Panda Sofas

Stripemania

Revyer Labs

Viget Extend

Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

Karim Zurita

BNET

Envato

Modstudio

Cameron Queen

Refresh OKC

Trevor Saint

Gisele Jaquenod & Birdie

Mint Idea

Like this post? Use the ShareThis button below to share it with others.

Related posts:

1. I Went Out and Took Some Photos So a few days ago in my Digital Photography class,...
2. 10 Top Social News Sites Ranked by Design Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Slashdot, and so on. They are...
3. Pepsi Spends 100s of Millions on a Boring New Logo [caption id="attachment_25" align="alignleft" width="139" caption="Couldn't find a high quality version....

LIST + SHORT WRITEUP OF EVERY FILM I’VE SEEN (skipped some) - https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/105133/Movies%20%28all%29.rtf

Before I begin my review, I think I should clear up that the “Gronholm Method” is an obscure method of interviewing someone for a job. It involves gathering up a number of candidates eligible for a position, but rather than openly interviewing them as a process of discovering their usefulness and weaknesses, there technically is no “interviewer”. In the film, the candidates are placed in a room with six laptops (one for each contender to receive notes) and they are forced to psychologically analyze each other to discover a “winner”. They are issued a series of challenges and hypothetical situations in which they are forced to pick out the weakest of their group. There is always the lingering plausibility that any one of these contestants can be the true interviewer, or perhaps there could be multiple interviewers? Maybe there is only one true contestant, or maybe they are all role-playing in a method to promote a staff member in the company? Any of these explanations are reasonable, because when we’re discussing a method as cynical as the film’s depiction, it’s almost superficial to narrow it down to one solution.

I’m not entirely sure about the historical authenticity of the Gronholm Method, or if it even exists (a Google search sent me to the film’s IMDb + Wikipedia page), but I can almost assure that if this film were a multinational box-office success, small businesses would begin to experiment and possibly adapt the procedure. I personally wouldn’t mind being an interviewee of such a system, for it allows me to challenge my intellectual abilities in an intense competition. As for the film itself, when its narrative followed the characters as they explored each other’s limitations and the film analyzed their credulity and enthusiasm to such a sport, it was an intensely riveting experience. The characters were developed with careful and relentlessly strengthening three-dimensional personalities, and the methods of interviewing grew more severe and brooding to reveal the true nature of man. The first 50 minutes of this film were pure exhilaration, a haunting psychological depiction of cat & mouse. To me it was almost a nostalgic resemblance of the superfluous anxiety found in 12 ANGRY MEN, as I’d never felt so absorbed by long-running dialogue since.

After several characters are eliminated from the process (I’m not about to explain who, why, or how), the film takes a break from its intense onslaught of psychosomatic progression. This veers the film off-course and unfortunately causes it to wane off a bit. Greed is replaced by hormones as one character randomly feels like having sex with one of the remaining interviewees. Although a bit absurd, it also fits the animalistic desperation the contestants must be feeling by this point. They’ve been stripped bare from social courtesy, and are now physically fighting one another, no longer caring for outer appearance. I’m not sure if it justifies going as far as it does, but it would’ve been totally implausible to remain as a restrained and gracious drama.

A romantic subplot also develops between two interviewees. They had once been lovers, but one betrayed the other, and neither had ever forgotten. They still longed to be together, but the hostile circumstances made it impossible for them. The subplot does reach startling poignancy at one point, but does the film ever get back on track? Does it ever re-enter its initial excitement? Unfortunately, the writer didn’t trust his sardonic examination would make for a fully satisfying viewing. His decision to switch gears was more detrimental than refreshing, and that may be the only aspect of the film that inhibited greatness. It still makes for a relentlessly entertaining viewing, one that not only makes for provides an hour worth of cynical fun, but questions human morality in a time of conflict.

Related posts:

1. Movie Review: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="223" caption="Sally Hawkins stars as Pauline 'Poppy'...

Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Slashdot, and so on. They are all great social news and media websites, but how do they rank in terms of how easy they are on the eyes? Here I will rank all the top social news and media websites based solely on their layout. I’d like to rank all of these sites on overall usability as well, but I’m not a dedicated member on all of them and feel it wouldn’t be fair for sites I’m less acquainted with. Well lets get this started, the sites are ranked from ugliest to sexiest.

