/Contrast in Photoshop CS3 does a very good job as long as you don't check the "Use Legacy" checkbox (that makes it work like previous versions - poorly)

Steve Sandstrom Explains .. What IS the difference between advertising & design?

Steve Sandstrom is not one to miss tonight.

I've been in the advertising field for seven years and I thought I knew what the difference was behind design and advertising. The lecture peaked my curiosity since I had just seen his exhibit at the Eisner Museum. Having prior plans for this evening (but you will catch Kevin there), I headed out to Madison to see his pre-lecture at the Advertising Federation.

I was wowed. I feel like it's all clear now. And it was so simple.

Here I thought media was the difference. Most "full" service ad agencies have media buying elements whereas the majority of design agencies I've worked with have not. While an element in the difference, it's not the defining characteristic.

I don't want to spoil anything for those of you attending, so check back here for a debate!

Free Transform Tool

An often overlooked tool inside Adobe InDesign is the free transform tool. How many times have to had to rotate an item, and then you decide to scale it too? Well, in the past you probably went to the rotate tool, and then the scale tool. Now simply use the Free Transform tool (keyboard shortcut "E") and save yourself a step. In fact I wish you could remove the scale and rotate tools from the toolbox since I really never use them.

Lovin' the RSS Feed

Have you taken advantage of the RSS feed on any of your daily blog reads? I did about 6 months ago and I'm hooked. I can get them thrown right into my email box or have them bookmarked on top.

The RSS feed updates you on new posts, or even old posts that somehow relate to a key word - like your company name (maybe this is how the Apple informant found me so quickly ...) or "Photoshop Hints." Just another way to keep our daily lives a little simpler.

"How do you do it?" you say. Well it's simple.

Let's start with the basic RSS feed. If you're on a blog that has the feed, you just hit that funky little RSS in the upper right hand corner. This will place your RSS on your bookmark bar.

Most updated mail programs already include the email-notification feature. For instance, if you're using Mac's Mail program - just go into your "Mail" main menu and scroll down to "Add RSS Feeds." You can either include the bookmarked feed provided by the all-powerful (but not always web-browser compatible) Safari, or select a specific URL - perhaps you'd like to select a little blog at 100percentfreshc2.blogspot.com - I'm just throwing that out there.

Speaking of web-browser compatibility, you've heard about Flex right? The new Adobe application that helps you get things right for all browsers. Check out the upcoming event at WCTC on February 6 (www.milwaukeeaug.com) or drop Kevin an email.

Adobe Media Gallery?

How many of you have tried to create a web photo/image gallery using the Photoshop Web Gallery only to be completely disappointed in the results and limited templates? Well Adobe Labs has very quietly released an answer to this called Adobe Media Gallery (not to be confused with the highly publicized Adobe Media Player - more on that in a future post). Adobe Media Gallery, available only through Adobe Labs works with Adobe Bridge to create a more professional-looking Web Gallery.

There are two requirements before you start - first, you need to load up the latest version of Adobe AIR runtime and unfortunately this only works with Bridge CS3. Most importantly, be sure to read the entire instructions and known issues from Adobe Labs before you install. (The trick is to restart your Bridge after installing.) Users can select images through Bridge, choose from several preset templates, or customize using the style information palette.
Once loaded, Adobe Bridge will prompt you to install Adobe Media Gallery. Confirm and then immediately restart Bridge. You will find your new application in Bridge under Workspace> Adobe Media Gallery. This will launch the new window in Bridge.

Click the "Preview Button" to start customizing your gallery. You can choose from several preset templates, or customize your gallery using the Style information menu. This interface is much more Choose the images you wish to load through Bridge, and then click the "AMG Preview" button to start. You can then load preset templates or customize your gallery using the "Style Information" menu. This interface is much more intuitive and user friendly than the original Photoshop Web Gallery.

Once completed, you can also preview in your browser using the "Browser Preview" button. To upload your gallery, you have two options, one is to "Save to Disk" which creates a folder and downloads all necessary components for the web.

The other option, which is über-cool is the ability to load directly to an FTP server. This is great for client proofing or private viewing.

So until this becomes a public update with CS3 (which was reportedly supposed to happen this month), check out Adobe Labs and grab this useful tool!

How to get a job!

Andy Sernovitz is coming back to Milwaukee in a couple weeks to speak to BMA-Milwaukee about Word of Mouth marketing. I was surfing around and came upon his blog and his fabulous advice to job seekers. This blog post offers some great pointers, I included the points, but read his actual post for the detailed insights on each of them. Please forward the info on to anyone you know entering the job market anytime...that might be you (perhaps you should get registered with C2 if that's the case), or someone you know.

