Celeste's Breadbox

Top 10 ways to piss off your production designer

I’ve recently been tasked with making a bunch of edits to some old files for a certain client, and in the process have run into just about every single thing that, as a production designer, really chaps my hide when I have to work on other people’s files:

1. Use Quark. It’s not 1999 anymore, get over it. If you use the excuse “but all the magazines still use Quark,” you’re wrong. If you ask them, they’ll probably take a PDF, and InDesign makes much, much better PDFs than Quark does.

2. Don’t use style sheets. Oh, what a joy it is to have to hand-tool every single instance of headers and captions in your file! You must bill a lot for that. And who cares if the spacing is different on page 2 and page 6? No one will notice. (or will they?)

3. Save all your raster images as EPS. You must really miss Quark 3, ‘cus that was the last time raster images had to be EPS to import into a layout. And, you know what? InDesign will actually handle PSDs, with transparency even. Imagine that!

4. Make a bunch of shapes in Photoshop (save them as raster EPS, of course) and use those for your page backgrounds. Because it’s so much fun for production designers to have to go in and edit your raster shapes to fit changes to the copy.

5. Make every illustration in your 8-page document in one Illustrator file. Oh, and while you’re at it, make sure you embed a lot of hi-res raster graphics in that file. Because everyone loves taking a coffee break while they open your 200 MB EPS so they can make one tiny text change.

6. Don’t use columns, or link any of your text boxes. You’re only looking at one block of text at a time, why should anyone else want to work with the text as a whole?

7. Use a lot of tabs, spaces and returns to do your formatting for you. Find the enter key to make a column break. (Hint, it’s all the way on the bottom right of your keyboard.) Let me introduce you to a little feature called “space before/after.” You don’t even have to use style sheets to use it! Oh, and by the way, InDesign can actually make tables! No, really.

8. Don’t use guides. Because who cares if your objects are aligned to a regular grid? You obviously don’t.

9. Convert all your text to outlines. Because we production designers love guessing at what font you used when we have to make a text change. It’s like a little game we play to impress each other.

10. And, by all means, never, ever, save the layered version of that monstrous Photoshop job you did. Flatten it and forget about it. Because no one could possibly ever have to make changes to your masterpiece, could they?

Maybe I’m just a bit cranky because both the Finnish national team and the Washington Capitals lost today. But when it takes me 4 hours to make “minor” changes to a 6-page document, that puts me over the edge.

/rant

A job, job-type job

Well, it’s looking pretty much confirmed now that soon I will be giving up my happy-go-lucky, working-from-home, freelancing lifestyle. The work will be pretty much the same as I’ll be going to work full-time for one of my clients. The company just needs to complete divesting themselves from their current parent company and lift the hiring freeze that said parent company has imposed. This will probably happen sometime in April, and I’m expecting that by May I will be gainfully employed.

In the words of David Byrne, there are good points, some bad points/it all works out/but I’m a little freaked out.

Good Points:

• Even though my freelance work has been very steady, and I have savings, being a full-time employee is probably a lot safer in this economy


• Good benefits package (medical/dental/401K)


• I know the ropes already, been working for this client for fricking ever


• Most annoying parts of the company will be going away when divestment happens


• Will be able to essentially write my own job description


• Will have a lot more direct influence on process and vendor relationship decisions


• Will probably get to go to an annual tradeshow in Amsterdam


• Already have good relationships with most of my co-workers


• After 5 years of freelancing, I think I’m ready for more structure


• Office is very close to MAX, and a very good birding park


• Will get a lot more reading done on the train every day


• Will probably be able to continue to work from home periodically


• No more winters in my cold, dark basement office

Bad Points:

• Will probably have to take a pay cut, but with the benefits it’ll probably even out


• Will have to give up my other clients, they are good people and I will miss them


• Will have to get up to an alarm and haul my butt out to Beaverton most mornings


• Much longer hours


• Meetings and lots and lots of conference calls


• No more 2-week summer vacations at the cabin


• Will have to buy a whole new wardrobe. No more working my bathrobe and sweatpants


• Will have to start wearing make-up and getting haircuts again


• Will probably have to get a Blackberry (maybe that’s not too bad a point)


• Will probably have to work on a PC part of the time


• Won’t be able to make soup on weekdays anymore, though the Crock Pot will probably see more use


• Will have to pack all my errands and garden chores into the weekends


• Will miss most of the east coast hockey games


• The kitties will miss me during the day

It all works out. I think the balance between good points and bad points is pretty even, and I can live with sacrifices. I probably wouldn’t be going for this change if the company buy-out wasn’t happening. The parent company is very political and somewhat infuriating to work for. With more independence, I think we can take the brand in a good new direction, and I’m looking forward to being part of that.

I’m a little freaked out. The buy-out is not a done deal. I don’t have anything in writing, and until yesterday I really only had second-hand information that they were actually planning on hiring me. And it’s going to be a pretty big lifestyle change. But, I think I’m ready for it.

Peer Pressure

Finally succumbed to the peer pressure and put myself on Twitter today. I will continue to periodically post my more coherent thoughts here, but I can truly see the advantage of the 140-character post. Sometimes all I want to say is things like “Suck it, San Jose Sharks!” or “Trader Joe’s out of canned tomatoes, AGAIN!” and this isn’t really the place for that.

But I still refuse to involve myself in much of the rest of the social networking world. I did Friendster when it first came out. Then Orkut was cool because it had groups. Then there was MySpace and Facebook, and I just got sick of being asked to join one after another. First of all, I’m not a teenager, and really don’t care what other people think of me, so the majority of the “content” on those sites is pretty much lost on me. Wading through all the garbage from people I don’t know, and probably wouldn’t care to know if I actually met them, is just so tedious (not to mention all the spam). I’ve decided I’ll only partake in social networks that give me something back in return, besides a glittery animated star icon from some benevolent stranger, or a random insult from a troll. If I don’t know who you are, and you don’t have anything interesting to say, I just couldn’t care less.

