Color & Design ... an Oasis of Grafx.

You Gotta Go Mobile

2012-01-25T06:55:00.000-08:00

I've lugged a notebook/laptop computer to meetings for years, but now it's oh so much easier to travel with my iPad2 loaded with apps to word process, present slide shows, and more. The screen resolution-clarity is fantastic and if you're in a wi-fi environment, you'll have quick access to the internet.

With the move to local search from mobile devices, we added the iPad to our testing platform of website design.

After hours, I read ePubs on my iPad ... Photoshop and other magazines, white papers, books, and more.

Thank you Steve Jobs-Apple Computer for developing outstanding tools for business and personal use!!

Hmmm ... movies on the iPad ... gotta love it!

Leave a comment to share your mobile experience.

2012 Color of the Year

2011-12-08T05:04:00.001-08:00

Pantone Systems recently announced the color for 2012 is Tangerine-Tango, PMS 17-1463.

Orange has been a popular color for the past several years. But this reddish-orange hue is a shot of energy ... a call to action to energize us. If you were blue in 2011, look to Tangerine-Tango to recharge and move forward in 2012.

Fashion designers are incorporating Tangerine-Tango in their designs for women's and men's fashion. This energizing color is also showing up in lines of cosmetics and interior designers are spicing up rooms with paint, pillows, linens, appliances, and other accessories.

I believe we'll see Tangerine-Tango used in film, art, print and on the web, if not now, in the new year.

It's time to upgrade our PMS Color Books and get energized.

The Color of Smashing Pumpkins ... Boo!

2011-10-28T03:09:00.000-07:00

Dropping pumpkins and watching them explode into chunky bits of orange is fun. A study of color in motion ... what a treat!

Solar Powered Mobile Charging Device

2011-10-28T02:49:00.000-07:00

German start-up Changers launches solar-powered charger for mobile phones and a community and marketplace for turning energy produced into tangible credit. What a cool device to keep your mobile devices charged and it comes with rewards.

Mobile-Local Search

2011-10-28T02:31:00.000-07:00

There has been a huge increase in search for local businesses from mobile devices. Often consumers are looking for a nearby business – whether it's a restaurant, dry cleaners, hair salon; dentist, shopping for the best price; directions to a store or store hours.

Search is replacing the phone book making it even more important to be found online via your website (desktop and mobile) and local listings. Google has built nearly 50 million places pages of which only 7% have been claimed. We're getting business back on the map with our mobile-local internet management service through claiming your place with Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Our Mobile-Local service does the work for you. We'll claim your pages with Google, Yahoo and Bing and maintain your places pages on a monthly basis. It's a form of search optimization to drive more traffic to your business. If you're ready to get more traffic, contact us for a free Google Places competitive position report.

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Nature's Canvas - Northern Lights

2011-10-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

Northern Lghts – a beautiful abstract splash of color on nature's canvas.

Some believe that early dragon legends of China and Europe originated from the aurora... people imagined firey breath flashing across the sky as the gigantic creatures trudged across the landscape.

In ancient times, when people as far south as France and Italy saw the waves of light flashing across the skies, they were truly shaken. They believed the lights to be a warning of illness, plague and death.

The superstitious people of Middle-Age Europe thought they were being warned of the outbreak of war when they saw the aurora as the color red. Red is the most common color seen at low latitudes.

Some believed the Northern Lights were the breath of warriors as they fought in the heavens. It was believed that the spirits of soldiers who gave their lives were rewarded with continuing to battle in the skies forever.

Pale yellow-green auroras are the most common aurora color, and are produced by oxygen molecules located about 60 miles above the earth. All-red auroras are a result of high-altitude oxygen, at heights of up to 200 miles. Blue or purplish-red auroras are produced by nitrogen.

Defining the northern lights

Noun

northern lights - the aurora of the northern hemisphere

aurora borealis

aurora - an atmospheric phenomenon consisting of bands of light caused by charged solar particles following the earth's magnetic lines of force

Mobile Productivity App

2011-10-27T06:08:00.000-07:00

NEW! Mobile-Social Productivity App
Did you know that businesses can benefit from tying together location-based services and social to provide context around events, customer activity and more? You can use your smartphone as a sensor to provide context around collaboration ... location, customer, project are all elements providing context for the work problem.

Color - A Social Network App

2011-08-17T01:33:00.000-07:00

Color is a new smartphone app that allows you to be be seen doing whatever and wherever. The goal of this app is to offer a visual social networking experience ... everything is public.

Imagine yourself at a wedding where friends, relatives, and strangers are shooting photos or video and posting them on Color. These images are uploaded via the app and are immediately shared with all of the surrounding phones – including pictures or videos the guests have ever added to the app, whether from a baby's birthday, wild parties, meetings, or a secret rendezvous. Accidentally uploading the wrong images will become a part of your social behavioral history.

Users can choose to follow specific people's feeds. The app's software uses the GPS and Bluetooth capabilities of phones to automatically locate people who are nearby to a user or with whom there is frequent interaction. Frequent interaction involves viewing, "liking," or commenting on other users' posts. The app uses a phone's light sensor and microphone to recognize photos taken by individuals in a shared environment from snapshots of people who merely happen to be nearby.

I've read both positive and negative reviews and question how much we should share with the world. Will there be repercussions? It's open for discussion.

High Dynamic Range - Photography & Photoshop

2011-07-31T12:31:00.000-07:00

To record a greater range of tonal detail in a single photo with high dynamic range (HDR) images, shoot at normal exposure, then under-expose a shot to capture highlights and over-expose a shot to capture shadow detail. Adobe recommends limiting the bracketing by 1 stop which will help reduce banding. You may also take 5 or more shots with a smaller gap in the bracketing. Good results can be had with 3 shots ... over expose and under expose by 2 stops. Use the "merge to HDR" feature of Photoshop to combine a series of bracketed exposures into a single image.

Check out the HDR video below.

Digital Art by the Master - Bert Monroy

2011-02-12T12:24:00.000-08:00

Have you ever seen a piece of art and couldn't tell if it was a photo or an illustration? If you have, most likely it was a Bert Monroy creation. His work is the best in the land. His main tool is Photoshop and he has been an alpha tester since the beginning and helped develop the brushes in CS5.

I had the privilege of attending a Bert Monroy/Photoshop seminar several years ago and was blown away by his tips and tricks and his digital art. He's most definitely a Photoshop Guru.

Meet Bert Monroy.

Kuler, the Cool Color Tool!

2010-06-04T02:03:00.000-07:00

I've been using Adobe products since 1.0. The Kuler extension is a great inspirational tool for creating color palettes for projects. Yeah, I continue to refer to my suitcase of PMS color swatches, but Kuler is a quick and easy reference within my workflow.