Author: Ben

MPHI

Recruiters, employment agencies, other interested parties, the general public, family and friends:

I am now employed as a graphic designer by the Michigan Public Health Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving public health through education, communication, and technology. All I can say is that I’m thrilled to be a part of this organization and hope that my design work will help it to carry out it’s worthy mission and goals.

This however does not mean I’m tapped out for freelance work. I’m still available. Just be aware that I have other priorities and that my turn-around time may be a bit longer.

To friends, family, and teachers who have helped me reach this point: Thank you.

Waiting for Adobe

So I got my Adobe Flash MX 2004 certification certificates…months after I took the test and passed. I believe this may have been caused by the Adobe-Macromedia merger, as when I took the test, Flash was definitely property of Macromedia and Macromedia was its own company. I still don’t know what to think about the merger. Some of it will be good. But I worry about so much power over my creative tools being wielded by one vendor…especially seeing how spotty Illustrator has been after version 9. And Acrobat has been prostituted to the business world leaving a bad taste in this designer’s mouth. I really like the PDF file format – it really does make my life easier in many ways. But when the newest features in Acrobat are developed primarily for “enterprise” document solutions…yeah, it kind of rubs me wrong. I thought Adobe applications were made primarily for us creative types. It just makes me feel a bit left out. It’s like an old friend deciding to hang out with a different crowd and slowly starting to ignore you. Anyway, the reason for this post is that I also received a certificate saying I’m an Adobe Certified Instructor in Flash MX 2004: Rich Media Design. Okay. I only took one test too. I guess getting Flash designer certified also certifies me to teach Flash. Of course it is kind of a moot point as Flash 8 is out and I’m only certified for Flash MX 2004. The upgrade to Flash 8 is worth it from my experience at mediaRAIN. Not that I have personally made the upgrade yet. I’m waiting for Adobe apps to become Universal. I have a nice MacBook Pro just waiting for them to appear. Any day now. Like right now. Now? Pretty please, Adobe?

For further and better written commentary on Adobe, Macromedia, the merger, and Adobe’s drift away from its core principals because Marketing is in Control, please see John Gruber’s daringfireball.net.

Zune…or how to kill your product quietly

Microsoft introduced Zune today. But you wouldn’t really know it. The marketing has been strangely quiet.

Microsoft introduced Zune today. But you wouldn’t really know it. The marketing has been strangely quiet. So after hearing that it has been officially introduced, I go to Microsoft’s web site to learn more about this gadget. Hmm. Nothing on the front page. Well maybe it’s under the mobile section…no. Not there. By this point the marketing-knowledgeable part of me is thinking this really isn’t good marketing. Granted Microsoft has been burned in the past for over-hyping some of its technologies that later underperformed to the market’s expectations (Origami being the most recent example). But this is so low key as to practically not exist. The fact that I had to use Microsoft’s search form to find it does not bode well for the product. Of course people will probably blog about it and that will increase market awareness…but no front page entry? It doesn’t look good. It looks like Microsoft is trying to quickly shove the dead body under the carpet and hope no one notices. And you know what? No one will. (It looks like they have some dynamic feed on the first page now and it has a short blurb about the Zune intro…but that’s like 1% of the front page and I sure the heck didn’t notice it until just now). And it looks like the press/PR lines are going to tout it as well. So maybe it won’t die in silence…

I’ve purposely left out a direct link so you all can experience the underwhelming marketing experience of what is Microsoft’s Zune. Very zen-like I suppose. Ah…I crack myself up sometimes.

Some other notes: The design of the identity – interesting concept, I’m not sold on its execution – it just gets too confusing in my opinion, especially in black (it looks like a mess of lines).

Product colors: Normally I’m not a fan of brown. Probably something to do with my dislike of the 70’s. Oh, brown can be done tastefully. And here I think it works. Brown will be Zune’s version of the pink iPod mini. Otherwise I’m not terribly enthusiastic over the product design. I think I’d have to play with it to make up my mind. And the bar is pretty high because of my iPod experience.

Packaging: I think the packaging colors is the most exciting thing about Zune that I’ve seen. I mean mixing pink with brown! Get out of here! Those MS rebels! Okay not really. The colors are definitely interesting and do jump out. But the fact that I’m interested more in the colors then the product…that’s like a kid being more excited by the box then the toy. Perhaps that’s the angle Microsoft is looking for…

Anyway, that’s some of my thoughts on Zune and it’s marketing (or lack thereof).

Updated to correct some bad grammar. Proof that I’m not perfect.