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Photograph of Jesus by Laurie Hill

Getty Images recently joined forces with London’s popular weekly short film evening Short & Sweet to launch a competition for filmmakers to create a short inspired by, and using visual content from, its enormous archive, housed at the Hulton Archive. Laurie Hill scooped the top prize for his film Photograph of Jesus, shown above.

The brief for the filmmakers was that at least 50% of the content must be taken from the Hulton Archive and that the short must highlight the breadth and depth of the archive as a resource. Hill tackles this directly in his film, by combining footage of the archive with an interview with archivist Matthew Butson on some of the most unusual requests he has received in his time there. Hill then charmingly brings these stories to life as part of the film.

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Perrington Stud by Big Red Button

Hill won £5,000 as grand prize winner, with runner-up Big Red Button awarded £3,000 for their film Perrington Stud (shown above). Ian Mackinnon & Dominic Parker and Jasmin Jodry were given honourable mentions and £1,000 each for their films, which are shown below. All four films can also be seen at tonight’s Short & Sweet event, which takes place at Cafe 1001 on 91 Brick Lane from 7pm.

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Long Jump by Ian Mackinnon & Dominic Parker

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Star Games by Jasmine Jodry

Kids Company by AMV.BBDO. Art direction/ design: Paul Cohen. Copy­writer: Mark Fairbanks. Photography: Thom Atkinson

The unscrupulous among the advertising community have often tended to look upon charity accounts less as an opportunity to help those in need and more as a chance to help themselves. Is a more mature approach emerging?

Charity campaigns have often been taken on with the express intention of winning awards and, in order to do so, many have resorted to crude tactics. In the mid-90s when outrage over ‘shock advertising’ was at its peak, some of the worst offenders were for small charities many of which, miracu­lously, were never heard from before or since.

But perhaps there is something of a more mature approach emerging. Take, for example, recent print campaigns by This Is Real Art for Reprieve and AMV.BBDO’s new campaign for Camilla Batman­ghelidjh’s Kids Company plus, from slightly further back, CHI’s Prince’s Trust work and BBH’s Barnardo’s campaign from last year.

Reprieve by This is Real Art. Art director/copywriter:
Paul Belford

BBH for Barnardo’s from 2007. Creatives: Nick Gill and Mark Reddy. Photographer: Kiran Master

The first thing that occurs with these campaigns is the amount of copy used. It’s not so long ago that we were all bemoaning the death of long copy in advert­ising. And yet all four campaigns use lengthy, discursive texts to make their case: in Kidsco, the copy runs to nearly 400 words. The style is convers­ational.

Copy from KidsCo ad above

All four campaigns go for a factual, documentary style of layout, aping editorial or, in the case of Reprieve, the visual language of bureaucracy. The use of typewriter fonts in Kidsco (Letter Gothic Medium) and Reprieve reinforces the documentary feel.

Reprieve ad copy

Headlines have a similarly editorial look, even working with standfirsts in the typical language of a magazine spread, while the photography stu­diously avoids sensationalism, partic­ularly Kiran Master’s shots for Barnardo’s. The Reprieve campaign even obscures its shocking imagery, letting our imaginations do the work.

The art directors for KidsCo (Paul Cohen) and for Reprieve and Prince’s Trust (Paul Belford) are noted for a more considered approach - one that seeks to reject the tired formulae of typical advertising art direction (big picture, punning headline etc).

These campaigns attempt to engage with the mind more than the heartstrings, patiently arguing a reasoned case instead of lurching into a stop-them-in-their tracks visual assault. It’s a welcome change.
 

Prince’s Trust by Clemmow Hornby Inge, 2007. Art director: Paul Belford. Copywriter: Nigel Roberts. Photography: Adam Hinton.

Hamburg’s Tensnake maybe best known for his remixes for musicians like Junior Boys or Sally Shapiro but I just picked up this tropical slow burner from Beatport last week and it has helped me with cold walks to the subway. All the synth noodling and night drive long chords that keep the song flowing makes this track a recent favorite. It all reminds me of a 80s jam that I can’t put my finger on that I use to listen, let me know something pops in your head because its buggin’ me.
Vancouver’s Cobblestone Jazz helps me with my attempt to get some people here into deep house once again, there is a lot more than just the Wal-mart electronic select fav Mark Farina’s Mushroom Jazz series.
Nathan Fake at one time had me really excited, I thought he’d be the one to really stretch his sound and nail down where melodic techno and prettier synth rock would go hand and hand. I’ve really haven’t been impressed since his debut album “Drowning In A Sea Of Love” which features this beautiful Superposition song.
I was thinking what’s the best way to start off December? Vince Guaraldi Trio that’s how.

