Josh Sager Media: Creative Technologies Blog

Yep This is Pretty Much a Tradition Now.

This past weekend Rachel and I took our now annual trip to SPX (Small Press Expo) in Bethesda Maryland.  It’s a not a bad drive from Pittsburgh and it gave us an excuse to see Justin Kownacki who now resides in Balitmore. Last year was our first experience and it was awesome! ( thanks to Joe Deferari and his lovely wife ) This year was even more amazing.

So What is it?

It’s a conference centered around short runs of screen prints, graphic novels, comics, hand made toys, zines, mini comics, t-shirts, and other various warez. Okay, before you glaze your eyes over you need to understand one thing. It is not a comicon! Nobody dresses up like bobafett. Instead its more like a graphic artist Saturday market.  There are tables and tables of hand made, self published, and small run materials. And most of it is very well put together.  You just can’t find anything like this anywhere else.

Not only can you buy lots of cool stuff, you can interact with the artists.  I love this part!  Everyone is so nice. They take the time to talk with you, answer questions, and sign merch.  Despite it being a customer service roll I found many of my favorite artists to be very charming, well spoken, and thoughtful.  Making me love them even more.

Okay So How Much?

The conference is only $10 for one day admission.  You can stay for both days, but Sunday loses a lot of moentium.  Most everyone is tired and maybe a little hung over from the after party the night before.  The good thing about Sunday is there is less traffic, but the bad thing is most of the really good stuff is all gone. So pick your poison. I prefer Saturday.

My Guide To SPX

Most of the materials break down like this

Graphic Novels

Establish artist will sell there books for around $20

There are lesser known artist with limited run materials typically made by hand that will go from $8 - $15

Prints and Various Artwork

Prints of artwork go from about $20 - $75 depending on the artist and the size of the work.

Mini Comics (my new favorite thing!)

These are small version of comics that fit into the palm of your hand

Typically created via home printer of copy machine

They range from they are $1 - $3

NOTE: Some artist will package all of there mini comics together in an anthology and sell that for about $10 - $15. SO KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN

Toys and Hand Made Warez

Many tables also offer hand made art in the form of screen prints, toys, and other hand made objects

This is a wide range. Anywhere from $5 - 50 depending on the object

Honestly you can’t bring enough money for all of the amazing things you can buy. If I sound crazy and excited, it’s because I am.

This Years Goods - And My Awards Go to…

By awards I really mean money

• FartParty by julia wertz volume 2  - (2009 Most Enjoyable)
• Carnival of comics vol2 by Jim8ball - (2009 caught my eye)
• atom bomb bikini by Robert Ullman - (2009 Best Line work)
• adrift by jpcoovert - (2009 Best use of blue)
• Rocketo by Frank Espinosa - (2009 Best Bargain $5)
• House print by Many dunn - (2009 Most Impressive package)
• Living is easy #1 by Jesse Lonergan - (2009 caught my eye)
• Crush all hu-mans by R stevens - (2009 Charmed me into buying a book)
• Pictures for sad children by john campbell - (2009 Surprise of the Show)
• American Eh by Heather Bryant  - (2009 caught my eye)
• Please Please by Nate Powell - (2009 solid material and all around nice guy)
• Sounds of Your Name by Nate Powell - (2009 solid material and all around nice guy)
• Breathers by Justin Madson - (2009 So glad they were there cause I took a risk on them last year)

Conclusion

This trip is like the kickoff of the fall time creative season.  I’m not sure what it is, but for me there’s just something in the air when it gets a little crisp.  It happens right around the time that you notice… HEY! Where’s all the sunlight.  All of my outside activities fade away and my brain starts seeking out creative projects like screen printing, painting, drawing, graphic novels, and writing.  My gears shift and I just want to hermit away making things all night long and into the weekend.

Maybe it’s the buzz after the trip. Maybe it’s the great conversation from the road trip. Maybe it’s the plans we make to “get a table next year” every year.  Whatever it is I’m hooked. This is one of my favorite events of the year.  As I read each of my treasures I get a little sad, but then also happy because tomorrow is one day closer to next years SPX. Somewhere out there, there’s an artist just as excited getting their material ready for next year. I just hope that I’ll be one of them.

Some fun stuff I was working on today.  He’s sooo adorable!!

The Problem

A few weeks ago a co-worker of mine was grading video projects and wanted a way to see the time code of the FLV. He needed a way to communicate with his students so they understood where in the video the feedback applies  I told him, hey that’s not a problem sat down to write some code thinking it would be just an easy text box thing.

After a few more conversations I thought about the problem a little further and determined there were more things to consider.

