Some upcoming cover options for camp guide 2009. Its about summer camps for kids.

Google Chrome, a new web browser has been released in Beta. So far in my testing, it seems pretty fast although understandably unstable at times. It’s based on Webkit, the open source rendering engine that Apple uses in it’s Safari browser with some code adapted from the open source Firefox project. I love that there is a great amount of competition and innovation in the browser space.

Remember the old days, when web pages were basic text layouts? They were book-like. The infrastructure behind most modern browsers was designed to deal with the old web 1.0. In the era of the web 2.0 buzzword, we more often think of the web as an environment rich in applications. Google says that Chrome was built with that in mind

Features of the browser

The url bar and search bar are combined similar to the Firefox 3 “Awesome Bar”. Google calls this the Omnibar. They also have a new tab page that appears to guess what you might want to look at next.

Another nice feature is that you can drag tabs out of the browser and make a new window. All of the tabs are separate processes, meaning that if a tab crashes you won’t loose everything you have open in other tabs. Closing a tab frees up memory and even surfing to a new page releases the previous pages memory use. An internal task manager allows you to see what plugins and tabs are using the most of your computers energy. There is an “incognito mode” that allows you to prevent sites including Google from viewing your information. Pretty nifty.

Design

The design interface is minimalist. Especially when you maximize the window as the tabs will touch right against the top of your screen. It’s a very nice way to see just the webpage and forget the interface you’re seeing through. As it’s based on webkit, the rendering engine is quite pretty. It takes a bit of getting used to, like most new programs, but I find the interface fairly intuitive and pleasant. It’s all about viewing what’s on the web (aka the cloud) and not the application, which is pretty much in Google’s best interests of course. One good tip is that putting a question mark (?) in the omnibar before typing ensures a search. You can get the question mark to appear from anywhere by hitting ctrl-K.

Update September 6, 2008. I’ve seen many users complain about the lack of a home page button with the other navigation buttons. This is the default, but did you know you can just change this in the Google Chrome Options dialog? Just click the wrench icon for a menu, go to Options and in the Basics tab that opens check off the “Show homepage button in the toolbar” box. Simple!

Episode 20 of Sketcheebook: The Creativity & Productivity Podcast is out. It’s filled to the brim with listener feedback. If you need help listening and don’t have iTunes or an iPod, make sure to check out the article How to listen to podcasts without iTunes or an iPod

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Also, check out the shownotes.

Why should graphic designers care about the world of fashion design? Innovation in graphic design can’t come from the bubble of self reference. While we can still get a few new and fresh ideas from looking at other graphic designers, we really have to look elsewhere for inspiration. While other arts like photography and painting have a special place in our hearts dating back to our college days, fashion is a major area of design that most graphic designers didn’t get any play with in art school.

photo credit: sheilaellen

The world of fashion design is one of the most innovative, colorful and accessible design professions. Everyone wears clothes. An understanding of fashion and following the fast moving trends of clothing really can help a graphic designer appeal to it’s audience. If I want to reach people in Baltimore, looking at what colors and styles are happening in fashion there could give a huge edge in understanding.

Uploaded my lastest designs, this time they’re of the Back to School publication. It’s a newspaper insert to several Maryland newspapers in association with Maryland Family which is produced by the same company and department as where I work, Patuxent Publishing. There were several original illustrations created as well as stock and submitted photos. The final designs were done in InDesign CS.

Cover to back to school

Original illustrations I did for Back to School

With the launch of Zazzle’s custom Keds print-on-demand shoe line, it seems like a good opportunity to talk about all of the different custom shoe options online. In addition to Zazzle, companies including Converse, Vans, Nike and others offer configurable customized shoes.

Zazzle has teamed up with Keds to provide a fully custom printed shoe . Every surface of the shoe’s fabric can be printed so you can use your creative spirit to make all kinds of designs, patterns and effects. They only have kids and women’s shoes right now. If and when they introduce men’s shoes, I’ll definitely want a pair for myself! They currently cost between $50 and $60, not bad at all.

Zazzle’s custom shoes allow for printing on all sides of the fabric.

As blogger Sam Woodfin mentions, it’s not 100% clear how the design changes with different sizes. On their t-shirts, the design stays at a fixed size for different shirt sizes. That wouldn’t work with shoes. The product images seem to update with the different sizes, so I hope they are accurate. The FAQ seems incomplete; I’m left with questions answered like if they have plans for men’s shoes. Still it looks like an exciting announcement and hopefully these questions will be answered in time.

