Midnight Cheese

A few photos from the Chihuly exhibit at Cheekwood last night. More on Flickr.

I took a film class at UT (about 8 years ago, now) that required us to shoot several 16mm shorts throughout the semester. Of those several films, I finally posted my favorite to YouTube.

The actor is my brother, Colin. Chris Conner did the score and opening title as a test project many years after the film was shot. The transfer to video didn’t turn out too well, but that’s what you get for videotaping film projected onto a wall.

Steve Jobs called Adobe “lazy.” He was referring to Flash, but it’s also spot-on for Adobe’s Creative Suite line of software most often used by Graphic Designers. With multi-touch software interaction bearing down on us like a freight train, Adobe is about to be obliterated at the crossing. With their Creative Suite stagnating, Adobe is one clever competitor away from becoming obsolete.

Here are 5 things Adobe can do to save itself and rekindle the excitement Designers once had when sitting down to use Adobe software.

1. Go Multi-touch
Multi-touch and gesturing is so much more natural than wrangling a mouse, keyboard, or pen tablet. This new way of interacting between human and machine gets us back to the way fine artists interact with pen and paper, paint and canvas, even ad layout before the age of computers.

Multi-touch page layout with iWork.

What if I could start drawing shapes in Illustrator with my hands like I would on paper? Precisely laying out a magazine in InDesign with my finger tips, carefully gauging spacing with my eyes? How about burning and dodging photos in Photoshop with the flick of my wrist like I did in the darkroom? This would be a dream come true for all artists using a computer to output their work.

2. Give us a Designer’s UI
Adobe’s user interface is over 20 years old. I’m stuck using these bland controls from the 1988 era while companies like Apple and guys like this give us beautiful controls that are masterfully crafted.

An example of a tired old Adobe control element.

An example of a UI control from Brushes. Take note, Adobe.

3. Hire some Graphic Designers
Since the Macromedia merger it’s clear there’s been zero consulting with people who actually use Adobe’s creative software. Adobe UI Gripes points this out ad nauseam. Cryptic messages, inadequate type lists, abysmal handling of typography… Adobe needs to learn from its users.

4. Start Over. From Scratch.
Obviously, to implement any of these changes, you have to start over. All your software has to be rewritten to take advantage of today’s and future technology. This is tough when you’re sitting on a 20+ year-old code base, but look what’s happened to Windows. Bloated, slow, unintuitive, unfriendly. Sound familiar?

5. Lead.
When Apple announced the iPad, they invited some big names up on stage to demo their apps and show off their innovative approach to multi-touch software interaction. EA showed us a whole new way to play games. MLB showed us a new way to interact with sports. Apple showed us a new way to interact with spreadsheets. Then someone showed us a new way to approach creative arts. But it wasn’t Adobe on stage. It was Steve Sprang, a single developer who came up and showed us his Brushes app. This app is what Adobe should have been demoing and it should have been called Photoshop Touch. But instead, a multi-billion dollar company was trumped by one guy.

Leading will come naturally once Adobe gets its heart back in it and starts implementing the above ideas. It’s tough to lead, especially since Adobe has no competition in the Graphic Design field of software.

Adobe can be Great Again
In the 1990s, Apple and Adobe pioneered the great digital transition in the world of Graphic Design. We’re about to enter a new era with multi-touch interaction becoming more mainstream and I want to see Adobe at the forefront of this movement. I want to create with my hands, again, not using a mouse or stylus pen as a proxy. Adobe has the history to make it happen. I hope they do it before Apple, or someone else does. I hope Adobe is listening.

In 2000 I had the chance to interview Shepard Fairey over the phone as a Graphic Design project for school.

I remember the most interesting aspect of the interview was Mr. Fairey talking about the balance between his street art and commercial art. He said he would often cover up his commerical art (billboards) with street art.

He sent me an envelope of stickers a few days later. These are the stickers I held on to from that mailing. The rest have been stuck elsewhere.

More stickers on Flickr.

Jimmy and I have published our first iPhone app called Clapp. It’s super simple. Clapp plays 3 different types of clapping noises for use at any event that warrants a hardy clap.

It’s about as minimal as it gets, but we wanted to get something published just to go through the process. Now it’s on to something bigger and better! Ideas are welcome.

iTunes link to Clapp

I don’t point out other websites too often, but perspctv has put together a well designed mash-up of election related stats and articles. I’m a sucker for graphs, and perspctv has them. Great use of the Google Charts API.

Today I decided to download the 30 day trial of After Effects CS3. Of course, this meant navigating the Adobe website which always results in some type of unpleasant experience. Well, today was no different.

This time I was unable to download the trial because “Product trials are unavailable until July 1.”

“Why?” I asked myself. Surprisingly Adobe had an answer for me, although I’m surprised they were willing to admit their rather embarrassing mistake:

“During the month of June 2008, certain product trials that are launched for the first time (regardless of when they were installed) will function for only one day instead of 30 days, due to an error in a line of code that counts down the remaining days in a trial. You will not experience this issue if you have launched your trial before June 1, 2008, or do not launch it until July 1 or thereafter.”

And so, rather than taking the time to fix the problem Adobe would rather let it expire by not letting potential customers try out their product for a month. Pretty amazing.