A great point made by Jay Nelson regarding buying a QuarkXPress 7 upgrade now.

In summary, if you buy QuarkXPress 7 now, Quark have promised you can have QuarkXPress 8 ‘for free’ when it launches, probably in August 2008 by the sound of the press releases.

Why is this useful? Because if you don’t, and at some point buy QXP8, you will not be able to save down from QXP8 to QXP6 for example. QuarkXPress versions only save up and down one level.

Good point, well made!

Interesting attempt by Quark at a community site: ilovedesign.com

It massively misses the mark from a digital marketing perspective. It’s too obviously and painfully salesy, rather than building on the community aspect first. Designers are a tight-knit community. Unless they’re already rabidly pro-Quark, this will just naff them off.

Clean design though, and the portfolio will be great once it has a few more uploaders.

What is scary is David Carson’s desktop. Good grief, if that’s true, I bet he doesn’t have a clear desk policy.

An interesting article about Small Caps from I Love Typography.

Small caps are one of those things that I’ve never noticed properly before. I understand little about typography but I am intrigued and find letterforms and font design very beautiful.

One of the examples is small caps within a piece of text talking about PRIDE and HUMILITY.  This is were I have probably seen small caps used most, in older text and old-fashioned novels. Still I shall see if I can find some small caps used correctly elsewhere today. But it won’t be online as it seems these unusual font types are not respected by the www.

I wonder how many specialist ‘font grammar’ items like this will be lost in time.

Clever video about printing being alive and kicking, and being a vocation.

He makes some great points about why computers can’t compete with the printed word. If I had a print job and they were in my neighbourhood, they’d get the gig.

(Apparently it’s an homage to a set of videos called Regrets which are also well done, if a little dark in their humour. I had previously seen a video micky-taking ad agency video which attacks the truly jaw-droppingly awful agency.com video. This was all from some time ago but priceless.)

This is a pretty website design, not great SEO but you can’t have everything. I’m not a big fan of moving graphics or excessive Flash, but this is strangely relaxing. (Text is too small though.)

I see hundreds of design companies websites and, although they are often passable, it’s rare that they are beautiful. Weird.

And no, our website isn’t beautiful, but it works and we’re not showcasing our design abilities.

I won’t make any jokes about a $ being worth tuppence because, even so, $25k of tuppences is worth a whole heap.

X-Ray magazine is running a free-to-enter giveaway for oodles of creative goodies. Well, free apart from surrendering your precious email address and the usual marketing grab for personal information but that’s because there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Not least, you can win a copy of our software LinkUP Pricing. This is our company blog! Impressively also up for grabs; a copy of QuarkXPress 7, the Canadian edition of QXP 7 (eh?!), the Latin American edition, QXP Passport and some upstart called Adobe Creative Suite.

With all this, you could start your own Design Company. If you happen to be a trained Designer.

In case you missed it, Quark has launched a new microsite: Quark Labs.

Interesting that the homepage is mostly made up of a huge set of legal terms and conditions. I suppose they have to cover themselves but, hey, there’s no need to ram it down our throats.

You can also download a free version of Shadowcaster, previously owned by A Lowly Apprentice (ALAP), recently bought out by Quark.

They seem to be after some free market research and QA testing but that is all to the general good. There is a forum for you to comment on their latest new bells and whistles. And I shall certainly be downloading all the freebies and see what they do.

It also mentions “you can also gain access to limited editions of earlier software releases”, which would be mega-useful, I just can’t find where…

That Macbook Air is pretty isn’t it? Almost makes me want a Mac. Almost, until the price tag made me make the usual ‘I could buy a car for that’ argument.

What I don’t understand is why any of the PC manufacturers can’t employ some young, cool, idea-full designer to create something that can compete. It’s not like other brands don’t make thin, expensive laptops. They just don’t go all the way and do it properly. It’s not like us uncool, suit-wearing PC guys don’t like a bit of sexy gadgetry.

Come on Dell, HP, whoever, give us some Windows based laptop to blog about. And make it cheaper. Or greener. Greener is good too.

I’d feel as smug as Mac Guy if I could sit in Starbucks with a beautiful but green-credentialed laptop knowing I wasn’t rolling with the ‘in crowd’.

Nice joke 21 Jan: PC Weenies

I love Future Now. They have a great newsletter full of actionable news. They have great books, full of actionable ideas. But, oh my god, do they need a Designer at that company. Or they need to hire one. And a logo designer wouldn’t go amiss either. I’m not sure why, but their website reminds me of the 90s.

Now, our website isn’t a thing of astounding beauty but at least I got a Designer to design it for me. I’m currently reading ‘Call to Action’ – original version with perhaps the worst dust jacket known to man – and note that at least they got it redesigned for the new version.

So I’m wondering. Why exactly do businesses scrimp on design, when there are so many Designers ready to turn you into the next Apple for a reasonable fee. Yes, I know that it takes more than great design to be the next Apple; packaging is important too .

Perhaps there is a better way to find a Designer than I know about. Style is certainly as important as substance online these days, but where do you buy style?

There are some helpful sites that I am at a lost to see how they ‘monetise’ their work. TinyURL.com being one of them. Or rather, I’m amazed that people are sensible enough not to be too greedy.
This is such a useful site that I use all the time, and have seen being used by countless others, I’m amazed it hasn’t been bought by Google. That said, I suppose they get a pretty penny from the Adsense ads. I really wonder who gives money by those donation buttons. I have once, so with billion’s of hits I suppose a tiny fraction giving a tiny amount makes it a good business.

I’m intrigued how it ‘never expires’ either. Gosh, people are clever.