Chris Kirkman Blog

New Blog Post on Miva Merchant Blog: "Web 2.0?"

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:21:00 +0000

I wrote a new blog post for the Miva Merchant website that talks about Web 2.0 design trends.

Check it out over on the Miva Merchant Blog

Image Formatting for the Web

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:59:00 +0000

We all remember those days when we would sit there and wait for our internet to connect with that awful dial up sound and then view those simplistic websites that would load slow, even with minimal images. The internet has come a long way since then and most of us have super high speed internet connections at home and at work. Even our cell phones can load websites with all kinds of eye candy hundreds of times faster than ten years ago. Not everyone has these super high speed connections in the United States, and especially in a lot of places around the globe. Sure we all have heard about some of those Asian countries that have internet connections 10+ times faster than the average broadband user here, but overall most people still do not have as fast of a connection as you might think.

I am a graphic and web designer who is all about making things look pretty and giving the user a great visual experience. Sometimes for usability purposes, you have to make some sacrifices on the visual side.

Slower connections do not like sharp and fancy images all over the place. This does not mean that you shouldn't have a lot of images on your website, but means that the appearance of your website is held hostage by the purpose of your website and who will primarily be viewing it.

For audiences who are typically younger and more "hip" with all the latest technology, I will go to town with designing a site with images with very little web optimization... meaning they will be super sharp and have very smooth edges. Sites designed for a wider audience (which is generally how it is), I will optimize the images a lot in order to keep the load times down. For international audiences, a site might end up with images even further optimized.

Most people when they hear the word "optimization," in reference to the web, they tend to think of SEO (search engine optimization) but optimization is also used with images to better the load time of a website. Image optimization is all about compression and the use of less and less colors.

Higher quality images might have thousands and thousands of colors used to render that crisp looking image. When optimizing your images, popularly through Adobe Photoshop, mostly what is happening is colors that are similar to each other are getting changed into the same color value. As you decrease the amount of colors used, it is eliminating more and more information within that saved file that assigns each specific pixel to be colored what it is colored. In doing this, the quality of the image is decreased as well as the file size of the image. The smaller the file size, the faster it loads... making it better for people with slower connections. The art comes in where you are able to decrease the file size enough and still keep most of the quality of the image. You want to decrease the size of the file just enough so that it loads fast while making it so that it is really not noticeable that the quality of the image has decreased.

Above you will find a photo where Figure 1 and 2 display different image qualities. Both are optimized and enlarged to show a little more detail. You will notice that Figure 1 has a lot more pixelation/fuzziness where the red of the roof meets the blue sky. This is because the image has mostly red, white, and blue colors in it and similar colors are banded together and the additional colors, mostly the ones used in the transition from red to blue, are missing in order to crunch the file size. Figure 1 is about 1/7th the size of of Figure 2.

Deciding what file format to output your image as can really play with the appearance of the image and the file size. In the image above with the attractive purple buttons, the top button is outputted as a PNG and the bottom is a GIF. You will notice that the optimized GIF does not allow as smooth of a transition in the purple gradient and the edges look a lot more pixelated. This is because a lot of those extra colors are missing and the edges of it are a lot more jagged. The GIF does allow transparency, also known as an alpha channel, but all color must be 100% there or not there at all. The reason why the PNG has much more smooth edges has to do with it allowing different percentages of color in the pixels that appear transparent. This will allow this image format to have that nice drop shadow and the smooth edges because it will have pixels next to where it would have jagged edges, if it was a GIF, that are slightly colored differently and of a percentage of transparency. This is able to appear to be of a higher quality and smoothness since it has those extra pixels and transparency to fill in the gaps where the eye would see a jagged edge. Adding these extra pixels is known as "antialiasing." The PNG is about 7 times the file size of that GIF and overall adds a lot more pizazz to the appearance of the button.

I will always first pay attention to the purpose and audience of the website I am designing but will always try to allow things to look a little bit better, even if the user has to wait a few more moments for the site to load. People know if they have a slow connection and are used to waiting for more modern websites to load more than if they were on a faster connection. A usability expert might disagree with me, but I feel that it is OK to preserve a little more quality in order to give an overall better visual experience.

Poorly Listed Gigs

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:04:00 +0000

A lot of my nights and weekends are spent on various freelance project from my great returning clients but occasionally if I have some spare time I will hop on CraigsList and see what else is out there. It is becoming an extremely annoying trend for potential clients to post listings in the Gigs section that really do not give anywhere near the correct amount of information needed for someone like me to properly respond and possible land that gig.
Poorly Listed Gigs
Here is an example of something that I found today that inspired me to post something...

Title: Graphic Designer

Listing:
must be local. put sd in your subject line
skills:
Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and Flash

include:
sample work, phone number, expected compensation

Now that gives me a ton of information... NOT! I have been using Photoshop and Illustrator for close to ten years now and Dreamweaver and Flash for about five so I am more than qualified to do whatever they are requesting... and from the looks of their listing, any college student with 2 months of experience would also. The thought came to my mind that I would respond to their post but then I realized that it will end up going to some college student who will say that they can do whatever they ask for $20... with out knowing even what is needed.

I charge differently depending on the project. Most things can be a flat rate for the project, like a basic website, a Flash banner, or a logo design, but things like an update to a website or editing images, basically modifications and updates to things already created, I would charge by the hour. Different items take different levels of knowledge, experience, and skill and with that I charge accordingly. I have developed a lot of speed over the years so I can provide a large level of detail (I can make things look good) in less hours than others... so with that, I end up charging more than others might. Basically, they end up getting high quality of work but it it ends up getting done in less time, but they still end up paying about the same because it is done in less time but with a higher hourly rate. A more complex Flash animation might take me the same amount of time as a logo design, but since it is more in-depth and takes a higher level of knowledge, experience, and skill, it can end up costing more money all together than the logo would cost. So with the posting I listed above, there is really no way I would be able to properly give them the expected compensation since they gave really no information. And since the listing has no grammar or structure to it, it shows that they really are not that serous of a client. Such a post would never attract anyone who is capable of creating quality work and things like that will only attract students and those who will not be able to deliver anything worth having your business name on.

I also see a lot of "should only take a couple of hours" with a "compensation $50 max for a couple of hours of your time," and a lot of these types of listings require you to meet in person with them. A lot of students and inexperienced people might jump at it because it is a quick and easy gig, but they do not realize that this quick and easy thing might go over the 2 hours and they still have to take time to travel to the client. In a big county of San Diego and there being a large amount of traffic during rush hours, you could end up spending an hour or two+, round trip, just getting to your client. There is time taken going back and forth with this client over email before you even get the gig. Even if you don't have to meet with them in person, you still have to spend a lot of time communicating with them in order to figure out what exactly what they want before you even end up starting on the project. The bottom line is that nobody should take any of these small gigs that are worth less than $100 since you will most of the time end up working at least $50 worth of that getting to the client or just communicating with them over email or the phone. I have refused business that was under $150 before and tend to only do these quick and easy jobs for my returning clients who I have already established a good working relationship with, in which I am able to efficiently get what they need done quickly and affordable for them.

In a previous post I write about how I ended up meeting with a client 3 times and spending hours going back and forth over email with them about all sorts of change in directions they were taking with this Flash animation I was building for them. Sure, I provided great service and gave them exactly what they wanted, but all of this was just for $200. I received the $100 deposit up front and their check for the remaining $100 was made out to the wrong name (on my invoice in bold I list who to make it out to). I sent the check back and their President has not sent a new one back to me as promised. After several emails and calls, I still have nothing, but for just $100 it is really not worth me wasting any more time on it since I gave them what I can estimate being about $800+ worth of time and efforts.

