Posts from ‘Design’
How to Make Depth of Field Typography
DOF Typography
DOF Typography, what the hell is that exactly? Well I needed one day to make the text from a header page someway different, sadly color, position, angle and all other stuff didn’t quite get the main idea of different. Then I thought to make it look like the letters were put there by hand and look like they were hanging, some sort of smooth 3D effect.
Well the idea is not new I’m sure of that, but the solution to do it in Photoshop is quite easy peasy and no super cool plugins or 1000 layers are necessary (feel free to search for other solutions over the net, but this is how I did it so stick around to see my version).
The Desired Effect – Magnified
So, the desired effect in the end should look like the one in the example above, you can see that some letters are in front of the others and the light casted drops a shadow just enough to make them look like they are hanging there without a pin (some sort of a 3D effect)
Agony este un program care genereaza imagini pe calculator prin repetarea unor curbe. Imaginati-va ca aveti o functie matematica care deseneaza o curba pe plansa, acum luati plansa si rotiti-o intr-un punct fix sau pe o alta curba definita. Desi pare foarte greu de imaginat la inceput cum functioneaza, principiul este foarte simplu, iar rezultatele sunt cu adevarat impresionante.
Am descoperit prima oara programul cand eram in facultate, dar lipsa de interes si interfata foarte complicata m-au determinat sa renunt rapid la el. Acum dupa ceva ani in dorinta de a crea ceva care doar in capul meu exista si dupa ce am incercat putin Flame Painter (mai multe detalii aici) am zis ca trebuie sa revin si la Agony 
Pentru inceput situl oficial este http://www.kelbv.com/agony.php de unde se poate descarca aplicatia. Este un soft mic ca dimensiuni facut in Delphi daca nu ma insel, dar foarte puternic.
Dupa ce il descarcati va sugerez sa urmariti tutorialele de la pagina special creata, pentru a invata interfata. Desi o sa para foarte greoaie la inceput (nu este tocmai User Experience oriented) o sa vedeti ca pe masura ce lucrati cu softul o sa va obisnuiti.
Nu o sa intru in foarte multe detalii pentru ca este mult prea mult de scris, vreau doar sa va arata ce am reusit sa fac eu in primele 10 minute de folosire.
I mean, What really matters to me,
that thing that keeps me awake even after 2 days without closing my eyes,
that thing who always want to make it better and better and it’s never good enough,
that thing that makes me want to not only “be good” but be The best.
that thing that modify your world and put crazy new ideas in your mind,
that thing that makes you hate yourself and one minute later makes you believe your the greatest.
that thing that makes you smile, laugh, dance, jump like lunatic.
that thing that often is not finished but is on your reel.
that thing that makes you be late.
that thing that puts you under pressure.
that thing that doesn’t obliges you to sit in there when you don’t want or you just don’t “feel good” to sit there and make what you need to do, but when you sit by yourself there that thing makes sure that magic happens. That thing that makes your heart crazy.
that thing that say “every detail matters”,
that thing that makes changes “here and there”,
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Everybody wants to be an artist and for some there are special tools that are in the same time very easy to use and very powerful when creating some form of digital art. On of these tools is Flame.
Flame is a painting program, it belongs to my ‘I am Artist’ experimental project. I think with tools which inspires you, everybody can be an artist. You can try it here, change different brush settings and paint your own flame paintings. When you change background from black to white, palette changes from additive to substactive and the feeling of the painting is very different. It’s not easy to explain all brush parameters, so I leave this for your experimentation.
Flame Painter Main Screen
Build by Peter Blaškovič Flame is a Processing application that can make a simple mouse movement look like a 1000 brush strokes on a canvas. Basically your brush is transformed into a multiple particle elastic one that can fill your strokes like you would do it with lots of small brushes put together. The only and the most important difference here is that you can control the intensity, color, opacity and size of each of the brushes.
Moscow designer Anatoly Zenkov to brighten up the routine work made a really nice application called MousePath. It was a simple Java based tool that records your mouse movements and records all your paths drawing a line as it’s goes along running in the background.