Tensnake - Congolal

Cobblestone Jazz - 5th Element

Nathan Fake - Superposition

Vince Guaraldi Trio - Skating

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One of the greatest failures of modern computers is the lack of options we have when choosing a way to interact with them. Whether it’s a mouse, keyboard, or pen pad, the medium through which we manipulate our computers is the most important link in our workflow. An 8-core Mac Pro can’t read your mind (yet), so unfortunately we still must rely on rather archaic modes of interaction to get machines to do our bidding. Whether by choice or necessity, most designers use the good old mouse, a device which dates back to 1963 and remains largely unchanged since its inception. Sure, they’ve added lasers, buttons, and scroll wheels, but these aren’t exactly conceptual quantum leaps; the humble mouse still adheres to a fundamentally flawed model for human-machine interaction. I don’t know what’s next, but I can bet it isn’t multi-touch, at least not for us designers.

Pointing devices have always been an important issue for me, when I was in my early 20’s and getting started in design I had to wear a brace for nearly a year and learn to work with my left hand to overcome the repetitive stress syndrome brought on by mousing. This prompted me to get a pen pad, but of course I skimped and got a low end off-brand and really never took to it. I have tried the Wacom tablets, which are admittedly more precise and ergonomic, but after so many years with a mouse it’s hard to make the switch to such a foreign system. That said, I am planning to finally get a good Wacom this week and start the long road to learning it and from what I have heard from other people, I would recommend any young designer not yet set in their ways to strongly consider making the investment and learning Photoshop / Illustrator with a good tablet. Your wrist will thank you and so will your productivity. But the truth remains: most of us still use mice. Go to even the biggest design firms and you’ll see row after row of desks with mice sitting on them. This article is for everyone like me who either doesn’t want to fork out $400 for a decent tablet system or just can’t make the switch from the mouse.

Let me start by saying that I believe Logitech is about the only real player in the mouse game at this point. There are a lot of other competitors, but none offer such a wide variety of options and features in their products. And specs aside, none in my experience come close to the real-world functionality I have found in my Logitech mice. I have looked into many of the specialty companies that offer so-called “ergonomic” mice but have never gone for one since it seems I always have to sacrifice so much in the way of functionality and features to get to the improved ergonomics. I have owned about 10 Logitech mice and all have served me well in different capacities but none have really excelled across the board. I judge my mice on three criteria and in this order: precision (and I don’t mean the quoted DPI of the device, I mean how precise it really handles), ergonomics, features (wheels, buttons etc). What follows is a list of my favorite mice from over the years, why I bought them, and what I liked and didn’t like about them.

Logitech MX518
This was the first “gaming grade” mouse I bought. The proliferation of gaming mice has been great for us as designers. Apparently we aren’t a large enough group to warrant many purpose made mice but there are a whole lot of gamers out there and they’re driving the market for high precision pointing devices, forcing the manufacturers into a game of one-upmanship in regards to resolution and features, both of which benefit us as designers. The MX518 also marks the first time I went back to a corded mouse after the thrill of cordless had faded. I have never been a fan of cordless mice, they run out of batteries, lose reception due to interference, and are generally less precise than their corded brethren. But many of the best mice are only available in the cordless variety (more on that below) so at times I’ve had to compromise. But that’s one of the things that keeps me coming back to Logitech, they always have a very good selection of corded mice while most other manufacturers are obsessed with cordless (as if a small cord on your desk is so cumbersome, it reminds me a lot of the glossy screen craze that has killed off the matte screen.) The MX518 is, to this day, my favorite mouse. I still have it around and plug it in for large projects. It’s extremely precise, has a good tactile feel when moving it across surfaces, and has enough extra features to be pretty competitive. It has a rudimentary DPI toggle with 3 level settings which is a big plus when moving back and forth from Mac to PC on a KVM switch as the two OS’s have very different mouse behaviors. It also helps to be able to adjust the sensitivity on the fly as the situation dictates. The MX518 is also one of the last corded optical mice you can buy as most new mice are laser-based. Unfortunately, this mouse does not have the MicroGear wheel which I love (more on that below).