1. The video students aren’t too savvy with code or the actions panel
2. The time code should display relatively in the same place depending on the selected skin
3. They really needed something that had as few clicks, and prompts as possible

This was a perfect opportunity to mess around with JSFL.  JSFL stands for Java Script Flash and it allows a developer to create utilities that can interface with the Flash IDE and in this case I needed to place a FLVPLayback component on the stage as well as some actions in the actions panel.  I needed this to be as transparent to the intended user as possible.

I started by adding the component

fl.componentsPanel.addItemToDocument({x:0, y:0},"Video","FLVPlayback")

Then I created a test to add actions to the actions panel

fl.actionsPanel.setText("code");

Then I transformed my original time code actions so they would pass as the argument. Now I’m sure there’s an easier way to do what I did, but it totally works.

The Solution

fl.componentsPanel.addItemToDocument({x:0, y:0},"Video","FLVPlayback")

fl.componentsPanel.addItemToDocument({x:0, y:0},"Video","FLVPlayback")

var code

code ="import fl.video.VideoEvent;\n"
code +="import fl.video.FLVPlayback;\n"

code +="var bob:*\n"

code +="for (var j:int = 0; j<numChildren; j++){"
code +=	"if(getChildAt(j).toString()=='[object FLVPlayback]'){	\n"
code +=		"bob = getChildAt(j)\n"
code +=		"break;\n"
code +=	"}\n"
code += "}\n"

code += "\n"
code += "\n"
code += "var timeCodeBox:TextField = new TextField()\n"
code += "timeCodeBox.text =''\n"
code += "timeCodeBox.background=true\n"
code += "timeCodeBox.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT\n"
code += "addChild(timeCodeBox)\n"

code += "bob.addEventListener(VideoEvent.PLAYHEAD_UPDATE, onUpdatePlay)\n"

code += "function onUpdatePlay(e:VideoEvent){\n"
	code += "timeCodeBox.text = getTime(e.target)\n"
	code += "for(var i:int=0; i<e.target.getChildAt(1).numChildren; i++){\n"
	code += "if(e.target.getChildAt(1).getChildAt(i)=='[object SeekBarHandle]'){\n"
		code += "//trace(e.target.getChildAt(1).getChildAt(i).x)\n"
		code += "timeCodeBox.x = e.target.getChildAt(1).getChildAt(i).x+ e.target.x - (timeCodeBox.width/2)\n"
		code += "timeCodeBox.y = e.target.getChildAt(1).getChildAt(i).y + e.target.y-28\n"
		code += "}\n"
	code += "}\n"
code += "}\n"

code += "function getTime(obj:*):String{\n"
    code += "var tempS:Number = Math.floor(obj.playheadTime)\n"
	code += "var tempM:Number = Math.floor(obj.playheadTime/60)\n"
	code += "var tempH:Number = Math.floor(obj.playheadTime/3600)\n"
	code += "var seconds:String\n"
	code += "var minutes:String\n"
	code += "var hours:String\n"
	code += "tempS %= 60\n"
	code += "tempS<10?seconds = '0'+tempS:seconds=tempS.toString()\n"
	code += "tempM<10?minutes = '0'+tempM:minutes=tempM.toString()\n"
	code += "tempM<10?hours = '0'+tempH:hours=tempH.toString()\n"
	code += "//trace(hours+':'+minutes+':'+seconds)\n"
	code += "return hours+':'+minutes+':'+seconds\n"
code += "}\n"

fl.actionsPanel.setText(code);

Final Thoughts

Feel free to use this and modify it. It’s not designed to be pretty right now, just to allow our students to communicate about time code. If you have any questions let me know. Otherwise enjoy

I’ve got only one word to explain the experience.  WOW!

What is Pittsburgh Web Design Day?

Pittsburgh Web Design was a one day conference organized by Jason and Val Head of Refresh Pittsburgh and On The Fridge.

My Impressions

This was a top notch one day conference. Jason and Val really out did themselves. The speakers were fantastic, the space was wonderful, and Franktuary + perogies = awesome!

The Speakers featured local and regional web guru’s with some sort of tie to Pittsburgh. I was really amazed at how each session referenced, echoed, and built on prior sessions reinforcing concepts, philosophies, and techniques. It was like a symphony of awesome information.

I am truly honored to have been apart of it. The speakers were Geoff Barnes, Chris Cashdollar, Val Head, Whitney Hess, Jason Robb, myself, and Samantha Warren.

The entire day was chalked full of great conversations, new friendships, stimulating debates, and all around good times. Did I mention Happy Cog was there (Chris and Kevin Hoffman)

The Story of a Web Project

I was floored by the positive reaction to my session. When I was putting it together I had my doubts. Thank you all for your positive feedback, suggestions, and conversations.

As promised I’m posting my slides accompanied with a few other documents to help you establish your own processes.