Watch out for these quick and easy jobs and always account for the necessary time needed for communication and changes. Make sure you put that time in with how you quote them, even if it is an hourly estimate and not a flat rate.

Internships: Don't Give In!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:51:00 +0000

For a lot of industries/professions/jobs/vocations, internships can be beneficial, but for people looking to get into graphic design and/or web design they could just be a waste of time. I will admit that I am lazy, but with that I try to be as efficient as possible and not wast any time. Time management is important and can bring you success. In a lot of cases, for graphic and web design, internships pay very low (and sometimes nothing) and are just a great way for a businesses to get inexpensive labor... which translates to inexpensive creativity that they would otherwise have to pay a lot of money for. A well trained graphic or web designer with really no portfolio still can be very capable to output fantastic work at the quality of someone who would cost a lot more and businesses know it and businesses take advantage of it.

We have all seen those CraigsList, or other listings, for people who want some sort of creative service done for either free or next to nothing. They always say something like: "great for a college student or someone building their portfolio." This is what an internship can be but for many projects and many, many hours of your time.

Everybody starts at some point and everybody needs to take on experience and have examples of that experience (a portfolio) in order to move forward and gain more work in the future and/or make a career out of it. A typical starting point is to start taking classes for it. Photoshop, and the long list of graphic and web design software tools used by graphic and web designers, are not super easy to learn and can take many, many years to learn and master.

So you might start by taking a class or two from a local college or some workshop at the convention center and decide that this is what you want to do. The you enroll in a college to obtain a certificate and/or degree in this. Then you graduate and your portfolio is littered with mediocre class projects you did within school. So with no experience or portfolio with real projects, you have the knowledge of how to work the software and the principles of design in your head. You see all these internships and figure that working next to nothing, or for free, will give you that extra experience and add to your portfolio. Internships do add to your portfolio and do give you experience but they are not the greatest stepping stone in your quest to become one of the more successful designers in your area with a great job and/or list of great clients which is able to pay you enough to live off of or buy you that new Nintendo game.

Graphic and web design is not like being a plumber or being a person who installs roof tiles. I am not saying that those other lines of work do not take skill that needs to be learned but am saying that design takes a lot more experience and training and is not something that should be improperly compensated for. I get so disappointed when I see these listings for people who are only willing to spend $50 on a logo design or an internship paying minimum wage. I know that there is someone who will end up taking that and when that happens, is lowers the overall value of the work all graphic and web designers do. I won't go into that much, but you can see an earlier blog post that talks more about that. We all want to make money to pay the bills or take that trip to Hawaii next summer with the wife, but nobody should work for a small fraction of what their services are really worth.

I have some suggestions that do not include seeking an internship. While you are obtaining your certificate/training/degree in graphic and/or web design, go out there and grasp your own experience. Work extra hard to obtain experience and be properly compensated for it. You do not need that diploma to gain extra work so why start gaining experience once you have it? Force yourself to act as a professional and pull off fantastic work for your clients. Do not act like a student who is just trying to gain experience.

In the beginning, you will not have the speed and quickness that a 10 year veteran has and things will take you a long time to complete, but work through it and study what makes great design what it is. So often I see people who are in school to obtain a degree in design and they graduate with no experience and just a portfolio full of fake projects for fake clients. Your time of training may take years and limiting yourself to only learning from what your instructor shows you and not actively furthering your skills and experience during this time period is only holding you back. Once you graduate, you will be so far ahead of others graduating and get the work before they do... and better, higher paying work.

The job market is very rough right now and so many people are out there competing for any job or freelance gig. there were several instances where there were close to 300 people responding to the same job listing that I was. You need to elevate yourself and show you are worth more than your competition. When finishing your training/certificate/degree, why not already have that experience and not have to go out there to work next to nothing to gain it? You will save yourself a lot of time and be that much stronger in the job market.

Internships can also be very positive but it is always a gamble. It can lead to obtaining a job at that company and with that can come decent pay. All of that is never certain and more often than not, I see that these internships end up benefiting the company more than the individual.

Gain that extra experience by working hard at it in the beginning. In the long run, you will be much better off... and a lot sooner.

Getting a college degree is important for a graphic and web designer.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:35:00 +0000

Two years before I graduated high school I started a very small business that required artwork to be screen printed onto various things. The artwork that was printed onto such things had to come from somewhere and being that I was only about 16, I did not have a lot of money to pay a graphic designer to do the work for me. I had always been artistic and would draw and also do oil paintings so there was some artistic abilities that I had, but I just did not know how to use a computer to make art. Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop soon became things that I had to become an expert at in order to succeed. That was how I got into graphic design and web design.

I graduated highschool and then started taking Illustrator and Photoshop classes at a local community college. I had already learned a lot about how to use these computer programs the past couple of years but these classes opened up a lot of knowledge that I could have only obtained from there. My Illustrator class professor told me that you do not really need school on your resume to land good jobs and that a great portfolio is a lot more important than anything else. Such advice caused more harm than it did any good.

Experience is very important and a good portfolio shows off your experience and abilities. With graphic and web design, your portfolio carries you a lot more than your resume does. My professor was right about that but he was not so correct about leading all of us to believe that taking a few design classes will set us up with some great jobs and make us successful.

Some people take a few classes and then try to snag some creative gigs or maybe even a job in this field. That develops experience but some of that experience is nearly worthless if you are doing things wrong... why show off such work. Other people go to school to obtain a degree in this subject and really do not gain any real experience until they obtain their degree. Both methods are flawed. It is important to combine the two.

A lot of people want that degree to slap onto their resume and they put it up near the top on that sheet of paper. They want to show that they have the professional training, though their portfolio might be littered with almost all their work being school projects.

I spent years thinking I was this great designer and quit school for a couple of years after I took a few classes at that community college. I got into real estate and just thought that I could do design on the side. I found out that I hated real estate so I decided to go back to school and get a degree in design.

A few years later I obtained my degree and looked back at my work I had done before schooling and realized that it was not near as great as the things that I was now creating and found many things that I would have done differently now. I had experience and a decent portfolio before going back to school and while in school I was gaining a lot of experience working full time in the field as well as doing a lot of freelance work.

Sure, those three extra years of experience I obtained while back in college would have still been three years of experience outside of college, but the point is that college taught me the right way of going about creating things and expanded my knowledge greatly in these various areas of expertise that I have. I would have been worse off if I did not go to school and get my degree and I would have been worse off if I would have just started all of my experience the day I finished school.

It is very important to work extra hard to gain experience while you are being trained in anything. If I went to school for learning how to type really fast on the computer, it would be beneficial to start utilizing these skills while I am in that class than if I would only put these new skills to practice against the projects and training materials that were within that class.

I put my information on my professional training now closer to the bottom of my resume. When potential employers see your schooling as one of the top things on your resume, they assume that it is very important and that you only have experience starting from that date you graduated up until today. Such a thing bit me when I got one of my past jobs. I had just graduated then and they were only crediting me for my experience I had from the date I graduated and pretty much threw out the window the extra close to seven years of experience that I actually had.

Such a thing can be a very large road block that can get in your way of getting a higher paying job. Someone being treated as entry level with seven years of experience... something is wrong with that. Put the important things higher on your resume than the less important things. Your experience you obtained while in school is much more important that where you graduated from and when you graduated. Having that diploma is very important but it will not keep you from getting a job if you have a solid portfolio. What will keep you from getting that job is if you have cruddy work because you did not expand your knowledge and skills in college. You can obtain this knowledge and expanded skills outside of a professional institution of learning but it will be a lot harder to get there and take a lot more time and maybe not do as much for you.

Deciding What Clients to Take and Making Yourself Shine in a Bad Economy

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:54:00 +0000

This is just a quick post (well right now it appears in my mind that it will be but knowing how much I get carried away, it might be lengthy)... this is just a quick post talking about my experience with freelance clients, especially in a "bad economy."

