Final Shirt Design

Well, here is the final version of the tshirt design. I really liked the My Little Pony style illustrations I discovered on DeviantArt while doing research for this project, and I that is probably the largest influence on the final design.

Riding into the Future on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Riding into the Future on Flickr - Photo Sharing!


This is a first draft of a t-shirt design I am doing for a local Brownie troop. Apparently, it grossly violates their branding guidelines. Go figure. I am now think about doing a vector illustration somewhat in the style of the Bella Sara cards, with lots of girly "flair". Should be fun!  

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Fun with Typography

I bet you thought .. was a just a backslash, but I recently discovered that Windows Character Map actually calls it a "Reverse Solidus".

Wikipedia thinks there is a difference between a slash and a solidus, however (see below), and I agree. The slash is really best called a "virgule"

This symbol goes back to the days of ancient Rome. In the early modern period, in the Fraktur script, which was widespread through Europe in the Middle Ages, one slash (/) represented a comma, while two slashes (//) represented a dash. The two
slashes eventually evolved into a sign similar to the equals sign (=), then being further simplified to a single dash (–).

The solidus and virgule are distinct typographic symbols with decidedly different uses. The solidus is significantly more horizontal than the virgule. The character found on standard keyboards is the virgule and while most people lump the two characters together (and when there is no alternative it is acceptable to use the virgule in place of the solidus), they are different. The solidus is used in the display of ratios and fractions as in constructing a fraction using superscript and subscript as in “¹²³⁄₄₅₆”; the virgule is used for essentially any other textual purpose.

So if you are doing fractions, U+2044 is a fraction slash ⁄ and U+2215 is a division slash (slightly longer) ∕. These work much better for building custom fractions in Quark (using superscript / subscript) than using the basic forward slash / (aka “virgule”)

These characters work much better for building custom fractions in software programs such as Quark (using the superscript / subscript combination) rather than just using the basic forward slash / (aka "virgule"). If you have ever tried making fractions with the standard slash as I have, then you must know how frustrating this can be. Now, you can use the right character, the solidus!

Bet you never knew typography could be so fun!

Happy virgules!

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Here is my shirt design for the International Talk Like a Pirate Day contest on Zazzle. I was really happy how it turned out.


make custom gifts at Zazzle

Chop wood, carry water

Here's a new illustration that I came up with for a worth1000 contest.

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Justin Gerard

Jusin Gerard has some really nice pieces in his gallery. You can find more stuff at portlandstudios.com, as well, which is also a really refreshing flash based website.

New fun ultra goodness with Google Bookmarks

I am really digging my updated Google toolbar. I use Ma.gnolia quite a lot for bookmarking, since I can move from computer to computer and still get to my bookmarks. However, I have been frustrated with the accessibility - even with the nifty plugins available for Firefox, I find myself having to log on and manually find or edit them. Also, I found myself not wanting to clutter my page with second-tier bookmarks that I wanted just for temporary or private use that did not fit any particular category. Then I realized the distinction between "social" bookmarking and the more traditional approach. This is where Google Bookmarks comes in. Since I already had a Google account, importing all of my bookmarks from my laptop, my PC, and my work computer via the toolbar was a snap. Plus, the toolbar organizes the bookmarks in a way very similar to the traditional browser method, with drop down menus and folders. This is a very functional solution, and helps prevent losing your bookmarks due to computer reinstalls or upgrading browsers, etc. The Manage Bookmarks feature works pretty well, although with several hundred bookmarks (I know I have a problem) I found it a little tedious and had to prune my collection to stay useful.
I now find that I can focus on using Ma.gnolia for more what it was designed to do, which is sharing bookmarks in a social context and allowing you to browse bookmarks made by other users on similar content through tagging.
Also, although not quite as cool as the add-in for the Flock browser, you can easily post to Blogger from the toolbar as well. (Which is what I am doing right now!)