Just a quick one here… thought I’d post a link to a recently updated page of ours for the logos we have developed for clients. There’s also a few icons there as well. Check it out!
Studio 119 Degrees Logo Designs
Visual Samples:
Chris J. Politzki
Studio 119 Degrees Web Design & Development Studio
Call me crazy, but I’ve become really fond of fractal imagery. I have used these images as my desktop picture on my computer for quite some time now and feel that they can really inspire me. When I’m thinking of a new design, there’s something refreshing, new and exciting about fractal images that re-energizes me for coming up with that next design. I’ve applied this to logos and web sites alike and there really is something to it!
They can be defined as, ‘a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole’, according to Wikipedia’s definition of fractals. They come in many different flavors, such as ‘Mandelbrot’, ‘Newton’, ‘Julia’, ‘Halley’, ‘Secant’, or ‘Dragon’ and I’ll not bore you with the various reasons why. All I do know is that they are wondrous images that also occur in nature, especially in snowflakes.
Fractals as Desktop Images
I’ll post up 3 fractal images here to get the ball rolling, so-to-speak. If there’s enough interest, I’ll post up more. Feel free to download them and use them for your computer desktop image, become inspired by them as I do, or share them with friends. Most of all, leave a comment if you’d like to see more of these.
Fractal image number one
Fractal image number two
Fractal image number three
Chris J. Politzki
Studio 119 Degrees Web Design & Development Studio
February 24th saw the release of the new and improved DexKnows.com 2.0 web site. With it, also came the updated Free Tools page. As with the 1.0 site, I helped develop not only this page, but also the newly-branded Banner Ads, Search Boxes, Widgets & Gadgets, and Text Links. I will, for purposes of this post, only go over the Search Boxes and Widgets.
All of us who work at Dex are really excited about the new 2.0 site launch. I’m especially excited about the new Search Boxes, Widgets & Gadgets. So what’s new about these from the previous versions? Good question! Keeping in mind that the Search Boxes are mainly used by Dex Affiliates, I wanted to streamline the code that needed to be copied and pasted to implement them into pre-existing sites. In order to accomplish this, I used div tags instead of the previous methods of using tables in the HTML. These div tags were then controlled by specific CSS to perform better across all browsers. There’s even a custom CSS rule to accomodate the Safari browser, which I think everyone should download. It’s available for both the Mac & PC and is quickly becoming one of the up-and-coming browsers people use today.
So how does one go about using these so-called Search Boxes? It’s as easy as copying and pasting two bits of code into your HTML.
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://images.dexknows.com/logo/searchbox-files/widget.js”></script>
<form class=”search” name=”search” id=”search” action=”http://www.dexknows.com/rd/” onsubmit=”return checkform();”> <input type=”hidden” class=”dku” name=”dku” value=”http://www.dexknows.com/search/?mkt=dk20&mkw=L2Us300×250″ /> <div id=”dex_widget300×250″> <div id=”top300×250″><IMG SRC=”http://images.dexknows.com/logo/searchbox-files/300×250_top.gif” alt=”Dex is one of the leading Yellow Pages publishers. Dex publishes the AT&T Real Yellow Pages in Illinois and NW Indiana, the EMBARQ™ Yellow Pages, and the Dex® Yellow Pages (as the official publisher of Qwest®).” width=”300″ height=”70″ border=0 usemap=”#DexLogoLink”></div> <div id=”bottom300×250″> <div class=”styleWhat300×250″><LABEL for=”what”>What</LABEL><br> <input name=’what’ type=’text’ class=”formbox300×250″ id=’what’ tabindex=’1′ value=’category, business name, keyword or phone number.’ maxlength=”50″ onClick=”clearWhatData();” onKeyPress=”this.style.color = ‘#000000′;” /> </div> <div class=”styleWhere300×250″><LABEL for=”where”>Where</LABEL><br> <input name=’where’ type=’text’ class=”formbox300×250″ id=’where’ tabindex=’2′ value=’city, state, address, ZIP code or landmark.’ maxlength=”50″ onClick=”clearWhereData();” onKeyPress=”this.style.color = ‘#000000′;” /> </div> <div id=”search300×250″> <input name=”image” type=’image’ tabindex=’3′ src=’http://images.dexknows.com/logo/searchbox-files/300×250_button.gif’ title=”Begin Your Search” /></div> <div align=”center”><a href=”http://www.dexknows.com/rd/?dku=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dexknows.com%2F%3Fmkt%3Ddk20%26mkw%3DL2Us300×250″ title=”Visit DexKnows.com” target=”_blank” class=”styleYP300×250″>DEX YELLOW PAGES</a></div> </div> </div> </form> <map name=”DexLogoLink” id=”Map”> <area shape=”rect” coords=”-196,1,300,70″ href=”http://www.dexknows.com/rd/?dku=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dexknows.com%2F%3Fmkt%3Ddk20%26mkw%3DL2Us300×250″ target=”_blank” alt=”Dex is one of the leading Yellow Pages publishers. Dex publishes the AT&T Real Yellow Pages in Illinois and NW Indiana, the EMBARQ™ Yellow Pages, and the Dex® Yellow Pages (as the official publisher of Qwest®).” title=”Visit DexKnows.com” /> </map>
And that’s all there is to it to get a Search Box working on you web site. Now anyone can perform a business search on the DexKnows.com site directly from your site! Here’s how the above code looks once implemented:
The code has been stream-lined to dynamically load the necessary CSS for each separate Search Box from the javascript call within the header. And since this code and all the images are hosted on a DexKnows.com server, this means no taxing of the users server and translates to better load time and functionality. There are 8 different IAB-approved sizes for the Search Boxes, so you should easily be able to find one that fits your web page.