Some of us like to have day jobs with a secure and predictable set income. Others are freelancers and contractors who want to be their own boss and have more freedom to stay up late, sleep in, and just go to the beach in the middle of the day if they wanted to... just live life more flexibly and freely. I have been doing both: work during the day and do freelance work at night and on the weekends, but instead of that added flexibility, I add less free time and more stress to my life. With the bad economy, I was laid off at the beginning of March, 2009. Being uncertain what will happen in the coming months, I ramped up my number of freelance clients in order to attempt to make up for the lack of "secure and predictable set income."

With this economy in the situation it is in, a lot of companies are laying off some of their creative staff to cut back on salary spending and they can easily do this because they are cutting back overall on budgets for advertising and other things that demand creative persons. I was one of these people.

CraigsList.org is a great place to pick up extra clients and some quick side jobs. This has been something that I have been using over the years in my freelance time at night and on the weekend. I have found my past three full time jobs on there as well.

The country is saturated with out-of-work creative professionals and there is a lot of competition. With that, there is a lot of freelance/contract gigs out there. It is a lot less expensive to hire someone to do a quick ad or website change for you than to have someone full time on your payroll who only has something to do once a week. Businesses are hitting up Craigs List and other sites like crazy and posting their ad for someone to do all this work that used to be handled in-house.

I will save this for another post, but even if you are a college student or someone just at very junior level looking to add something to your portfolio and gain experience, please do not do work for 1/10th the cost of what the going rate for something really is professionally done. This lowers the overall rates of the whole creative economy and will bite you in the future. We all start somewhere and we all are super happy to get those first few gigs and earn a few extra bucks, but such low rates gradually make everyone only want to pay these lowered rates since they can have a college student or "my friends son who knows Photoshop" do it. You do get what you pay for though, and that ends up sometimes making people who want better work firing their inexpensive creative person for someone who will get the job done good for a higher price.

So, to really start to get into what this blog post is about... just about all of us could use a few extra bucks in these harder times and we are more grateful for what we have and more willing to take these jobs with a lot lower compensation.

It is not about doing the same job for half the price or cutting your regular fee by 25% but more so what kind of client you will get. I always do these simple projects for friends and family for free and some more complex things for a very discounted rate just to cover some of my time that I have had to take away from other things that pay a little better. Friends and family do not count. What count are the clients who right away say they want this simple thing but for half the price of what the simple thing would normally cost you to do it. Almost 9 out of 10 times these clients end up blowing the project out and making it way larger and along with that, they end up being the most high maintenance and hard to work with. It feels like this is the case every single time and after talking to many other creative people that I have known over the years, they experience the exact same thing.

You get good at golf by playing it a lot and studying how to better your game. The same is applies to all other sports and also the creative trades such as graphic design, web design, and videography. It takes training, studying, and experience to get good at any of these creative trades. If you are just starting out, do not take ten of these small jobs with low pay. That will bring you some experience, sure, but it will 9 out of 10 times give you a huge headache and demand a ton of extra time and effort. Gain experience from taking one of those jobs that does pay well and is a larger project. Clients who are willing to recognize good creative work and properly compensate for it tend to be a bit more organized and easy to work with. These projects go by easier and get finished up a lot sooner. Do one of those then with you extra experience, extra money (that makes you feel much better about yourself), and extra time saved with dealing with a more organized client... go snag another one of these better gigs. Be more picky with what you take... do not just take anything you can get, no matter what the pay is. If you are hurting that bad for money, go work part time at a grocery store or restaurant until you can make ends meet as a creative professional.

It is important to make sure that you obtain a decent deposit for the project before you start, along with a good contract with everything spelled out of exactly what you will be doing and what the process will be. This is added work on your end but will save you from a lot of potential problems. I just get lazy some times on "simple projects" that are low paying and do not create as detailed of a contract. Here are some recent examples...

I was looking hard for some extra cash from some quick jobs that I could do in my free time and was hired to do a "very basic flash banner" for about $200 which is about half of what I normally would charge for anything like that... but I figured it wold be "very basic" and take me a few hours of an afternoon in a weekend. The project took three (3!!!) months to get finally completed and I met with the client three times while making several revisions and changes to the direction it went. Overall I most likely spent just about eight hours or so on it, including the in-person meetings, but for freelance that is a lot more time than $200 is worth. I am fair and easy to work with but low paying clients almost always bring trouble.

Another client wanted to go by an hourly rate for several easy projects and was only going to pay me about 30% of what my desired hourly rate is... but I calculated it would only be about an extra few hours a week that I would have spent watching TV or something non-constructive so I took the gig. Communication was lacking and the projects got drawn out way too long. The client wold give me non-detailed information, hardly email me any information, and would sometimes take half a week or so to return my emails or comment on what I had done... always giving good feedback though. I had also gotten sick three times, off and on, throughout the course of a month and a half so that added some delays due to health reasons. In the end I walked.

Throughout the process the client was very happy with the work being done and would make nice compliments on the quality of the work. In the end, they appeared to have run out of money on other projects with other contractors and changed their whole attitude toward everything and only wanted to honor about half of my hours and not even honor the full hourly rate decided on... but all, of course, only when the project was completed and they were most happy with it (essentially I was working for free if I wanted to finish this and make pocket change). I had dropped the ball a little bit on properly documenting (over email and other provable ways) some of the time spent but the process had been so good and the client was happy the whole way through... until the end. I was not charging them for the hours of phone conversations we had or the in-person meetings we had so in the end, I would only be making $170 out of the potential $500. I walked and closed communication with them. I am not going to take someone to court over something so little. It was just a huge wast of time and something that in the end just added to my stress level, which is high enough already. I assume that the client might have wanted to just steal my finished project and implement it later behind my back but if they do that I could take them to court, but now, I really do not care... I do not want them to know where I live to deliver payment by mail or by physically coming there. Some people are just scary and unreasonable and will use young and talented creative professionals like myself.

It is very easy for these underfunded businesses to prey on people to create something great for them and to then turn around and show complete disapproval and demand to not pay for it, only later to steal the work they had done. With web design, it is especially easy to do this. It is routine for you to sent the client several flat images (usually JPEGs) so the look is decided before any code is put down for the site. If you are not careful, these clients can hate your work all of the sudden in the end and decide not to go with you and just take your images, give them to a programmer, and save that whole cost of the design for the look and feel of the website.

When I was laid off I did the proper things needed to aid me in obtaining another full time job in my profession. I was still sick and my voice sounded like a frog so interviewing was kind of out of the question at that moment. Before I was able to interview, I needed to "make my self shine" in the huge pool of hundreds of people in San Diego in my profession who are out of work or seeking something new work.

Image is everything. How you appear to those seeking someone to work for them is very important. I was not about to send out my resume that had not been updated in two and a half years or email people my outdated personal portfolio website, showcasing all my old work. I was going to take this time that I sounded like a frog and get my image pumped up a little.

I started by updating my resume with my last position held along with my long list of clients and what I did for all of them. I had originally categorized things by what I did for them (such as logo design, website design, etc...) but restructured it by having a Professional Experience section and then a Freelance Experience section where I just listed each business and a quick description of what I did for them. This allowed me to (barely) fit everything all on one page with pages following more of optional pages that were just letters of recommendation and references.

Other restructuring I later did was moving my design degree and design certificate (education) section further down. That was a mistake I had possibly made the mast couple of jobs by keeping it up there. I have been what I do since the year 2000 and this years makes it 9 years I have been doing this. If you stick your "training" up at the top, potential employers are going to think that it is one of your most important features and that you have only been doing what you do since the date you graduated. This was just a leftover from when I first created this when I was first graduating.

