Kindle Fire

Its been a while since I blogged, I had a whole host of computer issues while I was away. Good thing I do a weekly backup of my Macintosh hackintosh. That’s a post for a different day. Anyways the Kindle Fire arrived a few weeks ago and I got a good amount flight time with it. The reason for my purchase of the Kindle Fire was its price, at $199 USD, it’s almost a impulse buy. I am currently looking for more work so I also found the kindle as a need, for my design career. Literally on the first night I loaded a new PDF portfolio of all my current work and pieces, and took it to a job interview the next morning. It was great having my interviewers swiping through the pages and asking my questions relating to my designs. The screen is very vibrant and from what I was told has more DPI (dots per inch) than an Ipad2. I was totally impressed by how my portfolio looked on the Kindle, my illustrations came in very sharp and bright. The kindle’s UI is super easy to use and works with the Amazon prime, cloud service. You can read books, watch video, listen to music and various other media. This is a e-reader on steroids in the fact that it can do all these great things for viewing different media. And this is also where I feel that this is a case of you get what you pay for.  At its cheapest the Ipad2 cost $500 USD, $300 more than the kindle. But the Ipad has a better section of apps and the UI is really polished compared to the Fire. This is where I feel like if I had an extra $300 I would go ahead and buy the Ipad2 just for the user experience that is unmatched by Apple. This is not to say the kindle is Terrible, its a great little machine, but put it side by side with the Ipad, the Ipad runs circles around the fire.

The Fire is great for a casual internet machine, I love keeping up with my blogs while laying in bed or sitting on the couch. The kindle feels great in one hand, but after 20 mins or so I had to switch hands or put it down on my lap or table. That being said the kindle has good weight to it making it feel solid and not cheap like other similar priced tablets. The custom app store that has a fair amount of apps that range in different categories, it is just okay compared to Apples selection of apps, but I’m hoping that changes as more people buy the kindle for the holidays.  The things I would ask that amazon puts in the next kindle is that I would like to see a camera installed… I would have loved to skype using this thing. I understand that a camera would have made the kindle more expensive, but I just wished it was there. Also a separate volume buttons would be great, at its current state the fire only has a power button, You would have to tap on the top right corner and open up the settings, then slide the volume to the appropriate level. It gets very annoying.

With all the negatives described, I still feel like $199 is well spent on the kindle. Its the perfect size to take anywhere; bigger than a phone and smaller than a laptop. It Just has enough apps to keep you happy for now. Its great to watch movies on long trips, and I find it as a great portable portfolio for clients. The Fire is by no means a Ipad Killer, It’s probably the best semi-android tablet you can buy, heck you can buy 2 kindle Fires 2 cases and screen protectors for 1 Ipad2. So if you want the luxury of casual computing the kindle fire will be a great purchase, If you want a super sleek app crunching machine that all the hipsters have, then get the Ipad2

After weeks of waiting for overnight prints to print these out they are finally here! These cards are printed on 16pt stock, and a splurged on the UV coating on my logo, hopefully shows up on the pictures. I decided to have my business card match my logo, and website… for obvious reasons. Its always good to have your brand match as much of your property as possible. I also purchaced a Troika business card holder so that I can slide these bad boys out when I meet with clients and go to job fairs. I love how that the holder is thin, and can be left in my pocket for any situation. On the backside I placed a QR code that will scan to my website but also gives you the option to add my contact info to your iphone or android adressbook, which is totally awesome since it saves time by not having to type out my complex sounding last name!

Today is Veterans Day. I believe that if you get a day off on a holiday you should take some time out of your day to celebrate or reflect on that day… its just not a day off. Veterans Day to me is a reflection of all the sacrifices by former and current military members and their families. without their sacrifice  I would not be able to have the freedoms to do what I do… Thank you all who make the sacrifice for this country we call home.  Take a few minutes out of your day today to be thankfulfor your freedoms we take advantage of here in America.

