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A list, in no particular order. If I had to give up their use, I’d probably give up design…ok, maybe a little dramatic, but fun to say either way.

1. SNAGIT! - Screen Capture Software | $38.95

Snagit screen capture software is superior to anything on your Windows OS, your Mac OS, or any OS for that matter. It’s like having a digital camera in the virtual world. Don’t worry about processing. Just click, click, click.

Snagit Screen Capture Software

2. Adobe Creative Suite 3 Premium Design Edition | Upgrade $599 | Full Pkg $1,799

Don’t try to design without Adobe. It’s like trying to sing without a voice. And now that Adobe bought Macromedia, I actually saved money when I upgraded. There’s no software out there for designers that works as well as the tools in this package. (By the way, I’m including prices because it helps illustrate to potential clients the cost of getting setup to do serious design work…not to mention the years necessary to build up a good intuition.)

Adobe CS3 Design Premium

3. Moleskine Pocket Sketchbooks | $9.95

A designer should never be caught pulling anything else out of their pocket to jot down an idea. It just doesn’t look good.

moleskines.com

4. Nikon D70 (D80) SLR Camera | Pkg $1299 | Body Only $999

I realize this camera is ancient by today’s standards, however I’ve never, in the time I’ve used it, ever felt like, Gee, I which it would do that. I’m sure the D80 only better.

Nikon USA

5. Old Fashion Lightbox | $170

Ok, I’ve designed for years without one. Just purchased the Porta-Trac 18×24 last week. I knew that once I had one…well that’s why it’s on this list.

6. Powell’s Books | $$ Varies

Or any great bookstore (although I’m not sure one exists better than Powell’s). If you’re a Portland native, you know. If you’re not, and you ever visit, definitely visit Powell’s Books.

Powells Books

7. Diet Coke | $0.60 x many

After Starbucks in the A.M, a steady stream of dangerous chemicals are needed to reach full creative potential - namely more caffeine.

8. Electric Eraser + Electric Pencil Sharpener | Approx $50

The one needs the other in the quest for efficiency.

9. A Book/Copy Stand | $20

After years of peering over flat books while trying to learn how to do this or that thing, my neck is now in much better condition, thanks to this cheap little desktop assistant.

10. Gigads of RAM | $100 +

More, more, more. I need more.

The idea for this post was inspired by El Decor Magazine. Each issue they feature some famous designer I’ve never heard of and their 10 things they couldn’t live without. I’m not famous, so I had to post on my own blog, but if anyone would like to link to their own “10 Tools ______ Couldn’t Design Without”, please feel free to share.

Wow!

I just spent the last three hours searching for the Windows Holy Grail - how to quickly create a new folder with a keyboard shortcut. I understand Mac users have never had this issue. They’ve been given Shift-Command-N (or Command-N). For Windows users the best solution I could find was the suggestion to memorize Alt, F, Enter, Enter. As anyone who makes their livelihood behind an LCD panel knows, keyboard shortcuts are the key to efficiency and memorizing long keyboard combinations to navigate menus is not a shortcut.

So after searching long and hard, I decided to test something. I tried Adobe CS3 Bridge as my default file manager.

Guess what. In Bridge, it’s as simple as Control-Shift-N. Voila, I have a new folder. I name it. I move on.

I hope by sharing this tip other designers out there using PCs (I know we’re a small crowd), I save you 3 hours of your time.

P.S. This post is the sort of post I’d like to run on my new blog, MonkeyintheMachine.com. While the blog is in it’s infancy, I am open to guest writers if your submission pertains to the topic of how to survive as a cog. Excuse the lack of design so far. I’ll be working on something good this summer.

Because the integration of Photoshop CS3 and Dreamweaver is here.

Now that you can directly place Photoshop CS3 files into Dreamweaver and optimize through Dreamweaver, there’s no need to optimize in Photoshop. Once the graphic has been imported into Dreamweaver, if it is edited in Photoshop at a later date, all you need to do is right click on the image in Dreamweaver and select, “optimize” (this little step took me a while to figure out) and the latest version of the image is updated.

So “Save for Web” is gone. ImageReady CS2 (much to the dismay of some) is gone.

I only have two observations thus far. First, I’m not sure why anyone would purchase Adobe CS3 for Web, except perhaps it’s support for legacy Contribute and Fireworks. And second, I wish that the update in Dreamweaver of Photoshop files was more automated. Perhaps it is, but I’m just not finding any one-click button or link palette.

Ok, I’ve always been under the impression that Apple had their act together - at least a bit more than that other OS company up in Redmond.

I went into Safari with little idea of what to expect. I didn’t read any other reviews. I had as open a mind as possible for a web designer who has many opinions. You see, this is pretty exciting stuff - if you’re a PC guy - getting to run Apple software on a PC box.

Downloaded and installed without a hitch. And then I opened it for the first time.

Not impressed.

