NEWS
Well, almost two years ago I found out about the Wacom's Cintiq. This is a drawing pad (if you didn't bother clicking on the link) that shows the screen as if you were drawing on the monitor. It works as a second monitor so that you can have your tools on your usual screen while drawing on the pad.
Two years ago when I saw this on Wacom's site, I was both excited and disappointed. One thousand dollars? Well, I thought, "maybe it's just because it's new technology". That excuse is getting old Wacom. I still can't afford to spend a thousand dollars on a tablet no matter how cool it may be. I though that maybe after two years the price would come down somewhat. You haven't changed the product. There's no 2.0 or anything. If you'd just come out with a new version, the older version would at least become affordable on Ebay.
I realize that technology really doesn't change that much with tablets as it does with much of the other computer world. Still, I know the components prices must have come down some. Clearly you're not taking into consideration the troubled economic times and the typical starved-situation that it is to be an artist.
Wacom, might you consider changing your prices after two years?
Two years ago when I saw this on Wacom's site, I was both excited and disappointed. One thousand dollars? Well, I thought, "maybe it's just because it's new technology". That excuse is getting old Wacom. I still can't afford to spend a thousand dollars on a tablet no matter how cool it may be. I though that maybe after two years the price would come down somewhat. You haven't changed the product. There's no 2.0 or anything. If you'd just come out with a new version, the older version would at least become affordable on Ebay.
I realize that technology really doesn't change that much with tablets as it does with much of the other computer world. Still, I know the components prices must have come down some. Clearly you're not taking into consideration the troubled economic times and the typical starved-situation that it is to be an artist.
Wacom, might you consider changing your prices after two years?
I am currently entertaining the idea of creating a new portfolio for my Web Design work. There are several different aspects I'd like to add tot he site that would be more appropriate under a new design.
First I'd like to add case studies. Maybe not for all of the projects, but I do get many questions about some of the higher profile pieces such as Disney or the U.S. Army. In the case studies, I'd focus on my tasks and problems that were solved. The design and development process is so different per project that each could lend to completely unique stories.
I'd also like to focus a little more on print. I prefer multimedia projects over print, but I have to admit I've done a lot of print lately and it's a shame it isn't currently shown in my portfolio. The only print piece shown in my portfolio currently is the NASA brochure I did. That could be a case study right there considering I took some of the photography and borrowed pieces of the suit from NASA just for the cover shot.
More importantly I want to increase stay time on my site. I thought it important for people to get to the meat of my work right away so I placed my portfolio on my home page and made it scrollable reducing any need to click. This made it extremely user-friendly, but perhaps a little boring and quick to thumb through.
If you have any hints or ideas as to how I can improve my portfolio at www.castrain.com, then by all means, don't hesitate to contact me and let me know what you think.
First I'd like to add case studies. Maybe not for all of the projects, but I do get many questions about some of the higher profile pieces such as Disney or the U.S. Army. In the case studies, I'd focus on my tasks and problems that were solved. The design and development process is so different per project that each could lend to completely unique stories.
I'd also like to focus a little more on print. I prefer multimedia projects over print, but I have to admit I've done a lot of print lately and it's a shame it isn't currently shown in my portfolio. The only print piece shown in my portfolio currently is the NASA brochure I did. That could be a case study right there considering I took some of the photography and borrowed pieces of the suit from NASA just for the cover shot.
More importantly I want to increase stay time on my site. I thought it important for people to get to the meat of my work right away so I placed my portfolio on my home page and made it scrollable reducing any need to click. This made it extremely user-friendly, but perhaps a little boring and quick to thumb through.
If you have any hints or ideas as to how I can improve my portfolio at www.castrain.com, then by all means, don't hesitate to contact me and let me know what you think.
After reading Roger Ebert's Video games can never be art article, I felt I should respond. With a history in developing games and as an artist from a family of artists with a Bachelors of Art, I felt I could contribute to the debate.
Roger Ebert is responding to a TED Video by Kellee Santiago in which she asserts that video games are art. He takes the opposite approach claiming that video games can't be art because they involve a goal to win, they are more business in their creation, and that the games currently made do not hold up to his standard of what art is. He also re-quotes himself as saying, "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets." This is a dangerous way to decide if something is or isn't art, but I'll start with the first argument.
Can Art Involve a Goal to Win?
Mr. Ebert has placed a limit on art as saying that "One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome." Implying that art cannot have rules, objectives, and an outcome is setting limitations on art. He only argues this because of the direction games are coming from.
Forest Gump is a wonderful film and one Mr. Ebert would probably agree is art as he has claimed to love film as art. What if the next technology allows us to stand in the middle of the movie Forest Gump? We are still watching the movie, but now it is happening all around us. I would imagine this still fits Mr. Ebert's definition of art. Now imagine we can touch things and possibly move them. A story is going on around us but we are like ghosts that might possibly change the outcome. Suddenly we have interaction, rules, possibly objectives and goals. Has adding the ability for a viewer to change art make it no longer art?
