The new look for the GROK site.

We are redoing the GROK site, and we are almost finished. The new features of the GROK site will include: a totally redone site written in php and javascript rather than flash, a shop where you can download web commodities for free and buy others, a totally new portfolio system, and a uniform style across the whole site. To give you a feel for how the site is going to look in general we have started revamping the hatchery. I did a lot of programming today, and the few art assets that haven’t been revamped would be if it were not for internet explorer’s inability to get with the CSS program. Had to write a bunch of new fixed for IE. Anyway, hope you enjoy the preview, the completely new GROK site should be launching in the next week.

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Allods Online

John and I have been beta testing this new MMORPG Allods Online. Adam has sworn off all MMOs since getting over his addiction to the digital crack that is World of Warcraft (WOW), but we have been enjoying ourselves while he plays Xplorers. Anyway, it is a real cool clone of WOW available to you if you have a gpotato account. When I say clone, I mean clone;  John says it reminds him a lot of WOW vanilla. I think it’s a little more steam punk than WOW, but generally it is the same thing. Only it’s free, and just because you clone something does not mean what you created is terrible (great artists steel).  When it comes it MMOs you really can not go wrong ripping off WOW. They have done a wipe, and the open beta is starting today. However, we were supposed to be able to login as of 2pm EST, but so far I have had no luck. Try it out for your self, let me know what you think.

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GROK’s New Intern

At the turn of the year Grok began the apprenticeship of a new intern, me. My name is Kevin Osborn. I am currently studying many aspects of graphic design and will be graduating in May.

For about three weeks, I have been interning with the guys at Grok. They have started off by involving me in internal projects that I’ve really enjoyed so far. I have already gained experiential knowledge on collaborating with other people involved in the same project and taking someone else’s verbalized concept and visualizing it into a proficient design characteristically accurate to their stipulations.

I am going through a process of creating a font based off of Grok’s signature “G”. Although I have studied typography in the past, this is my first experience of designing a font. The most prominent challenge, so far, has been creating something that is unique, visually pleasing, and in line with the style of the font while retaining the legibility of the letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and other characters. Some forms have been exceedingly enjoyable to work on while others have proven themselves more of a challenge. It is a process, but I know when it is all said and done that I will find no greater joy than to type with the Grok font that I so tediously slaved over. At least for the first 20 seconds.

I have also been fortunate enough to give my input on the upcoming new logo for Grok (John’s design there dictated a lot of my decisions in the font making process also.). That being said, both the font and logo will truly represent Grok showing that they are both well-rounded and cutting-edge.

While on the topic of Grok’s versatility, there is another project that I worked on over the past week. I was given the task of designing and creating a typographic ad that will be published in comics Grok will be doing digital inking and digital coloring for. After some research on typographic designs and comics I decided that incorporating subtle elements of the comic book would be a brilliant idea. I took into account the reading pattern of a comic book as I designed the layout and finished it off with a background representative of half-tone printing done with comics prior to the 80’s. I’ll admit, not all of these ideas flooded me at once, it took a couple days. But after a few attempts, with the direction of my “supervisors” a final product was formed.

I will be interning with Grok through June. I am looking forward to spending the next few months under the wing of Martin, Adam, and John. If the past few weeks have been any sort of indication, I trust that we will retain a long-lasting relationship wherever our futures lie.

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Robinson’s Eco-Economics and Practical Applications

As you may know I consider myself a bit of an expert on science fiction literature. This may be a conceit, but there it is. Recently I have been working my way through Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy. While I have really enjoyed these books, in some ways it has been a very difficult read for me, because my own personal economic and political philosophies clash drastically with those of Robinson. I’m more of a “Heinlein Libertarian”, while Robinson is a “Green Socialist”, and he refers to libertarians in Green Mars as anarchists who want protection from their slaves. I took a bit of offense, but I have to be honest this book has greatly influenced my thinking; especially when it comes to Robinson’s eco-economics.

