As you can tell by these crazy, ridiculous,

awesome

fonts, my first time with

Typekit

went rather well.

Last week, a friend of mine introduced me to Typekit. I was pretty floored. This is a HUGE step in the right direction for web design. Now that all major browsers can take advantage of the ability to link to a font, developers will have the ability to solve complex design issues while maintaining accessibility standards (without using flash, like SIFR does). I’m sure we will see more global solutions like this one for solving the legal problems with linking users to fonts they haven’t purchased in the near future.

Typekit also works with IE6, which is an honest to goodness miracle.

Start the reactor. Free Mars…

Yes, I finally got my Tyler Stout Posters in the mail this week. This guy’s work is amazing. It has a vector look to it, but also takes me back to contour line drawings in art school. Also, his color choices are how you say, choice. Check out his artwork here.

The left poster is Total Recall, and the right is Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. These two movies are up there on my list of glorious glitter from the 80s and early 90s, in my opinion the Renaissance of cheesy movies. Both of these guys are limited edition, hand numbered Alamo prints. Really excited to finally get a couple of these, as these guys put together some amazing work.

Well, there is both a good and bad part to this story. Let’s start with the good:

My buddy Justin came to me a couple months back, and told me that he was starting an ultimate frisbee team in my home town of Ligonier. He asked if i would put a logo together for the team, in exchange for a jersey. I happily obliged, and proceeded to put together the logo you see below, based on the civil war fort located in Ligonier.

Now, for the bad. Below, you can see the final jersey. Not too shabby right? Well, apparently the printer saw fit to toy with my final eps file, completely jacking up the kerning on the work Fortress. Wherever you are captain dumbass, thanks for that novel idea.

Outside of that, the final jerseys are pretty cool. Some sweat control fabric that’s dang comfy, and you can’t go wrong with Steelers colors

My Reverse Jams, limited edition designed my the students at CMU came today.

w00t!

So, I made a pit stop at Sheetz on my way back from the beach this week, and picked up the Penguins Stanley Cup Champion issue of Sports Illustrated. A very good read all in all, albeit mostly what I would expect to get from SI. Finally, I turned to the back cover, and found this gem of an ad for State Farm:

I’m pretty sure Marian Hossa won’t be buying State Farm insurance any time soon.

Sunset on the 606

Finally, I dusted off my copy of photoshop and put something together for Design By Humans. I’ve been wanting to for a while, but as many people know, wanting and doing are very different things.

This shirt is based off of the building I lived in in college, and the idea that that lifestyle eventually comes to an end. Currently its just a submission. The way DBH works is based on the idea of one big ongoing tshirt design contest. The designs are done by the community, and voted on by the community. So get out and vote for mine!

_Rob

This is a kick ass new feature in CS4: You can control which objects will be distorted when you scale an image.

Oh yeah baby, I’m getting me a pair of these!

This Wednesday, CMU’s “Sneakerology 101” class is putting on an event called Kicksburgh. They’ll be selling sneakers, art, and other kick ass stuff. There is also a Soles4Souls shoe drive, so bring your unused sneakers if you got em!

Finally, they have 101 pairs of “Reebok Reverse Jams” for sale. Pictured above, these shoes were designed by CMU’s sneakerology students, with heavy influences from the classroom, and Andrew Carnegie himself. I’m gonna try and snag a pair if I can! You can read more about them here.

KiCKSBURGH

April 15^th, from 6 – 9 pm
Skibo Gym, CMU

Alas, I will be on sandy beaches in Hawaii this week, but everyone else should check this out. Refresh Pittsburgh and On the Fridge, LLC. are putting on this nifty one day conference centered on web design. It will showcase some serious talent from the Pittsburgh area, as all the speakers are local to here. If you want to keep up on the web design scene here in the burgh, this is the place to go.

Info

webdesignday
Saturday April 4, 2009
8:30am – 5:00pm
Left Field Meeting Space
116 Federal St.
Pittsburgh, PA
$40 per person

Looks like they are limited to 85 registrations, so hit it up quick!

_Rob

Finally finished this thing!

These are my grandparents on my mother’s side. I hung out a good bit with them when I was little, and they were two of the most selfless people I’ve ever known. I’ve called these paintings Baucis and Philemon, based on the Greek legend, telling of the generosity of the couple. I hope you guys dig, feel free to give me any crits in the comments!

Stats:

Acrylic on wood.
For my Gram’s body, I used a stock photo by the talented Kechake-stock. Thanks!

_Rob