BEFORE

Client: Timeless Finishes — www.timelessfinishes.com

Stanley Rachwal started his Venetian plastering business about three years ago, after doing the work on a part-time basis for two years before that. “I started my plastering business at the tender age of fifty,” he says, “because I wanted to do something different.”

Rachwal describes Venetian plastering as “the latest faux-finish craze,” one that’s been popular in the United States for about seven years. But the technique itself has been around for thousands of years—long before Venice was an important city. Evidence of the method has been found in ancient sites in Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and, of course, Italy.

Venetian plaster starts with mined limestone that’s heated, dried, and crushed. The rock powder is then mixed with water, and after some time it becomes a sort of putty. Different substances (sand, ash, ground marble) can be added to the mixture to change the appearance of the putty. When a plasterer such as Rachwal applies the putty to a wall, it dries into a hard, marble-like surface.

Any plasterer can use the material, says Rachwal, but the trick is in learning to apply it to achieve the desired effect. Some of the finishes require him to apply up to three different kinds of putty in just the right way.

After three years, Rachwal has confidence that his business will survive and he’d like to replace his original logo, which he just slapped together quickly to have something to put on a business card. He likes how the current logo, based on a photo of a Roman column he found on the Web, suggests the antiquity of the process. But he doesn’t feel that it really portrays what he does. He would like a new, hipper logo that communicates the idea that Venetian plastering is an actual work of art, not just a faux finish. We asked three designers to come up with a logo and business card that say “hip” and “today,” as well as “timeless” and “Old World.”

AFTER

Designer: Russel Hempel — www.DaringEscape.com

When I design a logo, I always begin by doing a black-and-white version and then add color later. My feeling is that a logo needs to look great in grayscale as well as color, since a logo gets used in so many places, not all of which use color (such as invoices, newspaper ads, etc.). Working this way also helps to keep the design simple.

I decided to combine a slab-serif or “Egyptian” font (Mido) with an intricate ornamental flourish to convey the skill and Old World artistry used in the work. The organic tones of the colors I selected, a rich chocolate brown and a deep orange, suggest the natural materials used in the process. I decided to dispense with the tagline “yesterday’s wall finishes…today” to further simplify the logo.

I elected to create a vertical business card to keep the layout clean and modern. With the exception of the logo, I kept all the type (set in Adobe Minion) left-justified for a more professional look and took the liberty of adding the title of “artisan” underneath the name. I think adding this title helps communicate the immense skill and training that it takes to master the Venetian plaster technique. I incorporated a textured background from a stock photo house, similar to the effects achieved with the plastering technique, to add depth and interest. An oversized, screened-back version of the flourish from the logo rounds out the design on the back of the card.

ABOUT THE DESIGNER:

After serving as the senior designer for an in-house design department, Russel Hempel left to start Daring Escape Designs, a small studio committed to helping small businesses succeed. Russel has done work for a variety of clients, ranging from a website for a punk rock band to a catalog and marketing material for a high-end barbecue grill manufacturer. When he’s not cranking out fantastic design work, Russel can be found spending time with his wife, Dena, and their two sons, Noah and Hayden, in the beautiful southern California sun; playing guitar; or working on his 1921 Craftsman home.

APPLICATIONS USED: Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Illustrator CS3

AFTER

Designer: Reynaldo Gonzalez

The old logo looks more like a slogan than a proper logo, and it’s not as upscale as the client’s work product. Furthermore, there’s no balance or consistency between the version on the business card and the version on the website—the latter is almost playful, which I don’t think represents the client’s artisanal techniques.

I wanted to create a logo that would reflect the look of materials used in a “timeless finish.” For the background, I scanned a piece of paper and applied different filters in Photoshop until I got a mottled effect reminiscent of the walls commonly seen in Rome and throughout the Mediterranean. I added a classical architectural image taken from the west pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, built around 470 B.C.E., depicting the Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs.

The font for the company name is Michelangelo BQ, a Venetian-style font designed by Hermann Zapf to be a titling font for Palatino. It goes well with the architectural image. For the tagline, I chose Herculaneum, which made me think of Rome and Roman orthography. For the rest of the business card I used Optima Regular and Bold. Optima is clean, fresh, and easy to read, which is very important when you want to send a message to clients. It also doesn’t call attention to itself and away from the type in the logo.

ABOUT THE DESIGNER:

Born and raised in Mexico City, Reynaldo Gonzalez came to the U.S. when he was 21. In 1994, he met an illustrator who introduced him to the field of design. Inspired, he began his quest to become a graphic designer: in 1998, he received an Associate’s degree in graphic design, specializing in print design, from Platt College in Cerritos, CA, and he has continued his studies in the field at Santa Monica College.

