Oh, do go look at Tom Christensen’s wickedly detailed walkthrough, Manuscript to Art Book in Four weeks: The Making of Masters of Bamboo. Cool, cool, cool!
(Thanks, Tom!)
Month: January 2007
Mac-based Webheads: What tools do you use?
Bridget got me rambling about Web development tools on another thread, and now I’m wondering what the kids are using to write their Web sites these days. Over there, we mentioned Nvu, Dreamweaver, GoLive, BBEdit, and TextMate.
I use BBEdit myself, but it’s kind of pricey and I’m not a big fan of the user interface (though I haven’t upgraded to the latest version, on which the interface may finally be better; I’m just sick of paying for upgrades all the time). I’d probably prefer a dedicated Web editor, but nothing that offers only WYSIWYG. (I have never met a WYSIWYG editor that generated code I would use on my dog’s site. If I had a dog.) Suggestions?
Also, for those of you who use Firefox and have tricked it out with Web development–related extensions, bookmarklets, and Greasemonkey scripts, what accoutrements are you sporting? Continue reading “Mac-based Webheads: What tools do you use?”
Thank you, Microsoft!
Now I will never have to buy any of your products again!
The latest issue of Editorium Update has arrived, and Jack Lyon reports the following:
Word 2008, for Macintosh, isn’t out yet but will be later this year:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/jan07/01-09MacworldPR.mspx
Like Word 2007 for Windows, it will feature the Ribbon interface, with all of the drawbacks I discussed in the previous newsletter:
http://lists.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1720752173
But there’s one more drawback that will be utterly devastating: No more recording, programming, or even running of macros.
(hysterical emphasis mine)
No macros.
No. Macros. At all.
According to this Macworld article, you’ll be able to do macro-type-things using Applescript and Automator and whatever—I confess that I have not tried to wrap my head around that stuff at all yet; go ahead; suspend my Geek license—but if I have to write my own scripts, why the fuck would I write them to control Word? If I’m going to put that kind of effort into something, obviously it would make more sense to trick out a free word processor than a piece of overpriced bloatware from a company that has demonstrated time and time again that it doesn’t want my business.
Duh.
Day 9 of 90
Hey, remember when your computer had a leetle teeny screen, and all your software used to run slower, and you just couldn’t get as much work done as you do now?
Yeah, so try doing your multifaceted, exciting twenty-first-century job on a 12″ laptop that, despite being totally loaded when you bought it three years ago, is somewhat poky and sluggish when you try to run InDesign and Acrobat Pro and Photoshop and Bridge and Word and Eudora and BBEdit and Linotype Font Explorer and Firefox with at least four windows and sixteen tabs open. It does not make you feel very efficient, let me tell you.
Continue reading “Day 9 of 90”
Designery People, Take Note:
Ampersand Duck has put up a pithy post about planning a printed publication, which is addressed to “aspiring artists and performers”—e.g., your friends and mine, who’re often asking if we can just help them design this little tiny promotional card or booklet or brochure, and then sticking us with an impossible deadline and budget, as well as worthless art and copy. And here is her story of why she was inspired to write the piece.
Sometimes you might get hit with poorly thought-out projects even at your day job, though of course I’ve never encountered such misfortunes myself.
I recommend that you write your own version of Ms. Duck’s how-to to address your own typical quick-and-dirty undertakings, and keep it handy to give to those talented friends when they inevitably ask you for help.
My last day!
In the home stretch here, trying to wrap up as much as I can before I leave so that my teammate, H., who’s survived a surprising number of defections, isn’t stuck with a whole lot of stuff that I could have gotten out of the way for her.
I’ve been thinking I should summarize what I’ve learned during my short stint in Big Publishing—and I’ve learned a lot. But it’s hard to put the big-picture stuff into words that don’t sound like a complaint. I don’t have any complaints about working here; just observations. I would have been happy to stay for a couple of years, if something better hadn’t come along. That was, in fact, the plan. But something better came along!
So. Some of what I’ve learned . . .
Continue reading “My last day!”
The other kind of interior design
Decorating when you have the Design Disease.
See also, if you haven’t yet, Mr. Terrett’s earlier lovely post explaining the nature of the Design Disease.
New MS Word toolbar system: The Ribbon
(Shudder.) I don’t think I’ll be getting this upgrade.
[via Scott Rosenberg]
Update: I definitely won’t.
Picking the font: A case study
Having just gotten back from the weeklong holiday and totally forgotten how to do my job, while blathering about choosing text faces the other day I omitted two very obvious considerations:
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What kind of type is used in similar books?
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What typefaces are used on the book cover or jacket?
Choosing text type
There’s a nice little article that’s been doing the linky rounds called 15 tips to choose a good text type, by Juan Pablo De Gregorio, a Chilean graphic designer and a typographer. (I saw it most recently at Coudal Partners, who got it from Andy Rutledge.)
I was already thinking about this, as the famed David Moldawer asked me about it a couple of months ago, but I’m not sure I can unravel the selection process very articulately. Most of Señor De Gregorio’s advice has to do with legibility, and that is, indeed, a very big concern. But then how do you choose among the hundreds of typefaces that are quite legible, inoffensive, and suitable for text? Continue reading “Choosing text type”