Season's Greetings

Instant colour schemes!

Save time (well mess about & have a bit of fun) with instant colour schemes.
Hat tip to Creatica Daily.

Hallelujah!

Came back from Noumea to the best news! Leonard Cohen is playing TSB Arena on 20th Jan. Can't wait.
UPDATE: Have got ticket.



Concert details here and here

Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen's coming (Dom Post)


“The acrid, dystopian humour … is a reminder that the only people who dub Cohen depressing are those that don’t get the jokes.” THE GUARDIAN [UK]

Politics, shmolotics

Roarprawn has new logo & a link to Blondini Gang & the Titi T-shirt (get 'em here).

Go the BB!

Keep Up!

Adobe Creative Suite 4 is here! Crikey — feels like I just got Creative Suite 3.
The best thing, though is that you can now have multiple pages (artboards) in Illustrator 4.



You can register for the Adobe Online Creative Festival for all the info. It's on Wednesday 22 October.

The Style Queen out & about

I don't get out much, but 2 fashion shows in one week! It's NZ Fashion Week in Auckland, but this in right here in Wellington. & Goody Bags!

Ashley Fogel at Kirkaldies & lots of cool labels at The Old Bank Arcade.

Off Topic-ish — But Fruity

How cool is this? Banana Chandelier

World famous in Petone

"I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo
has been selected for inclusion in the newly released fifth
edition of our Schmap Wellington Guide:"

Cook Strait Crossing

Logo Trends for 2008

Here at Logo Lounge

(Note to self: Read carefully as have 2 logos to design at mo)

Road Age

What is it with male drivers of a certain who wear hats? And women drivers of a certain (or any) age driving metallic turquoisey powder-blue cars?

Back in Black

Melbourne > State of Design Festival > Stencil Art (@ Back to Basics) > Design Made Trade > Flu > Lose will to live > Can out of printmaking workshop > Art Deco @ National Gallery > NZ > Slowly regain will to live > Back to Blondini Gang

On tablets of stone

The 10 Commandments of Web Design

1. Thou shalt not abuse Flash.
2. Thou shalt not hide content.
3. Thou shalt not clutter.
4. Thou shalt not overuse glassy reflections.
5. Thou shalt not name your Web 2.0 company with an unnecessary surplus or dearth of vowels.
6. Thou shalt worship at the altar of typography.
7. Thou shalt create immersive experiences.
8. Thou shalt be social.
9. Thou shalt embrace proven technologies.
10. Thou shalt make content king.

(From Creative Bits)

Bembo's Zoo

Animated animals from type for all you font freaks (You know who you are).
Link

In a Former Life 2

Eek. I Might be turning back into scary printmaker. Am off to another printworkshop at Hutt Art Society on July 12th.

And am getting the Press Gang etching press shipped up from Invercargill when our garage is (re)built.

Content is queen

“Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.”
-Jeffrey Zeldman (link)

(From a list of quotes on Signal vs. Noise today)

iphone plan?

Hmmm... Hope Vodafone are not going to require a specific plan for iphone. I just signed up on a new 2 year plan on the understanding it would transfer to iphone!

Update
International iPhone pricing guide
(No info for NZ as yet)

I can haz iphone?

Yay. 3G iphone July 11. Still nothing on Vodafone site about it yet, though.

And MobileMe. Maybe it was worth renewing my .mac account after all!

Blow by blow account of devts here

Anarchy in the E.D.U

Martin Weller at The Ed Techie has made a vid: One for the Edupunkers.
Check it out.

More on Edupunk: DIY Edtech?

Stephen Downs says: " The concept of Edupunk has totally caught wind, spreading through the blogosphere like wildfire."

The Chronicle of Higher Education Wired Campus on Edupunk. "Frustrated With Corporate Course-Management Systems, Some Professors Go 'Edupunk".

Blogher 'introduces' edupunk.

Links to Edupunk articles:
http://edupunk.org/

In a Former Life

Meet Your Printmaker today featured Studio Camnitzer.

Studio Camnitzer is a studio residence for artists located in the small village of Valdottavo in Tuscany, Italy; eight miles from the city of Lucca, in an 18th century farmhouse. In 2000 the studio became a centre for artist residencies after providing courses in art for nearly 25 years.



