Dragonsaber News

MOAC Windows 8 Design

noreply@blogger.com (Dragonsaber Admin) — Sat, 04 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft reverted to flat colors and shapes for their Windows 8 design. As you can see below, the logo used to be wavy and the gradients gave it a solid 3-D feel. The Windows 7 operating system went further and encased the logo in a candy-like round button for the start menu. Then in Windows 8, they went in the other direction and made everything flat.

To match the new design, the co-branded catalog header for Wiley's Microsoft Official Academic Course series was updated to match. The gradient was dropped for an official Microsoft flat blue background. And the new font is being used for the title/logo. All other fonts are from the Wiley.com stylesheet.

Click here to visit MOAC

Wiley Live

noreply@blogger.com (Dragonsaber Admin) — Wed, 01 May 2013 12:30:00 +0000

This new app from Wiley Publishing gives you access to the latest news, published titles and articles, and events in Physics and Astronomy, Maths and Statistics, Engineering and Construction on the go, and lets you save articles for reference.

Click here for iOS

Click here for Android

Wiley Foundation

noreply@blogger.com (Kerwin) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

When updating legacy content, I often come across cases where we never got the original Photoshop files from the designer or it's so old that it got lost many generations ago. So I'll work from an existing JPG and use selections to keep parts of a composition. In the case below, we need to swap out the old logo for "Wiley" and replace with the Akzidenz-Grotesk font. The text was however placed on top of a background that was hard to rubber stamp out. So I kept the 3 square images and recreated the background using filters.

Before

After

Kimengyeo.com Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Kerwin) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 01:12:00 +0000

Flowers
- Lotus 1
- Lotus 2

Landscapes
- Birch stand
- Etched in snow

Still Life
- Onions on fabric
- Two White Eggplants
- Lemons and Plums
- Chinese lanterns

Representational
- Sheltered
- As They Swim 1
- As They Swim 2
- As They Swim 5

Kim Yeo Exhibitions

noreply@blogger.com (Kerwin) — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 01:13:00 +0000

A Painted Garden
Mount Kisco Public Library
July 6 - 30, 2013
Opening Reception: Saturday July 6, 1 - 3pm
For more details visit www.mountkiscolibrary.org

Vermont Open Studio Weekend 2013
May 25 and 26
For details please visit
http://www.vermontcrafts.com/links/open.html

Wiley China

noreply@blogger.com (Dragonsaber Admin) — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 01:44:00 +0000

Wiley China is actually a minisite of Wiley.com US used for marketing purposes. As you can see with the old site, it was out of date for some time already. It needed some new templates to handle features more easily and in a more fixed manner. The new site was divided up and organized so that it would save time for non-technical editors. At the same time, it keeps the look consistent with the mother site.

Before

After

TED Minisite

noreply@blogger.com (Dragonsaber Admin) — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 01:37:00 +0000

As part of a partnership with TED, Wiley had a minisite setup under their main Wiley.com. Unlike most minisites, this one used the same header and footer as the main site, so it saved a bit of time in coding the templates.

Visit Wiley TED Studies @ www.wiley.com/go/tedstudies

Web-based RWD Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Dragonsaber Admin) — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 18:13:00 +0000

These are some pretty useful and convenient tools for testing how responsive web sites resize and reconfigure for various device widths:

The Responsinator
- Enter a responsive site URL into the form field
- Submit to see a simulation across various device widths & orientations

Benjamin Keen's Bookmarklet
- Install the bookmark by dragging the link to your bookmark bar
- Visit a responsive site
- Click on the bookmark for a set of IFRAME previews

Victor Coulon's Bookmarklet
- Install the bookmark by dragging the link to your bookmark bar
- Visit a responsive site
- Click on the bookmark for an interactive preview in a single IFRAME
- Use the links above to resize the IFRAME

Examples:
- http://foodsense.is
- http://spigotdesign.com
- http://www.authenticjobs.com
- http://www.getskeleton.com

Intrepid & Enterprise

noreply@blogger.com (Dragonsaber Admin) — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 20:17:00 +0000

High Line

noreply@blogger.com (Dragonsaber Admin) — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 19:17:00 +0000

Wiley 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kerwin) — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 01:22:00 +0000

It's been a while since Wiley.com had a redesign... long before I started working there. I'm almost constantly redesigning sites or launching brand new ones at work, but this one was by far the largest one I've done. It wasn't the most technically difficult, but the amount of content and various page types made the project time consuming. This was so heavy on the frontend that 3 of our developers dropped their normal backend duties to help me out.

