Thursday, April 28, 2005

Jacked Music

Last night, I got some tasty grub over at Jack-In-The-Box. JitB is having a little contest going on right now. “Win Jack’s Stuff” is a peel off game where you peel of tabs to see what you have won. Upgrading to a large combo nets you 2 options. One is for “stuff”. The other is for music. The stuff is cool, but not a guarantee you will win any of it. The music is basically a free download whenever you upgrade to a large combo. However…

It’s all through Musicmatch, a music jukebox akin to iTunes. Musicmatch Jukebox 10 is only available on a PC running Microsoft Windows XP (there is a non-XP version as well, but still for Windows). So, this contest caters to Windows users only as you need the jukebox program to download your “free” song. This is just stupid. There isn’t anything more to say on it. Even if I had a PC, I wouldn’t download yet another music player just for a free song. Someone in marketing, over at JitB, should be flogged.

Elsewhere: Thanks to Mr. Zeldman for turning me onto a rather hilarious “truth in marketing” pespective, courteously provided by huh?

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

515

I just signed up for the May 1st Reboot.

This blog will be unaffected by the reboot as it is not hosted on the server my website is. However, should everything go as I would like, I will have a new host and a new website that will also include this blog (no longer needing Blogger, I suppose). I am participating in the Reboot purely to have a personal deadline for my web hosting and new site. On April 25th, SITE|tamashii will be replaced with the Reboot Holder screen. You will also see my new logo when the site is relaunched.

I have thought about my logo for a long time. I created it back in college and though it is very nice, I always felt there was something “off” with it. That it somehow wasn’t the best representation of my name and what I do. I feel the new one does that for me.

I have no idea if I will be able to meet the May 1st deadline for the new site. We’ll see what we shall see.

Monday, April 18, 2005

Adobe & Macromedia

No doubt, many of you have already heard about the plans for Adobe to buy Macromedia. Now, this may just be me, but it looks like this is actually going to happen. I doubt companies as large as either of those two would make press releases regarding a buyout without it being pretty damned serious.

Here's a couple of links regarding the subject:
Adobe and Macromedia
Adobe to acquire Macromedia for $3.4 billion
Dominey’s point of view
Chambers' point of view

This is a lot to swallow. Initially, I think it is a good thing (for both companies). I am sure I will have more opinions on it in the coming days/weeks.

Friday, April 08, 2005

Conversation

I finally posted Image #5 to my One Track Mind DSNLG. I no longer care about the ratings people give me on the images. I would, however, like there to be more dialogue about the images.

I was under the impression that a DSNLG was a “conversation” between two designers on a particular topic and it would incorporate a bit of Photoshop Tennis to aid the discussion. My conspirator, while a good designer (some fantastic images so far), however, does not feel the need to take any element from the previous image to create his “response” image. We are both talking about trains, kinda, but there is no discussion. I say one thing, he says something completely new.

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Pondering Ponds

Yesterday was an impromptu visit to Babies ‘R’ Us. I really do enjoy those little trips. It can be exhausting to see the number of current trends for crib bedding sets. Most of these fall into some kind of floral theme or even just a quilt type look of colors, but there are a few that are rather clever. The poor design selection is more than made up for by watching my wife waddle down the rows of offerings. As I have mentioned before, we are looking into a pond theme for the room (subject to change). Little frogs, dragonflies, lady bugs, lily pads, light greens, leaves, etc. etc. etc.

There just isn’t really anything out there with the kind of look and feel we have in our minds. None that suits our tastes, that is. Nor our wallets.

As a designer, I would very much like to create the space my child will sleep in every night. Admittedly, not being much of an illustrator, this makes it a bit more difficult. And with baby stores not offering much by way of ‘inspiration’, it is a tad more difficult to draw something out. I am soon to pencil out a few ideas for pond scenes, but getting them onto a wall is another story. I am considering an overhead projector of sorts to accomplish the transfer. Seems simple enough. Of course, doing is not as easy as saying. Moreso, any items/designs I actually do purchase for the baby’s room will have to match whatever I create. We shall see what we shall see.

Elsewhere, Sin City is out and playing in your local theaters. I highly recommend watching this flic. Almost a direct copy of the series (a really, really good thing), it is a really well made film. I don’t think I could justify the film with any form of review, but it is just so darned good. If you have read the graphic novels, then you will basically get a visual and auditory version — and in this case, that ain’t bad. If you haven’t read them, don’t worry, the movie is awesome on its own. Just sit back, relax and enjoy this uncompromised piece of art.