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The Best Auto-Trace Available.

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Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory has developed an online autotrace tool that is dramatically more accurate than the LiveTrace tool available in Adobe Illustrator, or the old Adobe Streamline utility that some designers still have lurking around their hard drive. Even better it’s free! VectorMagic is available as an online tool on their website:

vectormagic.stanford.edu

You upload your bitmap image, answer a couple questions about the original image, and the system creates a vector EPS version that you can download and edit. Their example results are stunning, and from our own experiments at Creativetechs with a few real-world projects, the results are impressive.

The interface is fairly straight-forward. But if you get lost they also have a quick 3-minute video tutorial showing the system in action. Give it a shot.

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January 20, 2008
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Play almost any video file on your Mac.

We field a lot of troubleshooting calls over the course of a year from Mac-based art directors experiencing problems playing movie files sent to them by Windows-based clients, or viewing video clips from certain local TV news websites. There are two essential (and free) utilities that will solve a host of incompatible video problems with […]
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January 13, 2008
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Avoiding the “White Box” around shadows in Acrobat PDFs.

A tips reader wrote us this week: “I have an issue with drop shadows and spot colors in Adobe InDesign. When I use a drop shadow in front of a spot color background it looks fine in InDesign, and prints properly as spot color separations. But a white box shows up around the image in […]
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January 12, 2008
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Seattle Events: Leopard Server Workshops

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Mac OS X Leopard Server was released in October 2007. Creativetechs’ Enterprise Consultant, Jordan Bojar, has developed a special series of hands-on workshops that dig into the most important new features, and covers in detail how they impact larger creative teams in the Seattle area.

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January 6, 2008
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Easily Burn Movies to a DVD without Apple’s iDVD.

Every now and again clients will ask how to burn QuickTime movies to a DVD they can show on TV using a standard DVD player. In the past, we’ve recommended looking at Apple’s iDVD which comes pre-installed on all new Macs. The problem is, iDVD is a bit overkill if all you want is something […]
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January 6, 2008
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Hit ESC to exit a text frame in InDesign CS3.

Here is one of those great small details that makes Adobe’s InDesign CS3 upgrade such a pleasure to work with. Eventually, most designers want a shortcut to switch to the Selection tool while you’re working inside a text frame. You can’t tap the V shortcut because you’ll just end up adding the letter “v” to […]
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January 6, 2008
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January 2008 Mini-Workshop Schedule!

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Our new 90-minute mini-workshop format appears to have been a hit last year. And as we usher in 2008, we’re expanding the topics as well as setting aside each Thursday morning for an ongoing series of Photoshop CS3 training workshops. Check out the list for a couple free topics as well.

Here’s the pitch: Join us Wednesday or Thursday mornings at 9:30am in our Seattle offices (sorry, not available remotely yet). Pick up a couple new skills, and get back to work before lunch. You can put what you learned into use the same day.

Sign up for a couple interesting topics, and check-off one to-do on your New Year’s resolution list!

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January 1, 2008
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Handy Calendar Templates for 2008

2008CompactCalendar.gifHere we are on New Year’s Eve. In honor of this annual time of introspection and planning, we’ve collected links to a few clever calendar templates to help start your new year off right.

David Seah’s Compact Calendar

“The problem with traditional calendar design,” says designer David Seah, “is that they chunk time in months, not continuous days.” In answer to that problem Seah created a long, thin calendar (at right) that is perfect for project planning. Download as PDF or choose an editable Excel document.

Compact Calendar

Adam Sporka’s Thumb Calendar

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Here’s an ingenious 2008 calendar shrunk to the size of a standard business card. Focus on the dates directly below each month’s header.

Thumb Calendar

Juliana Halvorson’s InDesign Template

Finally, a bit more traditional calendar. Here is a clean InDesign template for you to create and customize your own 2008 calendar. The template uses style sheets for dates, holiday, and other details. So swapping out your own font choices is easy.

Juliana Halvorson’s InDesign Template 2008

Juliana Halvorson’s InDesign Template 2009

December 30, 2007
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Download the Holiday Yule Log.

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There’s nothing better on a cold winter day than gathering together in front of a warm crackling fire. Back in 1966, Channel 11 WPIX in New York City began broadcasting The Yule Log each Christmas Eve as a televised gift for people who lived in apartments and homes without fireplaces.

Today, over 40 years later, what could make a better Christmas-eve tip than a link for your own iPod-resolution version of that fireplace classic:

Original Yule Log for iPod (WPIX-TV)

In 2001, The Yule Log returned to TV sets in select cities with an updated edition for HDTV. The 3-hour recording of a burning log won its time slot in the Nielsen ratings each year since it was brought back. Wikipedia has a fascinating account of The Yule Log’s rise, decline, and revival.

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December 24, 2007
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Noteable You Personalized Gift Jars

Seattle graphic designer Pat Hansen (the founding president of Seattle’s AIGA) has created a special line of personalized gifts. The deadline is closing fast for Christmas. Personalized Gift Jars from Noteable You Each individual gift includes dozens of your personal messages from you about your loved one. You choose the gift container, the design, the […]
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December 18, 2007
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