While I didn't design the site itself, one of the things I really wanted to do was remove Flash functionality and replace it the the lighter, more compatible jQuery. Here are the main points that used to be Flash:

Homepage - The rotating slideshow at the top
Subject Pages - Featured books under the heading
Brands List - Entire page

The first 2 items actually have the same base code underneath, but are wrapped in 2 very different jQuery/CSS skins. The subject pages have various slide layouts also. There are 5 different templates I created... 1 book, 2 books, 3 books and 2 templates that can take custom images. The 3rd item was a page that was a flash animation of all of Wiley's brands. It was difficult to update and had no SEO value. So replacing it with a simple HTML page fixes both issues.

Flushing Wildlife

noreply@blogger.com (Dragonsaber Admin) — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 21:05:00 +0000

From Flushing Wildlife

New Kim Yeo Exhibitions

noreply@blogger.com (Kerwin) — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 12:27:00 +0000

Vermont's Contemporary Traditions
Southern Vermont Arts Center
Yesterhouse Galleries
September 8 - 30, 2012
Opening Reception: Saturday Sept. 8, 2 - 4pm
For more details visit www.svac.org

A Painted Garden
Mount Kisco Public Library
July 6 - 30, 2013
Opening Reception: Saturday July 6, 1 - 3pm
For more details visit www.mountkiscolibrary.org

Updated Complete Exhibitions List

RCT 2012 Update

noreply@blogger.com (Kerwin) — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 21:56:00 +0000

Pick Up Your Tires
Now you can order tires online and have them conveniently shipped to RCT at no addtional charge. They are listed on Tire Rack, Discount Tire and various other tire web sites as recommended installers.

New Store Hours
Monday - Friday: 8am-5pm
Saturday: 8am-4pm

Social Networks
- Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/RCT-Performance/141077802696621)
- Instagram (rctperformance)

Wheel Alignment
As RCT shifted their focus over the years, a new page concentrating on wheels was created, showcasing new equipment.

WIREs Energy and Environment

noreply@blogger.com (Kerwin) — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 01:41:00 +0000

The production of energy, a critical resource for the welfare and prosperity of society, is a complex process that may also cause adverse environmental and societal effects.

An important new forum to promote cross-disciplinary discussion of energy technology, security and environmental impact
An authoritative, encyclopedic resource addressing key topics from diverse research perspectives
Content is fully citable, qualifying for abstracting, indexing, and ISI ranking

http://wires.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WiresJournal/wisId-WENE.html

Dummies Mobile

noreply@blogger.com (Dragonsaber Admin) — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 17:17:00 +0000

As of this weekend, Dummies.com is fully mobile optimized for iPhone and Android devices. In general, creating a mobile site is pretty easy. Pages have simpler layouts and there are less browsers to worry about, but the challenge in this case was hooking up the mobile templates with a site that already existed. Here are the technical highlights of this project:

Sharing Content
The mobile site is setup so that editorial staff never need to logon to edit both sites. Whatever is done to the desktop site will reflect on the mobile. The structure of the sections are reading from the same source, but applying different layouts/CSS.

Regions
The store part of the site is globalized to display the relevant currency while shopping. The site now does 2 checks to the user: 1) whether they are mobile or desktop… 2) what region of the world they are in.