I am a young guy and had spent years as a freelancer and contractor even before I entered and finished my Certificate and then Bachelors Degree. Of course the five years of extra education I received for my professions also were five years I was also working in this field. I had a full time job as a lead graphic designer and web designer years before I finished my schooling and was freelancing at night and on the weekend. It is extra important to stick that education further down (even almost last on the page), especially if 80% of the space is filled by your list of positions you have held and long list of clients. If you have little experience and obtained all your knowledge and most of your experience in school, it is a lot more important to place that higher up on your resume.

Next came my portfolio. In the world of a person providing creative services, they need to show off what they are capable of and most of that comes from the visual examples in their online portfolio. Years ago when I first touched Flash, I fell in love with the program and have been extensively using it ever since. Once I learned that program, right away I redesigned my website all in Flash and it looked fantastic. Flash is bad for SEO (search engine optimization) purposes but the only people viewing my website were going to be people I gave my website address to anyway so I decided to make a great looking Flash website for myself (which ended up gaining me more clients). As I gained more and more experience, I realized how hard this thing was to maintain and add new projects to showcase. That site only lasted about six months before I scrapped it and redesigned a nice, clean, and simple HTML website that I could update in just moments.

After getting laid off, updating my website with projects that I had done for my previous employer and for freelance clients was easy. It just took me about an hour or so to nearly double what I had on there already.

I had my resume in order and my portfolio updated so I was ready to get out there and obtain new employment. The day I got laid off, I was already at work looking at what was out there on the long list of websites that companies post jobs on and was amazed by how many jobs were on there. During the time I was updating my resume and portfolio, and getting rid of the frog voice, I was constantly bookmarkng job listings that I am qualified for. Even though the economy is bad and everyone with a job right now is very thankful for it, I was still picky with what I took interest in. Disaster can provide opportunity and this was the case with my situation that many people would call a misfortune or a curse.

A week after I was laid off and after I regained my voice, I remained positive and confident that I could allow this situation to move me forward (and upward). I was confident that God and my resume and portfolio would provide me with a way to prosper out of what looked like a disaster. Having faith and confidence, I sent my resume out to only the businesses I desired to work for. I received a high percentage rate of calls and emails back and attended interviews just days after sending things out.

I was only out of work for two weeks and two days before I started my new job. Hearing that I beat 160 applicants they received within the first 48 hours of their listing, and a possible 250+ overall, brings a smile to my face. I have been blessed and a lot of that blessing can be blamed to have been given to me by God and the resume and portfolio.

It is also important to interview well and to have a good personality. It is also important to "dress to impress" at interviews and when meeting with large clients but I live in California, I am young, and I like to be comfortable. I do still put gel in my hair and do not wear a suit and tie to interviews. I buy a nice sweater vest, a nice collared shirt, and dress pants and cut back a little on the amount of gel (now more called styling putty or something like that) I put in my hair. You can look great like you are headed to the academy awards but if you are not able to prove what you are worth to a business or client you are interviewing with, you will not get far.

Have a great resume, well rounded and awesome portfolio, look nice, and be easy to talk to and you will succeed.

Crysis Warhead

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:41:00 +0000

Crysis had an amazing singleplayer and multiplayer and my team reached within the top five teams in the world for it but things are slowly fizzling out. People are losing interest now that the leagues are over. (You can see my previous post on Crysis.) It was recently announced that there will be another Crysis game coming out, Crysis Warhead, and it will be out soon.

Crysis was great because it brought the best graphics ever seen in a game as well as amazing physics and... well, pretty much the game just felt like a real world since everything around you acted and felt real. Looking at human skin, you could see the pours of their skin and wrinkles... all the textures and shadows were perfect. The only major problem was that it took a beast of a computer to be able to play the game like it was meant to be played. I got it running on my old Alienware laptop that just has a gig or RAM and a 6800 video card... but on that it was not playable. I had to buy a new video card, an 8800, to get it to work on my desktop and then I ended up just building another new computer that was more beefy. So most folks are not able to run out there and buy or build a 15 hundred dollar computer just to play one game but some did and some were able to experience Crysis the way it was meant to be played.... and it is amazing.

The original Crysis took place from the eyes of some sort of US military special operations guy that went by Nomad. He worked with his team and they utilized these nonosuits that gave them the ability to cloak themselves, add some extra strength, run faster, and have some extra armor -- all of which only one of those features could be one at a time and would be depleted with use. The game is, in a nutshell, about (much like the movie War of the Worlds) an alien ship that was buried inside the ground of Earth (this time in a mountain of an island in the Pacific Ocean). The US and North Koreans have interest in this energy they find in this area and are both fighting to investigate... then they end up 'waking' it, or something, and a bunch of the aliens end up coming out of the ship and using their tactic -- freeze Earth. Nomad only gets so far and the game ends sort of open ended.

The new game, Warhead, takes place from the eyes of another one of Nomad's team mates named Psycho. Nomad interacted with different team mates throughout the game, here and there, but each team mate ended up seeing different things and going a different rout different times. Psycho spent the majority of the game away from Nomad on the other side of the island. Warhead is a story told from the eyes of Psycho. It is supposed to have a lot of new weapons, a ton of more action, and as good or even better of a story that shows what else happened on the other side of the Island. The first Crysis had a lot of exploring and not a lot of gigantic fight scenes with large explosions and heavy firepower. This new one is supposed to.

So... I and my team at 760 are very excited about this new game. Warhead is supposed to be a bit optimized better for people with lower computer specs so that should open the door for a whole lot more people to be able to play it... and of course allow the people with beefy machines to crank up the settings so they can view the game the way it was meant to be played. Keep your eye out for Crysis Warhead... should be out within this year on September 16th, 2008.

Solana Beach Shark Attack and La Jolla Seals

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:01:00 +0000

Recently a man, Dr. David Martin, in his 60s was attacked and killed by a Great White shark about 450ft out in Solana Beach, California, in San Diego County. It was said to be a 15 to 16ft shark. Usually Great White sharks and other sharks of that size tend to live in colder waters in Northern California. La Jolla, also in San Diego County and just miles South of Solana Beach, has its share of sharks but they are usually a lot smaller than that and for the most part, harmless. The Leopard sharks in shallow sandy beaches of La Jolla are a popular place for people to snorkel since these sometimes six foot sharks are harmless and fascinating to swim with. There are other larger sharks that people frequently see while diving in the kelp beds of La Jolla but they have not been known to attack divers out there.

Just a little South of the La Jolla Shores and La Jolla Cove is a man-made sea-wall that surrounds a beach called the Children's Pool. Recently environmental activists have gotten their way and this beach is now a sanctuary for a large seal population. On any given day you will find sometimes over one hundred seals on this beach and on the surrounding rocks of La Jolla. I like to kayak in the La Jolla area and just got an apartment in that area so I call La Jolla now my home. In 2007 a local kayaker was kayaking just around the Cove area, somewhere I kayak all the time, and spotted a large shadow move under him. As he started to pay closer attention he was able to make out the distinct shark features. It was only about ten feet below the surface and was about twenty feet long, using his big kayak as a reference for size. The only shark of that size that is in these waters is a Great White.

I have lived in San Diego County all of my life and have seen several sharks in the water but none this size. Some have said it has been fifty years since a fatal shark attach in this area and the death of David Martin has made national news as a result. The past few years there has been more of an increase of Great White shark spottings in this area and many believe it is a result of the seal population. I share this belief.

