Category Archive 'products'
27 January 2010
Let Your Little Light Shine
Most of us use candles only when the power goes out. But candles are more than a source of light–they can also be works of art as well.
Imageglow Candles is sponsoring the Imageglow Candle Contest and is announcing an open call to all graphic designers to submit their candle graphic designs to its competition.
Imageglow candles, which are made entirely of wax, have unique and artful designs that glow and are backlit when the candles are lighted.
The Contest
Designs can be hand created or generated through a computer.
Give a brief description of how you created the design and why you think it would be appropriate as a Candleglow product. Your entry should be submitted through the official online entry form. This can be accessed by clicking here.
Uploaded entries should not exceed 2000KB in size and should be in JPEG format. For submission tips and the PDF design template, click here.
The Prizes
According to the sponsors the winner will receive:
* A case of six lantern-style candles in their own design! (Retail value $160.+)
* Excellent HomeWorkshop.com recognition and fame.
* At Imageglow®’s option, it will produce and market candles with the winner’s design!!
The winner will earn a royalty of 5% of the wholesale selling price, paid quarterly.
Other Information
Three finalists will be selected by the judging panel. From these three entries, the community will vote for their favorite design. The winner will be the one who receives the most popular votes.
The deadline for this contest is March 17, 2010. The winner will be announced on March 29, 2010 at the following locations:
16 October 2009
Graphic Design Software
The standards in the graphic design and publishing industries are Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark, InDesign, PageMaker, and Dreamweaver. These software tools are essential for many designers, artists, illustrators, and media professionals in producing content.
A quick tally of the cost of all these programs is staggering if you are on a limited budget. If you are a student or individual thinking about attending a graphic design college, you may want to experience some of these programs to see if you have the ability and talent to use the software. But then, the factor of high cost comes in once again.
The Alternatives
For students or perspective students investigating a career in graphic design or media, there is a free and legal alternative in using free design software. These programs can allow you to experience and get familiar with the process of using applications that are similar in nature to the “big guns” of design programs.
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free image authoring and photo retouching software program very similar to Photoshop in features and operation.
It supports the operating systems XP, Vista, Mac OS X, and Linux. GIMP has an active community which helps to improve the program through plugins and add-ons. GIMP is free of charge and is supported by donations from its users.
INKSCAPE is an “Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format,” according to the description found on Inkscape’s website.
Inkscape is a full featured editor that supports markers, clones, alpha bending, and other operations that allow for advanced graphics manipulation.
NVU pronounced “N-View” is a web authoring system that is similar in nature to FrontPage and Dreamweaver. It allows you to edit HTML pages.
NVU has a number of extensions and is community supported in its development. The developers of NVU say that creating web pages with their software is as easy as using a word processor.
SCRIBUS is an impressive professional desktop publishing program that is similar to PageMaker. It supports CMYK color, ICC color management, color separations, Spot Colors and PDF authoring.
Help Support the Developers and Their Work
These programs are freely available for download and are free of charge.
The quality of these applications is astonishing once you realize that the efforts behind these design programs have been fueled with voluntary time, resources, and research.
Donations to the developers of these applications will help them to continue to expand and improve their products. Don’t forget to show your appreciation by sending in your donation.
You may not be able to afford to buy the big name software design programs, but the ones listed here are pretty close to the mark. As you prepare to go to the graphic design school of your choice, these free applications may help you to understand the basics of software design tools.
19 August 2009
If you produce lots of media or important files on your PC, you may have experienced the heartbreak of your computer crashing with a BSOD (blue screen of death), or seeing your computer hopelessly disabled.
Result: You lose important data, graphics, and images. You cry, “Never again!” and proceed to purchase a backup software program.
Backup Your Files
What is a backup imaging program?
The theory is that if your physical drive goes to that big hard drive pile in the sky, you can still restore your computer exactly the way it was by installing the back up image to a new or existing drive.
In theory, this is what is supposed to happen. Unfortunately, the majority of software imaging programs do not work or can actually harm your computer.
Peace of Mind Equals ShadowProtect Desktop Edition
Enter Storagecraft’s backup-disaster recovery program, ShadowProtect. This software is aptly named because it does just that; it shadows everything on your desktop computer or laptop, and protects your files.
ShadowProtect is an easy to use program and also one of the most full-featured imaging software programs on the market.
It is deceptively simple to use, but so powerful that you’ll have peace of mind the first time you use it. A full listing of its benefits can be found by clicking here.
Installation
You can purchase the program by downloading or buying the DVD version.
The DVD version acts as a recovery disc, while downloading the program allows you to burn a recovery disc.
The recovery disc allows you to start your computer independently of your boot up hard drive, which means even if your computer is dead, the disc allows you to bring it to life again and run the recovery program.
A free 30-day trial of this program is fully functional except for the lack of the recovery disc. During the trial period you can buy the program and fully activate it.
Into the Abyss
We made the ultimate sacrifice to test the imaging properties of ShadowProtect. We overwrote our programs partition and essentially wiped it clean.