I am releasing all of the following documents under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

Slides
Client Questionnaire
The Why of Web Design
Process Chart

Once again I want to thank all everyone for the great time and especially Jason and Val for the opportunity.

Every now and again I come across some ideas I wish I had first.  Some of them are really clever, some are just really simple. Mostly my appreciation comes from thinking DAMNIT I should have thought of that.  Nevertheless I wanted to pass along a few things that are fun, clever, and definitly good ideas.

There is a designer disclaimer here by the way.  If you don’t get it I apologize cause you’re not in the club.  If you do get it then congrats you should be receiving your cool designer live-strong bracelet and horn-rimmed glasses in the mail within the next few weeks.

• A Font Game - Rachel: Credit for showing me
• Font Periodic Table - Ben Pritchard: Credit for showing me
• Study of A-Holes - Samantha Warren: Credit for showing me

Where: Left Field
When: Saturday April 4th 8:30am - 4:30pm
Cost: $40
Limited Registration

There’s a great one day Web Conference going on in just a few weeks called Pittsburgh Web Design Day. The name says it all.  One day of really cool web stuff in Pittsburgh, kind of like a geek holiday. It’s brought to you by the great people at Refresh Pittsburgh, so you knows it’s going to awesome.

I’m especially psyched because I’ve been invited to talk about my processes.  My session is called ”The Story of a Web Project: Process and Best Practices” and basically it’s best practices of identifing good clients/projects, how to cost out a project, avoiding some commong pittfalls, and how to finish a project.

The speaker line up is jammed packed with fantastic people like Val Head, Samantha Warren, Geoff Barnes, and Chris Cashdollar. Spots are going fast so make sure to register early.

How well do you know your type?  As a designer and developer I thought I was “hip to the know”.  Well I gots myself an ed-u-m-ication and found out I’m really just a pixel pushing hack.

Last weekend I picked up Tips on Type aiding my new typography infatuation. It was chalked full of old school terms, practices, and ideals on page layout and type near the dawn of computer page layout. I found the section on the anatomy of type to be very interesting. 

Honestly I’m rather ashamed that I didn’t really know as much about type as I once thought. So for fun I scanned it and turned it into a test. I’m going to hand it out to my students as a fun thing to do before the holidays. That’s right I said fun.

You can download the Typeography Test and take it for yourself. 

Here’s your Rating system

57 and up — Yohan Gutenberg aka type jesus
51 and up — The guy who knows the guy who know Paul Rand
44 and up — Pixel Pusher
38 and up — Font Roullete Engineer
37 and below — da font.com historian

Every other Wednesday for the past year I’ve hosted an open mic night at the coolest coffee shop in Pittsburgh, Affogato. These are fliers to help promote the event.

Eventually these suckers are going to be screen printed. It’s my latest addiction

It’s a great time and it’s still going on. So if you’re free on a Wednesday night, stop by grab a cup of coffee, enjoy the tunes, and if you’re feeling spicy grab the mic and join in on the fun.

Tonight was the big screen printing adventure.  As mentioned before, the last time I tried this it was a huge failure.  So big in fact I think it was on the fail blog for like 10 weeks straight.

Jim Dandies Screen Printed Cards

Anyway I was very nervous about messing up, but in the end it all worked out.  I went in with a simple game plan.  Take it slow and keep it simple. That was just what the doctor ordered. Before I knew it I had about 30 cards printed and people were walking up to me and giving me props on my work. Totally awesome!!!

I went with a one color design and I doubled up on my acetate. A co-worker of mine suggested I do that and he was right on the money. So all of your Pittsburgher’s out there that want something cool to do on a Tuesday night.  Check out AIR.  I did all of this for only $5.

I’m already thinking about doing a 2-color print.  Ohh the possibilities.

Tomorrow I’m attempting another screen printing project. I’m still a rookie, but I’m falling in love with it.  This will only be my second one and I’ve got high hope for it.  My first project didn’t quite turn out. You could say I was a little too ambitious and tried a three color poster.  Whoops.  Live and learn right?

So I’m giving it another shot.  I’m so fascinated with the process and the beauty in a well produced screen print.

Hopefully I’ll kill two birds with one stone by making cards to promote my band.  Only one color this time.  Oh and it’s a lot smaller than an 11 X 14 poster.  I’m shooting for a 4.5 X 6 card. Something really simple.  Just the logo and our web address. Nothing too ambitious… well that’s how it started out.

As I was prepping the file, my evil creative side kicked in.  I tried to fight it, but pandora was rockn’ out and the next thing I knew I had 3 options.  After some great advice from Rach I’m actually going to use my 3rd option.  So I guess I’m that evil. But you can be the judge of that and check em out for yourself.

Card Option 1 - Simple yet awesome

Card Option 2 - Cute yet kinda creepy

Card Option 3 - That's just too much fun to pass up