The ZehnKatzen Times A blog by a Portland graphic deisgner about finding interesting and fun things in design and life and looking for his big payday Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 54 3575

Articles from The ZehnKatzen Times

[van_wa, breaking] Two Tornadoes in 40 Years ... 2008-01-10 15:55:00 1247. And they both hit Vancouver. Talk about bad luck.Carl Click, KATU News: I talked to a sheriff's deputy, and he said that that tornado came off Vancouver Lake and touched down at 78th and Fruit Valley Road, now that's before you get to I-5, before you get to Highway 99, before you get out to Saint Johns* where that billboard was down, I'm now up in the hills just above that, I see a big, huge tree that came down, and it's, ah, leaning against the house, ah, big, huge section of a fir tree, ah, came down, and that police officer, that sheriff's deputy, told me that there are several big trees down on Fruit Valley Road ...The last time a real tornado tore up the ground in the Portland metropolitan area was also in Vancouver. On 5 April 72, according to Waymarking.com: On April 5, 1972, a F3 tornado struck at 12:51 PM, leaving death and devastation in its nine-mile path across the east side of Vancouver to the Brush Prairie area. A Waremart grocery store lay in rubble. A b ...

[art, x_pdx] The Year of Stan #9 2008-01-10 15:20:00 366 Days of Creativity - Day 9 Originally uploaded by dinglemunch 1246. No, no Mario! No Princess here! Try Next Castle ... maybe Yankee Candle, or The Body Shoppe, or Hot Topic (but just between you and me, I think she's at Spencer Gifts). ...

[liff, design] Snow Patrol-We'll Know The Winner Real Soon Now 2008-01-10 03:12:00 1245. We note in passing that 94/7fm has announced that they have selected 20 finalists, and the work will be unveiled at the Industrial Design Center at the Art Institute of Portland, 722 NW Couch, Saturday, January 19th, from 5-7pm, at which time the winner – whose art will be wrapped on the Scion they will win, will be revealed. They also say that the 20 finalists will be notified by email. Knowing how fast email goes out these days, and inasmuch as we haven't gotten such an email, we suspect we have not made the cut. Will advise as circumstances warrant, of course. Full information is available here. Tags: 94/7fm, Snow Patrol, Shut Your Eyes Powered by Qumana ... Design

[liff, oregon] Oregon State Capitol featured on Wikipedia Today! 2008-01-09 18:17:00 1244. Swear I had nothing to do with this: Today, 9 Jan 2008, The Oregon State Capitol Building was the Wikipedia's featured article of the day. I am head over heels in love with this building, as I've said before, and I don't care who knows it. Yay, us! Raise a glass of Hefeweisen or pinot noir or what-have-you (got any Portland Punch around?)! Tags: Oregon State Capitol, Wikipedia, Oregon ...

[design] PDX Street Blade Poster-for Those Who Are "Seeking" 2008-01-09 17:49:00 1243. Every now and then we have to come up with something that's a love letter to my home town. Today, we say it is this:My obsessions combine here; living in Portland, design, typography, street blades. What's not to like? This is a labor of love.The original version is 17x11, in Adobe Illustrator CS3 ... if those who are seeking care about such things. Tags: Portland, Street Blade Gallery, design, posters, WKSeeking, PDX, Street blades ... Design

[tech] NetNewsWire Is The Cheese for My Mac 2008-01-09 16:46:00 1241. Like many Mac users, I was thrilled to find out that NetNewsWire is now freeware. While I loves me my RSS, actually buying a feed reader has been a bit impractical, budgets being what they are. And I've tried web-based readers but for some reason I like using applications resident on my home machine for such things. I like the illusion of ownership that I get – I know it's just as ephemeral as anything delivered through a browser, but browsers, amazingly enough, still (after all this time – WTF?) don't work on every site.When I found out by word-of-web that NNW is now free, I went immediately to the website to download and try out. I didn't know that it not only reads your feeds (and makes it dead simple to subscribe) but also functions as a decent, basic web browser, meaning you only have to go to the default browser (which, with me, would ideally be the bastard child of Firefox and Safari) when you gots to.I am officially in love with NNW, and thank you, Newsgator, for ...

[pdx_politik] Why Not Chuck? 2008-01-09 06:25:00 1240. The Rev. Chuck Currie is being inveigled upon to run for City Council.I think he should run, myself.He's running a poll to test the waters. Vote your conscience. And remember, he's clergy, so he'll know if you're lying.Tags: Portland City Council, Chuck Currie, pdx_politikPowered by Qumana ...

[art, x_pdx] The Year of Stan #8 2008-01-09 06:09:00 366 Days of Creativity - Day 8 Originally uploaded by dinglemunch Well, if that's Roger over there on the right, chances are, he's got it all on tape.(We wonder if the note on the wall could be an inside ref to Stan's first effort, the underrated Joel & Steve. Excercise for the reader). Tags: 366 days of creativity, stan kost, dinglemunch, cartoons ...

