nate update

This is a guy who just plain “Gets It.” I read my first Tom Peters book about 5 years ago, and now I am stoked to see that he’s sharing tips and advice via YouTube (new to me, anyway).

This week, I was graciously invited to be the co-manager for the Las Vegas Photoshop & Print Users Group, or, VegasPUG. What’s that, you say?

“Vegas PUG exists to introduce or reacquaint  people with Adobe’s powerful desktop and web applications for Print design. Our meetings are structured in “show-and-do” lab format, giving attendees an immediate opportunity to put what they’re learning to use right away as well as tapping into the knowledge of our PUG Xperts as they roam the room answering questions and providing individual instruction where needed. Quarterly advanced labs will give seasoned users an opportunity to expand their skills or to share a technique with the group. Meetings are held monthly and are free for members”.

I’m excited to connect with this new community (I’m a community type of guy) and share some of my tricks with Photoshop and all things Adobe (big fan).

Over the next few weeks I’ll have some more news about upcoming programs and – who knows – maybe some other really exciting stuff to share.

Here’s a link to the group page on Adobe’s group pages. Currently there are 59 members. Are you one?

Tonight I had some fun playing with a logo redesign for a band. Good friends, Slow To Surface called last week to see if I could help with a shirt design based on their recent album, The Reason We Do This. (Available on iTunes- pick it up, you won’t be sorry). I designed the CD last spring for the band – see below. (For the record, I like their current logo, but it could use a little more “edge” to match their new style, in my opinion).

Pick up this album. It's damn good.

Here’s a sped-up version of the process. The first thing I did was (duh) put on the album. Then I started to search through my database of fonts from recent projects. Probably about 375 selections. Most are completely incompatible… but I narrow it down to a typeface that conveys their style of music – I settled on Dirty & Classic by one of my favorite artists and fontographers, Billy Argel. I tweaked it until it was easier to read at a smaller size (from a distance, in this particular application), but still gets across the “vibe” I was going for.

Check out this video I made using Jing (killer app!) and let me know what you think. Starts out a little slow (no pun intended).

Shortly after people figured out how to make fan pages on facebook, there was a movement for a Thumbs Down button or a “dislike” button. Today, in Google’s big announcement, I picked out that they have implemented this feature in Google Buzz. Quite a few blogs do, too. It seems that social media has, at times, become a bitching board. Let me explain…

For my company, I monitor a lot (a LOT) of tweets and facebook posts in any given week, and let me tell you – there’s a gang of people on social sites that do nothing but complain. Traffic, lunch, airlines, TV, music, and of course, politics are common areas where seemingly, no one is ever happy. Don’t believe me? Spend some time on Yelp.com searching for your favorite restaurants.

Personally, I dislike the idea of a dislike button. As I said earlier, social sites are already littered with negativity – why encourage it, Google & Co.?

I’ve said this before to some friends and they all agreed. What do you think? Hypothetical situation: you and a date go out for a great meal or a movie. If the meal or movie is fantastic, you cowboys and cowgirls don’t have a tendency to reach in your holster for the ol’ iPhone and dial up Yelp, Twitter, or the company facebook fan page quite as quickly as you would if the meal sucked. Am I right?

Let me make something clear – I’m not for censoring the web, or covering up the truth when someone reaches out to a social site as a means to fixing a given problem. Actually, I’m in favor of connecting with companies by whatever means they provide, be it facebook fan pages, twitter or a blog. Hey, let’s hold businesses responsible if their cause or company makes mistakes. I just don’t know if we should be loading the gun and aiming it, too.

Hey, welcome.

This site is a spankin’ new version of NateLudens.com. I plan to blog about all kinds of things you might like. I’m currently a social media guy, spending 50+ hours on facebook, twitter and various blogs at my day job or after hours for fun.

I’m working on different additions to this site as time allows, and I’ll be sure to let you know when it’s up to full speed.

Thanks for taking a look. Check back soon – or I’ll notify you on Twitter or Facebook.

Nate