Posting it at Flickr, the tool very quickly made some noise and everyone was trying to see what was too discover in the chaotic movements of their mouse. Some of us even called it ART
Now the tool has evolved from the little Java application to
IOGraph — is an application that turns mouse movements into a modern art. The idea is that you just run it and do your usual day stuff at the computer. Go back to IOGraph after a while and grab a nice picture of what you’ve done!
The tool works quite easy: Open, Press Start, Do your thing, Save the image…
Typo - Wallpaper
Failing in my attempts to make some typography wallpaper.
Download – 1600 x 1200 | 1280 x 1024 | 1152 x 864 |
Inspired by others ideas and code and also by the need to insert a Top Link like button on my own website I managed to write a script that not only works on all major browsers but it’s also neat and animated
The expected outcome
The general idea was to try and add a link on the right side of the page that will appear and stick there after a certain percentage of the page is scrolled down and when clicked will smoothly scroll the page back to the top. Also it’s mandatory that this should work on all major browsers (including IE).
Here is an example how this should look like (example working already on this page, just scroll down to see it)
The button and the placement problems
In order to add the button to the page we just need to add this code to our page just after the <body> tag:
<a href="#header-top"> <div id="back-top" style="display: block;"></div> </a>
The DIV tag will be used to show our top link using a background-image (but you can use a text just as well) and the anchor will be used to link us to the top of the page (in this case by the most outer div tag with the #header-top id) .
UI Honeycombbig
Am observat in ultima vreme o greseala (amestecare, confuzie) pe care o fac multi oameni cand se refera la doua concepte cu asemanari semantice, dar total diferite in ceea ce priveste conceptul si aplicarea.
User Experience vs Usability
Aceste doua “industrii” au inceput sa creasca si sa fie din ce in ce mai cunoscute odata cu dezvoltarea rapida a RIA (Rich Internet Applications). Astfel ca odata cu popularitatea aplicatiilor web acesti doi termeni au atins cote inalte in agenda fiecarui dezvoltator, dar in acelasi timp sunt percepute sau intelese gresit.
Usability se refera la usurinta cu care un utilizator poate duce la bun sfarsit un task folosind orice tool. In general acest termen are la baza analizele factorilor umani si include ideei din multe domenii cum ar fi psihologia umana si statistica. In fundament termenul de Usability este calitativ, dar se bazeaza pe datele cantitative pentru analiza si identificarea slabiciunilor si generarea solutiilor de imbunatatire.
Studiul de usability se face in general prin teste foarte detaliate si amanuntite cu esantioane/grupuri mari de oameni pentru a determina cum interactioneaza utilizatorul cu interfata si zonele specifice unde el se pierde (cateodata se aplica metode care analizeaza miscarile ochilor pentru a determina zonele de interes majore).
“Highly usable interfaces” sunt intotdeauna acelea foarte intuitive, simple si extrem de usor de invatat.
In speranta ca marea majoritatea dintre voi petrec foarte mult timp in fata calculatorului si pentru ca multi nici nu stiu cum sa isi faca viata mai usoara din punct de vedere al sanatatii incercati in primul rand cand ajungeti la birou sau acasa in fata computer-ului din dotare sa va acordati cateva minute sa reflectati asupra conditiei voastre
Ma simt sau nu confortabil pe scaun in fata calculatorului?
Raspunsul trebuie sa fie simplu DA sau BA!
Aici intervine Ergonomia. Desi poate suna ciudat Ergonomia spatiului de munca este o stiinta care se ocupa cu design-ul jobului si echipamentului pentru a se potrivii cu muncitorul. Astfel ca de ce sa nu facem ceva in privinta acestui lucru reusind in acest sens sa ne imbunatatim viata si productivitatea in munca (cat de corporate suna, dar sa nu pierdem din vedere esenta).
Lista punctelor esentiale
Daca cautam putin pe net despre ergonomie si exemple gasim o gramada, unele mai detaliate altele mai simple, ce pierdem noi insa din vedere este faptul ca cele mai importante le putem face fara prea mult efort, astfel ca am agregat o lista cu cele mai importante si usor de facut aspecte in ceea ce priveste ergonomia noastra la locul de munca sau acasa…
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