nathan jara

In somewhat funny fashion, the clothing company GAP has switched their company logo back to its original after a short-lived redesign this week. The company, who has for a long time, sported a blue rectangular logo with a white classic typeface (right image), recently displayed on their website a new logo (left image), which honestly, seemed almost a joke. A quick Google search for “gap logo” will get you caught up on all the hullaballoo.

What’s probably more amusing is this website, Crap Logo, which allows you to create your very own, uhh “gap-like” logo. Enjoy :P

If you have the Google Chrome browser, a friend at work shared a really cool website with me today. It’s called The Wilderness Downtown. The website allows you to type in any address, preferably one that has been cataloged by Google Street View, and create a movie in your hometown. The application uses the street view of the address you type in along with the satellite imagery of that area as the backdrop for an online film. The application was created using new HTML 5 techniques for the Chrome Experiments project, which is a web development project that continues to explore and push the capabilities of the growing HTML 5 language. Half way through, you can interact with the movie using an HTML 5 canvas and custom font. Try yours, it’s pretty spiffy!

After several years of wanting to go, I finally made it down to the Three Rivers Arts Festival last night. It was a very nice event. There were many artists from not only the local Pittsburgh area, but also from around the country selling their artwork throughout the downtown area and in Point State Park. The art varied from painting, prints, sketches, drawing, sculpture, photography and fabric work. They also had some good food, of which, I indulged in a most enjoyable Italian sausage sandwich. The only disappointment of the night for me was the live music of Kris Kristofferson. I don’t think that type of music was the best choice for a sunny Friday night, but I guess they didn’t ask me. Overall, I’m definitely glad I went and would recommend you to check it out if you haven’t already or make a point to attend next year. The festival definitely inspired me to get back into art mode and start creating more again. Who knows, maybe I could have my own booth next year.

This video of the newest Photoshop CS5 feature is absolutely insane. It’s so crazy, I almost have to question the validity of the video. The new feature is called “Content-Aware” deletion and fill. It allows you to roughly select parts of an image and totally remove them without having to do any additional touch up work. This feature ultimately takes the place of what would normally be hours of work. I know I won’t be shelling out the bucks for the new Creative Suite, but I’m sure for many designers, this feature alone would be worth it.