Metro signs in Paris, piazzas in Rome, outdoor urinals in Amsterdam.
What they all have in common is that they are all visual cues that let you know that you arrived somewhere unique. What they also have in common is that they belong in old cities that developed their personalities over centuries or millennia.
We’re working hard to bring our members great local benefits in the coming year and I have one to wet your whistle with. The amazing local screen printing genius Carlos Hernandez has graciously opened up his studio to our members for a 2 on 1 introductory screen printing class at a 20% discount!
When: On-going sessions
Where: Burning Bones Press, 1518 Yale #1 (in the Heights)
A short descriptive of what to expect from the man himself:
Tap into your creative side and learn the art of screen printing! Posters, art prints, custom cards, and more. All can be created using this hipper-than-now printmaking technique. Get off your computer and come get your hands dirty with Burning Bones Press and instructor Carlos Hernandez!
Burning Bones Press offers an Introduction to Screen Printing for beginners. Learn all the basics of screen printing flatstock (paper) in this 4-hour course. All students will walk away with an 11″×17″ two-color art print. Sessions are available Tuesday-Saturday with some evening sessions.
Cost is $150, and class sizes are small (2 people per class). AIGA members receive 20% off any session.
Visit burningbonespress.com/silkscreening-courses to learn more about the course and to sign up for a session.
Have other local benefits that we should go after for member discounts?
Email April Guzik president@houston.aiga.org with your ideas.
by Max Rudberg
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” - Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Address
Thank you Steve.
During the month of September, AIGA is offering a special discount for all who join as student members: the $95/year student rate has been reduced to just $50/year. There’s never been a better time to join AIGA. Here are some of the reasons why you shouldn’t wait for this deal to pass you by.
1. PERKS
“Membership has its privileges,” as the old commercial goes, so let’s get the immediate good stuff out of the way. AIGA members get discounts on Adobe and Apple products, discounted access to Shutterstock’s stock library, Lynda.com’s tutorial library, and others. Plus, AIGA student members get by far the biggest discount when registering for national AIGA design conferences, such as next month’s PIVOT in Phoenix, AZ. As a Houston member, you get a 15% discount at DOMY Books, and there are even more Houston-exclusive deals currently in the works – some of which will be exclusive to student members.
Best of all, AIGA student members always get the best deals on AIGA Houston events – speakers, socials, workshops, film screenings, and even our Portfolio Review event in April. Many of our events are FREE for student members, and there’s no better deal than free.
2. CONNECTIONS
Being an active AIGA student member is a great way to get a leg up on the job hunt once you’re out of school. The more events you go to, the more opportunities you’ll have to connect with senior staff and studio heads of some of the best employers in Houston for designers. You’ll also become friends with other working designers who will often recruit from among their friends when their bosses are hiring. Best of all, you’ll become a part of a nation-wide network of designers, developers, photographers, illustrators and copy-writers. So in addition to having a great network within Houston, if for some reason your career takes you outside of Houston, your membership will go with you. There are 66 chapters nationwide with more on the way, so you’ll never be without a community to call your own.
On that note…
3. COMMUNITY
We’re YOUR people. The ones who geek out about typefaces, and watch Art & Copy a dozen times, and bounce ideas off of each other when we’re hammering out our latest project. In short, the AIGA Houston community is where the people who get you congregate. Our design community is one of the friendliest you’ll find anywhere. We’re not just a bunch of professionals who “network” together – we’re friends, colleagues and co-conspirators. As a member, you’ll contribute directly to that community as an insider, and through your participation, you’ll help shape the direction our community takes in the years to come. Most of all, it’s just a hell of a lot of fun.
4. EDUCATION & PROFESSIONAL ADVANCEMENT
In recent years, we’ve increased the number of workshops we’ve provided to our membership. 2012 and beyond will be no exception. Members will have exclusive access to various AIGA Houston workshops, covering topics from the web and industry-standard software applications to professional standards and design philosophy. Beyond that, if there’s an area of design you’d like to become more proficient in, AIGA Houston can help you connect with someone right here in Houston willing to help you sharpen your skills.