Fark

Fark.com, created by Drew Curtis in 1999, is a popular social news website receiving over 2,500 submissions a day and over 5 million unique visitors per month. It is also really, really ugly.

It’s almost difficult to find many redeeming qualities about Fark. The logo itself isn’t too bad, it could use an upgrade, though. The website itself has a nice layout, it’s easy and simple to sort through all the different categories and pages.

From the colors to the way the news items are listed, the site was poorly designed. It’s a nice site, but not in terms of looks. The cheap gradient under the tabs feels wrong. I don’t like the lack of icons and graphics. A lot is done using ‘/’s and ‘( )’s in place of icons, graphics, and other means.

Reddit

Reddit, was started by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2005. It has an extremely loyal userbase, very well-known for their witty comments and posts.  The website itself became an open source project earlier this year, and all of the code and libraries are freely available. It’s also a little ugly.

Reddit has a great logo, and the Reddit Alien is a very recognizable symbol around the internet. However, despite all of this Reddit, in terms of aesthetics, is poorly designed. One thing that really jumps out is the lack of color, the site feels boring.

This lack of color, make the comment page especially, a bit difficult to navigate. It becomes a bit harder to at a glance see how many points a comment has, and viewing comment threads can get a little bit confusing.

Slashdot

Slashdot was started in 1997 by Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda, and is owned by SourceForge, Inc. While all the content on the site is user-submitted, editors choose which appears on the site. There is also a Slashdot Japan, which is localized for Japan.

The site is well laid out, and simple to navigate. It’s easy to read, and the site overall looks decent.

However, the site’s banner, especially the font used in the main logo, isn’t all that great. And the entire site has a bulky, feel to it. Some elements of the design just feel weird, like for instance the odd looking red edges on news story title boxes.

Propeller

Propeller (formerly Netscape.com) is operated by AOL-Netscape, and was started in 2006. All content is user-submitted, and stories receive ratings on a scale of 1-10, rather than individual votes.

The site is simple, clear and has a well-made, and recognizable logo. The rest of the site’s colors and theme is very well established.

But, I feel everything is too boxy, and doesn’t flow. The logo is made up of circles and curves, which would make you think that the rest of the site should follow that theme, except that just doesn’t happen. There are no curves to be found.

Tip’d

Tip’d was started in 2008 by some guy named Andy. The Community Director is Muhammad Saleem, who is a well-known for his status on Digg.com, as the #2 digg user of all time with nearly 2000 Front page submissions.

Tip’d is a social news website specifically targeting financial and business news and media. And the entire site feels this way. It feels like finance and business, it feels formal.

However, just because it’s a business and finance site, doesn’t mean it needs to be boring. In the banner especially, i feel like they could have done a better job.

Yahoo! Buzz

Yahoo! Buzz was started in February 2008, believe it or not, by Yahoo. All content is user submitted, however the front page is under editorial control. Meaning that editors at yahoo.com can choose what gets to the front page of buzz.

The website itself looks good, and most of the site feels great, well laid out, and easy to use and navigate.

However, it feels inconsistent. Certain bits of the site don’t look good, some smaller images are pixelly. And some things have borders, some of the borders are different sizes than eachother, and the site feels all around inconsistent.

Design Float

Design Float was started by Andrew Egenes, as a solution to the problems with digg’s design category. Since design is such a broad category, why does Digg only have one category for design?

Design float is very well designed, which one would expect from a website made specifically for designers. The site keeps it consistent, and has an all around theme surrounding water, which goes along with the name.

I wouldn’t go as far to say the site is absolutely beautiful. It is stylish and easy to navigate, but it is actually quite simple, and doesn’t demonstrate a ton of skill. It feels very “safe”.

Digg

Digg, started by Kevin Rose in December 2004, is one of the most prominent social news websites out there. All content is user submitted, and all the content that appears on the front page is chosen by users.

The site is laid out extremely well, and you can tell that lots of work has been put into it over the course of it’s lifetime.

There are, however a few things I don’t like about Digg’s design. The header colors seem a bit dark compared to the rest of the site, and at times it feels too simple. It could use a gradient or two.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon was founded by Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith, Justin LaFrance, and Eric Boyd, and was bought by eBay in 2007. It has a toolbar which allows you to like things, and not like things from the actual page. It is also recommendation engine, based off of what you like and do not like.

