Creative Community Bulletin 30 October 2013

Great con­tent found by Pariah and shared to the design and cre­ative com­mu­ni­ties on social media.

• Link Text: Best Practices for Desktop and Mobile

  I think the lack of under­lin­ing on links is a wide­spread prob­lem already – design­ers not wish­ing to spoil their typog­ra­phy work at the cost of an eas­i­ly nav­i­ga­ble page – so a good shout out on that.

• The Beginning of Photoshop: 18 Min.
  “In this doc­u­men­tary, the founders of Adobe Photoshop – John Knoll, Thomas Knoll, Russell Brown, and Steve Guttman – tell the sto­ry of how an amaz­ing coin­ci­dence of cir­cum­stances, that came togeth­er at just the right time 20 years ago, spawned …
• 50 Wonderful Free WordPress Plugins – October 2013
  “Thousands of peo­ple are using WordPress plu­g­ins because all WordPress plu­g­ins pro­vide awe­some fea­tures, great flex­i­bil­i­ty to the users, are editable and also save time as well. All expe­ri­enced per­sons are using WordPress plu­g­ins and even the b…
• Reading with iOS 101, a Reading App Guide – Revisited

  ” Today I’m revis­it­ing the major read­ing apps for the iPad, iPad Mini, iPhone and iTouch. Because of the preva­lence of the iPhone and iTouch devices, all the images here are from the iPhone/iTouch except for the Marvin read­ing app which is designed for iPad and iPad Mini devices only.”

• One Year Later, The Most Promising iPad Magazine Looks Back (And Forward)
  Like a lot of tech­nol­o­gy projects, The Magazine start­ed out as an exper­i­ment: could a well-executed dig­i­tal mag­a­zine attract enough pay­ing read­ers to exist as a busi­ness? A year lat­er, we spoke to its edi­tor and own­er to find out.
• 5 Infographics to Teach You How to Easily Create Infographics in PowerPoint [+ Templates]
  “In this post, we’ll high­light some PowerPoint info­graph­ic cre­ation basics as well as four of the info­graph­ic tem­plates from the down­load that explain how to eas­i­ly cre­ate info­graph­ics in PowerPoint (how meta, right?). Just be sure to download …
• NYT Writer Responds to Design for Free and Write for Free–for “Cxposure”–Culture

  “People who would con­sid­er it a bizarre breach of con­duct to expect any­one to give them a hair­cut or a can of soda at no cost will ask you, with a straight face and a clear con­science, whether you wouldn’t be will­ing to write an essay or draw an illus­tra­tion for them for nothing.”

• Planning for Social 2.0

  “Social media has become the key source of refer­ral traf­fic for media com­pa­nies and con­tent cre­ators are con­stant­ly lever­ag­ing their pres­ence on var­i­ous plat­forms to invig­o­rate their brands and enhance their com­mu­ni­ties. Here, Adriana Nova, asso­ciate direc­tor of social media for New York Magazine, and not­ed speak­er at FOLIO:’s MediaNext event, October 28 to 30 in New York, talks about her strat­e­gy for engag­ing and inter­act­ing with a chang­ing social audience.”

• Elemental Photo Manipulation Tutorials, Part 4: Water by Pariah Burke

  ““Elemental Photo Manipulations” is a four-part series of amaz­ing tuto­ri­als and inspir­ing art­work com­bin­ing pho­tog­ra­phy with Photoshop in sur­re­al, mind-bending, and some­times star­tling ways. In this final install­ment of the series you’ll get your feet wet with, make a splash in, dive into—and oth­er cliched actions asso­ci­at­ed with water and liquid—liquid-based pho­to manip­u­la­tion. Infuse your art­work with the ulti­mate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of nature, beau­ty, ener­gy, and power.”

• Facebook Ad ROI and Click Through Rates Growing; Revenue Per Visit (RPV) on Twitter Up 300%

  “The Adobe Dig­i­tal Index team exam­ined more than 200 bil­lion Face­book ad impres­sions, over 1 bil­lion Face­book posts, and more than 400 mil­lion unique vis­i­tors to social net­works includ­ing Twit­ter in our first annu­al Social Media Intel­li­gence Report, which reviews all facets of social media—paid, owned and earned. Some inter­est­ing findings:”

• eCanCrusher: Drag-n-Drop Utility Converts EPUB Folder to .EPUB File and Vice Versa
  “eCanCrusher is a sim­ple drag/drop util­i­ty to con­vert an EPUB folder/directory struc­ture into an .epub file and vice versa.”
• Becoming a Designer – Getting Your Foot in the Door

  “Wide-eyed and bushy tailed
  So you’ve made it! The degree show is com­plete and you’re real­ly pleased with your final show. You’ve just received your results and every­one is proud of what you have achieved. Congratulations are due but now the hard work begins. Being proac­tive, cre­ative and resource­ful will put you in a best posi­tion pos­si­ble whilst you are com­pet­ing with all of the oth­er design grad­u­ates try­ing to get a foothold in the industry.