Mr. Ebert argues against games being art in this case because he thinks of Pong or simple games as their origin and cannot conceive these as art. I'd agree. Pong is not art. Pong is more a sport. There is no storyline and no creation beyond simple rules and function. The games today however, even your simple first person shooters, have story arc and characters in them. They are no different in structure that if you could move a cup in a Tom Hanks film.
Can Art Come From Business?
One of Mr. Ebert's commentators answers this question already by reminding us that most of the art in history was thought of and requested by patrons. It is easy to compare a Video Game Producer telling his team of Designers and Developers what he wants to a Patron telling Michelangelo what he wants on a ceiling.
Even today there is "Corporate Art". Art directly created for a purpose of business. Mr. Ebert could argue that "corporate art" isn't "true" art, but I will get to that after I address his earlier points.
What Standard Does Something Have to Reach to Become Art?
Mr. Ebert cites Kellee Santiago's examples of games that are art as "pathetic". This is an opinion and not a valid argument for whether or not a game is or isn't art. He expresses his disappointment and says that these games are no where near what he would agree to being art. He also asks as I said before, for someone to show a game to him that will compare to the works of great artists. This is a dangerous and ill-conceived way to define art.
I do not enjoy Jackson Pollock's paintings. I find them to be meaningless and uninspiring. That being said I do not hold my opinion as the definition of art. I would not define art as something that I personally enjoy as art. When a man throws paint against a wall and calls it art, I cannot stand up and say it isn't art. What I can say is that it is "bad art". This is not a debate about Pollock's work. This is a shared opinion. Just as Mr. Ebert's dislike of the three examples Kellee Santiago provided was just his opinion. You cannot give definition to a thing based on personal opinion.
Conclusion
Mr. Ebert's opinion of what defines art is at best limited. It seems to be limited to what art has been in the past and what he considers to be "good" art. As he asks for a game to be compared to any of the Master's works, I refuse. I will always refuse to define something as art based on someone else's art. That being said I don't think that any games today do compare. I do however define them as art if they contain some original story. Games are no different than a choose-your-own-adventure book. While these books aren't great art, they are a form of art, and so are games that feature story lines. Someday these primitive forms of art will grow and evolve into something comparable to works of Da Vinci, Frost, or possibly even, Tom Hanks.
Roger Ebert is responding to a TED Video by Kellee Santiago in which she asserts that video games are art. He takes the opposite approach claiming that video games can't be art because they involve a goal to win, they are more business in their creation, and that the games currently made do not hold up to his standard of what art is. He also re-quotes himself as saying, "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets." This is a dangerous way to decide if something is or isn't art, but I'll start with the first argument.
Can Art Involve a Goal to Win?
Mr. Ebert has placed a limit on art as saying that "One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome." Implying that art cannot have rules, objectives, and an outcome is setting limitations on art. He only argues this because of the direction games are coming from.
Forest Gump is a wonderful film and one Mr. Ebert would probably agree is art as he has claimed to love film as art. What if the next technology allows us to stand in the middle of the movie Forest Gump? We are still watching the movie, but now it is happening all around us. I would imagine this still fits Mr. Ebert's definition of art. Now imagine we can touch things and possibly move them. A story is going on around us but we are like ghosts that might possibly change the outcome. Suddenly we have interaction, rules, possibly objectives and goals. Has adding the ability for a viewer to change art make it no longer art?
Mr. Ebert argues against games being art in this case because he thinks of Pong or simple games as their origin and cannot conceive these as art. I'd agree. Pong is not art. Pong is more a sport. There is no storyline and no creation beyond simple rules and function. The games today however, even your simple first person shooters, have story arc and characters in them. They are no different in structure that if you could move a cup in a Tom Hanks film.
Can Art Come From Business?
One of Mr. Ebert's commentators answers this question already by reminding us that most of the art in history was thought of and requested by patrons. It is easy to compare a Video Game Producer telling his team of Designers and Developers what he wants to a Patron telling Michelangelo what he wants on a ceiling.
Even today there is "Corporate Art". Art directly created for a purpose of business. Mr. Ebert could argue that "corporate art" isn't "true" art, but I will get to that after I address his earlier points.
What Standard Does Something Have to Reach to Become Art?
Mr. Ebert cites Kellee Santiago's examples of games that are art as "pathetic". This is an opinion and not a valid argument for whether or not a game is or isn't art. He expresses his disappointment and says that these games are no where near what he would agree to being art. He also asks as I said before, for someone to show a game to him that will compare to the works of great artists. This is a dangerous and ill-conceived way to define art.
I do not enjoy Jackson Pollock's paintings. I find them to be meaningless and uninspiring. That being said I do not hold my opinion as the definition of art. I would not define art as something that I personally enjoy as art. When a man throws paint against a wall and calls it art, I cannot stand up and say it isn't art. What I can say is that it is "bad art". This is not a debate about Pollock's work. This is a shared opinion. Just as Mr. Ebert's dislike of the three examples Kellee Santiago provided was just his opinion. You cannot give definition to a thing based on personal opinion.