Not only did the Search Boxes get and overhaul, but so did the Gadgets & Widgets. There are currently 4 choices to choose from. A Dex iGoogle Gadget for your iGoogle Home Page, a Dex Google Gadget to install in your Google Desktop, a Dex Yahoo! Widget for Yahoo! Widgets, and finally a Dex Mac Widget for the Mac Dashboard. The latter three contain a version checking script which will allow easy validation for users of the Gadget or Widget to check if they are up to date on the most current version. A 5th Widget will be added in the future, but for now will be posted here for you in advance so that you can test it out. This would be the WidgetBox Widget and is shown below:
Thanks and enjoy the new DexKnows.com site and all of it’s new features!
Chris J. Politzki
Studio 119 Degrees
Adobe Photoshop never ceases to amaze me. I’ve been working with it since version 3, which would have been somewhere around 1995 or 1996? So when I found this new automation in CS3, I was really psyched to be able to share this new feature I found. I used to take hours sometimes to do what Photoshop now does with a click of a button.
Well, as an avid enthusiast of photography, I’m always exploring ways to further the art of creating an engaging image. Upon my explorations, I’ve dabbled in creating panoramas. Never resorting to purchasing either a wide-angle lens or a proper panoramic camera, I was left to discover cheaper methods to satisfy my explorative cravings in photography. I even briefly offered my panoramic photography services out to realtors before it was a common feature on realty web sites. These were Quicktime VR files, which were interactive (some examples of my quicktime vr examples). The creation of these files took an enormous amount of manual labor. The new automation ‘Photomerge’ within Adobe Photoshop CS3 is a godsend!
This ‘Photomerge’ feature is found in the top menu under ‘File’=>’Automate’=>’Photomerge’. A window will popup which gives you the option to work with individual image files or a folder of images.
Adobe Photoshop CS3 Photomerge Dialog Box
I’ll demonstrate working from a folder of images. Select which layout you prefer on the left-hand side (I’ll show samples of all these layouts at the end of this post), select ‘Folder’ and then click on ‘Browse’. I always choose the ‘Blend images together’ checkbox as this helps in blending imperfect matches between image edges.
Adobe Photoshop CS3 Photomerge Choose Folder Dialog Box
Hit the ‘Choose’ button. This adds the selected images to the queue. Finally, hit ‘OK’ and see this magical feature perform it’s task.
Here’s the results below with different layouts used.
The ‘Auto‘ layout: (Full-size image)
The ‘Perspective‘ layout: (Full-size image)
The ‘Cylindrical‘ layout: (Full-size image)
The ‘Reposition Only‘ layout: (Full-size image)
The ‘Interactive Layout‘ allows you to manually move around the images. This can be useful when the automation isn’t quite perfect. All-in-all, a nifty little feature to have!
Chris J. Politzki
Stay tuned! Formulating a new design for the site. It’s about time I must say… the site has been effective, but needs a freshening-up, so-to-speak.
Chris
Update!!!
Monday, March 9th, 2009
I recently found the time to update the Studio 119 Degrees Web Site. Please have a look and make a comment here as to what your thoughts are on the new look and feel to the site.
Thanks!
Chris J. Politzki
Studio 119 Degrees
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