EPS files have their uses, for sure, but they seem to be a standard output of Adobe Illustrator, which is a bit sad, because Inkscape (the open source vector editor I use) can’t open them (without some hassle with ghostscripts or something).

Recently I needed to change the colour of an EPS image and I didn’t want to do a hack job by just filling a new colour over a bitmap versions. I did a quick search for converting EPS files and saw several references to PDF and opening the PDF in Inkscape. I realised I didn’t need extra software to convert an EPS to PDF. Everything I need is already on my computer: Preview.

I bet loads of people view their PDFs in Preview every day with no idea of its hidden power…

One thing Preview is quite good at is saving files in different formats. All I had to do was open the EPS in Preview and Save As… PDF. I was then able to open it directly with Inkscape and the objects were all in tact for me to change their fill and stroke to my heart’s content.

Gender UnFail

An update on my previous post Gender Fail. I got another email from Australia Post. It looks like they’ve FiXed the issue!

Who’s baby is that anyway?

I was on Facebook and spied this advert on the side of the page.

Is this what your baby starts to look like when you give them enough free stuff? Is this free stuff some kind of consumer testing?

Just looking at that kid cracks me up!

Four’N Twenty Magic Salad Plate

I was driving home listening to the radio and I heard a rather extended advert, perhaps radio’s answer to the info-mercial. It was for the Four’N Twenty Magic Salad Plate. By the end of the ad I thought that it might have been a joke. Definitely up the alley of some Aussies.

Have a look at their FAQ though:

I got an email from Australia Post a little while ago asking me to do a lifestyle survey. Gmail doesn’t load images in emails unless you tell it to (or tell it to always display images from that sender), so you get to see the alternate text.

Email before images

I allowed it to show the images and it wasn’t quite what was expected.

Email with images

It turns out that Australia Post is less apt at identifying genders than a 2 year old.

For the $50 film camera project, I picked up my “new” Kodak Retinette 1A on Ebay for $19.99 + $12 postage (that’s Australian dollars, so even less in USD).

The project was almost immediately fun! It’s always a bit of a rush to win on Ebay… if you’re like me and don’t bid too often, I guess. :P After some misadventure with the self-timer (which was also fun — I’d never taken a camera apart before) I started shooting on film (maybe only the second time since leaving high school).

The Specs

I hunted down a bit of info on my new baby: it looks like it was made sometime between October 1959 and February 1961. The lens is Schneider-Kreuznach Reomar f/3.5 50mm, and the shutter is Pronto.

This camera does not take batteries! Which means no metering and no auto-focus (shock horror)! Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of manual focus, I just don’t use it enough. Now I have the perfect opportunity! Although, the Retinettes were the less expensive (viewfinder) answer to the Kodak Retina rangefinders, so it’s pure guess work for estimating your distance and setting the focus wheel.

This Retinette has an aperture range of f/3.5–22 and shutter speeds of 1/250, 1/100, 1/60 and 1/30 seconds as well as a bulb setting (as long as you hold the shutter down — no off camera trigger).

To set the shutter and advance the film you use the “rapid wind lever“, which then allows you to release the shutter. Make sure you get into a habit of cocking the shutter before you shoot lest you miss your shot!

I was pretty amazed that a camera this old came with a self-timer! There’s a little red lever below the focus ring that turns on the timer. Once the timer is on you have to take a timed shot… In this case, red means stop! It was one of the first things I pushed and I had to take the camera apart and loosen the timer cogs to get the shutter to fire.

Also pretty sweet is the viewfinder, which not only has a frame to estimate your view, but also has a couple of marks inside it indicating the real framing when you’re up close. So, it actually warns you about parallax error! The worst of it is at 3 feet (or closer, but you probably won’t be focused any closer) and gradually extends back to the normal frame at 8 feet.

Shooting with the Retinette

If any of the specs sounded negative they shouldn’t! It’s kind of cool to attempt to shoot with very little idea of the focus, pretty much guessing on the aperture and shutter and no real idea if the film is advancing properly. You just need to throw caution to the wind and be prepared for your photos not to come out!

Once you get past the first couple of rolls I think you have an idea of what the camera is capable of, but until they’re developed you really don’t know if the thing even works. My first SLR had a dodgy mirror when I first bought it, which didn’t flick up when the shutter fired. Very disappointed when those first rolls of film didn’t come out (especially after spending ages trying to roll the damn things onto developing spools — what a pain!).

