John Brighenti | January 27, 2012
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Designing for Tablets: Feeling My Way Around in the Dark

Cracked TabletWhy designing for a tablet may just kill me…

So for a project at work, we’ve been tasked to come up with designs for tablets, now.

I thought just worrying about browsers was a tremendous pain. Now there are varying resolutions that need to be taken into account. Is it 1024 x 768? 1280 x 800? I’ve seen some sites say to keep it at 1000 or less for landscape. It’s enough to pull one’s hair out.

Oh and androids have pixel densities too, so apparently if I make anything in bitmap form, I need multiple copies in different sizes.

Aye yai yai.

I think I wish I stood in bed.

Category: Graphic Design, Miscellaneous, Personal Stuff, Web Design | Tags: , , , , , ,
John Brighenti | January 24, 2012
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Winter blahs, or how I need to get off my butt and get outdoors.

Melting snow

Even in the dead of winter, beauty is easily found.

This winter continues to march on, however it is particularly frustrating. By any stretch of the imagination, it has been extremely mild. By this time last year, we were basking in a cumulative total of about four and a half feet of snow, this year I’d be shocked if we broke a foot. However, I tend to be a man of extremes.

I feel that if mother nature wants the weather to be mild, then make it nice out. if she wants it to be a whirling ball of suck, then make the snow fall and temperatures plummet. Lately it’s been a case of “not quite warm enough to do things outdoors” syndrome and so I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to get out and shoot photos, or to hike, walk or hit the bike trails.

Of course, that’s all in my head. I should probably just suck it up and go out anyway. Even though the ground is sloppy, the temperatures less than ideal and the skies a perpetual grey, there are tons of things to do. The question is when does one stop using mother nature as an excuse and get out there and do them!

Category: Miscellaneous, Personal Stuff, Photography | Tags: , , , ,
John Brighenti | January 23, 2012
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My wife is on quite the tear…

When you have a second, stop over to Josette’s blog and check out her latest posts. She opens up and holds no punches about vinyl siding and vinyl windows. If you are passionate about historic architecture and old-world quality, and abhor mass-produced mediocrity, then then these posts should resonate with you.

http://brighentiinteriors.wordpress.com/

Category: Miscellaneous |
John Brighenti | January 18, 2012
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Feeling Grim

grim

Grim

After a lot of tinkering I wanted to share an image that I will probably sell as a print, due to popular demand :)

Designed in Illustrator, this piece started out as a quick ‘doodle’ that I wanted to try something new with (the curly lines). After showing my wife and some friends, amazingly to my surprise I got some great feedback on it but felt it needed tweaking before I released it.

So, here it is after said tweaking. I hope you like it!

Pretty soon I plan on putting this print, among other prints of my illustrations and photography, for sale on Etsy. I’ll keep everyone informed of the progress of that.

Category: Graphic Design, Personal Stuff, Stygma Grafix | Tags: , , , , , , ,
John Brighenti | January 12, 2012
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Going into Battle…

After I got home from work, last night I fell asleep and woke up around 1…ish… or so. Faced with the decision, should I go to bed and try to go back to sleep or just stay up, I sat down with a book and chose the latter.

Read more

Category: Graphic Design, Miscellaneous, Personal Stuff | Tags: , , , ,
John Brighenti | January 10, 2012
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‘Restoring the Forgotten Lady’

When you have a moment, please hop over to my wife’s blog. We’re in the processes of restoring a very large c.1890 victorian house and her blog is pretty much a running commentary on the progress. She is very passionate about historical preservation and so having the opportunity to live in a house your restoring is something she (and me as well!) really enjoys.

Feel free to contact her about business opportunities as well. Her business specializes in historical preservation and home improvement consulting.

http://brighentiinteriors.wordpress.com

Category: Miscellaneous, Personal Stuff | Tags: , , , ,
John Brighenti | January 10, 2012
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Portfolio Galleries updated.

Finally after some arranging, caffeine and swearing, I think I have my portfolio galleries to where I want them to be. I was also able to integrate swf embedding into my galleries, so I can have thumbnail previews of my swf interactives.

Category: Miscellaneous, Stygma Grafix |
John Brighenti | January 9, 2012
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Interactive Flash

You don’t have to be a dedicated programmer to whip up something neat in flash. All you need to do is have a basic understanding of actionscript and some creativity and you can do a lot of neat stuff.

Below is an interactive I create for a client (I removed branding and any sensitive text) that uses simple actionscript. Is it the correct way to use it? Absolutely not. It’s graphic designer code, but it’s a stepping stone toward learning more intricate ways of doing things with flash.

Feel free to play around with it.

Category: Graphic Design, Miscellaneous, Personal Stuff, Stygma Grafix | Tags: , , , , , , ,
John Brighenti | January 8, 2012
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Another Blog?

Well, I figured I’d give this blogging thing another go. I decided to do away with he custom portfolio at this time. It was simply a pain in the butt to maintain every time I wanted to add a new image.

With a full-time job, finding the time to do such a thing can be a bit prohibitive, so I figure I could just find a way to embed swfs in wordpress if I want to show off my interactive skills to potential clients and employers.

Switching back to a blog format allows me to do more than have ‘just a portfolio’. It allows for interaction, off the cuff posts and it even will allow me to post the occasional music review now and then, which I have been itching to do. I did that for nearly twelve years, it’s a hard habit to shake!

Anyway, please come back often and feel free to register and comment on posts. This is my blog, but I’d love to make a pseudo artist/graphic designer discussion community.

Category: Personal Stuff, Stygma Grafix |