Construction Update

I am pleased to announce that the content management system (CMS) is now properly installed on my site. A database has also been set up to accompany the site. This will allow for better content management as well as ease of use and dynamic features. I plan to have restricted areas for any content I wish to sell, such as logos or even templates. This area will also play a role in selling photography!
I will be researching the extensions and shopping cart options next, but in the mean time I have to figure out how to customize and redesign the look of the default settings. I'm really excited because I had a rough time trying to set up the database. Webhero.com and Joomla.org both helped and I am glad I was able to make a dynamic site. Finally!

Photo Shoot

I went to a basketball game to take some photos for a client. The client is only doing pro bono work with me at this time and I see this as an investment in experience. The photos are of him and the mascot of his business interacting with students at the game.

I took some time to get some shots of the players as well, and found it very difficult to get the timing right. First, it was too hard to watch the players through the lens, so I opened both eyes and concentrated on the left eye. I got used to that quickly but the timing and lighting was also an issue. I started taking shots just before a player would release the ball and when they were running also.

I do not intend to sell these images, copywrite applies.

Finished Project

Client: PulseVet Technologies

I finished up an old project that was waiting on changes for 2 months and I also finished the design (not final) for a 2 fold pamphlet. Both print jobs are based on a standing blue/light aqua blue-graidant background. Both contain text with multiple sets of bullet lists. The graphics used are from stock photography and can be found at www.shutterstock.com.

The theme was created for their convention booth by another company. The name of the company that created the look is Blue Sky Exhibits. It has the gradient with horse and canine images masked out in circles. White outlines, text and pointers are used along with wavy shades of the blue and aqua used in the gradiant. It was easy to re-create with InDesign and Photoshop. I also had to incorporate some of their product shots with a silver background.

I think I will be going over the time limit that I had alloted for this project but I am still happy with the results.

Images and work are property of PulseVet Technologies.

Design Tip: Mirror Images

When I mirror an image, either in Photoshop or Illustrator, it is usually to help fit another element into the design. It is extremely useful when adding other images or to help balance out text. It is also very simple to do and you can get the hang of it quickly.

I found an image today [from "http://magento-themes.joomlart.com/jm_mesolite/"] that has been altered and mirrored. It may be because the site graphics person is concerned about copy write infringements or perhaps it was over looked for another purpose.

The image was simply flipped horizontally. This can be done through the 'Free Transform' mode. To use the 'Free Transform', from the menu, choose 'Edit', 'Free Transform' or use the hotkey "Ctrl-T." While you are in transform mode, left click and select the 'Flip Horizontal' option. After you are finished, check to make sure text or other items that belong on certain sides is correct. In this case, the Macintosh symbol was flipped.

JavaScript Quick Solution

Below is a solution I programmed for my company's site at work. It involves redirecting the viewer to a warning page if the cookie is not recognized along with an alert pop up window. If the cookie is read, the viewer is taken to the actual content page.

Unfortunately there is no way in Blogger to separate the text and the HTML is limited so I was restricted and changed out all the greater than - less than symbols on the tags. Same with curly brackets.

[script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript"]

if (document.cookie < 1)

[

var cliff = new Date();

cliff.setDate(cliff.getDate() + 1);

document.cookie = "International = Warning; expires =" + cliff.toGMTString() + " ; " ;

alert("You are about to enter a section of the website that has material and products that are not approved by the FDA. Products are not available for sale in the US.")

]

else [

window.location = "../international/INT_dermapaceAPP.html"

]

[/script]

Design Tip: Dividing the Workspace Using Guidelines

When working in most graphic editing programs, one is given the ability to align align align. It is one of the fundamentals of the four concepts of design: Color, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity. I think the last two stand out the most for me and it’s important to understand as well as incorporate these concepts into design.

I would like to point out that I am, in turn, speaking about design and not art as a whole. Art to me does not necessarily have to be balanced, but in a good design, I was taught to balance everything, even in terms of contrasting sizes or color. I have noticed over the years that more and more people require and request balance in most of the work I do.

Now consider the alignment guides that are used in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign and other programs. When using proportions, lets say; in terms of equal distances for a pamphlet we need to divide the page equally. A handout style pamphlet traditionally has 3 sections on each side and therefore 2 folds. These two folding lines are where we would like to place our guides [or guidelines] to equally divide 3 sections. If you take 11 inches and divide by 3, you come up with 3.6666 . . . so there is a dilemma.

The solution is quite easy but for some reason it took me a very long time to notice it: Add additional guidelines, to serve as markers at the end of the page, and within these (outermost) guidelines we can equally distribute the other guides. Just take the outer most guides, line them up with the page’s edge. Then select all the guides together and select the “Horizontal Distribute Center” button shown in this graphic.

Hope this was helpful to anyone who works with a lot of layout!

Site Under Construction

I have decided to re-design my website. It has minimal content and it doesn't function as well as I would like it to. The theme is photography, obviously, however I would also like to promote my ability to design and encode websites as well. I believe that I need to review my portfolio and include a lot of the work that I've done over the last 3 years. This will include the work I've done with SANUWAVE as well as freelance work on the side for PulseVet and Premier Shockwave.

Taking into consideration that my site will not satisfy a curious customer coming from a free lance site, I am going to look into a free CMS solution for the layout of www.tuckersphotography.com. After the layout is fixed, I can worry about the content management and even possible dynamic content.