IvanEwert.com

Many of you know that on September 23, red dust enveloped parts of Australia in the worst dust storm that continent has seen in nearly a century. You probably saw photos on news site, Flickr or in other digital media.

However, did you know there’s a magazine already available, two days later; which has collected them in print form?

Strange Light is now available through MagCloud, a service of Hewlett-Packard. Self-described as a “virtual magazine newsstand in the cloud,” MagCloud seems geared toward niche publishers, self-aggrandizement and fringe interests – but with Strange Light, I can see something else beginning to grow under their aegis.

The return to a tangible archival system seems delicious when you see these photos fully printed, something I’m loathe to admit as an environmentalist but forced to as an artist. The tactile addition to the artwork pulls me in, makes the oranges and reds seem far more real and alive.

It’s a trick of editing, of course, that made this hit me. Someone had the bright idea to collect what they thought to be the best representations of a moment in time, not only online but into a format that could, in theory, be handed down through generations. If you lived through the dust storm, I imagine that would have some appeal – and other savvy editors could easily capture other moments in time.

For example, Teabagger: The Magazine. If anyone does it, they owe me 50% of the profits.

(Incidentally, I first found MagCloud through Constellation Magazine, which is now publishing its Libra/Scorpio issue and is still well worth checking out, if you’re at all astrologically inclined.)

The projects have been flying fast and furious of late, and while that’s a very good thing for the bank account and creative juices, it’s historically left little time for blogging. However, seeing that the work is actually getting done, I figure it’s time (and past time) to start sharing what’s new again.

Last night the Web site for La Bellissima went live. La Bellissima is Crystal Lake’s first upscale lingerie boutique, and Kathleen Basista (the owner) is one of the most charming and pleasant people you’ll ever meet. She wanted to use a few specific elements in the site – her pink and chocolate color scheme, the sketch of a young lady dressing at her table, and the wonderful photography of both our mutual friend Susan Sieber and the photographers who worked on the Web sites for her manufacturers.

The pink by itself seemed a little overwhelming to me, so I added in the art nouveau flourishes seen in the sidebar. That led to the decision to place another in the area behind the photographs, which softened the blockiness of the photos and gave them a more organic, flowing, sensual feel.

I’m happy to say that Kathy was pleased with the end result. Last night L and I visited the shop – as La Bellissima also sells Triskele Moon Studios‘ jewelry, and the display cases needed to be filled, we figured we’d kill two birds with one stone by showing up together. They were preparing for an evening lingerie party, so a bottle of champagne was liberated to celebrate the launch of the new site.

Such is the life of a designer. Rough, huh?

My wife, Leanne, is the guiding hand, head, heart and soul of Triskele Moon Studios. She turns out exquisite jewelry day after day, all of it one of a kind and individually created without the aid of assistants or machinery. The Studios have been running for nearly three years now, and she’s managed to make it her full-time job. I couldn’t be prouder of her or of what she’s done.

This past weekend saw a lot of work. While we normally sell to local shops, on Friday she had her first ever art gallery opening in Lakeside, Michigan. While I’ll let her tell most of the story on her own site, the real story for me is that we got the kick in the pants we needed to set up said site.

Triskelemoon.com is now open as an informational site for anyone interested in the art of fine jewelry design. The online store is not quite ready for prime time, but I’ll be sure to post a note when it is. In the meantime, I’m focusing on adding the little graphic touches that make a site more attractive and user-friendly over the next week or so. Keep checking back to learn more about the jewelry and to see how a graphic site evolves over time.

I’ve been trying to get some work done this morning on invitations to my wife’s upcoming jewelry show on the 14th, and ran into an issue early on.

She wants to use some holiday stationary from Gartner Studios. That’s fine, as far as it goes; but as is so common with preprinted materials, the Web site only provides templates for Microsoft Word – not any actual graphics software. I’ve had problems previously with Avery doing the same thing with their business cards. Who uses Word for design work? At any rate, in a misguided effort to save some time (and get to the Xbox before dinnertime), I decided to use the template anyway.

I designed her company nameplate (to the left) using the Trajan Pro font. Now, Trajan comes free with the Adobe Creative Suite, but when I opened the Gartner templates the font was nowhere to be found. I opened up Illustrator and there it sat, smug and pleased as a squirrel in the Planter’s factory. Back to Word – nothing, no go. Then I remembered something I’d seen a while back, and went looking in the directory of the computer.

When Adobe CS loads these fonts, it does so in a directory called /Common Files/Adobe/Fonts/, not the actual Windows fonts directory. A sneaky little trick that basically renders the fonts invisible to any software not native to the company which provided the font. Fortunately, all you need to do is copy those font files into the Windows fonts directory and you’re golden, but it still ate up an extra hour that I could’ve used sneaking into the Temple of the Hammerites.

Ah, well. I guess I’ll just push bedtime back an hour.