With the seals taking over a once popular safe beach, originally designated for children, there is a very safe breeding ground for them and this is a prime spot for sharks to feed. The seal population has been heavily concentrated to this area right next to the La Jolla Cove and La Jolla Shores which are areas very populated by swimmers, kayakers, surfers, snorkelers, divers, and other people who partake in recreational water activities in this beautiful destination. Every time I go kayaking or swimming in that area, I definitely see at least twenty seals. They are everywhere be it on the rocks or just floating in the water, basking in the sun. They will just pop up next to your kayak or next to you swimming from time to time also. They are pretty much everywhere.

Something needs to be done about this. The beach designated for the seals should be moved to a place elsewhere not so close to popular beaches filled with people. Many people predict that the shark attacks will become more and more frequent. It is not the sharks trying to eat people. They are mistaking us for one of the seals that there is an over abundance of in this area. Larger sharks, such as these Great White sharks, usually use deeper water to feed since they are large and attack from the bottom using that depth. With a heavy concentration of seals being in some of the shallower water, this might draw them in closer. Divers with their fins and black wet suits look a whole lot like seals, especially in some of the murky water churned up by the water crashing into the rocks. It is only a matter of time until someone gets attacked again and then spit out because he or she did not taste like a seal. With the mouth the size of a 16+ foot Great White shark and razer sharp teeth, just a testing nibble is enough to kill and in the case of Dr. David Martin, that is what happened to him.

Things I Like About Adobe CS3 Master Collection: My Quick, Mini Review

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:34:00 +0000

This could be known as my first review of Adobe CS3 Master Collection. I have already posted several times about how excited I was for the launch of this suite of software and now it has been out for six months or so.

Graphic Design
I am very excited about the many features this suite includes. The biggest thing I like the most is the integration they all have between each other. An example of this can be found in Flash. In previous versions of Flash (before Adobe bought Macromedia) you would have to export all your design elements from Photoshop and Illustrator and then import them one-by-one into Flash. Now you can just save your Photoshop or Illustrator file and then bring it into Flash. It will allow you to preserve all your layers and layer names that you created in Photoshop. A lot of the time I would be laying out my Flash websites/animations/ads in Photoshop and Illustrator and then have to one by one migrate each element into Flash and then organize each thing on top of one another in the appropriate sequence in the layers. Now I just save one file, open it in Flash, tell it to preserve my layers, and BANG... it is done. This feature can sometimes save hour of work. On Flash ads I would create, it could save me up to 80% of the time it was originally taking me. Dreamweaver also has some great Photoshop integration and many of the other products do as well. Just using elements from Illustrator into Photoshop has gotten a bit more advanced with what you can do more with the Smart Objects.

Video
The video applications are amazing in CS3. Final Cut is great, and so are a lot of the other leading video editing tools, but I have found that the video tools inside CS3 are the most dangerous because of the great integration they have with each other. I can take an animated title I made in After Effects (motion graphics software) and just save the project file. I just import that project file into Premiere (video editing software) and it acts just like a video file that I had rendered from After Effects. Not only is this great because it saves rendering time, it is also great because I can make further edits to that same After Effects project file, re-save it, and then it automatically updates inside Premiere with out any rendering or exportation of a video file. This saves tones of time and makes for a much more efficient work flow. Of course, Photoshop and Illustrator have great integration with the video tools as well. I also like Sound Booth. Sometimes there is a car horn or a hum from an overhead vent that is not that noticeable when recording. Sound booth allows you to edit out that sound frequency with out hurting the audio you are trying to preserve. This makes for crisp, clear, and clean sound that you can directly edit by a click of a button while inside Premiere and when you save it, it updates the sound inside your existing video you are working on within Premiere.

Conclusion
These are just a few things that blew my mind after using this software the past months. Adobe CS3 Master Collection is the most mind blowing software suite I have ever seen and used and every creative professional who is as well rounded as me, dabbling in design and video, should most definitely have it. It is a bit pricey but worth every penny. It costs $2,500 for the Master Collection but if you are a student you can get it for around $1,500 or even upgrade if you own an old Adobe Creative Suite or a Macromedia suite. They also have five other types of suites for creative professionals (geared toward graphic design, web design, and video) and the Master Collection has all of that software included.

The Master Collection comes with everything found in the other five versions of CS3 which include:

Adobe InDesign® CS3
Adobe Photoshop® CS3 Extended
Adobe Illustrator® CS3
Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional
Adobe Flash® CS3 Professional
Adobe Dreamweaver® CS3
Adobe Fireworks® CS3
Adobe Contribute®
Adobe After Effects® CS3 Professional
Adobe Premiere® Pro CS3
Adobe Soundbooth™ CS3
Adobe Encore® CS3
Plus Adobe OnLocation™ CS3 (Windows® only) and Adobe Ultra® CS3 (Windows only)

Cloverfield

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:50:00 +0000

One word... "AWESOME!" That is how I describe this movie. If I had to give it a rating, it would be an 8.5 out of 10. I am not going to give away the movie but it basically is just the footage taken right off someones video camera during a catastrophic event that happened in New York City... of course fictional. You see the movie through the small digital video camera as if you were there filming it yourself. This is what makes the movie so intense. Of course they did not film the movie with small $300 DV cameras but used nice hi-def Sony ones that cost a hundred times more... but the way they shot it sure appeared to be just like how your uncle Joe would have video taped your grandmother's 70th birthday party but with a ton of action and near death experiences.

The movie starts with some wording on a screen saying that this was a video tape that took account of something called "Cloverfield" that happened at what was once known as Central Park in New York. Then the end of the movie just ends in credits right when the tape in the camera runs out. A standard Mini-DV tape on a standard digital video camera lasts about an hour but this movie was close to two hours long. It is interesting because all you see is what is on the tape. There is no explanation what the thing devastating the city really is and you do not know exactly what happens to some of the main characters at the end of the film once the time runs out.

My New Volvo S60R

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 16:01:00 +0000

My father bought a Volvo in the early '90s. He passed that down to me when I started driving. 3 days before I was to get it, somebody hit him and the car was totaled. I then bought a black Volvo 850 Turbo. That was totaled in a parking lot in a hit and run... I came out from work and my car was destroyed. I then bought a silver Volvo S80 T6, a twin turbo inline 6 cylinder. That was a great car, nice inside, and pretty fast. I had started racking up a ton of miles on it and it started getting expensive to fix.

I have always been a Volvo fan. I feel that you get a lot for your money with Volvo. They are nicer inside than the equivalent BMW or Benz, safe, and pretty fast with their turbo models.

I had been eying the S60R since before I had the S80 T6. It is Volvo's answer to the BMW M3 and M5. I have watched numerous videos online showing what this car can do and have seen the S60R beat the M3 and M5 in races as well as win on the track against various other cars like the Lotus. Most of these photos are of my car taken for the original online AutoTrader listing.

After paying 13 hundred bucks for 4 stupid censors on my S80 T6 I decided it was time to get rid of it. I saw online this nice blue S60R with under 5K miles on it for a pretty good price. I was over there the next day to look at it. That weekend I had traded in my T6 for the R.

The S60 is kinda in the middle of the pack in the line up of cars Volvo makes. The S40 is a bit smaller and my old S80 is a little bit larger. Volvo makes something like 4 or 5 different versions of S60. There is your standard S60 with a smaller engine and then you have your various turbo versions and cars with larger engines. Then you have the S60R which is in almost a class of its own. Volvo has 6 different classes of cars. The V6 AWD new S80 is in the hightest class, class number 6. And the S60R is in its own class of number 5. They built the car drastically different than the rest of the S60s or any other Volvo.

The breaks are upgraded. Power Assisted ABS brakes, ventilated 13 inch discs front and ventilated 13 inch discs rear. Brembo four-piston aluminum calipers. Featuring EBA(Electronic Brake Assistance) and EBD (Electronic Brake Distribution) between front and rear brakes. Stopping distance 60-0mph: 118 ft. That is stopping power!

