Really Interesting and Informative Typography Article

As almost all of my students know, I’m a bit of a type geek. So, imagine how fulfilled my inner geek feels, when I find blog post about Typefaces, Type Structure, Type families, Type anatomy, and Type Classification, the use of Type in Paragraphs, Typographic Terms like kerning and spacing, Page Layout and Type, and so much more!

Although this article is written with a focus on software development, the article is about DESIGN. Knowing what you’re using, and why. As I always say “in design, you can always break the rules, but first you have to know what the rules are!”

I seriously recommend this article to all my design students, my motion graphics students, my still image students, and anyone else who feels that Type is more than just a way to make a word show up.

http://www.imaginarycloud.com/blog/a-typography-workshop/?ref=webdesignernews.com

Adobe is Severely Limiting it’s Font Installations

In a recent article on InDesign Secrets, I can finally find the reason why so many of my InDesign classes have been having font errors when using files from the Adobe courseware. It seems that InDesign – and all of the Adobe programs, for that matter, are no longer installing the fonts that used to come with the programs! I’ve been using Adobe programs for too many  years than I want to count, so of course, I have the fonts installed, but so many of my students are downloading demo software for their classes, and work in an environment with security limitations, so they can’t easily access Adobe’s Typekit (part of the Creative Cloud suite).

In my opinion, this is a terrible move on Adobe’s part, and I can’t quite figure out why they’re choosing to do it. Over the years, I’ve seen Adobe seemingly losing touch with their users in quite a few ways, but in software that’s ABOUT design, I can’t imagine what they’re thinking.

To view the post on InDesignSecrets.com, please visit http://indesignsecrets.com/adobe-drops-fonts-leaves-users-stranded.php

There’s an earlier article about the issue here: http://indesignsecrets.com/happened-fonts-indesign.php   (which includes a work-around)

And, for a list of the fonts originally installed, and mostly still necessary, please see Adobe’s article here: http://www.adobe.com/products/type/creative-suite-6-installed-fonts.html

As for me, I’ve backed up ALL of my installed fonts into a directory I use for my font management program. I suggest you do the same. If you’d like instructions for doing so, please comment on this post.

 

Good deal on Adobe Training Videos by TrainSimple

I’m not usually one to suggest people learn from others, considering Adobe Training is what I do – but I firmly believe that giving students ideas for supplemental learning can always help them to practice what I teach and help to embed the information they learn in my classes.

So, I thought sharing a deal on a lifetime subscription to TrainSimple’s Adobe Training might be helpful to those who want reference information, and ways to practice what I teach. Take a look at this deal – good ONLY today!

https://deals.cultofmac.com/sales/lifetime-of-train-simple-adobe-training

BACKUP – automatically to the Cloud

BACKUP!!!

So, you guys know I’m very neurotic about backing up my files, and I found this service that gives you unlimited space for automatic backups – IN THE CLOUD!

I have dual hard drive backups in my home office, PLUS a separate backup for my startup drive. But living in SoCal, with earthquakes, I’ve always been concerned about earthquake damage hurting my backups, leaving me with nothing.

Recently, I discovered BackBlaze.com. for $50/year, they offer unlimited space for backups, allow the backup of external drives, retain backups for 30 days, and will back up almost everything (system files and Applications won’t get backed up). I have 4 internal drives and several externals. All of my media (photos, videos, and even the files created as temporary files for my video editing), all of my office work files, personal files – and it’s safe and encrypted. All offsite, and all for $50! There isn’t a limit on file size, either – so my largest multi-gig files can be uploaded. It’s not exceptionally speedy, but I can even control the speed of the backups.

I highly recommend checking them out at BackBlaze.com.

New Adobe Character Animation Application Shown at NAB

At the NAB Conference from April 11th to April 16th, Adobe announced a new app, coming to Adobe Creative Cloud members.

Adobe Character Animator does just what it says it will do. You can use pre-created characters that appear to come with the app, or you can create your characters using Photoshop or Illustrator and animate them. I believe I’m initially most impressed with the facial recognition and animation activation, which takes prompts directly from your webcam.

Of course, version 1 of anything will have it’s issues – but this looks really promising!!!

http://www.rgbhq.com/nab-2015-adobe-character-animator-preview/

MANY new Adobe Updates coming SOON!

Up until today, I was under NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) to not reveal what’s coming up to MANY of my student’s favorite Adobe Apps – but today, with the announcement at NAB, all may be revealed. In fact, Adobe themselves revealed what’s to come to Adobe Premiere Pro (oh, my goodness, what they’re doing!), After Effects, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash, Muse, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Audition!

You can check out the upcoming changes to the Video Editing apps here:
http://blogs.adobe.com/creativecloud/coming-next-to-adobe-pro-video-tools/

I’m sure there’re going to be many more blog posts at Adobe, to tell us the rest…

Adobe Extends Discount Offers

Here’s an email I received from Adobe tonight:

We are excited to let you know about the following offers — some of the best deals around!

PS-SPECIAL-EXTENDDeadline Extended to Dec. 8 to get Photoshop + Lightroom for $9.99/mo

Due to the fantastic response, the offer for the the Photoshop Photography Program , available to anyone for $9.99/month, has been extended until December 8th. This is available worldwide, wherever the bundle is available on Adobe.com.

The offer includes access to Photoshop CC and Lightroom 5, 20GB of cloud storage and a Behance ProSite.

CC-SPECIAL-EXTENDExtended Upgrade Plan to Creative Cloud for $29.99/mo Until May

We are also extending our Creative Cloud membership $29.99 promotion into 2014. With this extension, anyone owning CS3+ who has not yet made the move to Creative Cloud, will continue to be able to join Creative Cloud at the rate of $29.99/month for their first year of membership.

Here’s the link to all their current Creative Cloud Discounts:
http://www.adobe.com/products/discount-software-coupons.html?promoid=KHQFR

 

Complete Online Manuals and Help Guides for All Adobe Products – from ProDesignTools.com

Oh – THIS is lovely! ProDesignTools.com has created a page dedicated to ALL the Help files for ALL the Adobe products, in searchable, discussable format! They’re even downloadable as PDF’s!

Check this out:
http://prodesigntools.com/online-manuals-help-documentation-all-adobe-products.html

Download New Adobe CC Trials – Direct Links to installers

If you subscribe to Adobe CC (Creative Cloud – henceforward the only way to get the new versions of the Adobe software), you already know that your software must be downloaded via the Adobe Manager/Assistant to install it, and no installers remain on your system. If you need to reinstall, you must download again.

Well, ProDesignTools.com has created a page with direct download links to all the CC Trial versions – which can be used to install/reinstall the software, and activate using your CC account. Great resource!

 

http://prodesigntools.com/adobe-cc-direct-download-links.html

Creative Cloud Backlash

SO many people are responding negatively to Adobe’s recent announcement of their sole offering of a cloud based Creative Cloud subscription that I’m seeing dozens of posts on the subject. The article below offers some links to follow the discussion (read: Rebellion), and a link to a petition to sign, if you find a life-long payment plan is not for you!

http://creativebits.org/photoshop/creative_suite_6_forever