StumbleUpon’s layout is absolutely fantastic. Everything from the tabs to the listed items looks great. The few annoyances on the site are few and far between.

Mixx

Mixx was created in 2007 by Recommended Reading, Inc. It’s a social news site similar to Digg. It has been claimed as a sort of refuge for the diggers that were banned in the recent mass bannings over at Digg.com.

Mixx looks great, it was designed extremely well. Everything is where everything should be. The categories at the top are easy to find and use. The content on the front page is sorted and easily distinguished.

The overall design looks good, from the icons to the tabs. The use of gradients is just enough, they don’t overuse them. And the comment pages look just as sexy. The sites logo is great and makes sense to the name.

Mixx is a model website in terms of design.

Related posts:

1. Social Media and Graphic Design Merge at Emit Graphics Welcome to Emit Graphics, the new home of thoughts and...
2. 14 Beautifully Green Web Layouts In web design green can be a difficult color to...
3. Social Media Needs an Extreme Makeover The user base of social media users is strong....

Sally Hawkins stars as Pauline 'Poppy' Cross in 'Happy-Go-Lucky'.

Just about every year this decade has had its hyped failures and J-horror extravaganza, but there’s always that one glimmer of hope that makes the otherwise useless pondering worthwhile. 2008 hasn’t been very well-endowed in that sense at all. Sure, it brought us the exhilarating DARK KNIGHT, the hilarious PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, the dementedly awesome BURN AFTER READING, and the realist, semi-tragedic, loosely brooding VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA, but when Oscar season comes around (which should be right around now), it doesn’t look like we’ll have much to justify the year’s failure.

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, Mike Leigh’s new… pessimistically optimistic film transcends the bickering good vs. evil, pseudo-charismatic rom-com, and “virgin survives” plot structure dished out this year. It’s a film that explores a wide range of emotions and characters, themes, and even genres. It stars Sally Hawkins as Poppy, a character who, without the film’s sardonic examination, would’ve appeared as though conceived through acid. She’s the personification of “high on life” as we know it. She has the uncanny ability of finding a punch-line in even the most dark and brooding situations. Were it not for her sanguine personality and the film’s atmosphere of cheery semblance, I would’ve been shaken by the film as a dark and gloomy experience.

When Poppy’s beloved bike is stolen, rather than lamenting in sorrow, she brushes it off and instead of buying a new bike, she uses her lack of transportation as an incentive to sign up for driving lessons. Unfortunately, she’s partnered up with a repressive and systematically irritated driving instructor. It’s not revealed why he is how he is, but it’s a good choice on the director’s part to avoid an inevitable sappy revelation conclusion. The film doesn’t center around their encounters, it centers around Poppy’s life as she fights through a brigade of unstable losers and lives not for yesterday or tomorrow, but today.

But Poppy isn’t just a “happy machine”. Although I’ve labeled her as a blissful caricature at one point, she’s totally capable of lashing out when provoked to an extent. She’s just as human as you or me, only more altruistic in nature, not as demanding of society, and doesn’t allow failures to bring her down. The troubled people she encounters are unable to keep up with the challenging development of civilization as we know it. They are all the subqualities of the subdued monster veiled inside us all. Many have called her annoying and unrealistic, I call her Strong.

Along with being an enjoyable and deeply affecting picture, it’s a film that subtly reveals its knowledge of human nature without openly analyzing it in your face. Or mine. Powerful stuff.

Absyrd will soon have his own home filled with film and tv reviews, but until then will post a few of his best right here on Emit Graphics. An announcement will be made here when his Absyrd Reviews is released.

Related posts:

1. Movie Review: The Method (2005)   LIST + SHORT WRITEUP OF EVERY FILM I'VE...
2. New Project - Absyrd Reviews Over the past few weeks I've been thinking of...
3. Quickly and Easily Make Your Bland Picture POP! [Tutorial] Tired of having those great shots you took come...

Couldn't find a high quality version. So I recreated it in about 3 minutes.

