I can't has old apps!?

Eek! Leopard is starting to sound a bit scarey. Stuff isn't running on it: Acrobat Pro & for some people, InDesign CS3. There should be patches to fix this in New Year. But it looks like CS2 & Freehand won't ever run on Leopard. Better get those Illustrator skills up to scratch!

Here's some stuff. . .
"Products that will require updates for full Leopard compatibility include Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional and the company’s professional video applications, including Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, After Effects CS3 Professional, Encore CS3 and Soundbooth CS3." Link

And here are some user's comment from that site (Macworld):
"The details of Acrobat incompatibility are horrifying! So far there have been no posts from anyone who can produce an Acrobat file under Leopard. This makes Leopard COMPLETELY unusable for a large percentage of Mac users! Why was there no discussion of this before the release! How could Apple and Adobe not see this coming?"

"OSX has the ability create a PDF from any document natively in the OS. You will still be able to create PDFs (distill) but some of the more advanced functions of control in manipulating those PDFs will be unstable when using ACROBAT PRO."

"According to Adobe's web site all their CS3 graphics programs including Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, etc. are currently compatible with OSX Leopard.
By not having Acrobat 8.1.1 Professional immediately compatible, the other programs are essentially unusable to any practicing graphic designer since today's printing workflows depend on making valid PDF files."

And other comments from TUAW

"if you read the acrobat pdf carefully, you learn that acrobat runs well, except some small bugs. these minibugs will not break the main functions of acrobat. i can confirm that. so run it!"

• Check out the statement (pdf) from the Adobe site.
• If you are going to let Leopard loose, here are installation hints from MacWorld.
• Creative Guy tells us what's working and not working on his MacPro.

The Big Idea

The Big Idea is a great resource for all arts & design related stuff in New Zealand. They list events, job opportunities, workspaces, exhibitions . . .

More than 14,000 people have registered as members of The Big Idea since they launched five years ago.

OMG,YES!!

Yay, Kathy Sierra is speaking at Webstock 08!


Kathy's workshop at Webstock 06

She was such good value at the last Webstock.

Is it or isn't it?

Seraphim, in the Users' Forum at Creative Bits gives some fairly basic guidelines on what is & what isn't a logo.

Basically; keep it simple & keep it vector.

Worth a read for those of you who aren't sure -- you know who you are!

Colour my world

There are some really useful and interesting comments regarding colour (rgb & cmyk) for those of us involved in design for print. They are at Creative Bits and are in response to this question regarding rgb & cmyk conversion.


There is also a review of Skitch, which looks like its going to be a pretty useful & cool app, especially for anyone working with images. I've received an invitation and downloaded it, but have only had a very cursory go with it so far. More anon.

Book 'm, Danno!

The Top Ten Type Crimes are listed at Font.com.

Another useful reference is "The Mac is Not a Typewriter" by Robin Williams.

Logo Trends 2007

Dos Helix, Radiance, Eco Smart, Urban Vinyl, Flora...

A range of new eco friendly household products?

No. These are some of the logo design style trends for 2007 as identified by The Logo Lounge.

These and other existing and emerging trends are discussed by Bill Gardner, principal of Gardner Design and creator of LogoLounge.com.

The other big trend for 2007 logos as identified by Smashing Magazine is Leaves. (The plant kind -- not the b*ggering off kind ).

There's even a tutorial on how to make one! How good is that!

The Wayward Wind

This could be A Very Useful Tip from CreativeBits if you are shooting pics with no tripod.

It suggests that blurring in hand-held photos is caused by tiny shakes of your hand basically applying a motion blur to your images, and tells you how to fix it. I guess it's worse after a night on the town or in a Wellington southerly!


Image from Wellington Airport site

The Rapid E-Learning Blog

The Rapid E-Learning Blog "shares practical tips and tricks to help you become a rapid elearning pro."

It is hosted by Tom Kuhlmann who "has over 15 years of hands-on experience in the training industry."

Copyblogger says "The blog attracted 6,312 subscribers in the 24-hour period following the launch promotion, and now has over 8,500 and counting less than a week later."

I'm checking it out as we speak.

I Link, Therefore I Am

Some excellent sites (with feeds) for designers:
Graphic Define Magazine — "Focussing on the business of running a design studio". Issue 4 is up now.

And Smashing Magazine. It is featuring an interesting article about "Data Visualisation" and links to some cool free fonts.

A List Apart has a timely article on "Staying Motivated" by Kevin Cornell.


Gratuitous photo of Mt Ngaurahoe with halo.