Converse has customized shoes with a number of options and shoe styles. While it’s not as fully customizable as you might want, they offer enough options to give you more unique looks than their off the shelf shoes. You can select different sections including the stitch color. Select colors/patterns to make unique combinations in the end. Some parts have more options than others with the fabric pieces having the most options. You can also have text stitched into part of the shoe. I have leather shoes in a customized brown and yellow with the back sitched with “SKETCHEE”. Canvas shoes are $60 and leather styles are $75.

Custom Vans‘ are similar to the Converse customizations, but with fewer color options and with fewer pieces to customize. There are currently only two choices to pick from.

NikeID also gives a few custom color areas and allows you to search their database by color for preselected combos. Depending on the style of shoe, you can print a laser engraved repeating pattern of text or even switch out some fabric parts for leather although not a full leather shoe like converse.

A fairly ugly custom shoe I came up wth to illustrate the NikeID shoe.

Check to see if your favorite shoes have online customization options by visiting their website. More and more brands are doing it.

Wordpress Themes Director has launched as a new and official place to put those themes you designed or thought about designing since the Wordpress Spice Up Tips post a few months ago.

If you’ve posted your theme on the themes directory, please post it in the comments here!

If you haven’t gotten into theme making now might be a good time to start. You can now easily share your creation with the world.

Want to easily hem your jeans, keeping the original seam? Originally posted on Fig and Plum’s post Hemming Jeans Without Looking Stoopid, Redux was a Word document that had disappeared from Cavaricci’s site. I had put up an html version just to make it easier to read a while back. Not everyone has Word and seeing it in your web browser is convenient. I’m reformatting it today as a Wordpress post for easy content management. Make sure to send your thanks to Fig and Plum, a great site to add to your RSS reader!

Step 1

Start by making a cuff, like this one. The idea is to have the wear on the hem stitching show. Then figure out how many inches you need to take off.

Step 2

Now for the fun stuff! Divide the amount your taking off in 1/2 and place your tape measure or small ruler on the edge of the hem. Measure the same amount all around the hem, and pin in sections to make sure you will take off the same amount all around.

Step 3

Place the sewing foot on the edge of the hem, like shown above, and slowly stitch the cuff all the way around. Make sure that it measures the same all the way around.

Step 4

Okay, the hard work is all over. The original worn hem and stitching should be visible. If it’s not, then it’s either time to start over, or it’s time to let the pros handle it.

Step 5

Push the extra fabric inside upwards if it is a small amount. If it’s a huge wad of fabric then grab your scissors and cut off some of the extra fabric, leaving about 3/4″ to allow for fraying in the wash.

Step 6

Turn the leg right side out and lay it flat. With your fingertips, press the seam you just created flat.

Step 7

On the inside of the leg, use your iron to press the extra fabric upwards.

Step 8

Then press the outside of the leg until it is nice and flat.

Admire your work!

There you have it! Can you tell the difference?

Update Aug 8, 2008. This forum thread linked to this page with some additional suggestions to ensure an even better hem. “just line everything up, and every couple of inches, make a stitch through the folded fabric, and then through your jeans (be sure to go vertically so it blends better). Go around a couple times in the same area (1mm apart x 3stitches is the best bet) and then tie them in double, triple, whatever knots, tie very well, and tight, and then snip off your excess. Maybe hit the fabric glue right on the knot to stabilize it.” Visit that thread for the full conversation

More resources

How to Hem Jeans from Dacia Ray

Hemming Jeans, A Tutorial from Canadian Crafter

Blind Hem Jeans from Burda Style

Using Audacity this past week has inspired me to talk about the ugly open source programs floating around. Many great open source programs don’t care about design. Searching about Audacity, many developers defend the look of the program as being usable. Usability doesn’t make something well designed, although that is definitely part of the designers considerations.

Screenshots of Audacity. photo credit: webg33k

Scribus, which I had talked about before, is an open source design tool for designers. But it’s not yet looking too good. The interface isn’t as outdated as Audacity, but still feels like something out of the Windows 95 era. It feels much more complicated and less polished than InDesign. Open Office has the throw back look down to a science. It looks very much like an early version of Office despite having many advanced features. (Microsoft has since made the Ribbon interface part of office making it easier to find underutilized features)

Firefox and Thunderbird have a great look because they’re easily skinned. That encourages the design community’s help.

Although I think that too many open source programs have pretty poor UI design (from a mass market perspective), the open media center Elisa has a fairly commercial looking pretty design too. It’s pretty much inspired by Apple, but taken in their own direction.

Design is a huge part of innovation. That seems to be a place where commercial products can beat open source. Despite the criticism, a lot of this is great software in a bad package.