So the new Padres uniforms were showed off today, and the general consensus from the locals here are “meh”. I can understand the sentiment around the new uniforms, and to the padres organizations defense these are not really new uniforms but a refresh. I was one of the loud minorities hoping for the return of the brown color to the team nicknamed “The Friars”, but alas the navy is still the primary color. I grew up on the late 1980′s , Eric Show, Jhon Kruk, brown pinstripes ( the road jerseys with the interlocking SD ) is still my favorite. If anyone knows where I can get a replica throwback please email me! Well for the refresh uniforms the road jerseys are a definite upgrade from the bow tie San Diego front jerseys from last year, the new blue piping works for this uniform, and I like having traditional “road grays” I think it should be standard for all MLB teams IMO. We did have road grays last hear with the bow tie front but I was one of the few that liked the sand colored road uniforms because they were uniquely San Diego, and a part of me wishes that this was still true with the new uniforms. I do like the lettering resembling the PCL padres lettering and it’ll probably go unnoticed from the fair-weather fans and the national media, but I noticed it and appreciate the nod. From what I saw from the pictures there will not be a road cap, which is a little disappointing I like having a separate cap for road games, I also thought that this made the Padres unique. Overall with the new roads… I like them.

The new alternate jersey, is still the the traditional navy color with the interlocking SD on the left chest, it also features the new piping along the buttons and collar. The new piping is used through out all the uniforms except the camouflage unis. The colored piping gives these new uniforms more of the traditional look. I like the alternates because they remind me of the late 80′s jerseys that I’m so fond of, the bold SD and the piping make this my favorite of the refreshed jerseys… Still would have like to see this in brown tho.

San Diego being such a huge military town, the Padres have the tradition of wearing camouflage jerseys on Sunday home games, and let me get this out of the way now. The camouflage jerseys are probably the ugliest uniforms in the MLB! With that said, the representation in honoring the military with these uniforms far outweigh the uniform looks, and can somebody explain to me why the American flag patch only shows up on these uniforms. It should be standard on not only MLB uniforms but all major league uniforms in the US!

Now for the Home Whites nothing really changed here, the same script “Padres” lettering across the front outlined on sand ( only place the sand color is still found ).  What I hate about them are the blue piping along the buttons, it just feels distracting. I get this Wal Mart/Target generic jersey vibe to them that I don’t like. I really think that the whites from last year were great, just plain and simple and great looking when a padre would slide into second and dirty them up… only to strand him at the end of the inning. I just feel that the piping takes away something from the overall look of the home whites. Another thing I wished the padres would do is change the caps a little by trying white with a navy bill and interlocking SD. I thought the 4th of July- America caps that the MLB used last year were great only if they didn’t force the stripes on the logos. I think that those caps would look great on these new refreshed jerseys, and would be totally be different from the rest of the MLB. It would be nice to know immediately who’s a padre fan from behind or the side, Because nearly half the MLB teams use the navy color on their caps… can you tell Rays fan or a dodger fan from behind or the side?

Overall the navy color is here to stay… which I don’t mind Ive gotten use to the blue, heck the uniforms from 2004 to 2011 are the uniforms we won the most in, kinda sad to see them go, maybe a refresh will do us good with the baseball gods, and bless us with a Championship for San Diego. I can dream right?

I decided to market myself a little bit by making QR code stickers through Moo.com. The sticker book gives you 90 stickers that you can fill up with different pictures or images. I decided to use my logo and 2 different qr codes, one QR code with a v card feature, and the other one with a link to my website. Whats cool about these qr codes is that you can simple scan these codes and it fills up your smart phone with all the contact information a customer or employer would need to contact you, including your online portfolio. So ill be sticking these to job applications and business cards, crossing my fingers and hoping they call me or visit my portfolio. The print quality on these stickers are fantastic! I can really see where my $10 USD is going. I thought I should have put a better picture to see the quality, but ill do that for the next batch of stickers.

Designed this card almost a year ago

I opened up the mail today from Marian Anthony Realty Group and saw a gift card that I designed. I think that this is my favorite part about being a graphic designer, this feeling of accomplishment when you get to actually touch and feel a finish product that you helped complete. It never gets old!  Any new comers to this industry I hope you get the same feeling too.

One of my favorite blogs Noupe.com has a list of free awesome fonts for you to browse and download! Check it out here.

Check this out! I stumbled upon this vector pack… Very useful if you want to do some grunge projects. http://www.designshard.com/freebies/free-vector-pack-paint-splatters-vol-1/

Google did a cute little doodle to celebrate Disney Illustrator Mary Blair!

I just got some over the ear Bose tri-port headphones from cowboom.com for $50. They sound great and block out a lot of noise without having noise canceling technology and for $50 probably the best headphones at this price range. The bass is rich but the highs could be a little more crisp but overall sounds good with different types of music. Right now im listing to pandora while writing this post… totally plugged in right now! last i checked cowboom.com was sold out of these things, but keep an eye out because for a single Jackson these headphones are awesome!