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A Hilarious Designer's Post

From the Trenches of In-house Design…

Posted by: Thomas Stephan
Category: Dyer Straits
Bookmark on: del.icio.us

Wait…wait…what exactly do you think you’re doing there?

Okay, stop. Just…just stop…step away from the Microsoft WordArt toolbar right now.

I mean it.

That’s right. Put the mouse down, buddy. Now what exactly were you trying to do here?

You’re trying to show me how this brochure should look? Wow. Okay…I can accept that. I get the idea. But if I recall right, I left a proof of the brochure on your desk a week ago. You were supposed to get back to me about this because it was vital and super important.

Yeah — that folder there…the one that your coffee cup’s sitting on. No, under the book. To your left. Your left. Your other left. Yes.

You didn’t like it? Is that it? You…you didn’t like it? Can I ask why?

“It’s not purpley enough?” That’s your answer to the question as to why you didn’t like it, and why it’s been a coffee cup parking lot for a week? “You just don’t like it?”

I’m sorry — lemme pick my jaw up off the floor for a second. It’s probably over here next to the other three proofs I left on your desk. Okay…I’m back.

Now…you don’t like it and it’s not ‘purpley’ enough…anything else?

It doesn’t have the photos you want on it…okay…which photos?

The ones you have on your camera…at home…that I’ve never seen nor heard of until now…right.

Okay. Well - you go ahead and get me those photos and I’ll see what I can do about the “purple issue.”

Oh, you DO have the photos? Oh good! Well that saves some time.

They’re on your phone. Your camera phone. And they’re 1 inch wide by 1 inch tall. And you want them to be 4×6 inches each.

*sigh

Okay. I tell you what. Because you’ve asked for the impossible, and you want it yesterday, and you want me to read your mind, I’m going to save myself the hassle of designing and beat you to death with this imitation leather chair in your office. I’m killing you with this chair because it’s cheap, tacky and disposable, and therefore your equal in many respects.

Please don’t scream…it’s demeaning. And nobody will hear your feeble cries for help because they’re all wearing headphones to drown out those phone calls you make where you bray about your colonoscopy and just how BIG that probe was.

I’m sorry it had to come to this, really I am. But honestly, ‘purpley’ isn’t even a word, and this is the third time you’ve used it. I’ll make you a deal though; if any of the welts I’m going to leave are the right shade of ‘purpley,’ you can take a photo with your camera phone and I’ll try to get that blown up to a usable size.

See how well things go when we communicate? Now stop dodging me…this is a small office and you’re an easy target…

10 things your IT guy wants you to know

I didn't write this article, I found it here. But if you're in IT or a computer savvy person that become the IT person by default... then you'll enjoy this!

1. If you ask me technical questions please don’t argue with me because you don’t like my answer. If you think you know more about the topic, why ask? And if I’m arguing with you…it’s because I am positive that I am correct, otherwise I’d just say “I don’t know” or give you some tips on where to look it up, I don’t have the time to just argue for the sake of it.
2. Starting a conversation by insulting yourself (i.e. “I’m such an idiot”) will not make me laugh, or feel sorry for you; all it will do is remind me that yes, you are an idiot and that I am going to hate having to talk to you. Trust me; you don’t want to start a call that way.
3. I am ok with you making mistakes, fixing them is my job. I am not ok with you lying to me about a mistake you made. It makes it much harder to resolve and thus makes my job more difficult. Be honest and we can get the problem resolved and continue on with our business.
4. There is no magic “Fix it” button. Everything takes some amount of work to fix, and not everything is worth fixing or even possible to fix. If I say that you just need to re-do a document that you accidentally deleted 2 months ago, please don’t get mad at me. I’m not ignoring your problem, and it’s not that I don’t like you, I just cant always fix everything.
5. Not everything you ask me to do is “urgent”. In fact, by marking things as “urgent” every time, you almost ensure that I treat none of it as a priority.
6. You are not the only one who needs help, and you usually don’t have the most urgent issue. Give me some time to get to your problem, it will get fixed.
7. Emailing me several times about the same issue in the same day is not only unnecessary, it’s highly annoying. Emails will stay until I delete them, I won’t delete them until I’m done with them. I will typically respond as soon as I have a useful update. If it is an urgent issue, let me know (see number 5).
8. Yes, I prefer email over telephone calls. It has nothing to do with being friendly, it’s about efficiency. It is much faster and easier for me to list out a set of questions that I need you to answer than it is for me to call and ask you them one by one. You can find the answers at your leisure and while I’m waiting I can work on other problems.
9. Yes, I seem blunt and rude. It’s not that I mean to, I just don’t have the time to sugar coat things for you. I assume we are both adults and can handle the reality of a problem. If you did something wrong, I will tell you. I don’t care that it was a mistake, because it really makes no difference to me. Don’t take it personal, I just don’t want it to happen again.
10. And finally, yes, I can read your email, I can see what web pages you look at while you are at work, yes, I can access every file on your work computer, and I can tell if you are chatting with people on an instant messenger or chat room (and can also read what you are typing). But no, I don’t do it. It’s unethical, I’m busy, and in all reality you aren’t all that interesting. So unless I am instructed to specifically monitor or investigate your actions, I don’t. There really are much more interesting things on the internet than you.