1. Write an amazing cover letter.
2. Zero errors
3. Tell me what have you done ... specifically.
4. Can you do THIS job?
5. Don't take the wrong job just to get in the door.
6. It's about me, not you.
7. Show industry expertise and interest.

Speaking of getting a job, in the last week I've been invited to join a new social network called NotchUp.com. It's an interesting concept, you post your profile and indicate if you're an active or passive candidate, then you determine your "asking price" for an interview. If a company is seriously interested in you, they offer to interview and agree to pay the asking price. I set up a profile out of curiosity ONLY (the employer site beta launches March 1). I was able to download my LinkedIn profile and make modifications easily. The most compelling area of the site (in my opinion) was the rationale statement to employers for using NotchUp. Essentially they're competing with recruiting firms, trying to eliminate recruiters from the equation. It won't work for all hiring managers, but it's an novel approach and reinforces yet again the power of social networks. This may change the landscape of recruiting...

Video is the future!!

Call me Nostradamus, a prophet...call me what you will (and I know I'm not the first to say this)... VIDEO (on the internet) IS THE FUTURE OF MARKETING!! So is social marketing. Add the two together and BLAMO! SUCCESS! (can you tell I'm excited? when is the last time you saw so many capitalized words and exclamation points?)

What brings me to this conclusion? A confluence of presentations by professional organizations like Spreenkler, BMA-Milwaukee (most recently Sarah Robbins from Mediasauce got B-to-B marketers really thinking about this very topic, the place was buzzing with energy about all the opportunities!), American Marketing Association and Madison Advertising Federation AND some recent (really cool) personal experiences with sites like Youtube, LinkedIn, Ning and Facebook.

Today Casey Payne (internet video genius) sent me the CLINCHER, a video/animation compilation of silly internet characters that have become part of pop culture. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pPCkhYMQgY

Now I ask you, oh wise blog reader: How do companies parlay all of this compelling content (that has quickly penetrated into our collective conscience) into marketing and sales efforts? I want to hear from you!

I also have some thoughts and resources that I'll be sharing over the next few weeks, because I believe that video is the future!

Are you an Adobe Bridge user? Has the "Place" command slipped by you?

You probably already know that when you find the file you are interested in, in Adobe Bridge, you can double click on that file and it opens in the program that made it. And that's great. But what if you want to place a PSD file into InDesign or Flash (or After Effects or Illustrator)? The fast, convenient way is to do the following: select the item or items you want to place into another Adobe program, go to the File menu, go Down to "Place" and choose the program you want the files to goto. Voila!

Way to go Apple!

As a tongue-in-cheek joke I posted on my personal blog that Apple was an evil corporation.

Let me explain ... I LOVE Apple actually. The only reason I own a non-iPod is that the gym requires an FM Transmitter to listen to the TVs and they don't make one on any version of the iPods. I have been toying with the idea of purchasing one since I buy 99.9% of my music from iTunes and the conversion time is very tedious.

So imagine my surprise when I went to burn a CD with Ingrid Michaelson's album Girls & Boys along with the cute-sy remake track off the Juno soundtrack "Anyone Else But You" by Michael Cera & Ellen Page and got a "MEDIUM WRITE ERROR" message. It wasn't the CD's, it wasn't the burner (tried data CDs and burning some of my MP3 and AIFF files and they were fine) - it was iTunes & the purchased music. After struggling and asking for support, I found no resolve except chit-chat among forums that this is a well-known problem and the bug fix should be out Friday or early February.

I joked on my personal blog that Apple was now making me go out and buy an iPod and a power adaptor for my car so I could listen to the music after making me purchase the upgraded Leopard and what-not.

Within one minute (literally! - Posted at 4:24, response posted at 4:25! - An Apple backer had already found the post and offered suggestions to what it might actually be and included links to Apple Geniuses. Brilliant. That's customer service! If it wasn't an Apple employee, you have to have respect for a company that harnesses such loyalty that even users are looking out for their name - tongue and cheek or not!

Networking According to Yahoo

Networking is important - even Yahoo! thought so today.

C2 is based on relationships, we rarely do any advertising so the majority of our new clientele comes from networking ... I mean look at our User Group Pipeline, we're not shy on organization participation.

