Posts Tagged ‘ipad’
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We’re back! I had built myself a little bit of a buffer by writing Wednesday’s strip in advance, but then I saved over it while I was prepping this one for launch. So, if everyone would rather see more adobee, I can certainly keep it alive.
The game being run is specifically detailed here, and it was run like fast break. As much as I want to hold Adobe up as the bastion of great software design, there are far too many troubles and inconsistencies in it’s “suite” of software to do so. It’s little things, as it so often is, that are cause for concern. The way a window resizes when you zoom, the default direction of rotating objects. What “transparency” is called, or how to make a dotted line in different programs. I swear you need a Ph.D. in Illustrator to suss out how to make a dotted line if you were never explicitly taught how, and in InDesign you select from a drop-down menu that is always there.
These little inconsistencies between their programs, programs designed to be a family, are so minor that I can deduce not one reason besides apathy and/or hubris that they haven’t streamlined the whole package. Illustrator is, of course, the worst offender, and Flash, still holding onto a lot from it’s days as a Macromedia application, is a close second.
It’s like they just need to put all these teams together in a room, or something. Have an office lunch to say “You know, Illustrator, when you resize a window or turn on your rulers, the page should re-size and re-center, the way it does in InDesign, Photoshop, and everything else.” Until then I will always think of Illustrator as the dickhead jock of the group.
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The Reflex Blue Show, Season 2, Episode 21: Secret Penguins and iPads
February 5th, 2010 |Posted In: The Reflex Blue Show
Last Saturday, What Cheer was holding an open house to celebrate their new office space. They may not have had a Street Fighter II machine in the lobby like we do, but there was an Elvis pinball (TCB!) machine in the building. They also had a camera set up to automatically take pictures every 10 or 15 seconds, leaving prrof that Nate and I were both there. The evening also gave us a chance to see the new Secret Penguin office next door (still under construction), and talk with the head penguin himself, Dave Nelson.
Dave had previously been a guest on the Be A Design Cast (#28: The Freelance Show) when he was part of Divvy Collective, and a guest of The Reflex Blue Show (#11: Epic Fail) when he shared office space with What Cheer. As Dave is in a two-week limbo between offices, and working out of his house, we figured it was an ideal time to steal an hour of his time to talk about the industry.
The big buzz is all about the iPad (which we had things to say about) and how to get work in this economy (which it ends up we didn’t have much to say about, so it’s best to just listen to Michael Bierut talk about clients). We end by speaking about what Secret Penguin has been up to lately: getting skateparks in Omaha, an award-winning website for an OB/GYN, and all sorts of Martial Arts.
And of course, Mig Reyes brings us the student tip. And Dave supplied the Red Bull Sugarfree.
Download The Reflex Blue Show with Nate Voss and Donovan Beery, Season 2 Episode 21 (26 meg) or click here to subscribe to The Reflex Blue Show from the iTunes Music Store.
Nate Voss is a designer, illustrator, talkshow host and design journalist. Working in Omaha since 2001, Nate served four years on the Board of Directors for 
Donovan oversees all creative development at