I attended one of the Studio's photoetching courses some years ago. It was a great experience. I would like to go back there one day.

Edupunk

"Enter stage left: EDUPUNK!

My next series of posts will be about what I think EDUPUNK is and the necessity for a communal vision of EdTech to fight capital’s will to power at the expense of community. I hope others will join me." Jim Groom Link

edupunk @ Mike Caulfields blog

Education as the Antichrist in bondage trousers & safety pins, or what?

Pecha Kucha in Lower Hutt

Pecha Kucha night at the New Dowse.

Featuring:

• Kris Sowersby – KLIM Type Foundry on creating typefaces, and
  
• Michel Tuffery — artist about his work

The End of the Golden Weather

Get out the merinos!

Girl Geek DInners

The next one is in Auckland for all you JAFA Girl Geeks (You know who you are).
Wednesday 28th May at Microsoft House in Auckland. More info.

The State of The New

My new 24" imac is great. Faster, better & cooler (and quieter) than the old G4. A few teething probs — a couple of apps won't run; scanner driver needs updated, etc, etc. But overall, great. And — getting used to Leopard.

But of course, about a day after I'd got the ram upgraded & set up the new machine — Apple announces a bigger, better imac!!!!

hmph. . .

Coming up in July

Am booking in for the State of Design Festival in Melbourne.

"The State of Design Festival is Victoria’s peak design event. The Festival will cover many cross-disciplinary design agendas relating to the profession of design and the marketplace that it provides to.

The Festival offers both local and international conversations on design, with a focus on design from across Victoria."

Check it out.

DEANZ Keynote Speakers

The DEANZ Keynote Speakers have been announced. They are:

Nancy White (Full Circle Associates)

Nancy White — an international expert in understanding and practicing online group facilitation of distributed work, learning and community groups (presenter, writer, teacher, coach, facilitator, rapporteur).

and

Michael Barbour

Michael Barbour — currently an Assistant Professor at Wayne State University in Detroit,
Michigan.

Mark your diaries!

The DEANZ (Distance Education Association of NewZealand's) 2008 conference is coming up:

My Place, My Space, My Learning —
Distance and Virtual Education
Sunday 17 August — Wednesday 20 August
Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand.

Keynote speakers are about to be announced.
Check out the conference site for the latest info.

The Book of Longing

The Book of Longing (Phillip Glass) was the only thing I attended at this year's International Arts Festival.



Interesting
Different
as they say.

You can here more about it at the iTunes Store (iTunes U/Stanford/Fine Arts/An Evening with Leonard Cohen and Philip Glass).

But you can't beat the real thing.

Event Planning

I want to do this
Typeshed11
and
this
SXSW
in 2009

Off Topic

Biked to Pencarrow lighthouse after work yesterday.



First time for AGES. And it took me about the longest time ever (without handicaps of stiff Northerly on way back, or husband). I have to please a slight headwind on way out & flat front tyre in my defense).

Saw lots of sheep, goats, a few fishermen, a couple of joggers & a few other cyclists.

I brought back a sheep skull for the WoWo project (of which more later, hopefully).

Anyway, need to do it a few more times to get up to speed for Wheels Beside the Water on 30 March.

E-Learning in the New Year

eLearn Magazine's predictions for 2008 are here

Webstock News

WebStock has also got CraftStock

Downtime — please!

A whole list of stuff to do in downtime is here at Freelance News.

Extra list item:

• Watch Helvetica, The Movie

Bembo, Bembo, where you going to go-e-o?

Kris Sowersby, a professional type designer from New Zealand has written about the dominance of Bembo as a typeface in New Zealand book design & some of the shortfalls of digital typography.

He talks about the difference between hand cut type for letterpress and how each font size had specific proportions and subtle variations and contrasts this to digital typography where 'one size fits all' and fonts are just enlarged to suit. He discusses how this affects especially Old Style fonts such as Bembo.
Why Bembo Sucks.

2008

A belated Happy New Year.

Back from holiday in Oz. Spent in Melbourne & the Barossa Valley & featuring a photographic 'study' of Aussie wildlife road signs. A selection of which here.