This time I didn’t expect things to work too well, and indeed they didn’t. My first roll of film wasn’t getting wound on properly. I think it’s because I didn’t stick the end of the film into a little groove on the reel (didn’t even know the groove was there — RTFM). Some of the film got torn and the whole thing just jammed up after about 15 shots. I tried to wind it back up in an unlit room under a blanket, but alas, the film was too badly torn.

I was afraid that the second roll of film wasn’t getting wound on either. So, having only taken a few shots I sacrificed them and opened the back the make sure it was all tidy in there. It was and I realised almost immediately that you can see the rewind wheel turn when you advance the film — a much less destructive way to check it’s working!

Turns out my exposure guessing skills aren’t too horrible, but if you have no idea where to start to shoot without metering, have a look at George McKinney’s Photography Blog for a really good exposure chart.

The photos

I haven’t digitally processed these at all. If I were to do so I might tweak some levels and rotate the pathway ones a little — in throwing caution to the wind I might not have framed things as well as I could. :P

I was surprised at the images that came out of this 48 year old camera! I thought they might look old, perhaps there’d be warping or vignettes from the old lens. However, as you can see from the flowers, the colour is quite bright and if you guess the right focal distance, you get a reasonable shot.

I even tried some panning shots, but with no way to see the result and optimise the settings they aren’t the best I’ve seen. Not too bad though (considering)!

$50 camera project Flickr set: film 1

I mentioned in my intro to participating in this project that I wanted to use some more interesting films, but I can’t get them developed locally. They have to be sent away, or I have to find a darkroom that I can use. Perhaps I will in the not too distant future, but for now I’ll have to settle for regular Kodak colour.

If you’ve forgotten what it’s like to shoot manually with film, or never have, but want a challenge… get out and give it a go!

The I Love Typography wallpaper that I made is up at iLT now. Hope ya like it!

It was inspired by a phone theme that I made, Ampersand, which was inspired by Sunday Type.

Note: there’s a bit of a dodgy artifact where I was masking, I’ve fixed it up and hopefully John will update it soon.

From the title one might think that I have something insightful to say about the art of making a favicon (the little shortcut icon that shows up in your browser’s address bar, on tabs and in bookmark lists). Really, I just want to say two things.

First thing about favicons

They’re damn cool: they make identifying websites in a list or in my tab bar so much easier. They’re definitely an asset to a website and they say something about the attention to detail the owner or creator of the website has paid.

Have a look at my tab bar:

How much easier is it to identify an icon than half of the site name?!

Second thing about favicons

It’s difficult to make a good one! Since I changed my blog design I have noticed the absence of a favicon, because it always helped me to identify my tab amongst the others I had open.

To get ideas for a favicon I looked at my site; I saw the little hot air balloons in the header and thought they might be a cute favicon.

It was okay, but I didn’t love it.

I had another look and saw the letters and the clouds. I started to make a 3D k, but realised that, in the header, were grey and my browser window is grey… it might get lost. So I thought I’d try a little cartoon with a cloud and a k.

As favicons go I don’t mind it, but I didn’t want it to represent me… possibly too much blue.

I had a look at a few other favicons and noticed that small, simple shapes make effective favicons. I thought I’d try to make a k within a grid of dots (not really related to any elements on the site, but hey).

It looked good large, but when it shrunk down and was displayed by the browser I didn’t like it. Perhaps more space in between the dots would make them clearer at a small size.

In the end I decided to use a plain k. The font is Georgia. I would have preferred to use Diavlo, which is the font in the header, but I can’t get Inkscape to see my custom fonts and I use Georgia for all the other headings in the blog. It’s not just a letter on a background though, the letter is actually transparent/negative space.

I’m not sure how much I like the k either, but it can stay until I come up with something better. :P

Update 30 May 2008: Made a new favicon already, can be seen in your address bar (unless the old one is cached) or in the next post.

Effective favicons

I don’t think I’ve actually identified what makes an effective favicon yet.

Proportions

When making them (and working at a larger size or zoomed in) you need to make lines quite thick so that they’re visible at 16x16px. Yet, many favicons look remarkably detailed.

Photos

Bitmap illustrations seem to be much more effective and more widely used than photos, but every now and again someone uses a photo well.

Be careful using a photo if you try to mask out the background. When you shrink it down to 16px the edges get much harder: dark lines that you couldn’t see at larger size suddenly appear and it’s difficult to know how much background to delete.