How to Create Gradient Website Background (y axis)

This tutorial will walk you thru the basic steps required to create a background gradient similar to the one used on this site (and contained in the Bex01 serendipity template). Once you have completed this tutorial you will understand the principals involved and can make your own variations.

********** STEP 1: CREATE OUR .PSD INTERFACE FILE **********
Create a new file 120 pixels wide and 5 pixels high. Put the Resolution at 72 pixels/inch.
Set the background color to White. Name it something appropriate ie: backgrad.psd.

********** STEP 2: CREATE OUR GRADIENT LAYER **********
In the layers palette double click on the text "Background" (not the thumbnail). This will generate a pop-up window which will allow you to rename the layer and it will simultaneously unlock the layer. For the sake of simplicity, I’ve left the layer name default to Layer 0. With Layer 0 selected, choose edit --> fill (Shift F5) and fill the layer with black. If you wish to create your own gradient, in this step fill your layer with the general background color you desire on your website.


********** STEP 3: CREATE OUR GRADIENT **********
At the bottom of the layers palette is the cursive F (contained in a circle) which enables you to apply layers styles to your layer. Click on this cursive F and from the drop down menu associated with it, select "Gradient Overlay".



With the layer Style window open, click directly on the Gradient that is represented. This will pop-up the gradient editor. Choose a gradient (usually the second choice from the top left) from the presets which represents Foreground to Transparent. This specific gradient is a part of the default gradients that ship with Photoshop. If you have messed around with your gradients previously and do not have this gradient available as an option, in the gradient editor click on the small right pointing arrow to the far right of the word "presets" and from the drop menu choose "Reset Gradient".

Once your Foreground to Transparent gradient preset is selected, it will appear in the window under the preset choice. The color represented in the gradient is derived from your existing choice of foreground/background colors. Since my foreground/background colors are white/black - I will see white moving into transparency. Look at the image below to get a good handle on this.



Now click on the far left stop that appears under the gradient in the gradient editor. We need to change this color. By clicking on it, the color swatch appears referenced under Stops (directly below it). Click on the color swatch in the color picker pop-up enter the following: #2b646b. Click OK to exit the Color Picker. Your gradient should now show that color fading to transparent. Leave everything the way it is and click OK to exist the Gradient Editor. In the layer style your gradient should appear in the gradient overlay. Check the box next to the word Reverse. This will flip the gradient. Now change the Angle to 0.

We want the gradient "flipped" because on our website, we want the light color extending for the box area that defines the content of the website out to the edge of the browser. In effect, we need our background color to get lighter as it approaches our site (which is centered on the page).

Click OK to exit the Gradient Overlay style.



********** STEP 4: DUPLICATE OUR GRADIENT LAYER **********
With Layer 0 selected, right click on it and choose duplicate layer. Call this new layer "grad right". Now with the grad right layer selected, from the layers palette window choose the cursive f at the bottom and select "Gradient Overlay". Deselect the check box next to reverse. Your gradient flips. Click OK.

You should now have two layer files, both with identical gradients except than in grad right the gradient is opposite to layer 0.


********** STEP 5: SET OUR FILE UP FOR THE WEB **********
Now here is where the fun starts. In the case of Bex01, I know that my website is centered in the browser. I know that the width of my website is fixed at 750px. The width of my graphic is 120 pixels. I want the gradient appearing on the left side and the right side. The formula is simply 120 + 120 + 750. So the minimum width of my graphic needs to be 990 pixels. However, I don’t want my background to repeat on a screen both on the x and y axis, so I’ll extend that width to 1000 pixels.

In Photoshop go to Image --> Canvas Size. Enter a width value of 1000 pixels and select the box so that the pixels will be added to the right side.




Select the Move Tool and then select the "grad right" layer. holding down the shift key drag that layer until it is positioned to the far right.

You will notice that the area in the middle is transparent. We need to fill that area with our teal green color. To do this, create a new layer (Shift Ctrl N on the PC | Shift Command N on the Mac) and fill it (Shift f5) with #2b646b. Drag this layer in the layers palette window to the bottom of the stack. Your layers palette should resemble the following.



You are now basically finished. Save your file as a .psd. Once you have it saved, choose "save as" and save it out as background.jpg or choose save for web and save a copy as .gif.

