Happy Birthday Bro

Shout out to my bro Ben.
Have a good one!

And One for my Homie

R.I.P. DT.
We will always love you.

Transparent Gradient in Illustrator

I recently completed some vector illustrations for an up-coming project. Upon review, a friend asked me how I made transparent gradients in Illustrator. Now compared to Photoshop which has opacity is built, this may seem quite difficult to achieve in Illustrator... but using these four steps make it easy.

Step 1.
Create a solid filled object.


Step 2.
Copy and paste the object in front (Control/Cmd + C, then Control/Cmd + F).


Step 3.
Select the solid object on top and make it a gradient from the gradient palette. (Window > Gradient)


Step 4.
Select both objects, now go to your transparency palette. (Window > Transparency)
Open the fly-out menu and click Make Opacity Mask.
Voilà!

16 ÷ 10 = easier

I use mostly ems for my font sizes in web design. There are certain times when I use % or px, but mostly ems. I typically use a formula where I divide the font size I want in px by 16—which in most cases is the default browser size. Now I actually found this simple math and easy to implement. For example, if I wanted 13px for my font size I simply put 0.8125em.

However, as I was thinking about it, it would probably make more sense to start with 10s (tens) rather than 16s (sixteens). But I guess being American, and having most of my life revolving around 12s, 16s and yards and ounces I didn't think twice. However struggling having a respect for my new homeland in the UK, I figured there must be something behind all this metric stuff. And sure enough 10s are a lot easier!

So, back to the css. I figure if I declared a base font size in the body other than 16 or 1em  based on 10 that life could be simpler. So using the same principles as above, I divided 10 by 16 and got 0.625. Which put in a percentage as my base size would allow me to simplify all other fonts sizes. So what use to be 0.8125em for 13px would now become 1.3em. Pretty handy eh!

example:
body {
font-size: 62.5%;
font-family: verdana;
}

Now thinking that I may have had a stroke of genius (which is unlikely), I thought I would further research this. Come to find out. . .most people new about this anyhow. So, if you are like me and sometimes slow to catch the bandwagon, I hope this helps.

wordle up!

Wordle is a java applet that is simply fantastic. Its basic idea is to create/generate a "word cloud." You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and colours. Some of the fonts that have been contributed are from the like of Ray Larabie, and Barry Schwartz.

One thing to note is that the algorithm uses a system in which the more times a word appears the larger it will be. There is an example in the FAQ section that explain this further. With that in mind, I think this can lead to some some very inspiring work. Especially for an unsuspecting client.

Woah, My kid is turning 7

Yep...My son will be seven this month. I'm starting to feel old. I knew I looked old with the grey hair and all, but jeez.

Quick Look Plugins

I was searching the other day for quick look plugins. I found this site with some amazing plugins. In fact, there are some that I would have actually thought would have been included in the standard OS. . .but hey that me thinking huh!

Mactrickandtips.com

Happy 4th America

Happy Independence Day America! Now go blow something up in celebratory fashion