If you're looking at networking in Milwaukee and Madison, first check out the Pipe, than take a look at the following article from Yahoo:

Four Most Common Mistakes

Title-Case inside InDesign

A quick way to change the case of your headlines inside Adobe InDesign is to use the change case command. Select your headline and go to the type menu > change case > title case. This will automatically capitalize the first letter of each word in your headline and make the rest of the letters lowercase.

Advertising or Design?

Last night was the opening of the Eisner Museum's new Art or Design exhibit - I went there thinking that my questions regarding "Is it Advertising?" or "Is it Design?" would be 100% fully answered. But not so much. As Cori Coffman, the Museum's Director explained, the big difference between advertising & design is media - so is the design the ad and the advertising portion the media buy? Something to ponder.

There is definitely a difference when you're looking at an advertising agency versus a design agency. Taking a look at Planet Propaganda's ads versus some of the traditional agencies, it appeared to me (please note that my opinions are not necessarily shared or reflected by C2 Graphics Productivity Solutions - per the infomercial calls on TV) that their use of space and color was quite different than an ad agency. Also, I noticed ad agencies were a little more heavy on copy than the design agencies.

I guess I'll have to wait to see what Steve Sandstrom says at the Mad Ad Fed event on Monday, January 28th at the Sheraton. By the way, he's also speaking at the Eisner Museum on January 29 at 6:00pm.

Either way, don't forget to stop by the exhibit soon and see all the great pieces!

Apple does it again

Oh come on, like you are surprised. Steve Jobs has done it again. This time in two big tech announcements at MacWorld. (Ok there were several, but these are the two that got me tweaked). The first is, the new Apple Mac Air (not to be confused with Adobe Air). This has taken the laptop and really pushed the envelope. Speaking of envelope, lets start with that. This thing is so small (0.75" x 14") that it can fit inside an envelope. It weighs 3 lbs. and has the latest in wireless tech. It has a battery with 5 hours of life. The processor is as thin as a dime and as big as a nickel, but it runs at 1.8 ghz! The display is a 13.3" LCD which means less power and instant on. The ports are retractable on the side which is a great space saver and makes this look really sleek. Heres the best part - it starts at only $1800.00.

I can go on and on and geek out til my fingers go numb, but you can check it out for yourself, including the great commercial at Apple's website. This is going to really spark some great competition with other manufacturers and I am looking forward to seeing someone try to top this.

The next item stems from user complaints. The great Time Machine feature in Leopard is handy when you work on a tower and have a hard drive handy to plug in when needed. However, laptop users, like myself, found it cumbersome to drag around an external to run backups when working on-site. Now Apple has given us an answer. And it is called Time Capsule.

Time Capsule works in conjunction with Time Machine allowing you to make wireless backups. The key to this is the wireless 500GB or 1TB hard drive. Time Capsule can synch, back up and store files for each Leopard-based Mac on your wireless network.

Time Capsule can also be used as your wireless hub since it has a full-featured 802.11n Wi-Fi base station built right in. No need to go out and buy an Airport Base. You can find out more at Apple's website. Time Capsule retails at $299 for the 500GB model or $499 for a 1TB hard drive. Both will be shipping in two weeks.

I get the impression after watching the MacWorld Keynote, that these two items will really become the next gen benchmark for other tech. Now I just have to save up so I can go out and buy all of these toys!!

Photoshop's Copy Merged

Have you ever wanted to copy across multiple layers in photoshop without flattening your image? Try the "Copy Merged" from Photoshop's Edit menu. It acts as if the document is flattened and grabs everything under your selection no matter what layer it's on - if it's visible in your selection, Copy Merged will grab it. Once you have it on the clipboard, paste the composited copy anywhere you like.

InDesign CS3 Easter Egg

Inside Adobe InDesign CS3 lies a new easter egg. An easter egg when referring to software is a small treat that programmers have hidden inside a program for the users to discover. On a mac go to the InDesign Menu and choose "about InDesign", on a PC go to the help menu and choose "about InDesign". On the splash screen type "butterfly". The screen will turn into a beautiful mountain photo with many butterflies flying. Here comes the fun part. Click on the butterflies and you will pin them, if you Alt (Option on a mac) click them, they fall off the screen. When you are done playing the game, or your boss is walking towards you just hit the ESC key and you are back to work.

Enjoy!

Moving out of Wisconsin

The Business Journal reported that more people are moving out of Wisconsin than moving in to it.

We can always speculate why - perhaps it's the availability of jobs, the climate, the scene - but what's your reason for staying (or leaving)?