I have never really believed in the validity of the labor theory of value. I agree in principle that ownership of labor should be every person’s intrinsic right. However, the idea that the value of a commodity is directly related to the labor used to create them only holds so much water. Sure, everyone should receive fair compensation for their work. But, if it takes me 5 hours to design a website layout, and it takes a brain surgeon 5 hours to remove a tumor from your noggin, which act has more value? I thought so.

But, eco-economics can be applied to a system where labor has different values. As I understand it the precept behind eco-economics is that one should put in an equal amount (or greater amount) into an economic system than one takes out of it so that the system remains anti-entropic. Robinson suggests a “need & gift” economy to institute this system, which has some flaws (such as taxes on personal savings to avoid wealth hording), but at a basic level is very practical. You’ll have to read the Mars Trilogy to learn more about this “need & gift” economy since I definitely do not have the space to write a dissertation here (nor the time). In economic times such as we are currently experiencing in the United States this eco-economics has a lot of appeal. Take the bailouts of 2009; they were a clear example that our Keynesian economic system is so slanted toward benefiting a small portion of our population that is damaging to our social ecology. When we bailed out these financial institutions be basically privatized wealth while socializing risk and loss. The idea that this benefits us all is completely beyond the pale. While there is some truth that allowing these companies to fail would be damaging to many the reality is that what these large corporations pay in is not what they take out by a long shot. When loss is socialized like this it does not benefit the general populous. In fact the nature of loans made to large corporations (whether banks or military contractors or whatever) is inherently counter to the previously mentioned eco-economical precept. When these companies borrow money from the Federal Reserve (Fed) the Fed prints that money for them, they get first use of that money and the interest they pay on it (in the quick turnaround time of such a lone) is below the devaluation of money caused by adding that liquidity to the market in the form of free floating capital. In effect these companies are sucking value right out of the system with out even directly producing a good or service. That sounds counter productive to me.

So what’s the alternative? Well off the top of my head I can think of a couple. One might be a loan fund where people had a minimum buy in of say $100. The fund promises a guaranteed return on that investment of say 12% so long as the needed funds are raised (otherwise money is returned or a lower rate goes into effect). Companies back the loan with reductions in personal debt or bonds depending on the company’s relationship to the individual. People can choose to pay into the fund rather than the government mandating the use of their money, and companies people feel will be more successful will receive larger capital contributions. These companies turn around and use that money just like they would use the bailout money, only now they are adding greater liquidity to the market, and they are paying back in more than or equal to what they take out (depending on inflation). Everyone gets what they need and no one has to give up ownership or equity. Obviously this is not fleshed out but I think it is a good start.

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Free Stuff - Backgrounds

I change my desktop background about as often as I change my pants, there’s a once a day minimum on pants/background changing. In the before times I used to flip through the same 50 or so collected backgrounds I had snagged from around the Internet over the last 10 years or so. Last week I had a considerable amount of downtime so I decided that in lieu of just simply changing my desktop I’d make my own, after all I had the time and needed to do something that could be construed as at least mildly productive. After doing the first one I was hooked, I platformed two of my favorite addictions, making stuff and desktop backgrounds. Why this didn’t happen earlier I really cant say but its happened and here I am to share the fruits of my labor on less then busy days. All backgrounds are made for 1600×1200 resolution and some are a little large, in the 1.5mb+ range,  and all were made in CS4 Illustrator.

Texted :

Started off as a text collage, I then got really copy happy, then angry with the brush tool. The results - you can almost read the word GROK, and somewhere in there there’s colours that aren’t black, white or grey.

Fake :

Similar to Texted but much more brush happy, maybe to the point of overkill, then again it only took about 10mins from idea to finish. The results - you can almost read “do what you must”  and the whole things been combed with the Warp Tool into an ink splattered mess.

