New Post has been published on DreamingKey

New Post has been published on http://dreamingkey.com/wordpress/?p=83

A better way of integration

So, I’m finally tinkering around with WordPress.  I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.  I normally don’t blog about things on a regular basis, and when I try they seem to fail after a short bit.

The truth of the matter is, I got on this to help out my other half in the coding and stylization. And in doing so, I started to think it might not be a bad thing to have for my own online portfolio.  In truth, with how you can integrate things from here to various social media outlets, it may not be a bad idea in the end, and once figuring out how to bend wordpress to my will, I might actually sit back and make some of my own templates or styles and themes.  Maybe.  There is still quite  a bit I have trouble wrapping my head around.

In the end of things, this is more or less just a post to test out the new integrations, and see which ones I still need to turn off, because if i haven’t this post is probably going to be reposted and reposted over and over again due to one social media posting this, and then another posting this, and the former network reading the second network, and then positing about that networks new link…

Gets confusing.  But, now we shall see what still needs to be disconnected, and if everything has been properly reconnected.

jessica valenti: National Review: Newtown could have been avoided if a man was around

jessicavalenti:

Yeah yeah, I know - don’t feed the trolls. But this is just beyond reprehensible. From Charlotte Allen, longtime antifeminist asshole, at the National Review Online:

There was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred. In this school of 450 students, a…

…..
It’s stuff like this that makes me wish the world DID in fact end. I’m highly annoyed now. 

Making out with my Muse

So, I admit I haven’t been as productive as I would have liked with this tumblr, but I’m not going to throw it away either.  I’m gonna keep going.  Now, let’s have some updates, shall we?

Job front:  Despite all the pushes and emails and snail mails, no one has responded what so ever.  So, I’m putting it on hold again.  I think I need to broaden my horizons a bit and perhaps delve more into that networking thing.  As they say, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” My first step is helping out with a local community college newspaper, showing them the ropes on how to produce a better, cleaner paper with less of a headache. And maybe either take a college class or two (I’ve been eyeballing their darkroom classes) or maybe even make introductions to the college’s marketing department and see what I can’t work out there. Who knows, there might be something I can burrow into. 

Personal projects: Most of those have fallen apart, but not because of a lack of wanting.  It’s just there really is no place to do it.  As with sewing projects or dremel projects, I want a sort of studio, a room I can leave everything out and about, and not have to worry about packing all the loose odds and ends back up, until the project is finished.  It takes me and hour to get all the sewing gear out and find all the things I need, and it would also stop me from spending money on stuff I already have and just can’t find at the moment.  And unfortunately, it’s probably only going to get worse until me and the household go through or hoarded collections and unload.  We’ve been making small progress in donating to Good Will, but I still insist on some sort of inventorying in order to make the taxes easier to claim at the end of the fiscal year, so to speak.  That, and the whole “I remember this… this is” stroll down memory lane. 

Promoting DreamingKey : Well I’ve finally got a Facebook page set up, and I’m toying with the Static iFrame tab to making something nifty for it.  I’ve got a narrowed down version of the main site up on it now, but I wanna do something different for the Facebook Page, rather than the same thing.  I might make it mirror the design styles of the Twitter page.  Just a little bit more work, and all the social networks will be interlinked, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Livejournal….  Not sure what other ones I should sign up for or if they can be interlinked, but we’ll get to the bridge later.

Personal : SSDD.  Nothing more you can say really.  But, I’ve been bitten by an art muse and for whatever reason she won’t let go.  And even more bizarre it centers around on old storyline a friend and I used to roleplay.  We never got far with the story, but now one particular character has been nibbling and nibbling, and she just won’t let go!  I’ve sketched her out in three poses (one being.. Meh…) colored her, and I’ve even had inklings of how the story really should have started, her background, and more pieces that we never got the chance to reveal.  I’m almost giddy about it.  I’ll go wherever the muse shall lead me.

And yeah, I’ve jumped on the “A Monster in Paris” Bandwagon. ^_^


Designer A, B, and C walk into a bar….

Okay, it’s time to figure out who’s stuck at the bar and has to pay the tab.  Apparently, it’s me and my co-workers.  

What has sparked this on?  Well, at work an email came in to a client, from one of his clients, telling him to change an ad like one he did before.  The email was merely forwarded to us with no further explanation from OUR client at all, with the exception of he default signature line…  Oh, correction.  It was emailed to our boss, who then emailed it back to us - still with no further instructions.  

Then we are sent the ad some other company did.  No offense to the company, but the ad is not the best this thing could be.  Our version of it was a little more lively, perhaps is the right way to say it?

But no, the best part has to be when our client’s client tells him he wants it done in the style of this last ad, fonts and all.  Except, on problem.  We don’t have that font. And again, this is not the first time we’ve been slighted by someone wanting a change to an ad or to have an ad emulated, but we just don’t have the proper gear for it.  

The last time this happened, with a particular client, we called it ad fishing.  Apparently the client had taken ad space out in several publications, and was using each one’s design staff like it was his own firm.  I produced one proof, sent it away and received another that they liked, but wanted changes.  That’s very well an all, but I just put over 8 hours of work into the proof I just sent you, which is nothing at all like the proof you’ve just sent back.  I don’t have those images, I don’t have that font.  And why you think I can change it, when I never had it to begin with is beyond me.

And what I really don’t understand is why they can’t just be honest about it. Don’t sneak around with another paper and their designer and waste my time doing the same thing they are doing.  Once you buy the ad from us and the space, you can give it to who ever you like, even make it easily editable with a font listing and available substitutions.  Nothing is worse than getting a PDF proof, and when you try to break it down to find out what fonts are on it, you find out you’ve got nothing more than a flattened image in PDF form. And I say flattened, cause if it was merely converted to outline, it would be far more crisp and clear than what I’m looking at now.

But honestly, what is the point? I don’t go around offering services to people and then have someone else do the work without receiving credit. Why say you’ll take care of it, when you won’t?  It’s me and my co-workers who will, and if we are gonna be the bottom line, we need more info that a raggle-taggle conversation copy and pasted and forwarded email. How others can work like this and still find joy and pride in graphic design is almost mind boggling.  

This wouldn’t be so bad if this were the boss saying she’d take care of it.  That would be acceptable.  But its a client of a client, saying this, and then shoving the message to our boss who only shoves it down to us. Can’t ask her anything about it, because she doesn’t have all the information either.  So where does that leave us?

Oh yeah… at the bar.  Holding the Tab.  

Seriously, what happened to this field when it came to the weekly publications?