Visual Artifacts

Smashing Magazine on the Web - More powerful than CA

2009-03-22T13:07:00.004-04:00

Well for nearly 3 years, I thought we kept this quiet. Smashing Magazine after all was the epicenter of the new digital art movement. It is informing, exciting and it shares it's complete knowledge with you.

Smashing Magazine is going to be as important as Rolling Stone and Emigre together. We'll not that we did a great job keeping this gigantic living archive a secret - it's morphing into a large "all encompassingly," arts gallery of the world. Enjoy. But we believe it can take upwards of a year to completely read and visit all the links on this website.

Atomic Toy and the Dude-A-Day Project

2008-12-18T13:27:00.003-05:00

Recently, Eric Benoit, sent over another unique link for pure enjoyment. I do not have the entire story on this fellow, only a website with a new character being drawn everyday for a year. Take time and profile the "dude-a-day," project. I'm sure you can find a relative among the many. Cheers.

1.8 Million Earthly Beings

2008-11-24T09:39:00.002-05:00

STEINDACHNER'S DRUM - Umbrina steindachneri or fish as I call it. You can find this fish and 1.8 million more on " Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). I had seen this on TV a few years ago or read it in Wired Magazine, but recently Eric Benoit sent me the link. It's well worth the bookmark for being! Cheers

Amazing Animation and Cartoon Archive

2008-11-12T10:36:00.003-05:00

This Website is amazing! The archives are rich with original scans, typography, color and line art. The amount of great characters and scenes will just overwhelm your senses. The site offers a museum. library, and digital archive from the international animated film society. Enjoy this treasure of visual film and print work.

RSS Feeds: Bring Content Into Your Site - RSS Really Simple Syndication

2008-09-15T17:03:00.004-04:00

News widgets and News feeds on on Feedzilla.com

We can use RSS feeds from various sources and CSS style sheet the feed. Nearly any website can have RSS feeds either going to or from a site. Now people can subscribe to website or blog.

SEO and Geographic Searches: Owning keywords

2008-08-13T10:39:00.006-04:00

Recently while working on some SEO for a local providence jeweler, we also tested our "www.hotwireindustries.com," for certain keywords. We tested "website design Providence," and our position was 88th. Well, we called a meeting of the SEO group and set out to see how fast we could rise to "page 1 - natural selection. We changed the title tag on the index page to include our working location. While updating our keywords we stumbled upon a new way to geographically target web searches and we added a new metatag classification to add even more keywords.

Currently we rank on page one - or natural or free - for the keyword "website design providence." We are fairly confident this keyword arrangement is not in high daily demand - but with a little work, you can own key business terms geographically or near your location with a Hotwire SEO Tune up!

What factors affect New England Cable TV media purchase?

2008-07-30T13:20:00.001-04:00

Here are some considerations before investing in a Cable Advertising Campaign

1. Which market- bigger markets more $
2. TV vs. Cable- cable cheaper, but smaller audience
3. Time of day and programming you wanted to buy
4. Time of year, ie: fall and spring most expensive because there is all new programming.
5. Unless you buy National (all the markets) which is very pricey, you have to buy each market individually, ie: some markets near us are: Boston, Providence/Fall River/New Bedford, Northern NH, Southern NH, Maine, Vermont, etc.
6. Because rates change and have to be negotiated each time you buy, I wouldn’t be able to give you an answer until I knew all the factors above- then I could start to negotiate the rates for each show or time of day.
1. But, for an example- TV is bought on points (1 point= a percentage of the population in that area) You negotiate the buy on what is called “cost per point”. Every market has a different cost per point since it is dependant on the population. But say we wanted to buy 200 points on cable TV in the RI market @ a $40 cost per point, the cost would be $8,000. (average points per week: 100-200 for an average buy)

Two year test on rechargeable batteries.

2008-07-26T10:40:00.007-04:00

At 6:35 a.m. my camera bag was loaded and ready to scout the sunlight for a 7:00 a.m. photoshoot on Monday. When I arrived I gathered my equipment and found the original receipt for a 24 pack of AA batteries and charger. A habit of mine is to tape the receipts on the product or camera bag.

In two years we have not thrown a single AA battery away. The batteries we purchased online from http://www.batteryspace.com in packs of 24 for about $35.00. They last as long as any “other,” battery we have tried. The batteries are warm when fully charged. And the charger can hold ten batteries at a time. Most of our equipment requires 4 batteries per unit, so the ten pack charger works well. We have tried three types of batteries and all have worked well in XBOX wireless controllers, cameras, portable speakers, and flashlights. Brookstone carries a great hand crank LED flashlight for under $30.00.

Anyway, at 7:18 a.m. I scouted another location locally. Attached is a shot of the Berkely and Dighton Bridge in Massachusetts. The bridge spans the Taunton River leading to Narragansett Bay. My batteries worked flawlessly. I traveled to 4 more local utility sites and completed the project.

Google Sketch Up Gets Two Thumbs UP

2008-07-22T10:54:00.004-04:00

We’ve been playing around with Google SketchUp for about a year. "Amazingly simple and awesome. Google Sketchup is free and it's located http://sketchup.google.com. Recently, we posted 14 swimming models on YouTube and Google and linked them to our clients site. The models are currently the best way to view the pool since all the measurements we’re on AutoCad files. Now we can keep a “live” SketchUp and file and continually add new textures and there are a few rendering modules for some very high resolution renderings.

Google has thousands of predesigned models free for the taking. Try it and you’ll be hooked.

