Design

I had a dream that Sebastian Bach (of Skid Row fame) moved in with my next door neighbors. In the dream, I was really excited to tell the world about it here on my web site, so out of respect for the “dream me,” I’ve decided to tell the world (or at least whoever reads this site) about it anyway. Here’s hoping that in subsequent dreams, Baz and I can belt out the classics together… See more →

Sonata for the Unaware, the new k10k issue by carbonatedjazz, is the best issue I’ve seen in a long time. There are three simultaneous video clips of public places in Philadelphia; the candid movements of the random people who appear in the clips generate varying bass notes, percussion, and tone frequencies. The 4MB download might scare off the dialup crowd, but it’s totally worth the wait.

Last night was an inspiring Ad Club lecture at York College given by Jim Sherraden, the disarmingly charismatic head of the notoriously lo-fi poster shop Hatch Show Print. They’ve been using not only the same technology to print posters for 100+ years, but also many of the same pieces of woodblock type, linoleum and woodcut illustrations and designs, and photolythographic plates, all lovingly stored in a monstrous archive in their Nashville headquarters. Even the archive’s … See more →

While I’m sure all (3) of my regular readers are enjoying my media critic pretensions, the About section does say something about the intentions of this site aimed at keeping people informed of what I’m up to creatively, so I think some relevant news is in order.

Lately most of my time has been been spent working on version 2 of the BREDSTIK Entertainment site, including a brand-new design and a bunch of new content.… See more →

You may or may not have noticed that I redesigned the site. Welcome to robweychert.com Version 2, lovingly dubbed “The Motörhead Version” by my friend Merritt. Version 1 has been permanently archived and will no longer be updated. As with that original version, I welcome any and all comments, suggestions, criticism, praise, and disparagement regarding content, functionality, and/or aesthetics.

To coincide with the Version 2 launch, I finally finished the Ireland project I’ve been talking… See more →

We finally got the pictures and video online from the Summer Camp Slasher Birthday Bash at Camp Naked Terror. The mini-DV wanted more light than we could give it, but the video doesn’t look too bad. Go check it out here.

This is a really neat idea: The 5K is a contest that challenges web designers to create a site with a combined filesize of no more than 5K. Oddly enough, it’s not the brainchild of Jakob Nielsen. I just wish I’d found out about it sooner, since the deadline for entries for this year’s contest is in two days…

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today I am learning how to use Corel KnockOut 1.5 (the new version is procreate KnockOut 2). It is my new favorite thing.

The Summer Camp Slasher Birthday Bash at our house this weekend was a huge, bloody success, so thanks to everyone that made it fun. We will be putting up a little site soon with pictures and video from the party; I’ll post a URL when it’s up.

Speaking of little sites, that micro-site with pictures and notes from my Ireland trip that I promised is still in the works and will actually be up very… See more →

A quick link before I’m off: my illustrator friend Jim Horwat launched his site today. He has a slick style all his own; go check it out.

I hadn’t been to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in a year or so, so I went on Saturday. Primary points of interest were the massive Barnett Newman exhibition and Out of the Box: 20th Century Print Portfolios, including works by Man Ray, El Lissitzky, Andy Warhol and more. I was also happy to stumble upon a room I somehow never saw before, which was full of turn-of-the-century magazine covers (Harper’s, Lippincott’s, etc) by such… See more →

Should I go see Trouble Every Day on Thursday or should I go see The Locust? I don’t think I’ll have another chance to see Trouble Every Day in theaters in Philly, whereas The Locust will likely be coming around again within a year. Hmm. Tonight is A Chronicle of Corpses, which I’ve been looking forward to seeing for awhile now.

This past weekend I made some reasonable progress on the BREDSTIK redesign; it is… See more →

Last night was a fund-raising party at the Heaven Gallery in Wicker Park for the upcoming Version02 Festival (which I’m really sad I’m going to miss). Despite huge potential for overhipness, it was a genuinely great time, and I met a bunch of really nice people. I was also familiarized with the very slick SELECT zine.

Thanks to Kelly and her FluX Core pals for showing me a good time.

My friend and Grand Theft Auto 3 provider Kevin Cornell is currently the featured artist on Media Inspiration, where his true southwestern yearnings are revealed. He also squared off against Karen Ingram this afternoon in a rousing match of Photoshop Tennis.

My generous hosts and I got back a couple hours ago from seeing a gorgeous digitally remastered 70mm print of 2001: A Space Odyssey at the Music Box Theatre. Wow.

This afternoon I paid my inaugural visit to the inside of The Art Institute of Chicago (I took some fabulous photos of my sock monkey around the exterior last spring). Lots of cool stuff in there, including a number of Lautrec and Renoir paintings I’ve… See more →

For some reason, yesterday afternoon I decided I wanted to learn more about the history of Photoshop. After hunting around a bit, I found an interesting and detailed article on the subject, published in February 2000 by PEI Magazine. A PDF of the article can be found here, on the author’s site.

Thanks to everyone who has given me feedback so far via e-mail and message boards. There will be some minor changes made here and there in the coming weeks which will hopefully make the site a bit more easily and fluidly navigable. Feel free to continue the critique.

Also thanks to Kelly from No Cost for Culture for linking me up.

Welcome, friends, colleagues, and strangers. This is the eighth redesign of this web site and the first to go live. That said, if it were ever possible for me to look at the site objectively, that skill must certainly have escaped me sometime around redesign number four, so I invite comments, suggestions, criticism, praise and disparagement. Any and all feedback regarding content, functionality, and/or aesthetics is appreciated, be you a world-renowned furniture designer or an… See more →