5. INVESTMENT
We put a lot of effort into making the Houston design community the best it can be. We fly in guest lecturers, host workshops, arrange socials, and promote the design profession within the greater-Houston area and beyond. NONE of that would be possible without your support. Through your membership, you’re directly contributing to our efforts to make Houston a world-class design city, and the more members we have, the more we can accomplish. Members can also directly contribute to our agenda and calendar. Is there some great design event or initiative you’d love to see brought to Houston? As a member, you can make it happen.
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Heard enough? Good. JOIN AIGA HOUSTON TODAY by visiting AIGA.ORG/JOIN.
Still have questions? Send them to education (at) houston.aiga.org.
FORM AN OFFICIAL AIGA STUDENT GROUP
If you’re a student in a program that doesn’t already have an official AIGA Student Group, NOW is the perfect time to start one. All you need is a faculty member willing to be your advisor and 10 fellow students as AIGA members to get one started. If your school already has a graphic design-themed club or group, no problem – turn that group INTO an official AIGA student group! For more information, click here.
Contact me, Andy Rich, at education (at) houston.aiga.org if you need assistance in getting your group going. Remember – this membership drive ends Friday, September 30 2011 – so act fast!
Part 1
For some designers, learning how to program websites can be a bit intimidating – especially if have little to no experience in the field. With the amount of information out there, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and confused about where to start. In this article, I’ll explain some fundamental principles of CSS and provide a few insights and helpful tips to begin to familiarize yourself with the modern approach to web development.
By definition, CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, are used to control the appearance of content in a web browser: specifically the layout, style and positioning on the page. To help understand the way cascading style sheets work, I thought it would be help to explain the way things used to be (and in many sites still are) and the way things should be (the current way of producing websites) by making a few diagrams as to how tables and CSS work (in a general sense). See below:
Table Based Layout
Figure 1 - Table based layout
From the diagram above (Figure 1), you can clearly see that with traditional coding methods we are “locked-in”. This sequence of “block-building” would literally be repeated again and again for each major element in the HTML document. Each cell affects the other and if measurements for each component of the entire table aren’t consistent, or are missing, the layout will break sending design elements up, down or completely out of the layout altogether.
While this structure is great for inputting data (like financial information) into aligned columns and rows, it’s not so good with current design techniques such as layering and transparency.
CSS Based Layout
Figure2 - CSS based layout
From the diagram above (Figure 2), we can begin to get a “bigger picture” view of how the web page is being produced. A few things to point out here:
- The term “div” stands for “division” – but you can think of it as a “layer” as in Photoshop layers (more on this later).
- We begin to see how labeling the divs helps understand “where we are” on the page when coding.
- The term <div id=”any value in quotations”> specifies a unique element on the page, for instance, “header” as shown
- The term <div class=”any value in quotations”> specifies an element that is not unique, for instance, “main” as shown
- By definition, any element that is not unique can be repeated on the page as many times as you want.
- In the box-model diagram above, the opening and closing division of “main” can be repeated again and again, containing as much content you want within each division (like paragraphs and images!).
Of course, there is a lot more going on in a finished HTML document, but this should give you a general idea of the approach to building web pages on a very basic level and as an introduction to the fundamentals of web development.
In the next article, I’ll explain CSS in greater detail in terms of its purpose, power and flexibility.
Enjoy!
Thanks to the explosion of amazing free downloadable content, Podcasts are making a serious bid for our attention, giving us something to listen to while we work that is informative, inspirational and entertaining. For Your Ears will be an ongoing series in which we highlight/recommend podcasts, lectures and informational series that inspire us.