Related to the website

Overall I think the most effective favicons are the ones that tie in with the theme of the site, often using a tiny version of the main logo.

I suspect the art of making a favicon is related to the principles of pixel art, something I’ve never really tried.

Favicon galleries

• FineIcons Favicon Gallery
• The Favicon Gallery
• Daniel Burka’s Favourite Favicons
• MpP Favicon Gallery

Ironically, some of those links don’t have favicons!

Have you got a favicon? How did you make or choose it? Have any tips to share with us favicon newbies about making them?

Wired.com is having a water photo contest.

Sometimes Wired manages to promote some excellent and unique photographs; sometimes they rehash ones that have already been seen. ;)

I’ve entered my photograph Floating in colour. I also have some very cool photos of birds and ducks in water, which I might enter if I have the chance.

Please head on over to Wired and vote for your favourite water photos (and mine if you like it!). Cheers!

Design ripping is a big topic in some circles. There’s even a whole blog, You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice, dedicated to it. There’s probably other blogs about it that I haven’t seen.

I read YTWWN because, initially, I thought it was well researched. However, it turns out there’s lots of authors and only a few of them are good researchers. On top of that, the commenters are rather hot-headed.

Where’s the line between inspiration, rip and ‘reinvention of the circle’?

The gaining of wisdom

In high school I went through a phase of drawing hearts with wings and a halo everywhere. On my books, school diary, desks… anything really. As far as I was concerned I had had come up with the design myself. There was no conscious inspiration for it.

That same year there was a Rock Eisteddfod (I’m not sure if it was the REC or not). A group of people from our school put together a performance of dancing, lighting and costumes. I think it told some kind of story or gave a message. There was one thing that stood out for me: a huge banner with a big heart with wings.

I was so ticked! I thought it was obvious that the design had been ripped from me since I’d been drawing that thing all over the school for months. A friend asked the girl who designed the banner about it; she said it was original. For years I doubted it, until… I bought a doona cover with winged hearts on it. Obviously my design, despite having come up with it fairly independently, was not original. Even a quick Google image search for heart wings halo can tell you the same.

Hey, I was young! What can you expect?

Panoramio vs. MarcoPolo

So now, when I see the Panoramio logo, how annoyed can I be that it looks so similar to the logo I designed for MarcoPolo? I’d say, “not very”, because they’re both to do with locations; they’re obviously based on compasses; lets face it, I didn’t invent circles or arrows!

I think it’s a bit amusing actually.

Panoramio logo and favicon

    |    

MarcoPolo toolbar icon and favicon

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More research

It looks like the Panoramio logo was made in 2005. The MarcoPolo logo was made in 2006 (I think), but since I made it I can honestly say that it was made completely independently of the Panoramio logo, which I saw for the first time a couple of weeks ago.

I also found a post by James Fee, showing similarity between compass logos.

It happens!

Final thoughts

The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.

There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.

Ecclesiastes 1:8-11

I saw this great concept via i love typography.

Select five words and explore their expressive quality by manipulating the letter forms.

Expressive words.

I thought it looked like a bit of fun and a thoughtful exercise, so I gave it a go. I only did four words, three of which Karly did (to see what else I could come up with) and one of my own (a dictionary.com Word of the Day).

The fonts: STSong for bloom because it’s one I found on my computer recently and kinda like; Helvetica for magic because it was one of the fonts Karly restricted herself to and I wanted to go for non-fancy fonts; Apple Chancery for confluence because I really wanted something flowing, but not too fancy; Baskerville for bright because it was one of the fonts Karly picked and Manuel said he hated it — I wanted to see what the fuss was about (I didn’t — I love that g!).

I’m not sure if I went against the rules, or the spirit of the exercise by bending the l in bloom or using different shades in magic or blurring the letters of bright, but it was fun. There was definitely minimal manipulation.

Other expressers

• Karly, who pretty much spread the exercise and did an amazing job with her words
• Matt Jewel — I love jump, very effective
• Manuel, whose lost was quite inspired, but I’ll admit to not getting it at first (bloom is very similar to mine, but I didn’t actually see his until after I’d done mine)
• vlad, who gave me the idea or the word of the day and whose walloping is totally cool

I was very excited when I heard that my wallpaper would be featured on Smashing Magazine’s April Calendar Wallpaper post! I decided to contain my excitement until the post came out and I could point you to it.

There’s some great stuff there. Very cool idea to incorporate a calendar into a wallpaper: it’s practical and it can be a nice feature by itself.

Happy April!