Kris Black Digital Studio

My Comic Book Lettering Portfolio is Moving

krisblack@gmail.com (Kris Black) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:00:00 +0000

I’ve decided to move my Comic Book Lettering portfolio to a new site that is dedicated to just comics and lettering. It’s still in the works as I’m setting the site up with all kinds of coolness and features. Of course I’m using Squarespace to host the site. I wanted to give everyone a heads up on this.

Above is a preliminary design for the comic book lettering logo.

In Memory of Daisy

krisblack@gmail.com (Kris Black) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:44:46 +0000

My friend’s doggie, Daisy, had to be put to sleep this week. I few years ago I drew this image of Daisy for Else.

I’ve been thinking about Else and Daisy for the last couple days and it reminds of me of our little doggie, Bradley, who’s no longer with us. Here’s a drawing I did of Bradley in May 2003.

So, all this doggie thinking had me looking through my latest copy of a Mutts collection, Mutts Sunday Afternoons: A Mutts Treasury, which happens to be Else’s favorite comic strip. I got inspired by Patrick McDonnell’s drawing style and decided to draw a little doggie that reminded me of Bradley and Daisy.

Help Convince Microsoft to Support Web Standards!

krisblack@gmail.com (Kris Black) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:26:07 +0000

Microsoft have just confirmed they plan on using the crippled Word rendering engine to display HTML emails in Outlook 2010.

This means for the next 5 years your email designs will need tables for layout, have no support for CSS like float and position and no background images. Not to mention the long list of bugs and quirks that break the simplest of layouts.

Outlook 2010 is still in beta and Microsoft have confirmed they want to hear your feedback on this decision. It’s time for the email marketing and design community to rally together and encourage Microsoft to embrace web standards before it’s too late.

What’s the best way to do that?Twitter of course.

Visit fixoutlook.org to see how you can help and what the community is saying right now.

If you think fixoutlook.org is a good idea, why not forward this to your friends.

Squarespace iPhone App Coming Soon

krisblack@gmail.com (Kris Black) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:00:23 +0000

Squarespace has this awesome and very successful contest to give away 30 iPhones in 30 Days via Twitter. Since I’m an employee of Squarespace I can not win which is okay because I already have an iPhone. What’s surprising though is the fact that this contest is overshadowing the fact that the images of the iPhones on the contest page indicate the Official Squarespace iPhone app is coming soon.

Billy Banes Issue 1 is on Wowio for FREE

krisblack@gmail.com (Kris Black) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:00:06 +0000

Billy Banes is an on-going series released once a year at San Diego Comic Con. Last year’s issue is now available on Wowio. You can read it for free online or you can download a PDF for 99¢.

New CSS Email Signatures

krisblack@gmail.com (Kris Black) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:41:59 +0000

I decided to switch from using Gmail as my email interface to Apple Mail. One advantage to Mail is that you can create CSS email signatures that (should) look the same from email client to email client. I’ve not fully tested these signatures in a ton of email clients but I did base these off the tutorial from Melvin Rivera’s blog, All Forces.

The signatures will automatically apply themselves to an email based on the active email account I’m using to reply to an email or to create a new email. Below are screenshots of my new signatures:

Squarespace Signature

Kris Black Digital Studio Signature

Gmail Signature

Dollar Bin Signature

MobileMe Signature

Toy Story 3

krisblack@gmail.com (Kris Black) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:30:52 +0000

Buzz Lightyear out-shining Woody in their creation of the Toy Story 3 logo, as seen in the trailer.I can not wait for Disney/Pixar to release Toy Story 3, June 18, 2010. The first Toy Story was such an inspiration to me as a designer and artist. I’m really looking forward to be able to take my kids to this film so they can enjoy it in the theaters like I enjoyed the first one.

Watch the trailer

My First Six Squarespace Tutorial Videos

krisblack@gmail.com (Kris Black) — Sat, 23 May 2009 02:57:26 +0000

I created my very first batch of official support videos for Squarespace. It was a lot of fun creating these. Sometimes I even laughed out loud at myself over mistakes and tongue twists. Check out the videos for your yourself. They will be used in the redesign of the Squarespace Manual that is currently being worked on.

Did You Know?

krisblack@gmail.com (Kris Black) — Tue, 05 May 2009 18:33:08 +0000

My 10 Favorite Comic Book Fonts by Comicraft

krisblack@gmail.com (Kris Black) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:04:18 +0000

I’m a huge fan of the fonts created by the Purveyors of Unique Design and Fine Lettering, Richard Starkings and John Roshell of Comicraft. I’ve been collecting there fonts for 10 years and I am never disappointed with what I get. I’ve built up quite a collection for myself and I thought I would share with you my favorite fonts by Comicraft.