What’s happening at Fred Showker's Design & Publishing Center for the month of February?

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01. We love you... Design Strategy...
This month selected readers share their top priorities for 2006...
planning, Promotional Ideas, Marketing Ideas, Studio Ideas, Tips for
planning a design and other Design Strategy.

www.graphic-design.com/Creative-Net/0602_strategy.html

Celebrate Valentine's Day and do something special for someone you
love. Or, for someone else. Or, for multiple people. Here's a hug
and a kiss from us... because we love you all.
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02. February: Black History
In honor of Black History Month we take this fun and educational
field trip to visit the leading archives and prestigious educational
institutions to discover more wonderful visual art works by African
American Artists & Designers.

www.graphic-design.com/Creative-Net/black_history.html
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03. Form Follows Function... or not?
Gary Dickson is back with another of his thought-provoking articles.
This time he's searching for any truth to the new theory that this
is no longer the information age and that Function is Dead.

www.graphicdesign.com/DTG/dickson/
form_follows_function.html
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04. Photoshop Madness for February
Photoshop Madness includes * Become and Alien tutorial * Harry Potter
Style Special Effects * Photo Composition * Liquify Filter Warp Tool
* Curled Corner Tutorial * Psychology of Color * Photoshop CS2 Smart
Objects * Ring of Fire effect * Sharpening Photos Smartly...
and we revisit a Feathering article. But seriously folks...
it's truly Photoshop Madness.

http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/
photoshop_madness.html
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05. Mail Bag: Photo Retouching
Many, many readers have written wanting to contact one of our authors
directly about retouching their photos. Marija Matijasec did write
a wonderful tutorial for us, but cannot accept any more inquiries
from readers. Enjoy the tutorial, but please don't ask if Marija
will do the work for you.
Get a good Photoshop book and go to it.

http://www.design-bookshelf.com/Photoshop/
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06. Mail Bag: Easy Padding Press
P.D. from Seattle, Washington writes about our
" how to make a professional padding press" article and asks:

" I don't have 'handyman' skills nor the tools,
will you build the padding press for me?

Oddly enough, P.D. is not the first to ask this question.
There are many others.
The answer is No.

However, the padding press plans I provided would be suitable for large
scale, ongoing padding. If you just want a small quantity of
scratch pads, you don't need the press. Here's the clues...
After you've inserted the chip-board into the stack of pre-printed
scratch pad sheets, there are only two key challenges: 1) keeping
the backs (spine) of the pads as even and smoothly stacked as
possible, and 2) clamping the stack very tightly for painting on the
glue to form the spine. Careful stacking must be done by hand -- but
it's not that hard. To clamp the stack, carefully place a rigid
'top' on the stack... a scrap of ply-wood, etc. Then put weight on
top of that to compress the stack. Bricks? Books? The tighter the
stack is compressed, the less glue will creep between the sheets.
Once dry, cut'em apart and you've got pads.

http://www.graphic-design.com/DTG/Business/Promos/
Padding/How-To.html
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07. Mail Bag: Floppies
J.S. from Delray Beach Florida writes:

"Over the years i managed to hold onto to the original disk set
for the IBM PC. I want to convert the floppy discs to cd but
cannot open the files. Can you help?"

Answer: Welcome to the changing world of technology.
In an online-CD-DVD world, I've held onto one computer in fine
operating condition that will read floppies. Mainly because I have
several thousand with client work to be converted to CD. No, I
cannot do it for you. You need to find a friend or associate who can
read floppies and write CD. Find a user group, and you'll find
someone to help. Call your local computer store, or ... To find a
good PC group in your area go to:

www.APCUG.net/

Macs can go to:
www.apple.com/usergroups/ or www.user-groups.net/
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08. Mail Bag: RE: T-Maker Clip Art
For all those who ask, and keep asking over the months --
NO. We do not know where T-Maker went,
No, it's no longer available, and
No, we cannot send you the CDs of clip art.

YES, those of you with functioning T-Maker clip collections,
you CAN use the images in your publications without further
licensing fees or registrations. You CANNOT sell the art
as clip art. Period.
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09. Racism in Design
We wish to thank everyone who responded to our article about racism
in design last month. The response was so overwhelming we haven't
been able to read all the email. Sorry.

I am working on a follow-up which will be published here at some point.
I think it's an important issue and needs further investigation
amongst designers. Stand by.

www.graphic-design.com/DTG/Design/
racism_in_design.html
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10. Disturbing Designs
While reading all the email from the "racism" article it's become very
clear that there are a number of design looks that people find
disturbing other than racism.

I would like to develop an article that addresses disturbing designs,
why they disturb you, and if intentional use of disturbing
graphic design is -- in fact -- a valid and useful design theory.

I'll need your help: If there are images, fonts, layouts, or specific
instances of graphic design that disturbs you, we'd like to know.
Perhaps it's a magazine ad, web site, brochure, packaging, billboard,
TV commercial or others.

Tell us what it is, what about it is disturbing to you, and whether
you feel the design accomplished its goals.