As a freelancer, Gonzalez has worked for many sizes and types of companies and ad agencies, including Deutsch and Guess. He credits his cross-cultural experience with his versatility and ability to view tasks from varied angles. He loves his work and is still inspired by the creative process.

APPLICATIONS USED: Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Adobe Illustrator CS2

AFTER

Designer: feliciA chamberlain — www.felicia.us

The current logo design for Timeless Finishes could be improved, in my opinion, for a variety of reasons. The graphic treatment of the column on the website feels more anthropomorphic than architectural, causing a disconnect between the intended purpose of the image and the message it’s trying to convey to prospective clients. The tagline, extending into the photo, disrupts the balance of the graphic treatment, and the wide tracking of the company name (also on the business card) doesn’t seem to have a clear purpose.

I wanted to make the business card and website work together to make a branding statement with at least one consistent element, especially since this is a relatively new business. I also wanted to evoke the modern with the historical, the new with the traditional.

The ancient Italians used to plaster their walls and paint them in distinctive styles. Most of the paintings are lost to antiquity, but some remain, like those preserved at Pompeii under the ashes of Mount Vesuvius. Using the Pen tool in Illustrator, I drew a female figure in the style of some of those preserved paintings. Hopefully, the woman will provide a talking point for Timeless Finishes’ owner and customers.

I thought a more Italian- or Roman-inspired font would be suitable, so I set the company name in ITC Mona Lisa Solid. The rest of the type is in Myriad Pro for a modern contrast.

The new cards contain personality and history, and in turn will create a lasting memory that should put Timeless Finishes at the forefront of a prospective client’s mind. Reaching for the card will be easy because it’s distinctive and the information is clearly outlined.

ABOUT THE DESIGNER:

feliciA started her career at an early age, winning numerous art and writing contests. They afforded her the opportunity to study illustration and design with Alan E. Cober and Anita Kunz while earning her BFA with honors at State University of New York at Buffalo. She later went on to earn her MFA, magna cum laude, at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco in Computer Arts: New Media.

feliciA describes herself as a visual communicator and technologist because she combines her skills as an illustrator, designer, interactive designer, and programmer to create complete packages for a variety of clients. She actively engages in sketching, illustrating, and visual journalism. She continues to draw on the computer using Adobe’s Creative Suite and one of her Wacom Tablets as if it were her artbox.

APPLICATIONS USED:Adobe Illustrator CS2

Question: When I send a PSD file with an embedded video layer to a friend, he can’t play the video. All he can see is the first still frame of the video. What gives?

Answer: Ah…the clue for me (hidden in your question) was when you said that you were sending the video file with an “embedded video layer.” I know Photoshop makes it look that way, but that’s not how it works. Photoshop is simply linking to the video file on your hard drive. By sending your PSD file to your buddy without the folder that contains the actual video file, you’ve broken the link so all that he can see is the “poster frame” of the video file. Send him the entire folder that contains both the PSD file and the video file(s) and you should be fine.

Question: Last year, when you were on PhotoshopUser TV, (www.photoshopusertv.com), you showed how to take a bunch of still images and turn them into a time-lapse video in Photoshop. Did you ever write that up as a tutorial?

Answer: No I never did, but here’s a quick step-by-step that should do the trick for you.

1. Select File>Open and navigate to your folder of images—make sure that they’re numbered in sequence.

2. Select the first image and then click the Image Sequence checkbox (circled).

3. Select your Frame Rate. This will also determine the overall duration of the clip, as it makes this calculation based on the frame rate. Click OK.

4. Click the Play button in the Animation Timeline or simply press the Spacebar to render the video clip into RAM.

Tip: Using large, 8–12-megapixel images allows you to create 4,000–5,000-pixel video files. This is many times larger than SD and HD video files. In fact, you can go out and shoot once, but then be able to chop up the resulting monster video file into 30–50 standard-definition video files.

Question: I was given a video file to use but when I brought it into Photoshop it looked like it had scan lines running through it. Any idea how to fix this?

Answer: It actually sounds like you have an interlace problem. Was this footage captured from the TV or off a VHS tape or other analog video source? If so, why don’t you give this a try?

1. Open the file that has the interlace problems in Photoshop.

2. Convert the layer to a Smart Object (Layer>Smart Objects>Convert to Smart Object). The reason for converting the layer to a smart object is because you want the filter that you’re about to apply to affect the whole video file and not just one single frame.

3. Apply the De-Interlace filter (Filter>Video>De-Interlace). Try the standard options first—they usually work best—and click OK.

Question: My friend and I have the exact same machine, but he’s able to work with 3D files (rotate, spin, position, scale, etc.) a lot faster than I am. Why is this?

