To Pantone or Not To Pantone, That Is the Question
For years, Pantone was the defacto standard for picking colors for graphic artists. I have had Pantone swatch books within easy reach of my drawing board and then my computer my entire career. Back in the day, complicated CMYK combos were a pain and had to be hand-stripped together—that meant a lot of work and […]
Paint the Town
I can generally find my way around Philadelphia pretty easily, but there are times I get turned around and going in the wrong direction. I have never ended up in New Jersey by mistake, but there have been times when my route to a given location is less than ideal. On one of those unintended […]
How Intelligent is AI Really?
Seems like AI is suddenly everywhere. Call customer service for almost any business other than a small mom and pop store, and you will probably be greeted with an AI voice that states confidently that it can help you and understands complete sentences. Spoiler alert… it almost always doesn’t. And, of course, the one sentence […]
A Mouse is Loose
New Year’s Day. The day most of us still have (probably) not broken any New Year’s resolutions. A new calendar. A fresh start. And the day each year that a whole bunch of copyrights expire. This year’s treasure trove of works that have been protected since their origin way back in 1928 include Lady Chatterly’s […]
Copy That
Pretty much every illustrator worth their salt has what is euphemistically called a “swipe” file. A bunch of images torn out (swiped) from magazines or other printed material that can be used as reference when creating a new illustration. Need an image of a hand holding a mug—find something in your swipe file. A picture […]
What Comes Around
For three years when I was a kid, I lived near Somerville, New Jersey and attended Old York Elementary School located on Old York Road. Built in the 18th century, York Road (the “old” part came a bit later) connected Philadelphia to New York. A stagecoach could make a one-way trip between the two cities […]
The View from Here
Nine years ago, one of my biggest clients shut down, and I was looking for work. The first thing most people asked when I touched base was “Do you have a website?” So, I decided it was high time that I organized my samples and set up an online portfolio. I spent much of that […]
The World is Flat… Again
Back in the mid-1980s (yes, that long ago), when I started working as a graphic designer, almost all design was “flat.” Drop shadows, gradations, and other dimensional effects were not easy to achieve. Creating those looks involved a lot of time and planning and money.