The engine has crazy pickup! It is an In-Line 2.5 Liter Five-Cylinder High-Presure turbo engine with CVVT on both exhaust and inlet sides with double overhead camshafts, 20 valves. There is a dual charged-air coolers (Intercoolers). It puts out 300hp at 6000rpm with 295 ft./lbs. 1850-6000rpm (Pre-loaded Rear wheels for take off) of torque. It has a 6 speed automatic with Geartronic which allows you to shift manually when wanted. I have read that the 0-60 has been clocked at 5.4 on a stock R.

The R is all wheel drive and has an adjustable chassis with three driving modes (Comfort, Sport, Advanced). The comfort gives the car a comfortable ride and sucks up all the bumps in the road. Sport tightened things a little. Advanced brings the beast out of the car. It automatically engages the "S" button (superdrive/overdrive) and really tightens things down. You can feel every grain of sand on the road.

Cornering is great in this mode. Dynamic Stability and Traction Control with Anti-Skid system also is there to aid you. I have not really pushed this car yet but from the cornering I have done, in Advanced mode with the all wheel drive and the STC engaged, I have not had the car slip. It just corners like nothing I have been in before. The 18" Pegasus 5-Spoke Aluminum wheels with Pirelli P-Zero Rosso tires also help.

The interior is great. I love the brushed aluminum accents with the shiny blue dash accents that match the exterior. The tan leather seats are very comfortable and great for the long drives I make every day. They also do a great job of cradling your body on sharp corners. My last car had black leather seats and those got a lot warmer after sitting in the sun all day. The car has 13 speakers with Dolby Digital surround sound, a nice radio, and a 6-disc CD changer. The passenger and the driver have their own climate controls.

This car has everything I ever wanted in a car.

Eastern Promises

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 16:21:00 +0000

My girl and I got the chance to see the movie Eastern Promises a day before it came out (yesterday night) in a special showing. I must say that it was a fantastic movie. I did not think I would like the film but it turned out that it was very enjoyable and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. There was a little action, a little tiny gore, and some comedy. Just take a peek at the IMDB for it.

Crysis and FarCry 2 are Coming Out Soon... Time For a Computer Upgrade

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 19:00:00 +0000

...and I am going to need that computer upgrade to play some of these new games. Not everyone is into playing games on their computer, and might find watching a movie or reading a book more entertaining, but everyone must view the new technology coming out and drop their mouth a little in awe for how realistic and amazing things are starting to look in games and movies. Before we know it, we will not be able to tell the difference from what was created digitally on the computer from something that was filmed with a video camera. And that plays a lot into how these games are now starting to look... just like real life.

::: Crysis :::

These are the textures you will find in Crysis, the most realistic computer game to date. The game launches in about a month or so and it appears that I may need to build a new computer so that I can see the awesomeness in its full glory.

The game was thought to be the second version of the popular game FarCry, since it is being created by some of the same people, but it turns out that FarCry 2 is coming out at the beginning of 2008.

Everything is extremely lifelike. Look at the textures on these character's faces. You can even see blemishes in their skin and the lighting and shadows act like the real world.

Sure it is a computer game but those of us who do not play computer games still have to notice how real these things are becoming. Think about having weather systems and night and day, just like we do in reality, affect your surrounding. Crysis has all this. You will move branches of vegetation our of the way as you walk through it, trees will sway in the wind with different weather situations, and when you shoot at the trees they will fall apart and break where you hit them at. Your environment is very dynamic. The sun, and other lights, will create realistic shadows and lighting effects that mimic what we see every day in reality. All textures are taken from photographs so things look extremely real.

The physics are also amazing. Think about running through the jungle and when the plants hit your side they move out of the way and then continue to sway back and forth after you go by, just as they do in reality. Almost all of your environment is destructible as it would be in the real world. There is no more running into a building with a jeep having it stay all together.

Your environment is huge. Tens of square miles, possibility hundreds, are your playground. You will be able to choose where you go. There will not really be any limitations to where you can go. The ocean water is amazing to look at. Waves and the water move very naturally and the lighting also reacts with it naturally. You can hop in the ocean and you will find fish and a bunch of sea life around you. Birds will also be found in the air around you flying through the realistic clouds with the amazing weather system the game has. When it rains, it looks and feels like it rains and the added water will make your environment change.

Anyways... enough nerd talk. I will post something else about this weeks from now. I think that I will find myself not doing a lot of actual playing of the game but a whole lot more just walking around in awe of how realistic it looks. It will feel like you are there.

::: FarCry 2 :::

FarCry 2 is also going to be amazing. The first game came out a little more than 4 years ago and is by far my all time favorite computer game. The thing that made that game so amazing were a lot of things that Crysis is just taking to the next level. At the time FarCry had cutting edge graphics, physics, shadows, and lighting with a large environment with tens of square miles to explore. It also had a great story to go along with it.

FarCry 2 does not have a lot known about it yet. It is still made by Ubisoft but instead of taking place in a tropical island it takes place in Africa. It is set to launch in the first quarter of 2008 and I will post again about it when that time gets closer.

I got my CS3 Master Collection!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:02:00 +0000

The standard design applications have been out for quite some time now but the video applications have been holding up the Master Collection of CS3. I finally just got mine. I have not installed them yet but wanted to comment on the packaging. The box shots -- really just rendered graphics to look like a box, lie about how the box really is. The box appears to be much bigger in the images online, much like the boxes that CS2 came in years ago. This box is about 5 5/8 X 7 7/8 in, only large enough to accommodate a few booklets and 3 DVD cases with 8 discs inside. The box itself is cheaply made with only plastic wrap holding the sleeve with the artwork (not even the same artwork shown on the website) on it over the two pieces that fit together to make the actual box. The integrity of the box is really not a big deal but coming from a company like Adobe, I would have expected something better... something they would take pride in. This just makes the company look cheep... but this is also coming from a company who has done a massive firing of many of their employees to outsource to India where things are less expensive as far as wages are concerned. CS3 is the most solid collection of amazing creative software ever made but I see the company throwing away certain things to save money when really they don't need to with the great success they have had and will continue to have if they make good graphics software.

Adobe CS3: Only 20 more days until my CS3 Master Collection ships to me!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:29:00 +0000

Yes, I decided to pre-order the Master Collection and I will have it in my hands in twenty days. This is great and I can't wait. It will arrive just in time to be used for two large video projects coming up.

Adobe CS3

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Tue, 22 May 2007 16:07:00 +0000

If you are graphic designer, videographer, or other creative professional you might know about Adobe's next Creative Suite, CS3. CS and CS2 came in one package or version offering just about the same tools but each time in a different version. Since the acquisition of Macromedia, Adobe has bundled Macromedia's tools with their CS2. Now with CS3, Adobe has a lot more tools (such as the heavy hitters Flash and Dreamweaver). Since a lot of videographers are more and more using some graphic design applications there is a need to bundle some of those programs with the video programs. CS3 is said to work great on Vista (they did a live web demo of some of the applications on Vista) as well as on the Mac. They seem to be favoring the PC version since two of the apps that come in the Master Collection only are for Windows.

For all the different types of users out there Adobe is offering six different versions of their Creative Suite 3: design standard, design premium, web standard, web premium, production premium, and the master collection. The design premium, most likely the most popular one, is running around eight-teen hundred US dollars ($1,800). The one that sticks out to me the most is the Master Collection which runs around twenty-five hundred US dollars ($2,500).

