squirtgunn.com

thoughts on design and life

Publisher File Conversion

Occasionally I will have clients that have tried their hand at Graphic Design using Microsoft Publisher and want me to extract images or content from that document when they wise up and come to the professionals. Since we don’t have nor would we want to have Publisher in-house, I’ve struggled with what to do without frustrating or making my client’s life harder. I stumbled on an online solution that works great that I wanted to share. A company called Zamar offers an online conversion tool for publisher files that will convert them to any number of formats including a PDF file. This has come in very handy on a couple of occasions.

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New Vehicle Wrap

Here is a new vehicle wrap I have designed for Lisa and Glenn up at Puckrin’s Soccer Shop in Clearfield. It is quite a bit different than the design I put together last year. I think It still refelcts the brand direction pretty well and the illustrations were a lot of fun to do. I will post photos once it is produced next month.

Puckrin’s Wrap 2008

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Davis Lanes Poster

Here is a new poster in the series I have created for Davis Lanes.

Davis Lanes Bowiling Poster of Uncle Sam

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Bloom Recycling Website Concept

This is a homepage concept I developed for Bloom Recycling out of Ogden.

Bloom Concept

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McCoy Paper Button Promotion

I don’t enter a lot of contest but this one was short, sweet and offered a free $10 iTunes gift card just for entering. Below is my silly entry. Go to the site and vote for me and your other favorites and maybe I’ll win the grand prize. The first 1000 entries receive the free iTunes card and it looks like there is still plenty of time to enter and win. Join the Fun!

http://24-7designheaven.com/button/landing.php
campaign button

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Inspirational PDF Magazines

Greg sent me this handy link which is a great library of Industry related PDF magazines
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/04/22/inspirational-pdf-magazines/

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Jazz v. Rockets

T-Mac

We had a client call up and have us design three signs for him to take to the Jazz Game tonight. It was really random but gave me a chance to do something I have always wanted to do - design a stupid sign for a Jazz Game - and get paid for it! I did this quick caricature of Tracy McGrady for one of the signs. It would only come out if the Jazz win so hopefully they win and we all get some ESPN facetime - Go Jazz!

UPDATE: A photo of our signs was taken by an AP photographer and posted on ESPN.com

http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/photos?photoId=1928595&gameId=280502026

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Food for Thought – Herman Miller

These quotes are from Brian Walker, CEO of Herman Miller a company often looked up to for their visionary commitment to innovation in design:

They are unique in that they outsource a lot of their creative development, his response to why:

“The drive for us is our commitment to new ideas and solutions. Our external network ensures that we are always taking a fresh look at problems faced by our customers without subjecting it to our own filters. This approach has it’s challenges but it often leads to the best ideas and breakthroughs.”

He also gave these words of advice when outsourcing creative:

“What we’ve learned is to have a willingness to follow and give ourselves over to these designers - not loose ourselves, but be open to following them to places that we may question in the beginning…We try to follow them without judging them too quickly.”

His definition of success:

“It’s easy on some ways to come up with great designs that have no commercial value, but to have great design that solves real problems and creates commercial value, that’s where genius comes in.”

“Solving problems is where our design work begins.”

@ISSUE magazine, Vol 12, no. 1 p. 2

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Davis Arts Council

We have the opportunity again this year to work with the Davis Arts Council. We are currently concepting the look and feel for the upcoming summer season. Below is a concept I developed for them. It was a lot of fun to do. After a very hectic week of deadlines it was nice to take a few hours and just have fun creatively.

dac_summernights2.jpg

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Great Quote

I found this quote this week at a time when I really needed it’s message:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

— Teddy Roosevelt

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