Pepsi recently released their new logo. It is estimated that they paid about 1 mil+ dollars to Omicom’s Arnell Group to work for 5 months on the logo. Yes, you heard me right, they spent five months and 1 million dollars making a logo that shouldn’t have even taken 5 minutes.

Of course I understand that making a logo takes a little more than just opening Photoshop and whipping something up. Especially for a large company, it needs large amounts of planning, reviews, and revisions, but this is just ridiculous. Although, my opinion may be biased due to me being probably the biggest cokehead you’ll ever have the misfortune of coming into contact with (I also hate PepsiCo, and all of it’s products- including Quaker Oatmeal, Gatorade, and FritoLay- with a burning passion).

That supposed 1 million dollars to just create the logo is just the beginning, as PepsiCo will need to replace all the old logos. Think of all the trucks, vending machines, billboards and whatnot that is still sporting that old, somewhat less boring logo. All of this replacing is supposed to run at several hundred million dollars.

Apparently, the same company is redesigning Sierra Mist, and Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew will be renamed “Mtn Dew”. I get it, they are trying to reach today’s youth by using “txt tlk”! However removing all the vowels from your product’s name can’t be a good idea.

This is why I love Coca-Cola, they’ve never changed their logo, which by the way is the most valuable brand image for the eighth year in a row.

Did I happen to mention how awesome Coca-Cola is? I highly suggest getting some Mexican Coke, it has real sugar instead of High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Related posts:

1. 10 Top Social News Sites Ranked by Design Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Slashdot, and so on. They are...
2. Social Media and Graphic Design Merge at Emit Graphics Welcome to Emit Graphics, the new home of thoughts and...
3. 14 Beautifully Green Web Layouts In web design green can be a difficult color to...

Open the Image in Photoshop

This tutorial should work in most (if not all) versions of Photoshop. For this tutorial I will be using Adobe Photoshop CS4. Open (Ctrl + O) the Image you would like to modify.

I’ll be using this image of leaves that are being lit up by the sun.

Duplicate the Original

It’s good to duplicate the original image, and leave it sitting there just in case you need it later. Make it a habit. To duplicate it, right click on the layer and select “Duplicate Layer…”.

Play with the Levels

Next up, we will change the levels. You use Levels to correct or adjust the tonal range and color balance of an image by adjusting intensity levels of image shadows, midtones, and highlights.

Drag the black, gray, and white arrows around until you are pleased with the outcome. The black arrow controls the shadows, the gray arrow controls the midtones, and the white arrow controls the highlights.
Try not to overdo it.

Make it POP!

Now it’s time to make this photo look great. Duplicate the layer you changed the levels on. Your layers palette should now look similar to this.

Next, do a Gaussian Blur on your new layer. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.

Make the Image look blurry. A Radius of somewhere around 5 pixels should do the job, depending on the size of your photo.

Now set your Layer Mode to Soft Light, and give the layer an Opacity of around 40-80%.

Final Result
Quite a transformation. More advanced users should consider using Curves, Color Balance, and cropping the photo, for a better effect.

Related posts:

1. Digg - The Bannings, The Rec’ Engine, and More There's been quite a lot of hubbub over at Digg.com...
2. New Project - Absyrd Reviews Over the past few weeks I've been thinking of...
3. 14 Beautifully Green Web Layouts In web design green can be a difficult color to...

• A Plan for Social Media Sites (and Users) to Give Back
• With Great Social Media Power Comes Great Responsibility

The idea is simple. Social media sites send a lot of traffic to web pages across the Internet. There should be a way that these sites can send more traffic to pages that are trying to do right in the world. Causes, charities, and information about the two can find their way onto these social media sites and do more than promote the latest post on Huffington Post or Torrent Freak.

It just makes sense.

* * *

Read more about social media on this blog.

Related posts:

1. Social Media Needs an Extreme Makeover The user base of social media users is strong....
2. Social Media and Graphic Design Merge at Emit Graphics Welcome to Emit Graphics, the new home of thoughts and...
3. Digg - The Bannings, The Rec’ Engine, and More There's been quite a lot of hubbub over at Digg.com...