The Master Collection, or CS3 MC, comes with everything found in the other five versions of CS3 which include:

Adobe InDesign® CS3
Adobe Photoshop® CS3 Extended
Adobe Illustrator® CS3
Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional
Adobe Flash® CS3 Professional
Adobe Dreamweaver® CS3
Adobe Fireworks® CS3
Adobe Contribute®
Adobe After Effects® CS3 Professional
Adobe Premiere® Pro CS3
Adobe Soundbooth™ CS3
Adobe Encore® CS3
Plus Adobe OnLocation™ CS3 (Windows® only) and Adobe Ultra® CS3 (Windows only)

The thing that really stands out to me is that every single application seems to work well together. You can now import Photoshop layers directly into Flash and Dreamweaver (which will save me tons of time), take your Flash and place it into After Effects, as well as use a ton new features in every new version of each application. Photoshop Extended (one of the two new versions of Photoshop) allows you to integrate 3D modeled elements and Premiere now offers a lot of great new features like new high-definition capabilities as well as a new way of slow-motion-ing clips. The Master Collection will be available mid July (due mostly to the video applications being delayed) where the design and web stuff is available now.

All-in-all this is a creative person's dream. The integration between everything is amazing. I will be pre-ordering my CS3 Master Collection now!

PC vs. Mac

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Tue, 15 May 2007 20:46:00 +0000

I am a graphic designer and videographer who plays about an average of 4 or five hours a week of computer games. I have built about five or six computers and made many repairs. I am not a networking genius but know how to set up a basic home or office network. I could call myself pretty computer savvy.

In my experience using computers for creative purposes, since the 90's, I have either had to use a Mac or a PC. Technically a Mac is a "Personal Computer," which is what "PC" stands for, but I will continue to call a Windows-based personal computer a PC in the post.

Growing up my, my family first had an old Apple 2GS. Later on I got a Compaq PC with Windows 95 on it. After that came an HP, then a Sony, and then I decided to start building my own. At my home office I have two PC desktops, two PC laptops, and one Mac desktop.

In my professional usage, freelancing and working in-house, many of my clients and employers have used the Mac platform for their creative departments. I am proficient on the Mac platform, as well as the PC, but have found many things wrong with using a Mac vs. a PC as the platform of choice for creative use.

A Mac computer is the best choice for the average home user who will just check emails, surf the internet, and view a few videos and photos here and there. It is the ideal platform for the user who is not all that computer literate or savvy. It will not break as easily due to the user not knowing what he is doing and is not as complex as the PC.

The PC is more complex and easier to break and this is why my Mother has inadvertently corrupted her home PC multiple times. This complexity is all because you have a variety of upgradeable components that you can use as well as a drastically larger library of software, including games, that can all be used on the PC where as on a Mac, you have a lot less software to choose from and upgrading anything usually is very limited. When it does come time to buy an upgraded component, you usually have to buy Mac branded parts and have them charge you way more for it than a PC.

At one of my old jobs, where we used a (new at the time) Mac G5, we had the "Superdrive" break on us. The only place we could find a Superdrive for this machine was through Mac and they wanted to charge $800+ for the part (before shipping). That was rediculous so I hopped online and searched through many blogs and forums and found that all I needed to do was swap it out with an ordinary PC optical drive and it would work. We ordered it online from NewEgg.com and it costed eight times less. We were not able to simply fix other components that broke later down the road and had to bite the bullet, shelling out a lot of cash to pay Mac to ship us out a part eight times overpriced.

Aside from the lack of choices in upgrade parts and compatibility issues with software, price is another major thing that brings me to favor the PC. For creative professionals, like myself, we need machines much more powerful than those the average home and office user would ever need. What we need now is what the average home or office user will upgrade to four or five years down the road. Graphics and video take fast processing, lots of RAM, fast graphics processing, very large hard drive storage space (in many cases multiple hard drives and servers to back things up), large and multiple displays (big LCD monitors), and many other things that are completely unnecessary for the average user.

If you set a PC and a Mac next to each other with the same amount of computing power, the PC would cost you a whole lot less. That is with a standard PC you would buy at CompUSA, BestBuy, etc... but if that PC was one you built yourself, it could be even a lot cheaper than that, in some cases cost you a third or a quarter of what that shiny new Mac costed you.

I can not stand all those people saying how great the Mac is and how they never break or have problems. Over half of the places I have worked (and all of my schooling and training for my degree) used the Mac platform. As I stated, creative computer work takes a hefty computer that can handle abuse and abuse is what I throw at computers I use. No, I do not physically abuse the computers (no body slamming or chucking across the room) but I do like to push them as hard as I can and be as efficient as possible. Lack of power in your computing machine can only drag you down and even cost because time is money, in some cases. Anyways... in my usage I have had more problems on the Mac platform than any PC. I have had more creative software crash on me on a Mac than on a PC and have had many issues with files. Hardware, such as hard drives and optical drives, also stopped working which are things that many uninformed hard-core Mac users think will never happen to them. It does happen... you just have to push your machine and use it to its full potential. Any machine (computer or even car) with moving parts (yes, inside that shiny computer case are a ton of moving parts) will at some point stop working and the Mac has broken down on me just as much, if not more, as any PC I have used. I have busted this myth many times of how the Mac is indestructible.

It seems that there are a lot of creative professionals and artistic people out there who pay all this money and to to school for 4 to 6 years and have their instructors drill in them that the Mac is the superior machine to use for creative work. A lot of these students learn how to use the software and a little hardware but other than that lack any other knowledge that could consider then a geek when it comes to computers. The same goes for some of these instructors. Some of these people are better off on the Mac platform because they, like my mother, just know how to use some of the software but other than that do not know a lot about their computers and break them easily. Throw a Mac in front of them but if you really want to excel in your ability and efficiency creatively on the computer, the PC is the way to go... the opposite of what the media (thanks Mac) is telling you. Once you have been where I have been and pushed your top of the line machines as far for as long as I have, you will find that you are better off on the PC.

We have all seen those Mac commercials with the nerdy looking PC and that skinny slick Mac (represented by people). They have some truth to them but completely cut off the whole truth and are one sided, of course. The facts are that a PC is less expensive, allows for more upgrades and modifications, and has more software that will work on it (and games). I am not completely against the Mac and everything it does. I just use what works best and what is most efficient and cost effective and right now a PC is that. If Mac started coming out with machines that allowed you to do what the PC currently did, I would buy one in a heartbeat but until that day I will stay with my PC.

Volvo S80 V8 AWD

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Mon, 14 May 2007 21:32:00 +0000

I currently have a Volvo S80 T6 (Twin-turbo Inline 6) and love it but Volvo has decided to make an even better version of the S80, the Volvo S80 V8. The S80, like most of the other Volvo cars, comes in different versions. It starts with a S80 2.4D (five-cylinder turbo diesel), then 2.5T (five-cylinder 2.5 litre petrol engine), then 3.2 (in-line 6), and then the V8 AWD (all wheel drive). The new S80s seem to come all in 6 speed and the automatics use a built in system called Geartronic (the older models, like mine, have this also but the 6 speed is new) where you are able to shift up and down the gears man manually. The new S80 V8 AWD makes for a whole lot of fun.

The 'cool' thing these days would be to get a trendy BMW 3 or 5 class or some Benz. I like a lot of those cars, especially the BMW M5 and M6, but find that they lack overall what Volvo provides. The thing that I like about the Volvo cars, primarily the S80s, is that they have a lot of power under the hood, luxurious inside, last forever, are safe, and cost a lot less than the trendy BMW, Benz, Audi, or Lexus. My next car might not be a Volvo but if I had to buy a new one tomorrow I would either buy the S80 V8 AWD or the S60 R AWD.