Conclusion
Mr. Ebert's opinion of what defines art is at best limited. It seems to be limited to what art has been in the past and what he considers to be "good" art. As he asks for a game to be compared to any of the Master's works, I refuse. I will always refuse to define something as art based on someone else's art. That being said I don't think that any games today do compare. I do however define them as art if they contain some original story. Games are no different than a choose-your-own-adventure book. While these books aren't great art, they are a form of art, and so are games that feature story lines. Someday these primitive forms of art will grow and evolve into something comparable to works of Da Vinci, Frost, or possibly even, Tom Hanks.
There are a few tricks I've found along the way that in CSS that have helped me out to a great degree. One of these tricks is the CSS button roll over. You can find different versions of this all over the web, but after using this for over a two years, I believe I've tweaked it so that it is the most SEO and browser friendly version. This is how it works:
You create the button image with both the static and rollOver state on the same image like below.
The static state of the button is on top. This image is 100x50. That means that your button will actually be 100x25. What we're going to do is simply show only the top half of the button. When a user rolls over the button, we'll only show the bottom half. What this does is eliminate the need for Java Script to load images for the roll over state.
Here's the CSS:
The text-indent is there for SEO purposes. When using images as buttons, you want to still have text involved so that the Search Engines can better read the link. In this case, it takes the text you'll write as the link, and shoves it -2000 px off screen.
Finally we set the button as an image. You'll notice the "0 0" after the URL in the background. This is setting the coordinates of the image shown. Next when there's a roll over (a:hover) we move the image up by 25px with "0 -25px".
Now you need to have it placed in HTML. We'll set it to go to a homepage:
All this does is create a DIV tag with the Class of our button. The link inside points to our home, and the text "HOME" is there for the Search Engines, but pushed off screen by 2000 px.
That's the simple CSS roll over button. You can also remove the words "button" from the image and remove the "text-indent" from the CSS. This would allow the text to be on top of the button. Either way would work, and I recommend doing it that way if what you want fits this. Often though we want more from our buttons that just simple text on top of them.
You create the button image with both the static and rollOver state on the same image like below.
The static state of the button is on top. This image is 100x50. That means that your button will actually be 100x25. What we're going to do is simply show only the top half of the button. When a user rolls over the button, we'll only show the bottom half. What this does is eliminate the need for Java Script to load images for the roll over state.
Here's the CSS:
.btn_black a {I've created a Class called "btn_black" for the button. As explained before, the width and height are defined as 100x25. The button is set to "float:left;" I've fond that setting the button to a float state solves cross-browser issues.
width:100px;
height:25px;
float:left;
text-indent:-2000px;
background:url(../images/css_rollover_btn.jpg) 0 0;
}
.btn_black a:hover {
background:url(../images/css_rollover_btn.jpg) 0 -25px;
}
The text-indent is there for SEO purposes. When using images as buttons, you want to still have text involved so that the Search Engines can better read the link. In this case, it takes the text you'll write as the link, and shoves it -2000 px off screen.
Finally we set the button as an image. You'll notice the "0 0" after the URL in the background. This is setting the coordinates of the image shown. Next when there's a roll over (a:hover) we move the image up by 25px with "0 -25px".
Now you need to have it placed in HTML. We'll set it to go to a homepage:
<div class="btn_black"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/index.html" title="black button">HOME</a></div>
All this does is create a DIV tag with the Class of our button. The link inside points to our home, and the text "HOME" is there for the Search Engines, but pushed off screen by 2000 px.
That's the simple CSS roll over button. You can also remove the words "button" from the image and remove the "text-indent" from the CSS. This would allow the text to be on top of the button. Either way would work, and I recommend doing it that way if what you want fits this. Often though we want more from our buttons that just simple text on top of them.
It's been a long time coming, but I've needed to add a blog to my site at www.castrain.com for some time now. Not only do I advocate it to many of my clients for their own websites, but I also believe it's a good practice to keep your site fresh and current.
It is my hope that this blog will help me record the new CSS solutions, design implementations, and all-around good web development and design practices I've discovered in my experiences. I also want to convey best practices on a more business and team-building point. When dealing with the multitude of clients I've worked with, you start to learn a few things that are helpful in the Web Design business.
Hopefully this blog and this site can not only promote my work in Houston, Texas and nationally, but it can also help to educate others that are looking for help. I know I've learned a lot from other developers.
It is my hope that this blog will help me record the new CSS solutions, design implementations, and all-around good web development and design practices I've discovered in my experiences. I also want to convey best practices on a more business and team-building point. When dealing with the multitude of clients I've worked with, you start to learn a few things that are helpful in the Web Design business.
Hopefully this blog and this site can not only promote my work in Houston, Texas and nationally, but it can also help to educate others that are looking for help. I know I've learned a lot from other developers.