Ronzio Pizza 30 second television

2008-07-21T17:19:00.000-04:00

The scientific death of white space

2007-06-28T19:20:00.000-04:00

Designers have traditionally used white space to help guide a reader's eyes onto and through print ads. Recent scientific research into how the human eye moves and views a page, however, seems to suggest that image trumps space.

The Verify Corporation in the Netherlands is using new laser technology to track eye movement and the amount of time an eye spends following a composition. Using more than 100 points per second (signified by red dots), Verify tracks and plots the navigation of the eye. The technology checks the composition of an advertisement, and shows if an eye passes over the brand name or logo.

In spread after spread, myself and a dozen other designers were privileged to see the visual charting of eye movements. Spreads and single-page ads were consistently riddled with red dots, starting at the largest element in the spread. The red dots sweep in from top to bottom, and left or right depending upon the composition, but eye movement always originated at the top of the page. Creating a virtual map, the dots spread apart and clustered in and around the image area of original focus. Then, moving on, the dots follow a path to the next area of interest.

In all laser-tracking tests, men and women were tested with the same viewing material. Men and women followed the composition in the same pattern. Anytime that human skin appeared in the ads, all eyes looked with extreme accuracy at the same areas. (Obviously, this was not the focus of the test but a very interesting result nonetheless.) The test results demonstrate how eyes travel across ads and whether or not they scan the brand name or logo. White space was never an issue in laser tracking-the eye always originates at the top and zeroes in on the largest element.

This scientific evidence points to a new understanding of ways to improve print design and communication. With this new technology, companies can better test their print ads prior to publication. The layouts and ads tested were compositionally very diverse. In every case, both men's and women's eyes traveled quickly over white, black and red space and focused on photography and typography. Eyes, it seems, travel without prejudice. In the end, eyes were focused on image rather than white space (and a little skin often provided the focal point).

Hotwire offers website hosting and domain registration

2007-03-21T14:01:00.000-04:00

Hotwire is offering performance driven webhosting and domain registration. http://www.hotwirewebhosting.com

Our web hosting platform solves a rather large dilemma for most of our cost conscience clients. We now offer great hosting and domain registration starting at about $5.00 per month. Our system also allows us easily to set up a Wordpress blog (much like this one) for free. Or we can add email marketing, workstation calendars, an photo modules for a few bucks more a month. We’ve applied the Golden Rule here, do unto others as you would pay yourself! It’s truly one of the best deals on the web. Even domain registration is only $10.00 or about $25 dollars less than register.com.

To date, we are hosting over a dozen websites and domains and have not had any down time in over a year. That’s an amazing 100% uptime for every site we host.

2006-09-27T13:46:00.000-04:00

A typical consumer purchasing pattern over a 2 year period

2006-06-28T15:49:00.000-04:00

Over the last decade, many large companies such as Procter & Gamble have worked diligently on researching purchasing patterns associated with consumer products. The following purchasing pattern began to appear time and time again in almost every consumer category. The binary pattern reinforces the theory of how important it is to be first or a leader in a brand category. This pattern might also suggest that a premium product with a higher cost to manufacture may result in brand preference.

BOODGBOCOBGBABBGBBDBGBCBBGGBBB

Purchasing Key:
Primary (B) total number of B =15
Secondary: (G) total number of G = 7
Tertiary: (O, C, D, A) combined number of tertiary = 8

The Five Ways to Organize Information (LATCH)

2006-06-28T15:48:00.000-04:00

As companies and individuals try to communicate complex product and service offerings, effective organization is critical to success. Many times in the process of organizing, we tend to overlook how the end-user gathers information and focus on our internal needs to organize information. Effective organization will lead to better opportunities in segmentation branding and better understanding by the end user whether it be a consumer, trade partner or internal management.

(LATCH)

Location

Alphabetical

Time

Category

Hierarchy

Designers Have the Ability to Rapidly Prototype

2006-06-28T15:09:00.000-04:00

The 4 Unique Strengths of a Designer
Objective: I would like to help train designers who can visualize and explain in a concise, clear and compelling way the valuable contributions they have made to products or communications and their likely effects on the audience.

Designers Are User-Centered (Experience)
Designers tend to adopt the end-user point-of-view. It is typically the designer who is arguing in favor better materials, nicer finishes, improved human factors and functions. As the mass market breaks-up having a person in the process who can think as a customer is indispensable.

Designers Are Concerned With the Artifact
It is remarkable how little some business managers and product marketers know or communicate about the products they sell and make. As a group, designers exhibit extraordinary sensitivity to materials and processes and the ability to make common place objects delightful. Whether it¹s a subtle curve of a masculine car design, baby gear, or a mark, designers bring unexpected dimension to products that make them special and relevant. In competitive markets where every advantage is pure gold, designers provide a valuable service.

Designers Are Exceedingly Sensitive to Product Quality
We live in a time where individuals all over the world are discovering the value of quality. Yet, in the US, quality is often regulated to hollow slogans like "Quality is Job One." Designers tend to be aware of many dimensions of true product quality ranging from far beyond the product itself encompassing materials, usage patterns, even impact on the environment. With green issues coming into our own, wait and see how valuable design skills become.

Designers of all types are trained to sketch and build models. Indeed, designers spend so much time doing so, they take this special and exclusive talent for granted. In fact, being able to conceive a new product and then make a tangible example of it is truly a talent. We find when designers prototype these things it is the fastest most reliable way to get corporations, organizations and individuals to attempt ambitious programs. Suggesting the same thing in words or using formulas has neither the power nor immediacy of the model.