You’ve probably seen my business cards by now, whether “in the flesh” or here on my website. These are custom laser-cut wooden business cards with red alder as the background and walnut for the logo part! Another fun thing about these cards is the logo is actually thicker than the background, making it stick out ever so slightly (this was on purpose) – giving it a 3D quality that not even “raised lettering” business cards can’t top!

JA Design Wood Business Cards - by NW Laser Image

These are the result of the highly creative, exceptionally skilled work from NW Laser Image! The business cards even got featured on their website (not to mention mine!).

If you have engraving, sand carving, dye sublimation, or CNC routing needs, this is who you want to see! To see more of Laser Image’s work and to contact them, visit the website here: www.nwlaserimage.com

If you’ve been to my portfolio, or you saw my recent article on Using Channels in Photoshop to remove backgrounds then you have probably seen my International Compost Awareness Week poster contest submission!

Well the great news is my design is a finalist in the final run; now it’s up for a public vote and I need your help in making mine the winner! What’s in it for me you ask? well unfortunately I’m just a poor graphic designer… I can’t offer monetary compensation – but you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you are part of why I won! That should be enough to hold you over with excellent karma for at least half a year! What a deal!

But in all seriousness: I put a lot of time and love into that design (even found a way to help others learn from it) and would really love to have it published and printed (nationwide too!).

Please take a moment and vote for my design here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ICAW_2011_Poster_Poll

I really appreciate it!

Attention all Digital and Traditional artists:

I want to showcase your work here on my blog

A form of gathered-inspiration all in one place. I am interested in showcasing all kinds of artistic talent for everyone to see!

Send me a note with a link to your work (it has to be hosted somewhere) and I’ll include it in my first (of many hopefully) “Design Inspiration” posts.

Thanks!

One of the best things you can do when planning a site is to get the client involved. Forcing them to confront, and iterate, their expectations can save you time (and money) down the road. The best way to do that is to listen to them. The following is designed not to be a hard-and-fast checklist, but a tool to stimulate thought, and, from that, to stimulate conversation.

You can either give it to the client to fill out in advance of a meeting or simply use it as a guide while you talk to them. It is best for small- to medium-sized projects.

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Thanks to @Gautch on Twitter for sharing this!

Using the WPTouch plugin for WordPress by Brave New Code.com, I was able to quickly and easily set up orkron.com to be formatted to the iPhone and iPod Touch! This plugin is great because it doesn’t require an .htaccess redirect for mobile phones – which doesn’t work properly in all browsers – and I wanted my blog to be easier to read on my iPod Touch (and others’).

If you have a wordpress blog, I highly recommend this plugin!

I, like some of you, recently upgraded to the Adobe CS4 family.  The new interface is very nice; I especially like the tabbing between open windows function.

There are some frustrating differences between CS3 (and older) and the new CS4 version.

I wanted to go over the two differences that caused me the most headaches; I’m hoping this article will help some of you get past a couple obstacles that are not so obvious to figure out otherwise.

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