Resetting your Adobe Preferences

When all else fails, what do you do? Try resetting your preferences. Believe it or not, it is very easy to do. When you start up your application, hold down shift+ctrl+opt+apple (mac) or shift+command+opt+ctrl (pc). This will prompt you to delete your settings. Don't panic, its just a reset to factory settings.
Generally, this will remedy the little hiccups or glitches you may be experiencing especially with type or tools.

Also, don't forget about the eagerly awaited Adobe CS3/Leopard updates coming out later this month.

Thanking our Partners!

Every business has partners, sometimes known as business resources or vendors. I wanted to take a few minutes to both ENDORSE and thank our business resources. If you ever need support/advice/service in their area of expertise, don't hesitate to contact them directly or ask me to make an introduction.

In alphabetical order:
Advantage Golf of Wisconsin - We love our green C2 pens, hopefully you have one on your desk right now! Dale Tegtmeier is our preferred purveyor of chatckes! We like to call him the Chatckes King of Milwaukee. If you can put a logo on it, he can make it happen!

Big Shoes Network - need a job? an internship? a resource for marketing, advertising or design in the midwest? Look no further. Jeff and Martha Carrigan have created an on-line networking empire! We love that BIG Shoes Network!

Burton & Mayer - Brett & Steve Waterhouse do an incredible job! From the start they've exceeded our expectations, getting jobs done on short notice or connecting us with clients. They're rock stars and I cannot say enough about the level of genuine care and over-the-top service they've provided to our business since our inception in 2004.

DigiCopy - Paul Otero owns the local branches of Digicopy. As a former Apple guru he trained his staff well. They really know the hardware and software needed to get short run jobs done FAST and right! If you need to hit a quick copy place, look no further!

K2PR - Kathryn Wellner serves as our public relations pro, getting us placement in local, regional and national publications. We have a stack of clippings attributed to her hard work. She reps clients that need TV and radio appearances, as well as trade show and other media placement. Even though we're small potatoes compared to some of her clients, she always makes us feel like we're her number ONE priority. She's responsive, talented and well connected.

Locatelli Financial Services - CFO to the STARS, that's Jim Locatelli and his band of brainiacs. Dave the Tax Guru, Sheri and Chris all make our life at C2 easier, helping us with budgets, taxes and guiding us through the fun challenges of business ownership. Jim and his team serve several advertising, marketing and design firms, so he knows our biz, our clients and is an invaluable resource to us.

Park Bank - Sue Eick and Dale Guenther are NOT just bankers, they're supportive allies and friends. They really understand the needs of creative businesses and many of our clients are their clients. They've played an integral role in helping us grow!

Sells Printing - James "Jimmy" Wamser and Robert Hammen know Adobe and Apple software at expert levels and we're thrilled to have them as a training partner. When it comes to network and pre-press technology they're the answer. The Wams (as we affectionately call him) is an Adobe Certified Instructor with certifications in Acrobat, Photoshop and InDesign, while Robert is positively certifiable, boasting several Apple certs: Apple Certified Help Desk Specialist, Apple Certified Technical Coordinator, Apple Certified Systems Administrator.

Stamm Business Technologies - Dave Stamm has put together an incredible team of Apple and PC network pros offering the best cross-platform, IT/network support available. They service several creative firms and the internal design/advertising/marketing departments of some of Milwaukee's top companies. They understand the unique challenges of font related technologies, RIPs, Adobe and Quark software, etc. We partner with them regularly, sending our clients to them with hardware and network challenges. Stamm's crew always gets RAVE reviews. Look for them in a coming issue of Fortune Small Business Magazine as one of the business makeover consultants!

The Eisner - We love The Eisner...and we show it every year at their I LOVE THE EISNER event, also known as the XO (kiss hug). Join us at the XO on February 10 and show this industry gem YOUR love. We've used their amazing space for seminars, meetings, classes over the last 5 years, clients alway leave impressed. We appreciate the ever-evolving exhibits, Cori Coffman and Katie Sorenson's professionalism and dedication to both the museum and industry. The Eisner always needs volunteers...contact me for details!

Flash Library Management

The Library Panel in Flash is where you store all the assets needed to complete a Flash project. The nature of Flash development leads to libraries filled with false starts, unused elements, extraneous imports and general disarray.

Here is my solution that I use for every Flash project I work on. A well managed library can save hours of frustration and speed up the development process. In team based development it's practically required. Of course this is not the only way to work - treat this as a starting point for you to develop your own personal organization that works best for you and the type of projects you work on.

