adam wagler

Tuesday, November 13th, 2007

For the Lazy Guitarist

A self-tuning les paul…

Monday, November 12th, 2007

Photoshop Express

This will be interesting to see how it works out, but Adobe has been talking about a web based version on photoshop. Also, showed a new logo for the “photoshop family.”

Monday, November 12th, 2007

Books, Books, and more Books!

Now that I am teaching at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the Advertising Sequence I have started to receive “desk copies” of books. It is alway awesome to get new information and currently I have four books to look though at my leisure.

I should say I am going to be teaching a new course, New Media Design, at UNL. The title is pretty vague and covers a huge area of study, we will be focusing on web designs and development and how it fits into IMC. Also, get into other applications such as blogs, rss feeds, and social networking sites. I will post more as we get started, but I plan on using a class blog if you interested in following along. I am using a couple other books for the Spring semester, “Naked Conversations” and “Don’t Make Me Think” but I am looking at some different options, here’s my initial thoughts.

“New Media Design” by Tricia Austin & Richard Doust — Great color photos and looks like a nice overview of all the facets of New Media Design, will be a nice resource starting out.

“Learning Web Design: A Beginner’s Guide to (X)HTML, Style Sheets, and Web Graphics” by Jennifer Niederst Robbins and Aaron Gustafson — This book is wonderful so far, a great overview of what it takes to make a website from start to finish. It begins with the basics and works up to more advanced subjects. It is published by O’Reilly which I am a fan of but will also be a great resource for this class and for students who don’t have any web background.

“Street-Smart Advertising: How to Win the Battle of the Buzz” by Margo Berman — Haven’t had much time to look through this one but looks like decent design book starting with typography, design elements, and campaign strategies. It also gets into self-promotion which I think is good for college students who are beginning to think about a career after school. It is black and white so fits nicely into a student’s budget.

“Hot-Wiring Your Creative Process: Strategies for print and new media designers (VOICES) ” by Curt Cloninger — At first glance this book looks great. It goes into the workflow for desginers with concepts and history as well as interviews with professionals. Visually stimulating, which should be obvious given the title. I look forward to looking at this book further in depth.