Many of the program files were system dependent. Prior to wiping out the drive, we made an image of the disk on a USB external hard drive.
We used the restore function through the recovery disc, and a couple of minutes later the partition was fully restored.
(But one big word of caution: make certain you read the manual and understand how to use this program to avoid accidentally overwriting drives you don’t want to.)
We clicked on several shortcut links that led to our program partitions and each one worked flawlessly without receiving the “this program cannot be found or has moved…” error message.
You have the option of backing up entire disks or only certain volumes/partitions. ShadowProtect is fully configurable and can run silently in the background making incremental or differential backups of your hard drives even while you are working on your computer.
There are online tutorials and user guides on Storagecraft’s website and these are very helpful, if not somewhat technical in nature.
ShadowProtect: A David Among The Goliaths
There are big software companies that sell well known backup programs, but ShadowProtect out performs them all and does exactly what it promises to do.
Storagecraft may be a small company compared to the big dogs, but it is a giant as far as what it does.
Laura Shafer, Director of Public Relations at Storagecraft said:
“…with a lot of word-of-mouth and grassroots support, ShadowProtect has really taken off.
“We’ve especially had a lot of support from resellers and small to medium sized businesses because ShadowProtect is easy to use, extremely reliable and affordable.”
ShadowProtect is an excellent program and will pay for itself dozens of times over by giving you peace of mind even after a serious crash on your computer.
We give ShadowProtect our highest rating: 5 out of 5 pencils.
Click here to find out more about ShadowProtect.
1 June 2009
If you think you’ve got a bright idea for using LED lights in an interesting and novel way, the LED Emotionalize Your Light Contest wants your entry.
The competition is sponsored by Osram, a manufacturer of cutting edge technology in products related to lighting for home, business, and personal applications. Osram wants ideas that provide emotional LED solutions. Osram defines this as:
“…a special form of LED illumination designs which create an atmosphere that not only positively affects our wellbeing but also gives rise to moods and emotions…In turn, this energizing promotes health and wellness.”
Some recent entries have emphasized LED lighting for large scale use such as window and room lighting while others have gone the portable route with small devices that generate pleasant lighting patterns and colors.
The sky is the limit for your ideas and concepts. Entries do not have to be necessarily assembled or working, but can be conceptual in scope.
To send in your entry, click here to go to the registration website. The contest is conducted in two phases. Winning entries are selected in the first round by the judges and are critiqued on the quality, creativity, originality, and their feasibility in regards to following contest rules and parameters.
The following steps must be followed in submitting ideas for this contest:
1. Work out your idea for new LED light solutions
2. Upload your design and describe your idea
3. Add emotion tags and pictures
4. Upload additional attachments
5. Submit your idea
Rules and guidelines for the LED Emotionalize Contest can be found by clicking here. Cash prizes are awarded for first place, second place, and third place totaling 5,000 Euros ($7,076).
The deadline for phase one entries is June 25, 2009.
6 April 2009
Pronounced “Paint DOT Net, this free image and photo editor is the brainchild of Rick Brewster. Paint.net started out as an undergraduate senior design project guided by Microsoft to be offered as a free replacement for its Windows paint program. But the project took on a life of its own and has advanced to a level where it compares very favorably with some of today’s leading photo/image editors.
Paint.net is a very user-friendly and powerful program that incorporates plugins you’d expect to see only from expensive software kits. Paint.net offers photo and image manipulation through gamma adjustments, color correction filters, special effects filters, alpha channels for overlays, paintbrush, magic wand functions, layering, and other plugins. Paint.net also has an avid user community that contributes add-ons on a consistent basis for the program. These accessories are downloadable through its official website.
While Paint.net isn’t a full-blown image editor when compared to high-end packages, it manages to incorporate many of the features that are most useful for graphic designers, photographers, and anyone who needs an easy to use program to quickly and efficiently edit photos or images. The program is constantly being revised to improve its performance, and it has gained a strong reputation as a solid graphics program.
If you are a college student, you may find that Paint.net bridges the gap between expensive photo editing programs and low end programs that fall short of usefulness and depth. The amazing thing about Paint.net is that it is not only free of charge, (contributions are always welcome, however, to help Paint.net development continue), but offers a great deal of functionality and features that all levels of designers, pro or amateur, can take advantage of.
17 March 2009
The aim of the “Design and the Mediterranean” is to discover, refine and anticipate the scenarios of life among Mediterranean Countries. The focus of the competition is to let participants express their innermost glance in new trends of design, visual and photography; overcoming the stereotypes coming from the idea of “Mediterranean.”
There are three sections: Product Design, Visual Design and Photography. The competition is open to designers, architects, photographers and art designers and each candidate may participate with a proposal for each section. Each section carries a 1000 Euros prize and three mentions for each section as well.
Furthermore, there will be the opportunity for the winners to show their projects during the International Designweek Exhibition, which will be held next June in Istanbul.
Deadline for proposals is 2 May 2009. Visit the site to learn more.
Via: Dexigner
