30 Mar
   Filed Under: Announcement, Design, Personal Work   

So long, dark black glossy design of March. The Cocoia Blog april design is here! Expect a black and white theme switcher soon, as I am just too lazy and occupied to do that right now. What strikes me most right now is how legible my blog has become with this black on white scheme. Like it? Dislike it? Give me a line.

Rest in peace, March Design.
Cocoia Blog (20070331) 1.jpg

25 Mar
   Filed Under: Unfiled   

cs3.jpg

This is my personal favorite. The graphic design for these prominent applications has really gotten better across the board: icon design, the interface is wonderful, and this. Check it out, see what package you like best.

comments off
21 Mar
   Filed Under: Unfiled   

It’s wednesday again, time for the weekly type feature. Some people claim this weblog has no base to make typographic posts on, but I disagree; type design, by it’s very nature, is hacking the way we read.

I wanted to start this post with a font that was plaguing me in the streets. The movie ‘Dreamgirls’ has gotten quite large, and although I have no incentive to see it, the poster of the movie is a fine example of appealing design;

dreamgirls.jpg

It’s avant-gardish, isn’t it? It’s not, but it has been designed by Herb Lubalin, orginally, the designer of the Avant-Garde logotype. Incipit is carrying exclusive rights to the digitized version, and it’s a beauty. I’ve highlighted some of my personal favorite glyphs.

dreamfont.jpg

Another eye-catching beauty I stumbled upon is Halvorsen, a very nice Sans-Serif font that has a very friendly atmosphere to it. I appreciate it’s delicate negative space.

halvorsen.jpg

In a time of many redesigns, cartoonist insider Cagle flames the recent L.A. Times redesign, counting 22 fonts. As a graphic designer, I have no idea who did this redesign, but they must surely be out of their minds. The other recent redesign, that of the Times, by pentagram, did great;

timdes.jpg

I really love the horizontal axis; it just works. Very nice redesign, keeping with the magazine’s roots, supposedly (once again, not American) and well, looking good.

In a slightly related note, Google acquired Trendalyzer. Trendalyzer makes pretty graphs, like so;

gapminder_google.jpg

This is a trend (no pun intended); there is mounting interest in this market. Typographic representation of information and infoviz (visualization) are becoming very interesting markets for designers and coders alike. As technology progresses, both technically using a computer and it’s technology and designing new methods of representing information will become more and more interwoven, and will result in fantastic things.

I hoped to make an update with some glyphs of my own, alas, I’m afraid it will have to wait until the week-end; I am still digging into RADIUS and it’s dozen authentication protocols first. Bon bézier, au revoir.

19 Mar
   Filed Under: Design, Personal Work   

forti-ad.jpg

More information soon on this exciting new application by yours truly…

18 Mar
   Filed Under: Announcement, Popular   

isightexpert.jpg

digg this!

It’s a mobile world, and your Macbook goes just about anywhere. Sometimes, you just leave it on the desk at your workplace, or at home. Sometimes, you leave it on. Sometimes you don’t. There is always some chance that your attention isn’t on your portable. Theft could easily occur.

iSight Expert isn’t a countermeasure for theft. It’s a range of tools anyone can use to their advantage. Many Macs come with a built-in iSight, but lack tools to use it in a more unorthodox way.

Want to use your iMac as a motion alarm?
Want to keep a timelapse of how you look?
Do you want to know where your employees are?
Do you want a picture taken at a failed login?

iSight Expert can not only do all those things, but also export a customized application for you that you can install on any iSight-equipped Mac, and will function as you have defined it;

* Send Emails with it’s Geographic location and images.
* Securely upload recent images and data to a web server
* Make a movie of a month’s or week’s images
* Take images at startup, login, logout, wakeup, failed passwords, or motion.
* Act on a change of images or a face in the camera (e.g. run a script, play a song)

And there is much more. iSight Expert can organise the sent images of all your equipped Macs, put them online automatically for you, or print them. In it’s slick interface, you can see at what date, and at what location the image was taken. It’s Growl enabled, meaning you can get nifty little dialogues when you get a new image.

A beta-test is opening soon. Leave a comment, or email me to enter consideration. edit; I have had a lot of replies. I still need beta testers who have access to, and are able to test, a different application on OS X server. If you have both, be sure to email.

17 Mar
   Filed Under: Announcement   

Updates planned today will be postponed to another date. Check back via email or comments.

comments off