Answer: If your friend really has the exact same CPU, RAM, hard drive, and graphics card as you do, then there’s only one real explanation: Your friend has enabled 3D Acceleration for his video graphics card (or he’s disabled yours and not told you about it.) To check if this is the case, go to Photoshop (PC: Edit)>Preferences>Performance and look for the Enable 3D Acceleration checkbox. If it’s not checked, click on it to turn it on.

The problem starts with finding one at all. It’s not in any standard character set, and fonts including Symbol, Monotype Sorts, and Zapf Dingbats don’t include one either. Of the popular pi fonts, only Webdings and Wingdings offer them. The Webdings ballot box is a full em square, meaning that it reaches from above a typeface’s ascenders to below its descenders. That’s big, for a ballot box. Wingdings offers three models, which range in weight from normal to horsy to even horsier. These sit on the baseline and are more or less cap-height.

Ideally, you want the weight of the stroke of a ballot box to have some relationship to the weight of the type you’re using it with. Right away we’re in trouble. If you scale down the em-square Webdings ballot box to a reasonable size—two-thirds of its normal size—and raise it up to sit on the baseline, as a ballot box should, it gets pretty thin, as you can see here in the top example. All in all, a lot of folderol for a result of limited utility.

The thinnest of the Wingdings’ ballot boxes will work with heavier seriffed text faces (it’s the middle example), but it’s too bulky for most of the finer ones. The heavier models should be reserved for use with heftier sans-serif faces and bold and extra bold faces, as seen in the bottom two examples in the illustration.

Taking matters into your own hands

But how about that second ballot box in the list? The one that sits perfectly flush left and whose weight is balanced harmoniously with the type next to it. Well, I drew it myself, and indeed, the best ballot boxes are ones you make by hand. To do this, choose the Rectangle tool from the Toolbox in InDesign and click on your page to open a dialog where you can define the size of your ballot box—try about 80% of the size of your type.

In the Stroke panel, you can specify its weight and preview just how well various weights relate to the weight of your type. Once you’ve drawn it, you can cut-and-paste it into your text, where as an anchored graphic, it will act like part of your text. By default, it will sit neatly on the baseline. Once anchored in place, you can still select it with the Selection tool and change its size or weight.

Because you’ve drawn it yourself, this ballot box doesn’t have side bearings like most typeset characters, so it sits perfectly flush against the margin. This is a characteristic it shares with the Webdings em-square box, as you can see in the illustration. One disadvantage that custom ballot boxes have is that they can’t be used with the Bullets and Numbering controls in InDesign (found in the Paragraph panel’s flyout menu), which can automatically add symbols at the beginnings of listed items. To use a ballot box in a list, you have to use a symbol found in a font.

The spacing between a ballot box and the text that follows it is dependent on your layout, but the norm is a single word space (as with other items that qualify generically as “bullets”). If your setting has justified margins, you’ll want to make that a fixed space. InDesign gives you two options here: the Quarter Space, which is slightly narrower than a word space in most fonts, or what InDesign calls a Nonbreaking Space (Fixed Width). This latter is the same width as a word space, but it can’t be stretched or squeezed during justification like a regular word space. (It can’t be used as a line-breaking point either—hence its name—but that doesn’t matter in this case.) Both of these spaces are available from Insert White Space in the Type menu in InDesign.

Giving credit

Another common use for ballot boxes is in coupons that call for credit card numbers. If you’re satisfied with its weight, you can use the Webdings em-square box in this role. Just set a series of boxes with no spaces between them and tighten their tracking to a value of 60 (that is, minus 60 thousandths of an em) in the Control panel. This causes them to overlap precisely so there’s no doubling of the vertical strokes where they coincide. Don’t set these in a justified line, though, because their spacing will shift unless you’ve specified a value of 0% each for Minimum, Desired, and Maximum in the Justification dialog. The 0 settings assure that the spaces between the boxes can’t be flexed to justify the line.

If you prefer to use custom-drawn ballot boxes for your credit-card grids, create the series using Step and Repeat from the Edit menu. First select a single box, then open the Step and Repeat dialog from the Edit menu. Here, select the number of boxes you want to make, and set the Horizontal Offset value to the width of the box minus its stroke weight. Set the Vertical Offset to 0. Click OK, and InDesign will create a series of boxes that overlap by exactly the weight of their strokes, so there’s no thickening of the vertical, overlapping lines. Select the whole line of boxes and Group them (Object>Group), so they’re easier to handle. This array, too, can be inserted into text as an anchored graphic.

Because boxes for credit card numbers are often divided into clumps of four (like the card numbers themselves), you may want to create gaps in this array. If you’ve use the Webdings ballot box, select the ones you want to become gaps and use the Swatches panel to give them a color of None. If you used custom-drawn boxes, you can use this same device or use the Direct Selection tool to select individual boxes and delete them. Since they’re graphics and not typeset characters, the line of boxes won’t collapse to close up the space.

