It’s been a while since I’ve posted. And because it’s been so long, it’s hard to decide what to write.

Obviously SEO isn’t a concern - my site stats suck and my ego’s already achieved the goal of the number three spot on Google for Nate Sullivan (a bit of a plug there in case Google reconsiders putting me back at number 2).

Anyway back to the question, How do you resume a blogging when it’s been so long?

Well, I guess for me, I have a beer, and start to type, because I know if I write a post so bad I’ll maybe be motived to get the thing off my front page ASAP.

So I’m going to start out with a bit of housekeeping.

First, in case it takes me longer than I anticipate to redesign my site and update the content — I must announce that I’m currently I’m not taking on freelance work…with a few exceptions. Instead I’m going to focus on creating cool things like WordPress themes, experiments in web design and social media and a bunch of other stuff that is void of conflicts of interest. However, I’ll never pass up the chance to work with someone cool with cool material and a deadline that isn’t next week…regardless of budget. Feel free to contact me.

Ok that’s out of the way.

I’ve changed jobs and I’m pretty happy with that. You can check out my fellow team on the www.r2morrow.com blog.

It’s a great group of people. And although I’m probably “the quiet guy” (which I am), I’m also going through a light dose of shell shock as I make the transition from in-house design to ad agency.

It promises to be a blast!

(P.S. And of course I couldn’t end this post without mentioning something about politics. Those who know me, know I’m a bit of a political junkie. But I enjoyed this video featuring a fellow Obama fan and graphic designer.)

best laser multi function printers test

The Scenario: You’re working in Adobe Photoshop with the brush tool and suddenly the brush tip indicator changes to a cross-hair. And you don’t know why because you’ve long-ago memorized all the various possible keystrokes and you no longer look at the keyboard for shortcuts. So now you’re stuck there with a cross-hair and your trying to paint out an area.

What do you do? I sometimes would go as far as restart my computer to get my brush tip back. This was after searching through all the preferences, on-line help, etc. Last night I discovered the simple shortcut for getting back the brush tip. It’s the CAPS LOCK key. Duh! Either I’m the last person on the planet to learn this, or no one else has this problem.

Are there shortcuts you’ve learned by accident that for some reason no one else every bothered to share with you, and they don’t seem to be in the book? Feel free to share, and link to your own happy accident tip.

Image Source: © Photographer:Bellemedia | Agency: Dreamstime.com

It’s been 30 days now since I first started a daily political cartoon blog at PixelMarx.com where I draw and post and new cartoon every day, under the name, Irishspacemonk.

And today I’m taking a break and celebrating that milestone.

The idea for celebrating a Blog Milestone came from David Airey. Check out his blog if you’re just getting started. His site has lots of great content.

I thought I’d share a few things I’ve learned in doing this little project called, PixelMarx.
Read the rest of this entry »

Only 361 Days to Go

On Monday when I started my political cartoons on PixelMarx.com, I felt pretty comfortable with what I’d done. However there’s something strange about posting a cartoon everyday - and that is you learn and improve. Now 4 days later (example above) , I’m tempted to delete my first attempt. It’s that bad.

This brings to question the impulse of a student to want to rush into the marketplace with their work. I’m as guilty as anyone in this area. What do other’s think? How do you know you’re there, or is it better to kick off, splash, and try to swim.

Lessons Learned

If you’re considering political cartooning yourself, I have a few keys I’ve learned in these 4 days (and I’m sure I’ll learn more over the next 361):

• Pay attention to the concept. This is where it all resides. My first attempt I just started drawing.

• Tell the whole story in one scene. This one’s tough, especially with political cartooning, as it usually requires the audience to bring an understanding of current events.
• Always try to do better. Listen to criticism even when it hurts.

I’ve been taking a Graphic Novel course this summer, and while I’ve strugged to remain motivated, a recent assignment unleashed a new interest for me - political cartooning.

If your interested in checking out my new blog, PixelMarx.com, I will be posting a new political cartoon each day. These cartoons are drawn entirely in Photoshop so I’m able to create quickly on the fly, they relate to current political events, and are free to use, so long as they are not resold, or used to make derivative works. Blah. Blah. Blah.

If you’re intrested in the assignment I recently completed (drawing another student’s short graphic novel) you can read the Orange Peel Dreams [PDF version].. (The story is by Devon Delaney, with artwork by Nate.

Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions or ideas that might make a great political cartoon.

In reviewing the top keywords that were bringing visitors to my site, I noticed something that seemed odd. After my name, one of the top keyword combinations bringing visitors to my site was, “freelance portfolio”. My first response “wow!”, was quickly followed by “how?”. Looking closer I noticed a misspelling. Instead of “portfolio” I had ” portoflio”. (I quickly fixed the misspelling.)

This does bring up the question though, is it ever worth placing carefully hidden common typos in your page for Google to index? In fact, is it worth running spell check at all? (Ok - if you read this in the first 15 minutes you’d know the answer - always run spell check.) I realize from a professional standpoint, text littered with misspellings is bad, however a few key typos here and there might actually help. You wouldn’t be the only one misspelling those words, right?

In the case of “freelance portoflio”, I rank 5 out of 33,000 results. For the correct spelling, “freelance portfolio” with 2,560,00 results, I gave up after realizing I wasn’t in the top 150.

I was recently referred to useit.com. My first impression aside - I started to dig deeper, when I realized - hey, this is the guy that hates Flash. Yes, Jakob Nielsen, protheletizing web usuabilty guru.

This brought me back to a something that’s been bugging me lately - web usability and web standards. I’m tired of these terms thumped with self-satisfaction whenever someone chooses to ignore them.

I understand the reasons for web usability and standards. I’m just not convinced that they should dictate the web. In fact I’m pretty comfortable trusting that the web will develop in both usable and unsuable forms and the two will happily co-exist.

Back to Jakob. He feels Web 2.0 is neglecting good design. In reading more I see a bit where he’s coming from. From a Web 1.0 perspective, where the experience truly was, “get in, get it, get out”, customization, and community tools must seem silly. However Web 2.0 isn’t about “get-in-it-out”, but “existing”. Users are engaged with a web site, much as we engage with software, a video game, or even a good book. Web 2.0 usability is less about how easy things are than what can I do that I really enjoy doing. Just because something isn’t valid or complaint or accessible doesn’t make it bad, unworthy of pursuit.