Bits du Jour, Email Phantom, and Other News

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 03:01:00 +0000

On Monday, January 22nd (tomorrow) File Phantom will be the featured software application on Bits du Jour, a website that sells one application a day for a reduced rate. As most of you know, I and Paul Mendoza have been working on this application for many months now and recently launched it under the company we newly formed, Linewave Media (what was once just my freelance graphic design business where I would use Paul for my extensive web coding... now we also make software). Please take the time to check this out and take advantage of the very reduced price of File Phantom. If you missed the sale... sorry! We are planning on having our software featured on the site again soon.

Keep checking back for updates on the Linewave site. We are about to launch Email Phantom which is a web-based application that makes internet marketing easy. All you do is sign in, select the amount of emails you want to send, and then place your email address information in and then you can send thousands of emails instantly. If you do not want to send from your own email address we have an address to send from. You can send just about any quantity you life from under one hundred to in the multi-thousands. It is a great solution for those who want to send church newsletters or small to large businesses who want to send a monthly email out to their customers. It is also a whole lot less expensive and easier to use than buying your own software to do the same thing.

With Linewave Media being turned into a software company that also does creative design and video work, we have a brand new website being produced. Check back soon to see the new website. It will replace the File Phantom website and Email Phantom will also be a part of that. Do not worry, FilePhantom.com and Email Phantom.com will easily direct you the page of the website for those products... just like how photoshop.com directs you to the Photoshop page of the Adobe website.

File Phantom v1

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 06:06:00 +0000

We just recently launched File Phantom. It is a piece of security software that encrypts and hides files on your computer.

Paul Mendoza has been working on it for a long time and a couple of months ago asked me to come on board to handle all the design work for it. The product was already solid but needed some icons for the UI as well as a logo. At this point we did not even have a name for the thing. We quickly came up with this name and I produced the logo. At first we almost went with a blue and an orange for the colors of the logo but decided on this green and blue.

After we did that we bought the domain names and set up the hosting account. We decided to develop the website in ASP.NET since we wanted to utilize all the things that had to offer. I designed a Flash header and a skin and we put something up. As weeks went by I kept making more images and elements to add.

I had Linewave Media going as my personal design and videography business and had used Paul for some of the extensive web coding we needed on large websites. We decided to form and LLC with Linewave and publish File Phantom under Linewave Media.

The software itself is pretty solid. It works great and we have already won awards before it even sold one copy. We are now setting up distribution and have deals being put into place that will place it on websites to be sold like bestbuy.com and others like that.

File Phantom not only is functional but is easy to use and looks great. We have a demo/30 day trial version online for people to download. Our installer looks great and we have a pretty nice user login as well.

Once you download the software and install it, it is pretty easy to get running. At this point you either enter your key or you go ahead with your 30 day trial. What you do next is create a username and password. Nobody can access your encrypted and/or hidden files with out knowing your username or password.

After you create your account and launch the program it will prompt you to browse for files on your computer to encrypt/hide. It only does this on the first start up but will get you going with the program. Once in the program you can drag or browse for more files to add during this session or future sessions. All you have to do is select the files on your list and hit a button and they will encrypt/hide quickly. It is pretty neat to watch this happen for the first time.

Bla… bla… bla… I will not bore you anymore with all that stuff. I am just excited to see the software get such great reviews and come as far as it has. In the coming months you will see it listed and sold on some major online stores and keep your eyes open for the next version… and the next version after that.

We next will keep refining File Phantom and developing new features for the next version. Aside from that we have been creating an massive online email blast application that will be ready by the time you read this or shortly after. Keep looking on the Linewave Media website for updates on what is going on with these things.

Graphic Design DOs and DON'Ts: V1

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 08:02:00 +0000

Number 1: Strokes and Outlines

In Illustrator
Note: This has to do with Illustrator CS and below. CS2 has a quick fix to this problem.

I see this mistake a lot from designers who do not have a lot of experience and/or training. When designing in Adobe Illustrator you will find yourself needing to outline or put a stroke around some text. This should most definitely not be done to body text but only to a headline or title.

There is a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this. The right way to do this (see Figure 2) is to create your text, outline it (select text>Type>Create Outlines), copy text (ctrl+c on a PC and apple+c on a Mac), paste text behind (ctrl+b on a PC and apple+b on a Mac), and then give that text/object a stroke. Since the object/text is now behind the original you created the stroke will appear to be half as thick as what you set it to. You will at this point need to double the weight in the stroke pallet to get the weight you are looking for. You might think that ctrl+v (apple+v on a Mac) is what you want to use to paste you copied text. This will work to paste anything you copy in Illustrator but since we want to send what we are pasting to the back of what we copied we will hit ctrl+b. In case you were wondering, ctrl+f (apple+f on a Mac) will paste it in the front.

You might be wondering why this is the thing to do. Take a look at Figure 1. If you just simply put a stroke on your text it centers the stroke on the edge of your text. This cuts away from the inside text itself. In Figure 2 you will see that placing the stroke behind the text lets you keep the stroke/outline size you want but it does not cut away from the text inside.

This is only a fix for Illustrator CS and below and CS2 has its own way to fix this problem. All you do is create your text and apply a stroke on it. After you do that you take a peek at your stroke pallet and look for Align Stroke (below Miter Limit and above Dashed Line). There you will find three boxes you can select. One has the stroke applied to the outside of the text/object, another to the inside, and the other to the middle like the standard pre CS2 has it.

In Photoshop
This is easy. Like in Illustrator you do not want your stroke/outline to be applied to the inside of your text but the outside. You will find this fix in the settings when you are about to apply your stroke.

A General Rule
Always outline your stroke in Adobe Illustrator when you’re done with the primary design of what you are using it on. The default settings in Illustrator have you not scaling your stroke when you resize your object. You can go in there and change these settings easily but as a good rule you should always outline your stroke.

There will be times in your design career when someone else (a lot of the time less experienced than you) might have to work with a file you created or the other way around. With the object with a stroke on it outlined, you can scale it to the size you want and it will preserve the stroke weight in relation to the size of the object (in other words properly scale the stroke as it scales the object). This will keep things looking the same and this can be a help when you are crunching for a deadline.

If you do decide you want the stroke to be fattened that is already outlined all you have to do is delete the outlined stroke and re-apply another one to it at the desired weight.

Number 2: Illustrator vs. Photoshop

This is not about what program is better but more of what program to use for what. You can not say that one is better than the other because they have completely different uses but work closely together.

Photoshop
This program is great. It is the best application for editing images and works primarily with pixels. A limitation with pixels is that the pixel-based image is not to be scaled since all you are doing is enlarging the squares/pixels which loses quality and clarity.

If you are a web designer you will work very closely with Photoshop for different elements and graphics of your website… even for Flash. If you are working to produce print you will only use Photoshop to create images that will be imbedded into Illustrator or a layout program such as Quark. Photoshop should not be used to produce text for print and should most definitely never be used for the production of corporate/company logos.

Illustrator
This program is also great but is not a pixel-based image editor. Illustrator works mostly with vector graphics. This allows the image to be able to be scaled to just about any size and keep its integrity. As a result logos should always be produced/finalized in Illustrator. You will be able to scale them to just about any size you like.

You can even produce graphics for the web using Illustrator and a lot of the time I have found myself doing this. Since you can output to many pixel-based files, you can make extremely smooth looking graphics and convert them to a JPEG or other raster files.

For print this can act as a layout program. You would take your images edited in Photoshop (most of the time high resolution TIFF files) and place/embed them inside your document. In Illustrator you would then create all your text and shape designs as well as add your logos and other things like that. Just follow this simple rule: in print use Photoshop for your image editing and then do everything else in Illustrator.

First Post!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Kirkman) — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 02:06:00 +0000

Hey! Here is my first post! This blog is here to reflect interesting things I find in the graphic design world as well as in leasure things I like do such as gaming and such. I hope you find my future postings interesting and comment on them.

- Chris