So after just tweaking my site and updating the portfolio I once again, for the third time, am tired of my website. It seems I can only look at my website for a year or so before I want to redesign it. So once again I am designing/scrapping and designing new ideas. I have a ton of new work I need to put in the portfolio but at this point I just want to do it right… again… the first time. I have never been busier but I… will… find… time… (captain kirk voice) to get my new site up. Thanks to all the new clients I have gotten over the last couple months, looking forward to working with you. And yes, your work comes before my site, I swear.

I had to put my portfolio upgrade and site edits on the back burner due to overload of work (which I can’t complain about). Once I get out of the trenches and have some spare time I will finish up the edits and put up the new portfolio, which will be a little easier to navigate based on the content (logos, print design, etc.). Going to do some minor spring cleaning, and a little site resizing as well.

So after making one of these emblems (I hate calling them burst) I figured I would make a couple color variations and pass them along. They are saved down to Illustrator CS and you can download them by clicking the preview below. Nothing says “look here” like a bright shiny Burst… ummm, emblem.

Apple has fixed a problem with the new 27″ iMacs regarding intermittent display flickering and occasional blackouts. This issue affects the new 27″ iMacs with a ATI Radeon HD 4670 or 4850 graphics card. I noticed this happening on my new iMac last week, I had a random white bar that would flicker on my screen, and once in a while my screen would turn black for a second or two. The update can be downloaded at your apple software update, or you can download it here

2009 was a good year for me, I was able to work with some amazing people, form new relationships with new clients, and continue to grow my business. I purchased a home with my fiance and finally created the home studio I have always dreamed of… a big open space! I think the economy is getting back on track as I saw a flood of new companies inquiring about their advertising needs towards the tail end of 2009. I am excited about this year and what it has to offer. I wish everyone huge success, health and happiness in 2010.

Sometimes I forget to go through all the scripts online you can download for InDesign, many of which are super helpful. I recently got an email from InDesign Tips and it reminded me of a great one. For automatically alphabetizing a list go to Window/Automate/Javascript/Sortparagraph.

I used this script when I had a list of over 50 donors for a charity event that I needed to alphabetize, and it saved me a lot of time. A while back, I also found a calendar script online called Calendar Wizard that will create a calendar for you can you customize and edit. You can download it here

Found this link from smashingmagazine.com with some great Illustrator tutorials to tackle on your free time. Some are sorta basic, some not so basic, but there are some really cool ones, coming from a huge fan of illustrator. Here is the link… Illustrator madness

A very handy app to download for Mac or PC. Click to go to the download page…

If you are using Firefox and have noticed your address bar searches or url’s are being redirected to an Open DNS search engine here is the fix. This started for me last week and drove me nuts, mainly because I rarely type .com after a url in the address bar. Here is a link to the Firefox add on Feeling Lucky Fixer, just install and restart Firefox and the Open DNS page is a thing of the past.

This might be the best plug-in I have come across for Indesign yet. In short, you can style text or an object using the eyedropper tool without ever leaving current tool you have selected. You simply hold down the control & option keys and the eyedropper comes alive for you to pick up a style from another element. This is very useful when you do not have a style sheet set up for a certain text style, and want a new block of text to be exactly like another on your document. Select the text in a text box you would like to style, then hold down the option/control keys and you will see the eyedropper icon come up. You can then click on a body of text that is styled and the new text will pick up that style, the color, leading, font, size… everything.

It works the same way for objects as well, but you will need to be on either the Selection Tool or Direct Selection tool. With either tool selected, select an object, then hold down option/control and you can click on a styled object.

One thing you need to look out for is if another object is in front of the object you are trying to pick up the style from it will pick up the style from that top object, so you will have to rearrange the order of objects to get the one you are trying to select on top. On a side note a quick way to toggle through objects that are layered on top of each other is to choose your Selection tool, hold down the command key and continue to click on one area and you will see the objects be selected one by one. Once you select the object you want to be on top, you can either go to Object/Arrange/… or a simple key shortcut is select the object, hold down shift/command and click the ] key to bring it forward or the [ key to send it to the back.

The plug-in for CS4 is only $29.95 and CS3 is now only $20. It is well worth it in my opinion. You can download either CS3 or CS4 versions at Flux Consulting’s website on this page:

http://fluxconsulting.com/software.html