Good? Bad? Ugly?

plant.jpg - 194 KB	chain.jpg - 221 KB	pole.jpg - 249 KB	deadbug.jpg - 321 KB

Related posts:

1. 14 Beautifully Green Web Layouts In web design green can be a difficult color to...
2. 10 Top Social News Sites Ranked by Design Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Slashdot, and so on. They are...
3. Quickly and Easily Make Your Bland Picture POP! [Tutorial] Tired of having those great shots you took come...

So, what are these script-thingies? Greasemonkey scripts, or just ’scripts’ as they say on the str33t, are small bits of JavaScript that let you customize the way websites are displayed. Scripts such as “Digg Friends Easier” are against Digg’s terms of service, and users suspected of using them may be banned.

Where is the problem in this? Digg was banning users suspected of using scripts, i.e. people who’s digging habits resemble script use. Many banned Digg users are crying foul over this, saying they were not using scripts, and others saying they were banned without warning, and had no idea such scripts weren’t allowed.

What is Digg Friends Easier/Easy?

Digg Friends Easier and Digg Friends Easy are Greasemonkey scripts that added ‘digg buttons’ to the friends submissions, and shoutsin pages on Digg. They did not automatically digg stories. They turned a two step process into a 1 step process. Instead of having to click the link, and then digg the story, you could just digg it from the list of submissions or shouts.

Diggboss and CheckFriends

Digg user DiggBoss was banned after he created the Greasemonkey Script and later Firefox Extension, CheckFriends. CheckFriends added several new features, such as only shouting stories to users who have not already dugg the story, adding a customizable greeting and signature to shouts, and telling you how many of your last 15 submissions your friends have dugg. It did not automatically digg anything either, and even used Digg’s own API.

Zaibatsu’s Banning

Zaibatsu, who is the #3 top Digger of all time with 1566 front page submissions, was banned after making two submissions that linked to Jackie’s Jungle. This site was having a panty sale at the time, which digg considered to be against the TOS.

Zaibatsu was not even aware I had a panty sale. Like most Digg users he diggs things without even reading them. Regardless if I am selling panties on my site or not, neither of his links lead to the actual post about the sale. They went strictly to my gallery which has absolutely nothing for sale. Therefore he is completely innocent of these alleged crimes and should not be banned from Digg.

-from here

I have also been banned for this (I submitted a site that was selling dog shampoo, ha) Digg later unbanned me since I had no priors. I find it ridiculous that this is even a TOS violation, or that it is even enforced, considering the countless times a list of the “Top 10 funniest Commercials/Ad Campaigns/etc.” has made the front page without being removed and the submitter banned. Or the fact that Digg itself is sporting banner ads.

The Recommendation Engine

Well, well, well. The Recommendation Engine. Digg’s little feature that they seem to be so darned proud of. The problem with the Rec’ Engine is that it doesn’t help out new users. In fact, it gives users with large networks of friends even more power. The more people that digg your story, the more it will show up in the recommendation engine, which leads to more ‘natural diggs’ (diggs that aren’t from your friends), and the higher the likelihood your story will hit the front page.

The recommendation engine completely skips over newer diggers submissions which are lucky to get 2 diggs on a good day.

What does this all boil down to?

Digg should allow script use. How many other sites can you think of that ban users because of script usage? I can’t think of any. Digg should be open, let people use their service as they want. Insta-banning users who’ve been submitting quality content for years over little things like scripts and sites that have ads on them, is just lame.

Digg.com’s top users are not ‘gaming the system’. If Digg has made anything clear, it’s that this is how the system works, and will continue to work unless something major happens.

Related posts:

1. Quickly and Easily Make Your Bland Picture POP! [Tutorial] Tired of having those great shots you took come...
2. Social Media Needs an Extreme Makeover The user base of social media users is strong....
3. Using Social Media for Good There were two recent posts that offered ideas on how...

I will design the website, and write some television reviews. My friend Absyrd, who the site is named after, will be doing the movie reviews, and some other people may join the project.

We are looking for another partner to do the website coding. However we expect this position to be filled by Nathan over at Flashindustries.

Below is a screenshot of the beginning stages of the design.

Related posts:

1. Social Media and Graphic Design Merge at Emit Graphics Welcome to Emit Graphics, the new home of thoughts and...
2. Social Media Needs an Extreme Makeover The user base of social media users is strong....
3. 10 Top Social News Sites Ranked by Design Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Slashdot, and so on. They are...