- Specimen book for Buddy August 24, 2010
- New release! Buddy: the sans companion to Contenu August 24, 2010
- Classes mess up Opentype Glyph generation August 9, 2010
- A history of the alphabet August 9, 2010
- Going after the look of old fonts? Not likely August 7, 2010
One of the interesting things about the new paradigm of publishing is the lack of exclusivity. As I publish works for Radiqx and clients, I am continually struck by how many places I normally release things. My norm now is to start with Lulu, then do a Createspace version, then make an html version for Kindle, then a Word version for Smashwords, an ePUB version on Lulu for iPad, a PDF of one of the versions for Scribd, and others yet to be discovered.
Part of this is to see what sells and who checks it out, and what action develops. This is all in flux as far as I can see. So far, Amazon are doing the best [both CreateSpace, and Kindle], closely followed by Lulu—but these results are changing weekly. As far as traffic is concerned, Scribd seems to do the best. But, Smashwords has more people checking out samples. It is a real interesting mix. As far as I am concerned, it is much more interesting than my old relationships with a giant publisher back East somewhere.
It takes constant redesigning
This is where InDesign and the Creative Suite 5 in general, really shine. InDesign CS5 has really helped out the workflow. Some sites require separate insides and covers (Lulu & CreateSpace), some require HTML (Kindle), some require ePUB (iPad), some require Word (Smashwords), some work best with PDF (Scribd). They all take specialized designs. However, with layout adjustment turned on and a complete set of styles (paragraph and character) set up, all of this goes relatively quickly.
Of course, “they” all say you must get into the code. But you should know of my code challenge by now. If it requires code [beyond HTML and CSS], I’m not going to do it. My hope (and constant feature request) is that some app in CS6 will enable me to drop the need to be constantly playing with HTML and CSS also. Already, I am using Dreamweaver CS5′s CSS dialog boxes to edit my CSS—even for my WordPress templates.
It’s a brave new world
I’m really having fun learning to work in this new world. I’m gradually finding friends and sources of help. Liz Castro and Joel Friedlander regularly offer good advice on their blogs, for example. It’s really going to be interesting to see where it all goes from here.
I have just added two minisites to the Radiqx site.
There is a section now on Practical Prophecy without speculation.
There is also a new section of the Practical Practice of Walking in the Spirit.
They need to be proofed. If you have time to read the pages in the sections and sent me any typos, I would greatly appreciate it.
Also, if there is anything you want me to write about, just let me know.
Adding anchored objects can be a little tedious. One of the most painful aspects of making anchored frames to hold illustrations, sidebar notes, or headlines is the tediousness of the repetitive filling out of the anchored object dialog box.
The simple solution is to make those settings in an object style.
Then all you do is place the object as an inline graphic and hit the shortcut to convert it to an anchored object and to offset it where you need it. Or place it, hit the shortcut and then insert it into the text where you need it. It will automatically be anchored and offset as you designed it.
Let’s make a style to automatically offset a frame into the sidebar area next to the column on a single column page
Make a new Object style with all the options turned off . Turn on Anchored Object and set it up like you see below. We’re assuming a four-inch column on a 7.5″ wide page. You can adjust to fit your page size.
Basic settings for an anchored object
TIP: Once you have your anchored style set up the way you like, save the document you are working on.
Then close all documents and go to the Object Styles palette (with no document open). Choose Load Object Styles… from the Option Menu and add the new object style from the document you just saved and closed. Close InDesign and reopen it to save your new application default.
From then on, all new documents will have this style available. In most cases, all you will have to do it modify the offsets to make it work for any new project.
Believe me, you’ll use this (or your version of it) a lot!
One of the real surprises when we moved back here to Minnesota after 25 years in New Mexico was Summer. I had grown accustomed to the eight month summers of mid-New Mexico on the high plains south of Albuquerque. March to October I could expect heat and sun. I came to hate the sun. It made it impossible to work outside, and on & on.
I was really looking forward to summers in Minnesota. I knew about the mosquitoes, but they were pretty much under control in the cities. What i had forgotten about was the panic to get outside while the sun shines. The days are immensely long 5:30 am to after 9pm and Minnesotans seem to think it’s a sin to not be out in it. I’m not into that. For me, it’s a relief to only have to hide inside from the heat for a month and a half (mid-July to Labor Day) instead of staying inside from April through the end of September.
But Summer is a real problem up here. It is considered a legitimate excuse to be irresponsible. The Protestant work ethic still reigns supreme up here, but everyone get three months off for good behavior from Memorial day to Labor day. Sad to say, this means the relationship with God is put on the shelf for those 3 months. Phone calls and emails are not returned. It’s almost as bad as being back in mañana-land (remembering that mañana does not mean tomorrow — it means not today).
But the most dangerous, of course, is that children are taught that churches close for the summer, that God is not important for the summer, that we don’t have to be serious for the summer.
Pray for us all…
This is an ongoing problem. I have a heck of a time getting my students to make a professional presentation they can use for their portfolio. Designers need to be able to make a presentation to their clients. The list goes on.
I got iWork with my new aluminum iMac — Keynote is pretty (much better looking than PowerPoint), but still just a very slick, good-looking PowerPoint. The problems, of course, are a lack of vector graphics, a lack of typographic control, a lack of page layout options. And then, why can’t I simply drop in a PSD?
Right now I am doing all my presentations with Acrobat Pro, but that is tedious at best.
We really need good presentation software for graphics professionals. Flash takes too much work, as does Acrobat. I haven’t found anything better than an interactive PDF, but it’s not good.
One of the font design apprenticeships is taken so far.