Slideshow
More time was spent on this article type than all of the others combined! This was a new type that went up on the desktop site earlier this year. Translating it to mobile line for line didn't work at all. It was important to get some sort of touch and drag functionality into it, but that's not fully supported via HTML/JS yet. The closest is a plugin called iScroll, which overrides the native scroll with its own. Check out the Pilates series for an example.

Video
Previous work on Dummies.com allowed video content to be played back on iOS, which doesn't support Flash. Going mobile added another layer on top of this. Now there's a check for mobile device that serves up a smaller player. So…
- If you're using a computer or Android tablet, you get the Flash player at full size
- If you're using an iPad, you get an HTML5 player at full size
- If you're using an iPhone, you get a mini HTML5 player
- If you're using an Android phone, you get a mini Flash player

Grenache Grapes SOLD

noreply@blogger.com (Dragonsaber Admin) — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 02:08:00 +0000

This was one of the items sold during this year's Vermont Open Studio event. For more still lifes like this, check out http://www.kimengyeo.com/still_life/.

E-book Help

noreply@blogger.com (Dragonsaber Admin) — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 02:04:00 +0000

Not all e-book formats are as straight forward as Kindle or iBooks. One of the more difficult ones to deal with is Adobe E-books (.ACSM) because it's a protected format. Purchasing the e-book and getting it on your PC is the easy part. It can get complex when you try to transfer the purchase to your e-reader or tablet. In an attempt to reduce customer service calls, a new, detailed help page was created with step-by-step instructions for all of the top devices. Check it out at... www.wiley.com/go/help/ebook

Ryu's Dragon Fury

noreply@blogger.com (Kerwin) — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 01:37:00 +0000

Fall 1994 - This one just started out as a doodle and my hand just went into autopilot with the lines and shading. Ryu's nemesis, Akuma has the kanji for "heaven" on the back of his gi, so I felt Ryu should have the character for "dragon" on his.

Vega vs. Ryu

noreply@blogger.com (Kerwin) — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 22:40:00 +0000

Fall 1994 - I referenced a photo of the Van Damme movie Street Fighter for this, but replaced the actors with the anime versions of Vega (Balrog) and Ryu. The Street Fighter video games have always had good figure art. The characters are properly proportioned and aren't overly muscular like many other games.

Knightfall Batman

noreply@blogger.com (Kerwin) — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 18:34:00 +0000

Winter 1994 - Knightfall was one of my favorite Batman stories of all time. The new costume introduced in that arc was a great way to practice figure drawing with a cape and some armor pieces. In this particular series, I was testing my color pencil technique on different paper textures.

Gung Li Chuan BETA

noreply@blogger.com (Kerwin) — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 01:47:00 +0000

Winter 1996 - This is an uncolored cel from the completed Gung Li Chuan animation featuring Alyssa Goldenblade. This character has been recently updated since I started playing Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning on PS3. I'll be trying to get back into figure drawing and hopefully can come up with some new pieces of Alyssa inspired by the recent game.

Fire and Gold BETA

noreply@blogger.com (Kerwin) — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 01:29:00 +0000

Fall 1996 - These are a couple of sketches that eventually lead to the Fire and Gold Photoshop piece. The first was a back view of Shadow Dragon and then the front view that I eventually went with.

Double Rainbow

noreply@blogger.com (Dragonsaber Admin) — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 02:21:00 +0000

WIREs Water

noreply@blogger.com (Kerwin) — Mon, 28 May 2012 22:27:00 +0000

The scope of WIREs Water is at the interfaces between five very different intellectual themes: the basic science of water, its physics and chemistry, flux, and things that it transfers and transforms; life in water, and the dependence of ecosystems and organisms on water to survive and to thrive; the engineering of water to furnish services and to protect society; the people who live with, experience and manage the water environment; and those interpretations that we, as a society, have brought to water through art, religion, history and which in turn shapes how we come to understand it. These interfaces are not simply designed to be ways of looking at water through what necessarily must be interdisciplinary perspectives. They are also designed to be outward facing in terms of how water can help to understand wider questions concerning our environment and human-environment interactions.

Coming in 2014:
http://wires.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-811578.html