Here are the folders I create to manage my assets and some elements I start every project with (see screen shot at bottom of post)

00 Code Snippets

My favorite trick. this one is so good it's getting its own post and download next week. but the short answer is it's a movie clip with hundreds of lines of sample actionscript code that I can refer to during any project. the clip itself is never used in a movie but it's a fast, fast reference for quick copy and paste.

01 LTG

Stands for Layouts, Templates and Guides. Stuff that should not appear in final movie but is needed for placement purposes.

02 Imported Images

Imported JPG, PNG files.

03 Imported Vector

Vector art from other programs.

04 Imported Audio

Short audio pieces or sound effects less than about 2 seconds long. I always leave longer audio as an external file.

05 Basic Shapes

A simple square and circle that I use over and over in every movie. Why the awful lime green? It's easy to tell if there is a stray, unmodified occurrence in my movie. I also add any artwork that is not animated (movieclips with just one frame of art) to this folder.

06 Buttons

Buttons go here, this folder always starts with an invisible square button (built from the square in folder 05 Basic Shapes - reuse your symbols!)

07 Text

Movieclips with text.

08 Components

If I use any prebuilt Flash components they would go here.

09 Reserved for future use

As the name implies I'm not using 09 for anything right now.

10 Temp

holds test movieclips and experimental work. When and if these become part of the movie they move to a more appropriate folder. If they don't go into the final movie they go to folder 99 below (the trash). At the end of a project this folder is always empty.

11 Project Specific

folders 00 thru 10 are part of every project and they stay in that order for consistencies sake. Project specific folders holding complex parts of the movie always start at 11 and may have folders nested inside.

12 Project Specific

Just another example folder for this project.

99 Trash this

The 99 makes it sit at the bottom of the library panel. I consistently move unused elements to this folder as they are replaced by final or improved artwork. If it's in this folder it's not used in the movie. I delete this folder before handing the file off to the client. I do keep the folder in my master file.

A Note From Jim Conway ...

C2 is proud to introduce our newest full time instructor, Kevin Stohlmeyer. Kevin is both a designer and an Adobe Certified instructor in Photoshop and Illustrator with years of practical, creative experience under his belt that he enjoys sharing with our students. We couldn't be happier that Kevin has agreed to join our expert staff - there are lots of exciting changes and additions to our curriculum coming in 2008 and Kevin is going to be leading several of our initiatives.

Blogging Contest Winner!

We had a little internal contest here at C2, write a comment-able post that can be verified by a real address - win a gift certificate to Marchese's Olive Pit (Best Pizza in Milwaukee)!

I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of our posters and all of our readers and mention that after almost 4 months of blogging, we finally achieved it.

And the winner was our little Guru Fritz.

Check out the traffic-endearing post here!

http://100percentfreshc2.blogspot.com/2007/11/bug-in-photoshop-cs3-and-leopard.html#comments

Redacting in Acrobat 8 Professional.

If you ever have to remove sensitive information from a PDF Redaction is the way to go. To use the redaction tools go to Advanced > Redaction > Show Redaction Toolbar. Next click on the button "Mark for Redaction". Now select the area you want removed from your PDF. It can be the text, or even areas of an image. Finally click the button "Apply Redactions" and after you bypass the series of windows warning you that you can not undo this operation, your PDF is now removed of the sensitive information.

GS in CA!

We're adding GS Design, one of our favorite clients and a damn good full-service agency, to the list of local firms getting national recognition for their amazing work.

GS Design's self-promo piece, Death and Taxes, was featured in the November 2007 Communication Arts.

Congrats to GS Design. The accolades are well deserved and a long time coming.

WOM Marketing (Word of Mouth)

I'm a BzzAgent. That's right. And I'm supposed to tell everyone. So I'm telling all of you!

The concept behind Bzz is brilliant. They'll give you product, you'll try it and then you'll tell people about what it is, what you like or don't like about it, then report back on a simple report form about what happened. That's it.

I know what you're thinking, it's kind of like being a secret shopper right? NO! Not at all. I was a secret shopper. There's no multi-page reports, no reimbursements times and forms, no payments and no secrecy. You actually NEED to tell people that you're a part of Word of Mouth Marketing. Simply Brilliant.

I've been delighted to be a part of this and highly recommend that you click on the little link above and sign up today. The more you participate, the more items you get to try. I'm currently reporting on a great product called Lypsyl, similar in concept to Burt's Bees - but a bit more tingly. Organic & natural, it eases my mind when it comes to putting products on and my lips have been softer than I can ever remember.

So now you're a part of my Word of Mouth - don't forget to let me know who you are so I can be a part of yours!