LET’S MAKE MISTAKES
Mike Monteiro, Katie Gillum
5by5 Network
Mike Monteiro has become something of a cult hero among designers – particularly freelancers and small studio owners – for his March 2011 CreativeMornings talk, “F*ck You, Pay Me” (fans of Goodfellas should recognize the reference), a frank discussion about dealing with clients and protecting your work and business (video embedded after the jump – as the title would imply, the language is a bit salty and may be NSFW). But even before that, Monteiro was co-founder and Design Director of Mule Design (muledesign.com), a highly successful San Francisco-based web development studio.
Soon after “FY,PM” became viral online, Monteiro and his Mule Design colleague, Katie Gillum, were asked by Dan Benjamin’s excellent 5by5 podcasting network to host a podcast of their own based on their experience as design professionals in a new-media world. Their frank discussions about how to survive and thrive in the competitive world of professional design – especially in a market as cut-throat as Silicon Valley can be – is what inspired the podcast’s title, Let’s Make Mistakes. Humorous, curmudgeonly, topical and always informative, Let’s Make Mistakes has been a personal favorite of mine since the first episode, and one whose weekly sync on my iPod I always look forward to. In every subject discussed – from “why waiting to be inspired is bullsh*t” to Star Wars trivia or the Philadelphia Philies (Mike is a die-hard fan), Let’s Make Mistakes is easily worth your time and attention. Mike’s Twitter feed, @Mike_FTW, is also worth a follow.
You can subscribe to Let’s Make Mistakes via iTunes.
If you have a podcast, lecture or series you’d like to recommend for us to share with the AIGA Houston community, send submissions to education (at) houston.aiga.org.
Stay tuned for future installments, where we’ll cover Design Matters w/ Debbie Millman, Back to Work, GreyScaleGorilla and others.
Video after the jump…
Herman Miller is an innovative furniture manufacturer with diverse creations that include Mid Century Modern classics such as the Marshmallow Sofa as well as the invention of the cubicle. After WWII, they began to collaborate with some of the design greats of the Twentieth century. These include the Eameses, George Nelson, Alexander Girard, Isamu Noguchi and Buckminster Fuller. While these designers are known for designing furniture, interiors and architecture, they were also involved in graphic design. In fact, George Nelson received an AIGA medal in 1992, post mortem.
The evening of Friday, August 26 2011, AIGA Houston presents nationally-recognized “invangelist” Andy Epstein. If you’re an in-house designer in the Houston area, this is one event you won’t want to miss.
Epstein has written and spoken extensively on in-house issues, and was the co-founder of InSource, an association dedicated to providing support to in-house designers and design team managers. As head of AIGA In-house Design, he is continuing his efforts to empower in-house teams and raise their stature in the design and business communities. Epstein recently published his book, The Corporate Creative: Tips and Tactics for Thriving as an In-House Designer, and has headed up HOW’s In-HOWse initiatives since 2009.
By way of introduction to Houston’s design community, AIGA Houston’s Andy Rich conducted a brief interview to learn more about his upcoming event, MY BAD: How I Survived the Corporate Cluster Fluster and You Can Too.
Muse Says Menil's Arctic Exhibit Spans Centuries by Bloomberg
When winds rise up and powdery snow fills the air, there is neither up nor down and the traveler is left blind white.
Edmund Carpenter, Upside Down Arctic Realities Exhibit Catalog
Last Sunday was a typical hot and humid summer day in Houston, but if you were at the Menil Collection you could still experience the Arctic. Upside Down Realities was a truly exceptional exhibit that evoked philosophical thought about existence, consciousness and human experience. It was on display at the Menil from April 15, 2011 until July 17, 2011.
read more…
Goodnight,
goodnight
to friends in space
and those on ships
that interlace
with suns and moons
across the sea
of light
that rims
our galaxy.
Goodnight,
goodnight
to all who fly
and those who seek
new worlds in sky
from my home planet
swirled in blue
a long and peaceful
calm to you.
Lulluby
by Sarah Wilson
I would like to leave you with these beautiful old-future science posters designed by Mark Weaver, an Atlanta-based graphic designer. This group of work is from his “Make something cool every day” series which are just inspiring and hopefully keep our fascination with space exploration alive.