Keep in mind that if you need to typeset an “x” or a checkmark inside a ballot box, as shown here, all you have to do is set the character to the right of the box and kern it back to the left to superimpose it over the box. This works whether your box is itself a typeset character or a hand-drawn box of your own creation.

All of these factors came into play with the image of the red-eye tree frog (above left), photographed with a Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens and ring light. (The black background in this picture was created by holding a black T-shirt about two-feet behind the subject—far enough so that it wasn’t illuminated by the ring light).

For newcomers to the fascinating, fun, and rewarding aspects of close-up photography, this article introduces a few of the basic techniques.

The macro lens

For true macro photography, you need a macro lens, as opposed to the macro/close-up setting on a zoom lens. Macro lenses let you get much closer to a subject than zoom lenses. This picture of a newly hatched butterfly was taken with a Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 Macro lens, which offers tremendous magnification—much like a bellows system for SLR cameras. It’s a specially designed, manual focus macro lens that actually lets you fill the frame with subjects as small as a grain of rice.

The remaining photographs in this article were taken with more commonly used macro lenses: 50mm and 100mm. The main difference between these two lenses is that that 100mm lens provides a greater camera-to-subject distance so you don’t frighten skittish subjects, such as butterflies.

Getting close

Okay, let’s move on to some macro shooting tips and techniques.

Steady your shots: Macro lenses exaggerate camera shake, as do telephoto lenses. To reduce the chance of a blurry picture caused by camera shake, which is most noticeable in natural light pictures, you need to use a tripod. I used a tripod with a ball head (for easy positioning) when I took this natural light photograph of an Atlas moth with the 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens.

Compose carefully: The background can make or break a close-up picture. Try to compose a picture so the background complements the main subject and does not detract from it.

Add a background: If the background is too distracting, you can change it. Photograph a leaf, make an inkjet print, and use the print as a background. For more creative control, try blurring the leaf in the digital darkroom (using the Gaussian Blur filter in Photoshop) to simulate the effect of using different f-stops.

Add light: When adding light, a ring light is a good choice. A ring light attaches to the end of a lens and can provide ratio and even (“shadowless”) lighting. The light from a ring light also adds contrast to a picture, making it look sharper than a natural light photograph. A Canon Macro Ring Lite MR-14EX attached to the front of the 50mm macro lens was used for this picture of a cabbage white butterfly.

Focus carefully: In close-up photography, as with telephoto photography, focus is extremely critical. You need to focus on the most important element in a scene, such as the eye of an insect or small animal. It’s also important to shoot at a small aperture (f/11 or f/22) for good depth of field (unless you want the area in front of and behind your subject out of focus). I set the 50mm macro lens at f/22 for this photograph.

Set the white balance and image quality setting: When using a ring light as the main light source, set the white balance to Flash. When the light is mixed (daylight and flash), set the white balance to Auto.
For the very best quality image, set the image quality to RAW. The RAW setting gives you a little more exposure latitude (is more forgiving) than the Fine or High JPEG setting. What’s more, with a RAW file you’ll have less chance of getting banding in solid colors and dark areas, such as the black background in the opening image for this article.

Experiment: It’s important to be aware of how different angles and different shooting distances can greatly affect a picture. In close-up photography, moving just a few inches, or a faction of an inch for that matter, can provide a completely different view of the same subject, as illustrated by these two pictures of an orchid, which I took with the 50mm macro lens. Also play around with different color modes, including black and white.

Okay, now it’s your turn to have fun exploring your own close-up world!

Make a mesh

Illustrator also has this feature but with far more power than the one found in Photoshop. It has the ability to warp objects via a user-defined mesh. This incredible command is found under Object>Envelope Distort and is called Make with Mesh.

To demonstrate one of the times that I found this tool indispensable, let me refer to my painting Oyster Bar (shown above left). We’re going to focus on the trashcan in this scene. It has a wire net body that needs to conform to the curvature of the can.

The basic shapes were generated in Illustrator. The following image shows the frame for the can and the wire net that I created for it. The wire net was created in a separate layer. (Yes, Illustrator has layers too.)

It was necessary to distort the mesh to follow the curvature of the trashcan. If this were all that I needed to do, then the Warp command in Photoshop would have been sufficient. There was, however, one detail that made it difficult—I wanted the trashcan to be old and worn. The scene is, after all, a busy corner in midtown Manhattan. This meant there had to be additional dents here and there in the trashcan.

Employing the Warp command in Photoshop would have applied a mesh composed of nine panels. This mesh would have been sufficient to distort the mesh into the curvature needed for the can as shown here; but the desired dents added a complexity that this procedure in Photoshop could not handle.

