new york

/ Don

ERA404 Rebranding

You may’ve noticed a new logo up there in the right corner of [d]online. To celebrate 10 years since I created my studio, era404 Creative Group, and because my stationery was finally running out, we felt it was time to update our brand.

Over the last decade, era404 has truly transformed from a design and development shop to one that provides comprehensive, strategic campaigns. Our best projects—the most rewarding and enjoyable ones—have spawned from relationships with clients that have fully embraced our nature as an ideas company. This is to say that when clients approach us with ideas, they hire us for more than just implementation. Rather, we’ve been privileged to be involved from Day One concepting through the complete process of strategy, design, development and continued maintenance of their campaigns. With these projects, we’ve had the pleasure of not only participating in the growth of their ideas and bringing them to life, but helping shape them with our knowledge and experience in the industry. Read more

/ Don

Adobe Suite CS5 Tricks – Noble Desktop

I had the pleasure of attending Noble Desktop‘s training of Adobe Suite CS5 on November 8th, so I can learn a bunch of tricks and tips new to more recent versions of Adobe’s famed suite. The hour-long seminar was led by Noble Desktop’s “Dan” who also maintains their site and occasional freelance gigs. Dan skillfully and quickly walked us through a number of features that have been added to the creative suite for Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign and Adobe PhotoShop. Because I currently don’t have the new suite and I know I will forget these tricks shortly, as well as the fact that the AIGA NY event had limited seating and many [d]online readers aren’t members of the AIGA or reside in NYC, I thought It might be nice to share some of these tips with you here while simultaneously documenting them for my failing memory. Read more

/ Don

4G in NYC

This is the first day my HTC Evo has allowed me to connect to the 4G network in both Manhattan and Hoboken. Needless to say, I’m pretty excited, though I haven’t seen much of a difference yet. So far, my favorite part was to be able to rub it in Zeh‘s face as his Nexxus One isn’t 4G capable.

/ Don

Ian Wright’s Paper Trail

Ian Wright—the artist, not the English footballer turned television and radio personality—made this illustration with pieces of paper for the cover of the current album of T.I. called Paper Trail. On Wednesday, September 22nd, he’ll be speaking for AIGA/NY’s Small Talk Number 1. Shame that I’ll be out of town, but I really love the quality of craft and originality of his work.

Here’s the recap from the AIGA site:
A Londoner currently based in NYC, Wright has been making portraits across art and design since 1978 for clients such as Vitra, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nike and Issey Miyake. After a sharing a studio with designer Neville Brody at “The Face” magazine in 1981, Wright set up his own studio.

Enjoying the unpredictability they offer, his use of deliberately inexpensive materials has included salt,  cassette tape(s), pin buttons, mascara brushes and paper cups.

Wright’s illustrative artwork has been exhibited internationally, including the London Design Museum (2007), the Exposure Gallery (2007), the Cosh Gallery (2007), Rosemary Gardens (2005), Pentagram  Gallery (2005), Reed Space NYC (2006), Mass Production at The Christopher Henry Gallery (NYC) (2006), and Issey Miyake (2002), among others.

/ Don

Random Musings III

Sir, this area is just for waiting

After just having returned from a month researching my family in Italy (we were able to trace our family back to 1200 when previously we couldn’t get past 1860), I noticed the prevalence of the green man over The States’ preference for the red word “Exit”. But I also saw a number of signs that I felt were funny. Here’s one for the “waiting area” of an airport. In a place where iconography is especially important due to so many international speakers around, I initially thought this was a sign for the bathroom.

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