Understood :

Unabashed company plugging meets 1000 vector lines. The results - Take two vector lines, press W set yourself to 1000 steps and its go time, the monogram G and tag-line set under a moire pattern, class condensed.

Wasted :

More fun with the blend tool and the division of space, originally named wasted as in wasted time, took a while to become happy with this one . The results - descending blocks of blended vectors, gentle divisions and a warm comfy colour palate give you a big minimalistic hug to set your day in the right direction.

-Adam

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Stumbling, it’s awesome.

Stumbling, it’s awesome. In a society of media junkies, new and informative ways to gorge ourselves on delectable content are always welcome. And when that new fount of fun co-insides with work it’s even more diverting. Stumbleupon.com is my latest foray into media addiction, having accumulated almost four hundred “favorites” in as little as a month. Ranging from web design tools, to photoblogs, to funny videos, to top ten lists, to photoshop tutorials, to recipe sites, I can definitively say I’m hooked.

It is encouraging to see that such a community exists, as through stumbling I have found some resources that I use on a regular basis. Such as; www.bittbox.com ,   a great place to start on a search for free textures, and www.psdeluxe.com, with some awesome blog posts and lists on creative tools for todays’ savvy designers.

Oh, and a few favorites:

awesome fridge magnet:
www.onemoregadget.com/photoshop-magnet-kit-for-a-design-nuts-fridge/

awesome packaging:
www.krftd.com/special_report/transparent-mystery

awesome product design:
www.recyclart.org/2009/07/lighting-made-of-galvanized-iron

awesome public art:
www.yawoot.com/post/3206

awesome illustration tutorials:
www.tutorial9.net/resources/15-of-the-best-character-illustration-tutorials-online

awesome photoshop tutorial:
www.psdtop.com/blog/basic/understanding-blending-modes/

another awesome photoshop tutorial:
www.digitalartform.com/archives/2009/06/custom_halftone.html

awesome posters:
www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/09/30-typography-posters-that-youve-probably-never-seen-before/

awesome museum:
www.moma.org

awesome tech:
www.dvice.com/archives/2009/08/color-picker-pe.php

-john

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3rd Ward: Fall Solo Show Submissions Opening Soon

So, I’m not a big one for picking news items out of other people’s blogs. Hell, if I wanted a blog like that I could just write a robot to go around finding blogs by tags and dropping them into our blog without regard for stlye, ingenuity, display, or the fact that some people get pissed off when you rip off their content; especially when you remove their links (I’m talking to you planet-x.com.au). Still, I think I’ll go and rip some content anyway.

To give credit where credit is due; you should checkout Design Glut, I know I’ve already recommended them in the Sexy Links section, but they wrote the story on 3rd Ward so they should get the credit. Their original story is here.

3rd Ward is a member based design center for professionals in my old stomping grounds of Williamsburg Brooklyn.  Their beginnings sound much like ours. Durring their early days they engaged in menial labor to make ends meet, and worked out how to live with each other (in leu of being overnight super stars). Our parties have been less successful at paying rent than theirs were, in fact we rarely exceed breaking even, but que ser a ser a (perhaps we should serve cheaper beverages). Today 3rd Ward is a thriving company. They provide freelancers with a place to work: with photo studios (bah we have one of those, oh 4 you say, well then), a shop (we have access to one), and a degital media lab (ha ha we definitely have a state of the art one of those), and they do a bunch of classes (okay I think I have 3rd Ward envy). Apparently they were approached by someone to open a location in Detroit, humm not the worst idea ever.

Anyway, one cool thing about 3rd Ward is that they put on solo and group shows for artists. They have open calls for artists nationwide. This is my primary reason for writing this post. If you don’t read Design Glut, and you aren’t aware of 3rd Ward, you might miss a stellar opportunity. Check out their Fall Solo Show: Open Call for Artists this October, and perhaps you will become a 3rd Ward discovery. Or, on second thought, don’t; I mean I’ll be submitting and who needs the competition.

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