  ”

• Nostalgia: the History of Aldus PageMaker
  “Paul Brainerd was one of those pro­gram­mers. When the Aldus Corporation intro­duced PageMaker 1.0, it rev­o­lu­tion­ized the pub­lish­ing indus­try. Suddenly any­one could design brochures. Publishers had to become com­put­er lit­er­ate, and Apple start­ed s…
• 25 ways design can make children’s lives better
  The ideas range from apps designed for new dads and to help tie togeth­er a sup­port net­work around new par­ents, a site to help par­ents find all of the resources for them in their local area, pop-up play parks, wear­able tech­nol­o­gy to encour­age pl…
• thingCHARGER. The awe­some new charg­er for ALL your things. | Indiegogo
  “Indigogo cam­paign (ful­ly fund­ed): A clever, beau­ti­ful design unlike any­thing we’ve seen before. Got a smartphone/tablet? A must have …”
• The Fascinating Workspaces Of Bill Clinton, Bob Dylan & Other Famous People
  “Which one do you find most inspiring? ”
• Handy Techniques for Cutting Out Hair in Photoshop
  “When trim­ming out images in Photoshop, human hair or ani­mal fur always proves trou­ble­some and can be tricky to achieve a real­is­tic look. Here are two tech­niques I use on images with both plain back­grounds, and those with a var­ied back­ground to…
• 25 Ways Design Can Make Children’s Lives Better
  “The ideas range from apps designed for new dads and to help tie togeth­er a sup­port net­work around new par­ents, a site to help par­ents find all of the resources for them in their local area, pop-up play parks, wear­able tech­nol­o­gy to encour­age p…
• The Ultimate Guide to Photoshop Gradient Map Adjustment Layers

  “Gradient Map might be one of the least used Photoshop Adjustments. In this tuto­r­i­al from PSDTuts, we will take a close look at the Gradient Map Adjustment and will explain every­thing you need to know about it. Let’s get started!

  ”

• What Cloud Computing Means to College Applicants #EdTech

  “Today’s high school grad­u­ates live in the cloud-computing era. It’s typ­i­cal for a high school stu­dent to use mul­ti­ple web-communication tools, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Students’ music, news and videos are deliv­ered via the cloud. They e‑mail and text using soft­ware that mon­i­tors their pref­er­ences and adapts to their usage pat­terns. In short, stu­dents are at home in the cloud.

  ”

• Twitter and Square co-founder Jack Dorsey sug­gests you cre­ate a dai­ly ‘Do and Don’t List’. This is his.
  “He says that by for­mu­lat­ing a list, it helps estab­lish healthy pat­terns for peo­ple to live bet­ter lives. By putting togeth­er a list, it will elim­i­nate noise and allow you to focus on things. Both Square and Twitter employ­ees have set up their …
• Is Your House Haunted? Website Helps You Check If Anyone Has Died In Your House

  “Worried about para­nor­mal activ­i­ty in your house, or the one you’re about to buy? From count­less Hollywood hor­ror pro­duc­tions, we know that sell­ers often fail to dis­close cas­es of deaths in their properties.
  ”

• How to Make a Billboard That Delivers + Best Practices

  “While bill­board ads to some may seem like an old-fashioned adver­tis­ing tac­tic, bill­board adver­tis­ing has evolved to keep up with today’s tech­nolo­gies while still pro­vid­ing results when it comes to expos­ing a company’s brand, prod­uct or service.

  ”

• A Women’s Magazine With A Strict ‘No Photoshop’ Policy

  “Unlike oth­er mag­a­zines out there, Verily “nev­er alters the body or face struc­ture” of its mod­els with Photoshop.
  ”

• Fascinating Visualizations Of How Cats See The World
  “Chew on some pic­to­r­i­al food for thought with the images below; the top half shows human vision while the bot­tom half rep­re­sents cat vision.
  ”
• Is Design Still a Man’s World?
  “In a sec­tor where more than half of emerg­ing grad­u­ates are now female, Jessica Philpott con­sid­ers whether the design indus­try has a glass ceiling.

  ”

• 11 Best IPad Portfolio Apps for Designers
  “While most of the apps that we dis­cuss here are meant for cre­at­ing port­fo­lios, there are a few oth­ers which are aimed at assist­ing the free­lancers and design­ers in their mul­ti­ple tasks. Have a look”
• 3D Coffee Art
  If these cute cof­fee cre­ations don’t get you mov­ing on a Monday morn­ing, noth­ing will.

Curated by Pariah Burke