********** STEP 6: ADD THE CSS TO OUR WEB PAGE **********
On your webpage put the following html in your css. For your background color specify the general background color you choose in Step 2.



body {
margin:0 auto;
padding:0px 0px 0px 0px;
background:#000000 url(yourpicture.jpg) top center repeat-y;
}

How to Create a Background Layer

	This is a very basic, but yet extremely useful tutorial which will teach you how to an appealing background texture/pattern for your website. Start off by opening your Adobe Photoshop application. Then create a new Photoshop document. In order to create a new Photoshop document, you need to go to ‘File > New…’ *or simply by double-clicking anywhere on the empty workspace. Once you have done this, you should notice a ‘New’ dialog opening on the workspace. View Figure1 below as an illustration and reference to the values which you need to input into the prompting fields. Figure 1 Once you have filled in all the fields as shown in Figure1 above, you may press ‘Ok’ to continue with the creation of you new Photoshop document. This is a very small document which we are creating, but it will simply serve as a pattern for implementation on other designs. Press ‘Z’ to select the ‘Zoom Tool’. Now zoom in as much as possible. You will now select the ‘Pencil Tool’ from the ‘Toolbox’. View Figure2 below as an illustration to selecting the ‘Pencil Tool’. Figure 2 With the ‘Pencil Tool’ actively selected, you will now right-click anywhere on the stage of the new document to reveal the size preferences of the tool. Select the 1px size and click anywhere outside of the stage. Closely observe Figure3 below, for you need to clone the structure and effect as shown in Figure3 below. Simply click once with the ‘Pencil Tool’ on the corresponding positions to make a square dot. Figure 3 After you have achieved the same result as shown in Figure3 above, you are now ready to save the pattern for further implementation. If you are satisfied with the design, go to ‘Edit > Define Pattern…’ and notice a dialog opening on the workspace. This dialog will require you to type the appropriate name according to your personal preferences. View Figure4 below as an illustration to this step. Figure 4 We have now created a custom pattern, and thus we are ready to implement this pattern into our desired design. Create another new document. You can do this by going to ‘File > New…’ *or simply by double-clicking on the empty workspace. This will open up a ‘New’ dialog. View Figure5 below as a reference and exact illustration to the values which you need to enter into the prompting fields of this dialog. Figure 5 If you have filled in all the fields as shown in Figure5 above, you may press ‘Ok’ to continue creating the new document. Now move over to the ‘Layers’ panel. If the ‘Layers’ panel is not visible on your workspace, you can make it visible by going to ‘Window > Layers’ *or by pressing ‘F7’ as a keyboard shortcut. You will notice that there is one, empty layer named ‘Layer1’. We will now fill this layer with the pattern which we have saved previously. You can use the fill action by going to ‘Edit > Fill…’ *or by pressing ‘Shift’ + ‘F5’ as a keyboard shortcut. When you do this, you will notice a dialog opening on the workspace. View Figure6 below as a reference to the values which you need to input. Figure 6 You will notice, as seen in Figure6 above, that I have chosen the pattern which we created earlier on. Once you have done this, you may press ‘Ok’ to fill this layer with the pattern. Now rename ‘Layer1’ as ‘texture’. You can rename the layer by double-clicking directly on the text/caption of the layer and then typing the new name at the insertion point. Now create a new layer in the ‘Layers’ panel. You can do this by going to ‘Layer > New > Layer…’ *or by pressing ‘Ctrl’ + ‘Shift’ + ‘N’ as a keyboard shortcut. You should notice a dialog opening on the workspace. View Figure7 below as a reference to the values which needs to be entered. Figure 7 We are almost done with this tutorial. There is one last step which needs to be completed. Move over to the ‘Layers’ panel. You will notice that the ‘background color’ layer is above the ‘texture’ layer in the ‘Layers’ panel. Simply click and drag the ‘background color’ layer below the ‘texture’ layer in the ‘Layers’ panel. Move over to the color box which is situated on the ‘Toolbox’. You will now change the primary/foreground color to the color which you would prefer to use. I have chosen to use #009CFF as my foreground/primary color. View Figure8 below as an illustration. Figure 8 Ensure that you have the ‘background color’ layer selected in the ‘Layers’ panel. Now fill the ‘background color’ layer with the foreground/primary color. This can be done by going to ‘Edit > Fill…’ *or by pressing ‘Shift’ + ‘F5’ as a keyboard shortcut. When the ‘Fill’ dialog opens up on the workspace, simply press ‘Ok’. We have completed this tutorial, and you may view the background texture which I have created in Figure9 below. You can use the same idea and effect to create different textures and effects. Figure 9 I have decided to transform the ‘background color’ layer to a gradient of two different color shades. You can play around with different effects, filters and other features. View Figure10 below as my final result. Figure 10 (Final Result) Thanks to Tutorialized.com for this tutorial!