[ad_design] Food: It's What's For Dinner 2008-01-09 04:37:00 1238. A banner ad, gotten from some web site earlier today:"Hey, hon, what were you going to cook us for dinner?""Well, I was thinking about Food this time. You okay with that?""So were not going to have that ground glass and beef chili I was thinking of?""No, dear. I've said it once, I've said it again, no silicon carne."This also reminds of of a scene out of Blake Edwards' 1981 roman à clef S.O.B., the one in which, as Johnny Carson put so adroitly, we got to see that Julie Andrews' hills were still quite alive. At one point early on in the movie a character played by William Holden picked up a couple of young California-girl hitchhikers while on the way to visit Richard Mulligan's character, a successful director who'd attempted suicide after his first major flop. In the commission of the act (he attempted to hang himself), he made a large hole in his bedroom floor through to the living area. Holden is in the bedroom, and one of the girls calls up to him from the living room ... Design

[design]Photoshop's Curves Tool: The One Tool Everyone Should Know 2008-01-08 13:58:00 1237. Just today, Empty Easel posted a nifty, quick-n-dirty tute on how to use the Photoshop Curves tool, and it got me to thinking about it – not so much because the Curves tool is so wicked useful, but because some of the designers I've talked to about it pretty much swear by it. It's the one tool that every PS user gets to know and love. EE's tutorial gives you a good look at why. My Designorati colleague Jeremy Schultz also had an opinionated point on it a year or so ago. Curves in Photoshop is allows you control of output of every single pixel in the image file, but that in and of itself still isn't the amazing part ... it's the hands-on, graphical approach that makes it possible for every Photoshop user, from the n00b to the l33t, to become a master photo retoucher. With Curves any PS user can render, in a flash, how bright the brights are and how dark the darks are and define darks and brights on a completely catholic basis for the whole image file.What I find myself usin ... Design

[bloggage] The State of Blog Software 2008-01-08 13:29:00 1236. As long as one of our main endeavors is going to be blogging, we'll continue to explore the ways there are to do it that exist beyond the browser interface. We love finding a better way to do it, and for us that better way may or may not include saving posts off line, but will definitely be something that allows us a whole lot of control as we type, for instance, pressing CMD-I changes us to italics, just like when we use our word processor. It will also make the text look pretty after we post it – it will maintain contstant leading and space-after. We've tried a lot over the past year or so, and we've blown through a bit. There have been obstacles; some of these will remain, but at this time, if our experience counts for anything, we can be happy about two.First is our long time friend, Adobe Contribute CS3. It has the one thing that other blogging clients don't, and that is the WYSIWYGish interface. Each blog posting is composed in a window that simulates the look of the ...

[art, x_pdx] The Year of Stan #5, 6, and 7 2008-01-08 12:05:00 1235. I've been remiss in not keeping up with Stan. He has three more from the last time; he's 1/52nd of the way through his year of kickstarting his creativity, and his results are strong so far. He's also got this wry humor going on which I'm really enjoying.Here's number four ... which could be subtitled a new business model for private vocational schools:I hope it doesn't expect exact change. The VMRS track suit is a nice touch.Next, a hiddent chapter of the natural history of the American west:And, finally, in case you ever wanted to know what this aphorism meant:The cool thing about Stan taking care of his own perception of needing to jump start his creativity is that we all get to enjoy it. Stan's 366 Days of Creativity Flickr album is here. Tags: 366 days of creativity, stan kost, dinglemunch, cartoons ...

[design, self_promo] Still Available! 2008-01-07 15:05:00 1234. A short, shameless promotional message from your humble sponsor:Mad Skills, yo; hungrier than you can say. Needs patron. Will be your beeyotch. Employ me; you know you want to!Click on the piccy to contact.Card design blatantly ripped off from the great Have Gun Will Travel. Please don't sue me; after I get famous, I'm totally good for it. Tags: Samuel John Klein, ZehnKatzen, design, self-promotion, job search, graphic design ... Design

[meme] ZehnKatzen's Weekly Winners #5: Silverton and Her Creek 2008-01-06 11:46:00 1233. For this week's Weekly Winners, here's yet more photos of Silverton (we did take quite a few). But the focus this time is just what gave the charming little burg its name – a picturesque (and famous) stream known as Silver Creek ... or, as you might see it italicize on a map, Silver Creek. Silver Creek is famous because the canyon in its upper reaches, about 15 miles southeast of Silverton, are home to the most amazing constellation of waterfalls south of Multnomah Falls, and Silver Falls State Park is Oregon's largest. Directions to the Falls are given to tourists from Salem, but every Silvertonian knows that Silverton is the true gateway to the falls.But I, as is my will and my wont, digress. After flowing through forests and hills, and after being interrupted by the dam that impounds Silverton Reservior, Silver Creek meanders through trees into the south end of town.I, like many people, do not live in the place I was born. I was born here in Silverton, within a mile of th ...

[art, pdx_media] News Faces 2008-01-06 11:43:00 1232. This is something I just stumbled on in my webby perambulations. It was done in 2004 so, yes, I'm late to the party, and the artist (Gwenn Seemel) is obviously someone who needs little introduction. Under the theme of Snow Days, however, she did a series of 14 acrylic portraits of local newsers, including Mike Donohue, Jim Donovan, and a few who are (for whatever reason) no longer on the little screen, such as Joe Sottile and Ken Ackerman. These portraits are very subjective works, with many warm colors at play and meant as much to invoke the emotions as they are to document the faces. What I also found that the artist's subjects are usually happy to lend their to a conceptual effort such as this – with the exception of Andy Carson, who asked for a bottle of wine when Gwenn made her first million. That Andy – so irrepressible. Pictured is a screen-clipping from one of Gwenn's portraits, of KPTV's Wayne Garcia.The series starts here; the brief for Snow Days is at the botto ...