Do it in Illustrator

Since the wire netting was created in Illustrator in the first place, warping it there made perfect sense. I selected the entire wire net and went into the Envelope Distort function (Object>Envelope Distort>Make with Mesh). When you choose this feature, a dialog pops up allowing you to determine the number of sections the mesh for warping will contain. Unlike the Photoshop version that’s limited to nine panels, Illustrator lets you create as many panels as you think you’ll need to do the job. (Note: The maximum is actually 2500 panels, but that’s probably more than you’ll ever need.) I chose a total of 10 Rows with 10 Columns (for a total of 100 panels).

This gave me sufficient space for distorting the net of the can to achieve the 3D effect I was looking for, plus the added dents. Once you have your mesh, you can use the Direct Selection tool to select and manipulate any individual point in the grid, or you can click-and-drag an entire section of the grid. Here you can see how some of the sections of the mesh have been moved, causing the net of the trashcan to distort in specific areas.

The beauty of all this is that you can work at any size in Illustrator without sacrificing resolution. Once you copy-and-paste the object into a Photoshop file, it rasterizes to the resolution of the Photoshop document. I tend to work in Illustrator at 400% of what I need for the painting. I then reduce the object to 25% and export it over to Photoshop.

The bottom line is that no single program does it all. It’s best to get a thorough working knowledge of the entire Creative Suite so you can take advantage of the best that each program has to offer.

In partnership with 18 digital design agencies worldwide, Adobe has introduced the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA). The society’s stated mission is to advance the interactive industry worldwide through knowledge sharing, education, and advocacy, and to drive much-needed standards. Adobe, which provides much of the software used by digital agencies around the world, is supporting the group as the organization’s official launch sponsor.

The increasing demand for interactive experiences presents both opportunities and challenges for digital design agencies. The SoDA plans to bring them together to address the issues they face and to develop standards and best practices that will move the entire industry forward.

SoDA members are planning to address issues such as technical complexity, rapid changes in content distribution, scaling issues, timelines, and technology’s impact on budgets—all of which affect the quality, innovation, and accessibility of digital media.

To find out a little more about how SoDA is going to affect the industry, Layers magazine spent a few minutes with Jay Wolff of Odopod, one of the 18 digital agencies involved with the new organization.

Layers: How often and when will SoDA meet?

Wolff: The founding members met casually three times in 2007 before the organization was entirely formalized, first in Miami, then in New York and San Francisco. We knew we had something valuable when these CEOs kept making time to travel and get together. SoDA’s next meeting—and the first since the establishment of their official status as a non-profit organization and the announcement of their sponsorship from Adobe—will be in May.

Layers: Who will benefit the most from this new organization?

Wolff: This is a critical time in the formation of the digital advertising business when everyone involved needs clarification, stability, and direction. The membership of SoDA is committed to focusing on those issues that are most critical to the success of all parties involved in this business. In addition to all of the other digital agencies out there, many groups should benefit, like the educators who train our staff, tool developers who enable our craft, and even the traditional agencies that are increasingly depending on our medium.

Layers: What are some of the common issues that digital agencies face?

Wolff: There are issues common to any creative business that slow progress and get in the way of cooperation. Budgets are often set before the project scope is determined.
Concepts are illconceived by nondigital players or don’t take full advantage of the technology being employed. Agencies tend at first to “hide” their digital partners and improperly assume credit for their work, creating divisiveness.

But these issues are prominent in any new creative arena, particularly where market prominence and position are being decided. And, while this has been especially true in our space where digital media has now become central to all brand strategy and critical to the success of more and more campaigns, digital teams these days are already getting more of the respect they deserve.

Traditional agencies are recognizing the value of “partnering,” instead of dominating, and progressive brands understand how to go direct. So a lot of that is changing.

Layers: What are some of the specific examples of the issues SoDA will be covering?

Wolff: SoDA will be focusing on the issues that are truly unique to the digital space, that need to be addressed for everyone to prosper, and that threaten—if unchecked—to take the whole system down. These uniquely digital issues are: Ever-increasing technical complexity. Most of our clients want us to produce in a few weeks what it took YouTube, Facebook or Google to do over many months. Flattering, but unrealistic.

Scaling challenges: Whether broadcast to online, we now all touch millions in our campaigns. But have you ever seen a TV commercial that slows down the more people who watch it?

The competing demands of innovation and reliability: Our software clients know that a cut in budget requires a reduction in scope, that you can’t rush software development without driving up rounds of testing and revision, and that “innovation” involves significant risk and must include alternative plans. But traditional agencies have never operated this way.

Distorted commercial expectations: Expectations from traditional agencies are often distorted by their experience with nondigital, commercial production (TV) vendors. Marketing clients of digital agencies naturally want something new. But they want it all without risk, at budgets that disregard scope, with dependencies on copywriting, content, and other vendors, while deadlines are immovable. It’s a system designed for failure. Increasingly, they want to launch something highly technical, that “has never been done before,” and they set up increasingly prominent launch dates with millions in media spending to drive traffic to that unproven, untested and yet unfinished website.