Primitive tools in Flash CS3

If you didn't look close you may have missed two new  tools in Adobe Flash CS3, the Rectangle Primitive tool and the Oval Primitive tool. They can be found in the toolbox under the Rectangle tool (press and hold on the icon to show the hidden tools). These new shape tools allow for very fast (and non-destructive) basic alterations to shapes that you draw. Imagine rounded corners that you can go back and tweak without remaking the shape or taking the center out of a circle without running a permanent Modify>Combine Objects>Punch

(see animation demoing below)

professional recognition

Yesterday I received two professional design award books in the mail. The first, from Business Marketing Association, showed off the 2007 Pro-Comm awards winners, featuring the best business-to-business marketing efforts from across the US. The second was the AIGA 365 awards book. It was packed with design awards from identity to book covers. Very cool.

I was thrilled to see a few local agencies in both award books. Stephan and Brady won a BMA Silver Sledgehammer and Bader Rutter won at least 6 across several categories. Planet Propaganda won a couple AIGA 365 awards, as did a solo designer, Hans, from Wauwatosa. Check them out at the BMA site or the AIGA site.

Inspirational. Designers love to check out what our profession deems "the best," gleaning new ideas from the cutting edge and just plain brilliant pieces featured. Many designers then ask, "why don't we (my company and I) enter these awards?" A fire is lit, several fires actually...the fire to create award-winning design as well as the fire to enter existing award-winning design. What a great time to light those fires! Three local award shows are either taking entries now or will be soon.

Madison Advertising Federation (part of District 8 of the AAF) accepts Addy entries January 10 & 11. All show details available at SuperSweetCreative.com. It's a hilarious site, poking accurate yet tongue and cheek jabs at all who dare prepare entries for the Addys. Good stuff.

BMA-Milwaukee launch their Bell Awards promotions soon, calling for entries for their show on April 10.

Want to show off your inner artist? Enter the Eisner Museum's XO (I Love The Eisner) 250 Square Feet of Art competition! Go to the Eisner and grab a 1' x 1 ' board and create a visual masterpiece. In the past people have transformed the boards into lamps, clocks, sculptures, painings, framed photos and more. You can enter the juried competition or just submit your board to be sold at the annual Eisner fundraiser, the XO. It's art with a purpose.

What's my point? Seeing the best of the best makes our entire profession better. Individuals and organizations understand the benchmark they work against. And plenty of opportunities to enter work (and win personal and professional recognition) exist...So, light that fire!

Photoshop Express

The wait is almost over. Ever since Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen's announcement last September of an online version of Photoshop, the web has been a buzz about what this will look like, what will it feature, etc. Adobe since this announcement has already launched an online version of Adobe Premiere, called Premiere Express. (You can try it out here on YouTube's Mashup. ) I look at this as the trial run for Photoshop Express. Both are built using the Adobe Flex application which means these apps are completely run via your web browser and computer, not a remote server.

Here is what we know so far. Adobe plans to launch Photoshop Express in the first quarter of 2008. It is not meant to replace any existing software (you Elements users can exhale now), instead it will bring "Photoshop to the masses".

You will be able to use familiar items, such as the healing tools, crop, and liquify commands. This also has a limited history so there are undos! The one downside is that it has a lot of "auto" corrections instead of the familiar menu options. The way this will work is you choose what you want to change in your photo, such as saturation, then the application gives you a drop down with several options of varying degrees to click on. Convenient but limiting.

No matter what the final version of this Rich Internet Application (RIA) holds, it is bound to place Adobe as the leader for online content and innovations.

If you want to learn more about Flex, RIA, or the future of web applications, be sure to check out the upcoming Flex presentation on Feb. 7 at WCTC. Check the pipeline for more info!

Stock VS Original Photography

You've seen this fight a million times. You want to use original photography for your client, but they have a teeny tiny budget so you're stuck with stock ... right?

Maybe not ... depending on what your client's budget is and what the image they're going for may be it may be 100% feasible for original photography. Join us on January 18 in conjunction with Studio Two for this intimate discussion on the art of Photography & editing.

For only $5.00 you'll get lunch, Photoshop Tips & Tricks and advice on how to invest appropriately in both stock and original photography.

Our Tips & Tricks for Photoshop will include the "Two Pass" Color Correction Method, Photoshop Botox, Electronic Liposuction, Tricks of the Trade and Cheats & Shortcuts.

Don't miss the opportunity to sign up today!

http://5friday-makeoriginal.eventbrite.com/