Besides looking like just a different configuration of iTunes, I also noticed that heavy text looked very heavy to the point of smudging on screen. Having gotten used to ClearType and the nice rendering of IE7 (which is even superior to FireFox in my book) it was a bit startling. My vision felt blurry and I my enthusiasm started to fade…when I also noticed Safari doesn’t render with transparent edges on Vista…strange. Ok, ok that’s a bit picky.

Then I tried to find my previous tab.

Anyway, I can get used to those little issues if Safari delivers a superior experience. So I start to type in the address bar, www…what??? Is my wife trying to tell me something?

Now offering suggestions for what I might be searching for is ok to an extent, but pushing URLs of sites I’ve never visited into my address bar is never ok. I thought Apple was suppose to be above integrating poorly designed trial software and advertising into their products, and all the other things that can bog down a user experience. I guess not.

This leaves me with having to relegate Safari to just one more browser to test for (not happy) - and keep using my trusty IE7 and FireFox 2.0 (more happy).

PS. If anyone can offer a reason Apple would insert a bunch of URLs (as above) I’d love to know. Otherwise “Apple, please let me choose the URLs I want to type.

This list is for all those out there who’ve faced developing HTML email for Lotus Notes. It can be very frustratring to find workable solutions. The list I’ve assembled comes from tips I’ve come across and tried, and from my own experimenting based on what seems to work and what doesn’t for Lotus Notes. These are not perfect solutions, however they should provide some guidance for the novice and experienced alike, when tackling this troublesome email client.

1. Develop a design that breaks apart gracefully. This takes time and is largely the responsibility of the designer.
2. Do not rely on CSS styling for page layout. Older versions of Lotus Notes (v4.5 or older) do not recognize CSS for layout. For example the bordercolor property is ignored and will result in an ugly large black border around your table. You can either embrace this fact - and make your design based on black, or avoid the border property by setting table border=”0″.
3. Use a container table to enclose all sub-tables, with one table, one tr, and one td.
4. Because you’re going to be developing a lot of tables, carefully plan and comment your layout. This will make it easier to update and tweak if you need to fix anything later.
5. Do not use td width=”x”. Instead, use a plain td, and then use a spacer.gif image to establish the width of the table data cell. This seems to avoid Lotus Notes tendancy to rewrite tables into its own width specifications. This can be a bit of extra work for those who try to take the HTML Adobe ImageReady serves up, but it’s well worth it in the long run. By the way, avoid slicing up your designs in ImageReady or other Direct-to-Web solution. Instead work piece by piece, table by table (see next key).
6. Have a strong design and plan before going into the table layout phase - and work the design in small, managable sections, thinking of each section in terms of how it works as a table. You should be thinking, two column layout - two tables.
7. Do use the width and height properties of the table tag, especially for your sub-tables.
8. Keep all CSS styling to fonts only - and use in-line styles. You should still be able to avoid the font tag, but the improvement with CSS is not much better. It’s still a lot of styling to track.
9. Probably most important of all (especially if those approving the email will be viewing the test in Lotus Notes) is to prepare them for the fact that what they see at the design stage will not be what they can expect to see in Lotus Notes. Manage expectations. In fact it’s helpful to actually show how the email will break apart and how you’ve allowed for this through your design. Think crumple zones in auto design. By designing weak areas of the design to absorb the impact of Lotus Notes, your overall message (the bones) remains intact. Design is about the message and not how to make things look pretty. Also, have marketing view the email in more than one email client. Having a gmail account or similar is great and seems to make everyone happier.
10. Remember never skip number 9.

If you found this helpful, let me know. I’m interested in developing some tutorials based around these 10 keys, particularly if they would be of assistance to designers out there who also get saddled with learning to hack through HTML, and may not have come from the days of designing pre-CSS. Also, if anyone feels I’ve missed something, please add - as I know you will. All the help the better.

Just had a chance to take the new Adobe CS3 product for a spin, and I got caught up in the new Live Color feature in Adode Illustrator CS3. A short Adobe Labs video covers the basics. And I haven’t even started to uncover the potential for Live Color in the short time I’ve spent. However for those color challenged designers like myself, this is a dream. (If you haven’t purchased the Adobe CS3 Design suite but want to test Live Color, visit kuler.adobe.com.)

Just to highlight a few of the features of Live Color:

• Quickly create and use color groups to color (and recolor) artwork
• Create color groups in an intuitive, visual interface
• Use preset relationships based on complex color theory (great for those who prefer monochrome, and forgot the differences between complementary and analogous shortly after Color 101.)
• Quickly adjust the entire range of colors in an artwork with a simple mouse click (recolor)
• Reduce the color in an artwork to 2, 3, 4 or more inks - a great tool for planning spot color printing

I’ve only touched on a few of the basics. There’s lots more I’m sure. However I thought I just give Adobe a bit of praise. CS2 never impressed me. CS3 - I can’t wait to learn more.