Use our "Contact" form for first contact -- and remember -- we
keep all comments confidential and will not use your name or email
address in any resulting articles.

www.graphic-design.com/contact.html

The most useful contributions will win selections from

www.design-bookshelf.com
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11. Web Critique: India Gift Services
Jason Ronca takes a look at an international gift site that may be
too cluttered for its own good...

www.graphic-design.com/Web/Critique/india_gifts.html
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12. Gallo Heraldic Symbols Fonts
Presenting three new symbol fonts from Gallo including Heraldic
Symbols, creatures, griffins, Heraldic Shields, and more.

www.graphic-design.com/Type/gallo/index.html
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13. Web Critique: Tightline Design
Reviewer HLM takes a look at this designer's web site and provides a
nice and friendly critique... Fred isn't quite as nice.

www.graphic-design.com/Web/Critique/tightline.html
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14. Adobe InDesign CS2 Speed Tricks
Secrets of the Quick Apply command, and a highlighting pen
effect for type ...

www.graphic-design.com/adobe/InDesign/
indesign_tips.html
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15. 60-Seconds: Stocks and Software Scams
So you want to make a fast buck? Be careful if you play the stock market...
beware of spam, Pump & Dump Stock Scams

www.60-seconds.com/179_pump_and_dump.html

Then we update you with some actual examples taken from last week's
spam barrage of stock market frauds...

www.graphic-design.com/news/2006/
stock_scam_update.html
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16. Argue for a bigger budget
Joe Walsh provides us with another of his award-winning articles --
primarily IT network managers needing to Argue for a bigger budget.

graphic-design.com/DTG/Business/budget_tricks.html
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17. Upcoming in March: DESIGNING WOMEN
Our March theme is Women's History Month... and DESIGNING WOMEN!

We'll be discovering famous accomplishments by women, and we'll be
visiting studios of women in the visual arts, design, illustration
and communications industry.

WIN some of our valuable prizes by sharing with DT&G readers.
Designing women should register, and others can
share their favorite Designing Women ... Sign up NOW.

www.graphic-design.com/registration.html
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18. Adobe supporting INTEL Macs...
You may not want to buy that INTEL Mac yet.
This PDF from Adobe answers questions about the company's transition to
Intel-- speculation from several news sources say not until deep into
'06 if not until January '07.
Wait and see.

www.adobe.com/products/pdfs/intelmacsupport.pdf
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19. $79 Upgrade path to Quark XPress 7
Quark has launched a promotion that enables customers to purchase
QuarkXPress 7 for far less ...

www.quark.com/sales/desktop/promotions/upgrade_to7/
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20. Contest for Outstanding Design Students
OGT's Winning Concepts Contest 2005-2006 Edition is open to full-time
college and university students of age 18 or older, registered
in a graphic or web design program ...

www.graphic-design.com/news/2006/
design_contest.html
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21. The Million Pixel Image
Here's a plan for creative artists and designers to build a pixel
into a world-wide mosaic and enhance their Google rankings
at the same time...

www.graphic-design.com/news/2006/
million_pixel_image.html
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22. Proven Web Success Factor: Scan-ability
Scan-ability is a measured, objective, scientifically proven criterion
of successful written web content... and can
yield stunning improvements.

www.graphic-design.com/news/2006/
web_scan_ability.html
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23. Advantages of Accelerated Learning
This article by Alexa K. Apallas fills you in on the advantages of
Accelerated Online Learning.

www.graphic-design.com/news/2006/
accelerated_learning.html
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24. $50 OFF Flash Forward Conference
Love Flash? So do we. The Flashfoward Conference and Film Festival in
Seattle (February 27-March 2) --
Peachpit is offering an additional discount of $50!
Enter discount code EXH06SEA at:

www.flashforwardconference.com/register
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25. & Else News & Views:
Too many to include in this newsletter...
* Flash Photo Albums
* New Drive Power: TechTool Protege
* PDF-FORUM for Print Production
* New Tiger Training Books
* Got Pictures? Sell on Fotolia Fotolia
* Allume's CheckIt Repair
* Computer Theft - Will you be the next victim?
* IRS Alert: Tax Fraud

www.graphic-design.com/news/2006/index.html
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February... love the way to March
Hope February is good to you. Hope February is good to me.

Next month we've got some stunning photography and illustration and
design work coming your way with the first round of "Designing Women" ...
each year, we get more than enough, so it rolls over into April as well.
MARCH: Opening of the 2006 "Designing Women"
APRIL: More "Designing Women" and Spring into Spring
MAY: Summer Design Starts, Graduation
and on and on.

We'd like to see YOU participate in any of these themes.
Show us your portfolio.
Share your problems and solutions. Help others with your knowledge
and experience. Here's how you can contact me to get started.

And, as for this month, well, you've already wasted a perfectly
good hour reading the DTG newsletter.
Hopefully all is not wasted and you've gained at least
one helpful tidbit of info.

Thanks for reading...

Fred
Your overworked, overstressed, under paid, humble Editor.

How to contact me?

www.graphic-design.com/contact.html
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Parting words for February...
"And, if you can't love the one you love...
Honey,
Love the one you're with!"
— Stephen Stills