Layers: What are some of the areas where the industry needs standards?

Wolff: One way SoDA could be of great service is to bridge the two worlds described above: The unrealistic commercial expectations of the increasingly digital advertising and marketing industry and the much more rigorous, and often inflexible, technology dependent business of software development. This reconciliation might start with the way digital projects are described in RFPs and proposals. Then, we’d all benefit by contract terms that take the needs of both worlds into consideration. While SoDA will not declare itself a standard-setting body, we plan to be very open and public with our findings. We are hoping the work we develop together is good enough to share, and we’ll hope that some of that will lead to industry standards in these areas.

Layers: How will the information gathered at these meetings be shared?

Wolff: SoDA expects to maintain both an informational website (societyofdigitalagencies.org) as well as an active blog, with contributions from the full breadth of its membership. SoDA will also organize and participate in panel discussions all year long at most major industry events.

Layers: How do these issues affect graphic design professionals?

Wolff: All areas of commercial design are becoming more digitally driven and, thus, more technology dependent. Improvements in commercial expectations as well as contractual obligations should benefit everyone in digital arts of any kind. 
Visual or graphic design is often on the path towards interactive media. Many of the same tools are shared across that spectrum, and the workflows are interconnected. A better relationship between toolmakers and the digital media industry, which we hope to provide leaders in the software business like Adobe, will improve those tools and workflows for everyone, and thus increase their commercial success.

Most importantly, any number of standards in this fast-evolving field will provide the educators in this business with more defined targets on which to base their educational goals and course curriculums. Designers across the spectrum will have a more defined spectrum from which to choose and better opportunities on which to establish their early careers.

Layers: How did Adobe become involved and what will be the extent of their involvement?

Wolff: Many of the individual digital agencies within SoDA have had a long-standing, two-way relationship with Adobe. Their purchase of Macromedia only multiplied that dynamic. By bringing this group together, we provide Adobe with a single, consolidated source of input and communication with the industry. They were quick to recognize the value within this combined group. We have great hopes for this relationship. We hope to provide Adobe with unique insight and support from leaders in the profession, and affect everything from early tool development to curriculum through Adobe’s active support of educators worldwide. We already act as torchbearers for Adobe’s products, showing what can be done by pushing the tools to their limits. And we are more a developer group than a set of customers. By contributing our time and sharing our best work with the many groups at Adobe, we’d hope to boost the productivity and value of digital work being created by all of their customers.

In partnership with 18 digital design agencies worldwide, Adobe has introduced the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA). The society’s stated mission is to advance the interactive industry worldwide through knowledge sharing, education, and advocacy, and to drive much-needed standards. Adobe, which provides much of the software used by digital agencies around the world, is supporting the group as the organization’s official launch sponsor.

The increasing demand for interactive experiences presents both opportunities and challenges for digital design agencies. The SoDA plans to bring them together to address the issues they face and to develop standards and best practices that will move the entire industry forward.

SoDA members are planning to address issues such as technical complexity, rapid changes in content distribution, scaling issues, timelines, and technology’s impact on budgets—all of which affect the quality, innovation, and accessibility of digital media.

To find out a little more about how SoDA is going to affect the industry, Layers magazine spent a few minutes with Jay Wolff of Odopod, one of the 18 digital agencies involved with the new organization.

Layers: How often and when will SoDA meet?

Wolff: The founding members met casually three times in 2007 before the organization was entirely formalized, first in Miami, then in New York and San Francisco. We knew we had something valuable when these CEOs kept making time to travel and get together. SoDA’s next meeting—and the first since the establishment of their official status as a non-profit organization and the announcement of their sponsorship from Adobe—will be in May.

Layers: Who will benefit the most from this new organization?

Wolff: This is a critical time in the formation of the digital advertising business when everyone involved needs clarification, stability, and direction. The membership of SoDA is committed to focusing on those issues that are most critical to the success of all parties involved in this business. In addition to all of the other digital agencies out there, many groups should benefit, like the educators who train our staff, tool developers who enable our craft, and even the traditional agencies that are increasingly depending on our medium.

Layers: What are some of the common issues that digital agencies face?

Wolff: There are issues common to any creative business that slow progress and get in the way of cooperation. Budgets are often set before the project scope is determined.
Concepts are illconceived by nondigital players or don’t take full advantage of the technology being employed. Agencies tend at first to “hide” their digital partners and improperly assume credit for their work, creating divisiveness.

But these issues are prominent in any new creative arena, particularly where market prominence and position are being decided. And, while this has been especially true in our space where digital media has now become central to all brand strategy and critical to the success of more and more campaigns, digital teams these days are already getting more of the respect they deserve.

