Microsoft Word is the worst writing tool
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Microsoft Word is the worst writing tool

Hands up who uses Microsoft Word? Hands up who *likes* Microsoft Word? I asked those two questions in a talk I gave at The Future Of Text symposium in October. Almost the entire audience raised their hands at the first question, but hardly anyone did at the second. I wasn’t at all surprised. In fact,…

Creative cubist collages
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Creative cubist collages

Producing images by assembling many different shots can create eye-catching results, and can be done in many different programs. It also draws on concepts and techniques that originated with the Cubists over a century ago. Kit required: Adobe InDesign (or any DTP, graphic layout or bitmap editing application), multiple photographs of a scene Goal: To…

Tasty cross-processing treatments
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Tasty cross-processing treatments

Colour photography is all about reproducing the colours that were in the original scene… except when it isn’t. It may seem a little perverse if you spend your time trying to capture sharp, detailed, accurate photos, but flaws hold an intense fascination for many people. The rise of Instagram turned an interest in funked-up photos…

Graphic projections and new angles on perspective
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Graphic projections and new angles on perspective

WYSIWYG: What You See Isn’t What You Get! One of the great advances in the Renaissance was the understanding of perspective. Not the experiential kind that helps us learn from our mistakes, but rather the ‘converging parallel lines’ kind that helps us replicate our perception of depth, the third dimension, in a two-dimensional image. This…

Espy Sans Revived
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Espy Sans Revived

Back in pre-Mac OS X times, in 1992, Apple created a bitmap font called Espy Sans and used it in its Apple Help application, in its mis-timed eWorld service, and as the system font in the Newton. Espy Sans was the last bitmap-only font Apple would produce. It was crafted for use at specific pixel…

ASCII and emoticons
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ASCII and emoticons

The peculiar art of making faces with type. Lol, ;–) If you’ve never used either of the above in an email or text, you’ve either avoided the Internet altogether or you really are a bit of curmudgeon. A text-only medium blocks the non-verbal, unspoken emotional indicators that give a richer context to our communication. The…

Dazzle and digital camouflage
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Dazzle and digital camouflage

Camouflage is the art and design of staying hidden. But there’s more to camouflage than blobs of muted green, yellow and brown – just look at the modern Marpat patterns and WW1 dazzle ship designs. Seeing patterns in things is one of the most basic instincts we have. It is a survival instinct, something that…

Print effects without ink?
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Print effects without ink?

How can you print without using ink, without applying some kind of colour to a surface? There are two processes that come to mind: embossing and die-cutting. They’re not generally options we get to play with as a rule, but that’s no reason not to look into the possibilities. Embossing can be done with print…

QR codes: enter the matrix!
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QR codes: enter the matrix!

Quick Response (QR) barcodes are more interesting than you might think, so it’s worth considering them. Just make sure they work as expected before going live… You’ve probably seen a QR code, even if you don’t know what they are or do. QR codes are basically a two-dimensional form of barcode, with data encoded in…

Preflighting: boring but important
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Preflighting: boring but important

Know more about preflighting than your software or you’ll get caught out. Grammar purists, look away now; this is all about a word that’s made its way from composite adverb to standalone verb. Preflighting is the act of going through a series of important checks before committing yourself. It originated in the flight industry (hence…