Logitech G5
I got this mouse because it boasted higher DPI, a laser, braided cord (less tangling) and a custom weighting system. I love heavy mice, I took my MX518 apart and filled it with quarters to make it more solid and precise so the G5 seemed great because it had a built in weighting system out of the box, no quarters required. The only issue I had with it was the lack of a “forward” thumb button, something which the MX518 had. The image below is off the new (and ugly as sin) version of the G5, the old grey one that I had only had one thumb button. It’s still missing the MicroGear scroll wheel, but with the added thumb button this new version would probably be my favorite if I owned it now. Alas, I left mine on stage at a show (San Diego I think) and it was never seen again. R.I.P.

Logitech G9
I bought the G9 when I lost my G5 thinking it would be a logical progression in features and ergonomics to its predecessor. It also sports a MicroGear scroll wheel so I thought I couldn’t go wrong. I did. I never liked this mouse, it feels weird in my hand, is too flat, and only has 2 extra buttons. For $100 I want a little more. But this is all beside the point, I left this mouse on stage at a show (detroit?) and never saw it again. Two G-series mice down.

Logitech MX Revolution
This is without a doubt the most advanced mouse you can get. It has a thumb wheel, MicroGear Scroll wheel, and three extra buttons. The only things lacking are a DPI toggle and a cord. I really wish the revolution came in a corded version, the battery life is pretty bad and the battery itself is prone to failure (a fact well-documented in forums all over the web). Mine is sort of in half-failure mode. Sometimes it charges and sometimes it doesn’t, but it always says the battery is dead which is annoying. It’s also not quite as precise as the corded mice above. Regardless of all that, it now serves as my primary mouse for everyday use. The thumbwheel is amazing for OS X (expose etc.) and if Logitech either worked out the battery issue or offered a corded version, this would be the only mouse I’d ever use.

Logitech MX1100
I bought this for two reasons: It seemed to have all of the features of the MX Revolution but with replaceable batteries (thereby fixing my main gripe with the Revolution), and it sported a DPI toggle. I also has a new feature which allows you to lock out the MicroGear scroll wheel which is very nice depending on the situation. It takes AA batteries, has an on/off switch, and boasts an extremely long battery life. I put Eneloop rechargeables in it and it worked out great. I love the ergonomics of this mouse and I love the features, but it’s just not very precise. When I got it I noticed something was off and kept trying to tweak settings to get it right to no avail. I run Steermouse on OS X and the Logitech software on Windows and no matter what I tried I couldn’t get this mouse to act right. All in all this thing was a huge disappointment if only for the fact that I had such high hopes for it. I now use it when I travel since it has the on/off switch and doesn’t require a charging station. It works great in this role but I certainly don’t use it to design at home. For some reason, when trying to make very small circular motions with its resolution breaks up and you end up drawing little squares instead. Not a huge deal for browsing the web, but a deal-killer for graphic design tasks.

So there you have it, my admittedly biased mini-reviews of the Logitech lineup. In the end it’s all about your preference so I encourage you to try out as many as you can to find what suits you best. Hopefully I’ll have a tablet review in a month or so once I get up to speed with the Wacom. If you have any experience with these mice or recommendations of others that I haven’t mentioned here please speak up in the comments.

One year after my domain name was stolen, Google’s Chris Evans has published a blog article reporting the theft as a phishing scheme, whereby the victim is tricked into sharing their email login details.

Several news stories referenced a domain theft from December 2007 that was incorrectly linked to a Gmail CSRF vulnerability. We did have a Gmail CSRF bug reported to us in September 2007 that we fixed worldwide within 24 hours of private disclosure of the bug details. Neither this bug nor any other Gmail bug was involved in the December 2007 domain theft.

I’m sure Chris meant November.

Google’s blog post came in response to the more recent theft of MakeUseOf.com. Aibek, the MakeUseOf owner, has subsequently, and thankfully, had his domain name returned.