Traditional agencies are recognizing the value of “partnering,” instead of dominating, and progressive brands understand how to go direct. So a lot of that is changing.

Layers: What are some of the specific examples of the issues SoDA will be covering?

Wolff: SoDA will be focusing on the issues that are truly unique to the digital space, that need to be addressed for everyone to prosper, and that threaten—if unchecked—to take the whole system down. These uniquely digital issues are: Ever-increasing technical complexity. Most of our clients want us to produce in a few weeks what it took YouTube, Facebook or Google to do over many months. Flattering, but unrealistic.

Scaling challenges: Whether broadcast to online, we now all touch millions in our campaigns. But have you ever seen a TV commercial that slows down the more people who watch it?

The competing demands of innovation and reliability: Our software clients know that a cut in budget requires a reduction in scope, that you can’t rush software development without driving up rounds of testing and revision, and that “innovation” involves significant risk and must include alternative plans. But traditional agencies have never operated this way.

Distorted commercial expectations: Expectations from traditional agencies are often distorted by their experience with nondigital, commercial production (TV) vendors. Marketing clients of digital agencies naturally want something new. But they want it all without risk, at budgets that disregard scope, with dependencies on copywriting, content, and other vendors, while deadlines are immovable. It’s a system designed for failure. Increasingly, they want to launch something highly technical, that “has never been done before,” and they set up increasingly prominent launch dates with millions in media spending to drive traffic to that unproven, untested and yet unfinished website.

Layers: What are some of the areas where the industry needs standards?

Wolff: One way SoDA could be of great service is to bridge the two worlds described above: The unrealistic commercial expectations of the increasingly digital advertising and marketing industry and the much more rigorous, and often inflexible, technology dependent business of software development. This reconciliation might start with the way digital projects are described in RFPs and proposals. Then, we’d all benefit by contract terms that take the needs of both worlds into consideration. While SoDA will not declare itself a standard-setting body, we plan to be very open and public with our findings. We are hoping the work we develop together is good enough to share, and we’ll hope that some of that will lead to industry standards in these areas.

Layers: How will the information gathered at these meetings be shared?

Wolff: SoDA expects to maintain both an informational website (societyofdigitalagencies.org) as well as an active blog, with contributions from the full breadth of its membership. SoDA will also organize and participate in panel discussions all year long at most major industry events.

Layers: How do these issues affect graphic design professionals?

Wolff: All areas of commercial design are becoming more digitally driven and, thus, more technology dependent. Improvements in commercial expectations as well as contractual obligations should benefit everyone in digital arts of any kind. 
Visual or graphic design is often on the path towards interactive media. Many of the same tools are shared across that spectrum, and the workflows are interconnected. A better relationship between toolmakers and the digital media industry, which we hope to provide leaders in the software business like Adobe, will improve those tools and workflows for everyone, and thus increase their commercial success.

Most importantly, any number of standards in this fast-evolving field will provide the educators in this business with more defined targets on which to base their educational goals and course curriculums. Designers across the spectrum will have a more defined spectrum from which to choose and better opportunities on which to establish their early careers.

Layers: How did Adobe become involved and what will be the extent of their involvement?

Wolff: Many of the individual digital agencies within SoDA have had a long-standing, two-way relationship with Adobe. Their purchase of Macromedia only multiplied that dynamic. By bringing this group together, we provide Adobe with a single, consolidated source of input and communication with the industry. They were quick to recognize the value within this combined group. We have great hopes for this relationship. We hope to provide Adobe with unique insight and support from leaders in the profession, and affect everything from early tool development to curriculum through Adobe’s active support of educators worldwide. We already act as torchbearers for Adobe’s products, showing what can be done by pushing the tools to their limits. And we are more a developer group than a set of customers. By contributing our time and sharing our best work with the many groups at Adobe, we’d hope to boost the productivity and value of digital work being created by all of their customers.

[Note: This article complements the “In a Flash” feature that appears in the May/June issue of Layers magazine.—Ed.]

When ZOOLOOK Founder Nicholas Da Silva surveys the community of artists around the world, he sees a giant pool of amazing talent. His strong desire to give artists an accessible venue where they could be more widely recognized and rewarded led him to launch The Greatest Story Never Told (TGSNT), the biggest animated storytelling competition ever for artists using Macromedia Flash from Adobe. For this annual event, independent storytellers from around the world are invited to use Adobe Creative Suite 3, Flash software, and other Adobe software such as Adobe Premiere and After Effects to produce original stories for the Web, DVD, television, film, and wireless devices.

“With Adobe software and the Internet, artists have the technology to create whatever we can imagine,” explains Da Silva. “We no longer have to wait for Hollywood to come knocking on our doors to have our stories seen by the masses. Someday, I want to be able to view full-length, pay-per-view movies online, and Adobe products are helping to make that possible.”

