moamoa Jan 2, 09, 7:41 p.m.

Your site's down! Just went to check your folio and get a look at the scalable images, since I'm considering doing the same for my site. Instead of the site loading, I got some really weird looking error.

Anyway, if you're doing maintenance and were already aware, as you were. But, on the very real chance that MikeJ has taken his crush into the realm of hacking, thought you might care to know.
At any rate, Happy New Year :)

Halp Dec 29, 08, 3:16 p.m.

Stuck down here in the land of casseroles and kudzu, AKA lower Alabama. Staying @ my wife's aunt's house while visiting the rest of her family. The family and their house is quite nice but there's nary a drop of booze in this town, and zounds but the boredom is palpable.

Right now: we are actually watching a beauty pageant on TV that my wife's cousin was in. The prize at stake: being the female representative of the lower southern peanut industry. I shit ye not.

*stoves head in with corner of laptop

Stay or Go? Dec 22, 08, 9:21 a.m.

Just found out I'm getting a generous bonus this year and some additional investment in my 401k, but no raises for any of us. I've carved off a healthy pound of flesh for the company this year, and feel I should be making 10–20k more.

Poll: Should I stay and be grateful to have a job at a prestigious firm that allows me to make ends meet, or should I dust off the resume and set dynamite to metagramme.com to make way for the new 'folio? Even with the bonus, I will most likely have to take on some freelance work since I am a new father and since my wife wants to stay home with our son as much as possible.

What would Bringhurst do? Dec 3, 08, 3:36 p.m.

So, I know in proper typography, small caps are used for acronyms, but not pronouns. I've always thought it's best to use a single letterspace in pronouns such as C. S. Lewis.

My question is, when typesetting U.S. or U.S.A., do you add space after periods or not? U. S. looks a bit odd to my eye, but I could be wrong.

The Devil Nov 26, 08, 11:14 a.m.

and his had me down. In love with the dark side I fell, dabbling all the way down. But you changed that all for me—you lifted me up, turned me round.

...Incredibly redemptive words from such a doubting Thomas.

slapist Nov 26, 08, 11:19 a.m.

Get back to work. Earn your turkey.

Work with gramme Nov 18, 08, 11:37 a.m.

http://www.qbn.com/topics/573049…

Email me if interested. Cheers and thanks.

Can this be done w/ Wordpress? Nov 17, 08, 7:02 p.m.

Many of you know I redesigned my church's logo earlier this year. I'm now getting down to the website. The current one is atrocious, but it's easy for church people to work with. They have this software that publishes updates to the calendar and each ministry section.

The question: would one of you programming gurus mind poking around the current site a bit, and tell me if you think the functionality could be transposed into Wordpress? I ask b/c I'm not a programmer, they have very little money, and they need to regularly update content. I'm open to any and all suggestions. If it must be coded from scratch, let me know.

http://www.twinoakschurch.org/

Cheers,

ZOUNDS! Nov 7, 08, 8:45 a.m.

Now that's one heavy slab of water. I don't know if that can even be called a wave.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/…

*shudders

moamoa Oct 15, 08, 7:30 p.m.

Here you go, please try not to make this a train wreck.

gramme Jr. has finally arrived! Oct 10, 08, 7:37 p.m.

Graham Benjamin Steel was born on October 8 at 4:21 am. He weighed in at 7 lb. and 19.25" long. Both mother and baby are doing fine, we got home this afternoon and are looking forward to not sleeping in a hospital tonight.

And no, I did not name my son after my screen name.

http://www.facebook.com/album.ph…

ichunes advice Oct 3, 08, 9:15 a.m.

Got a hankerin for some new music. I like Deftones but not Taproot. I like Iron & Wine but not Belle & Sebastian. Considering Spoon. Perhaps something heavier, though I can't abide heavy music that lacks melody. Advise me.

Deep Fried Sep 19, 08, 8:08 a.m.

Have worked every weekend for two months straight. Worked 8:45 AM till 3 AM the other day. Am on the verge of total burnout. Have developed an annoying twitch in my left eye from lack of sleep. Our first baby is coming very soon and I will be extra pissed if I can barely pull myself away from work to spend time with him.

So glad the weekend is upon us. Thanks for listening,

[ end rant ]

Brand Question Sep 13, 08, 8:44 a.m.

So over the past couple years we've designed a bunch of product logotypes for a client of ours. For over a year the accepted convention has been "Product Name by Client" (fill in the blank w/ product name and client name).

Now, all of a sudden, even after previously approving the verbiage in all logotypes, the client's legal department is saying we can't say "by Client" after the product name because the pronoun in that case becomes an adjective. I'm no English expert, but I did pay attention in high school grammar. Doesn't ring true to me. It's always been my impression that a pronoun can never become an adjective.

Yes? No? Am I mistaken? I'm up against the possibility of having to re-jigger all 20 some-odd logotypes and would frankly rather not.

HTML comp question Sep 13, 08, 2:11 p.m.

Pardon me if this is a noob question, but what pixel height do you web designers typically use when designing comps for a website that will be primarily HTML...not extremely content-rich, but some vertical scrolling required? I'm working at 950 px wide. I had it set at 650 px high but am finding that a bit restrictive. I don't wanna make it too tall but don't know of a standard convention.

THX

Logotype Critique Aug 30, 08, 11:58 a.m.

OK, I swear I usually do work for people outside of the church ;)

This is for a friend's college ministry in the research triangle area of NC. It's a huge group as far as those things go.

The name of the church affiliated with the ministry is Church of The Good Shepherd. So, I thought a simple logotype would be most appropriate. I've narrowed it down to what you see here. I wanted to subtly hint at a shepherd's crook with the lowercase f, rather than try to make some gimicky shield or crest like I was asked (ugh).

I typically think containing a logotype in an oval or circle can be a cop-out, but in this case it reinforces the idea of a flock or group being unified. I'm leaning towards one direction but would appreciate some feedback first.

http://metagramme.com/Flock_dd1_…

Let 'er rip.

Font suggestions Aug 24, 08, 2:31 p.m.

Looking for a script that feels French, although it can't be too specifically baroque. Bickham isn't cutting it. My knowledge of scripts is much shallower than sans & serif. Any suggestions?

Style Guide Question Aug 7, 08, 8:57 a.m.

For those that have designed & written style guides: if the guidelines are mainly for in-house secretary types (who are just now learning InDesign) rather than designers, and you want to make sure no one ever tries to re-create the logo from scratch, what is the point in showing the logo's construction? I've seen/done both ways. Sometimes people diagram the crap out of the logo, and then again sometimes they just show it without describing what's under the hood, so to speak. Just wondering what you guys think.

Nice Binders Jul 21, 08, 2:24 p.m.

Need a good looking one to house my church's brand standards. Lost Luggage is a bit pricey. I'm gonna print them here on Superfine or some other decent archival uncoated sheet (they only need one copy).

What do you guys use?

Thx,
gramme

Kerning Check Jul 8, 08, 9:46 a.m.

Kerning experts:

This is the final logo for my church, many of you helped quite a bit in the critique phase. The design is locked in, but I'm trying to finesse the kerning. It's a bit problematic in "OAKS". I'm looking at spacing the letters in two ways. Have a look here and let me know what you guys think. Presenting the final final tonight w/ color options.

http://metagramme.com/TOPC_KERN_…