I like to think I’m cautious enough not to open a strange .exe email attachment, nor enter my login details on a fake website, but if that’s what happened, so be it.

I do, however, find it a little odd that a thief would gain access to my GMail account, then choose to add email forwarding filters rather than simply change my password, thus locking me out. I published what I believed happened in my previous GMail hack article.

Regardless, I’m glad Aibek of MakeUsOf had his domain name returned, and that Google have publicly acknowledged the previous Gmail CSRF vulnerability, even if it is over a year after the incident.

Aibek and I are two of the lucky ones. Many other domain theft victims contact me asking for help. Sadly, there’s little I can do except refer them to my account of what happened.

• An informal chat with Google (27)
• My rollercoaster relationship with Google (37)
• Collective effort restores David Airey.com (182)
• WARNING: Google’s GMail security failure leaves my business sabotaged (547)
• The real value of keyword-rich domains (36)
• Online marketing for logo designers (20)

We are going to be working on a Burberry theamed type. First you’ll need to create the pattern. You could do a quick google image search and find the pattern. Here is a link to the file I created based on those images. Its daunting at first glance, but once you get your head wrapped around it, you can do some amazing stuff (examples are at the end of the tutorial). Ok lets get started.

Open the .AI file in our trusty Illustrator and open up the swatches pallet. Here you’ll just drag and drop the vector pattern to create a patterned swatch.

Type out some text. Here i’m using the font Arno Pro with the Caption style set at 215.7 points.

Next open up your Appearance Pallet, this is where the magic happens.

Add a new fill and add the Burberry swatch to it.

Next make sure your transform is set to Pattern Only.

Click in the Width dialog box then using your arrow key, press down till the pattern is scaled right with in the text.

Add another fill, and fill it with the Cream/Off White swatch from the pallet.

Then move it below the patterned fill, by dragging it downward like you would a layer in photoshop.

Select the that fill and add an Offset Path from the Effect menu.

Set your Off Set to 2 px.

This makes this fill 2 pixels wider than the patterned fill. Its hard to see because the color is light.

Now select Transform, again from the Effects menu

Then set the Vertical Move to -0.5 px.

This bumps that fill down a tad.

Now grab that fill in your Appearance Pallet and duplicate it by dragging it down to the New icon.

Make a new swatch and use the colors: C=39 M=77 Y=44 K=70. Now apply it to the new fill.

Again go to Effect -> Path -> Offset Path, and set it to 4 px.

Next transform that fill with the Effect -> Distort & Transform -> Transform. Give it a -3.0 in the Vertical Move field.

This is where you should be at:

Now were going to give a little more depth showing some lighting effects.

Create a new fill and fill it with white, move it below the stroke.

Open your Transparency Pallet and set the fill to Multiply.

Now apply a gradient to it.

Due to the lengthy tail in the lowercase "y" we are going to make this all caps. In your Character Pallet click the fly out in the top right and select "All Caps".

Grab the dark red swatch we created last and drop it on the right end of the gradient.

Set the gradient Mid Point Slider to 87%,

and the White slider around 69%.

Go to your Offset Path in the Effects menu again and set this gradient fill to 4 px.

Here is what your appearance pallet should look like:

Lets add a highlight now. Add yet another fill.

Apply the a gradient to it.

Set the first Slider to White at 6%,

the Mid Point Slider to 64%

and the last slide at 30% with a black fill.

Next open your transparency pallet and set the Layer Mode to Soft Light.

And there you have it a nice Burberry text that also has a sense of depth. Tweak each fill till you like it, then save the graphic style so you can use it later on other text.

Now take your text tool and click on the text and just start typing.

Imagine getting a post card in the mail with your first and last name printed like this! Pretty impressive. Oh and here are some examples of Dynamic editable type.

(Last tip: To save your style for later use, or to apply to other text, by opening your Graphic Styles pallet and and click on New Graphic Style.)

Hello, my name is Gautch (Josh). I’ve been working in Illustrator since version 7 (pre-bounding box, and floating pallets) and in Photoshop since version 3, when we got layers and tabbed palettes. I’m is a successful designer (for print, motion, and web) working out of Southern Oregon for an in house design department that does 75 to 115 ads a week. Yes you read that right, 115 per week.

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