Flash pioneer
TGSNT is the latest in a series of endeavors related to Flash for Da Silva, who has a long history of using Flash and other Adobe technologies to bring stories to a variety of mediums and devices. In 2001, he became the creator, designer, producer, and webmaster behind FlashTV, an award-winning global community site created using Macromedia Dreamweaver software from Adobe and flush with movies, comics, games, and music created by independent storytellers from around the world. FlashTV is also a featured podcast on Apple iTunes. The FlashTV site introduces visitors to Da Silva’s vision for the future: “Kill your television. You don’t need it any more. You’ve got FlashTV.”

From paper to Sony PlayStation Portable and Apple iPod
Originally from Brazil, Da Silva puts a multicultural spin on everything he creates. He starts his artwork using a sketchbook and pencils, calling upon his roots as a traditional artist. Then he moves between Adobe Illustrator CS3 and Photoshop CS3 software to refine his designs. “A friend introduced me to Adobe Illustrator many years ago, and I realized that artwork that took me three weeks to produce traditionally could be created in a few hours,” says Da Silva. “Since then, I’ve never looked back.”

As his ideas take shape, Live Trace in Illustrator CS3 allows him to draw his characters on paper and bring them into the computer quickly. Then, in what he describes as the best part, the software instantly converts the bitmap images to vector graphics. “Live Trace is one of the coolest features Adobe ever introduced,” says Da Silva. “I can’t live without it.”

Da Silva uses After Effects to animate his characters; features like Motion Blur let him create eye-catching story transitions and make movement naturalistic. He also uses camera moves in After Effects to bring realism to his animations.

Easy output to multiple platforms
For final animation and output, Da Silva takes his work into Flash. He often reuses and swaps out symbols in Flash to reduce the time it takes to produce properties. For instance, for his digital comic book series Hitless, about a CIA agent who gets double-crossed by his employer, Da Silva created templates in Flash for various target platforms, from Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) to pocket PCs and the iPod. He can populate the templates with symbols created in Flash, such as talk balloons and characters. He uses Flash to export his work to the required formats, from MPEG to QuickTime. Each comic book also features an original song that Da Silva, who is also an accomplished musician, composes and performs for that issue.

Da Silva’s original plan was to produce Hitless in print, but then he realized that people no longer want to cart around paper comic books. Says Da Silva, “Flash makes it easy to export animated content for multiple platforms. Plus, Flash makes things more interesting because I can add interactive talk balloons, movement, and original music.”

Da Silva credits the combination of After Effects and Flash with his ability to create realistic animations that keep viewers engaged. “With Adobe After Effects and Flash, I can create anything that a high-end VFX studio could produce, only at one-tenth the cost and using my own computer,” says Da Silva. “I’ve read articles saying that 2D is dead, but I don’t believe it, not with the amazing content that artists are creating today using After Effects and Flash.”

When Da Silva creates podcasts such as his FlashTV series for iTunes, he uses Adobe Premiere software to edit the motion content down into bite-size movies. “Adobe Premiere is a fast way to create animations for people with short attention spans,” he jokes. “Podcasts need to be just long enough for someone waiting for a bus.”

Endless energy and talent
Da Silva’s boundless energy and creative talent keep him producing amazing amounts of innovative work. Among his most popular animated characters are the soccer-playing Cave Dudez, who host the TGSNT website and contest. In addition to Hitless, Da Silva has created a digital comic book and music series for the Sony PSP and Apple iPod called Dread & Alive and is co-producing Timeworms, an educational animated series for children. Created by Tim Scully and Da Silva using Flash, the series tells the story of a classroom of bookworms who use time travel to experience world history.

In addition to creating entertainment content, Da Silva’s company ZOOLOOK produces print and online designs for big-name clients such as Chef Hubert Keller of the Fleur de Lys restaurants in San Francisco and Las Vegas, Front 242, Handheld Entertainment, and ZOOM Photography. He also has developed projects for TechTV, Charles Schwab, Divco West, Wyclef Jean, and Maranello California. Still, he says creating entertainment content is his “first love.”

Meanwhile, Da Silva is forging new avenues for other artists. In addition to sponsoring the latest TGSNT competition, Da Silva recently announced the first of its kind: an online casting call inviting the public to appear as an animated extra in his Flash feature film, TGSNT. For a small fee, fans can get their 15 seconds of fame by becoming a member of either the Cave Dudez or Cave Bettiez team. Chosen fans will appear in the background or have an actual speaking part in the movie.

Da Silva is such as prolific artist that it’s a wonder he ever sleeps. He credits Adobe software with his ability to bring his many ideas to life. “I can create a large body of work with the productivity that Adobe software provides,” says Da Silva. “Even better than the time Adobe software saves is the fact that it constantly inspires me to try new things.”