So anyway, random thoughts on Twitter have their uses, so I finally joined. Follow me on Twitter if you will, but I’ll only follow you back if I know who you are. If you want to be my garden buddy, you can find me over on MyFolia, probably the most practical social network site I’ve found yet. If you want to know what I’m reading, I’ve recently joined GoodReads, which is really more social than I was looking for in a book cataloging tool, but I must admit I’ve enjoyed reading my friends’ reviews a lot. Of course, there’s always Flickr - looking at photos, anyone’s photos, is way more interesting than text; plus there’s no language barrier. If you’re into hockey, you might find me lurking around in the dark corners of CalgaryPuck, but you’ll have to guess my alias (actually, probably not that hard to guess).

And Sesame and Quanta would love to be Catster friends. Well, Sesame more than Quanta. All Quanta wants to do anymore is sleep and complain about her sciatica. But Sesame will take all the virtual love he can get. He’s a lousy typer, though, so all he can respond with is “bbdmdh;fdklad.”

RIP RDS

One of my favorite directors died two weeks ago, and I can’t believe I didn’t know about it until today.

Ray Dennis Stecker, most famously director of The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?, was one of those DIY filmmakers that you just don’t see anymore. Started as a cameraman, but went on to direct, produce, write, promote and star in most of his films. He never had any money, but he had inspiration and imagination. He got his friends and family in his films for free, even using some of his own home movies as footage. His films were crazy, funny, bizarre, charming, (occasionally) brilliant, and (mostly) bad. Exactly my kind of films. Each of his films is a showcase for his genuine love of making movies.

My friends - dig out your copies of Incredibly Strange Films and re-read the Stecker section. Let me know if you need to borrow my DVD of Rat Phink a Boo Boo. I’ll probably watch it again tonight. And, by all means, read this delightful obit from Fangoria and Arch Hall Jr. (Damn you, Arch Hall Jr.! I hate it when you make me love you.)

The movie making industry could have learned a lot from RDS, but I guess endless crap based on old TV shows and lame remakes of perfectly good older films is all they are capable of anymore. RIP Ray. I hope you knew how happy you made me, and your select few fans who understood.

George Washington

Our first president was the theme of this latest trip to the East Coast. We visited Mt. Vernon, his estate on the Potomac just south of Alexandria; the National Archives, home of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; Federal Hall in NYC, where he was inaugurated as the first President of the United States; and Mann’s City Tavern in Annapolis, where he celebrated the victory at Yorktown and the end of the Revolutionary War. While Jefferson has long been my favorite president (and the theme of our last visit to DC), this trip made me feel a lot closer to George Washington, the man, and not just the profile on coins, the general, and the subject of stupid stories about cherry trees.

Mt. Vernon was very interesting, even if not as spectacular as Jefferson’s Monticello. The farm has been maintained with a fair amount of historical accuracy, including a reproduction of his “treading barn” for threshing wheat; old varieties of sheep, cows, pigs and chickens (even a “Christmas camel”); and heirloom vegetables. I was also happy to find out that Washington was a proponent of “living fences” or hedgerows instead of lumber fences. In fact, it seems he was a great lover of trees, and advocated against cutting the trees on the estate any more than was necessary. The house tour was annoying, though, with rather obnoxious doyens and too many people crammed into tight stairwells. There’s also a newish interpretive center with stories and personal effects, including a rather off-putting display of Washington’s dental history - the centerpiece of which were his actual dentures.

For a little day trip we went up to Annapolis, which I had visited briefly on a previous trip and really enjoyed. Plus Mom and Pitt had to scope out the sailing school where they’re taking a class in a few weeks. We stopped at the visitor’s center for the Naval Academy for the sole purpose of viewing Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 capsule – had to get some astronaut stuff in since we decided we were skipping Air & Space this time. Spent some time cruising the docks and scoping the nice boats, lunch in an old tavern, and a little walking tour of the old center of town.

And, of course we had to do the museums on the Mall. The first day we got down to the Mall late because I had to wait for the airline to deliver my lost luggage (grrrr), and the lines at the popular museums were already really long. So we went to the Museum African Art, which was almost deserted, but had two excellent exhibits of jewelry and textiles. It really bothered me, though, that much of that museum was “courtesy of Walt Disney Co.” What business do they have buying African artifacts?

The next day was Archives and the Botanical Gardens, though I didn’t have my camera since we were going to a Capitals game later and I knew they wouldn’t let me take it in. Archives was always closed whenever I’d been to DC in the past, so this was a first time for me to see the original documents. The most important ones are all on display in roughly chronological order around the Rotunda, with the Constitution highlighted in the middle. I think my favorite part was seeing all the edit marks on the documents, and the archaic ss’es (Congreff affembled). The Botanical Gardens were packed with people coming to see some model train thing that I didn’t care about, but we got to see lots of cool bromeliads and begonias (a few of which I’m going to have to track down for myself). Then the Caps kicked some stupid Maple Leaf ass, and all was well. Generally pretty impressed with Caps fans - the squealing puckbunnies next us even played the game themselves. Ovechkin was impressive in person, though I did notice a fair amount of cherry-picking at the blue line that you don’t see as well on TV. The Leafs did a lot of standing around, as is their wont, but didn’t lose too spectacularly, mostly because of Toskala in goal.

On our last museum day we got downtown early (before the lines) and saw the Pompeii exhibit at the National Gallery, on loan from the museum in Naples. Then on to the newly renovated Museum of American History. Highlights were: Julia Childs’ kitchen, painstakingly reassembled in every detail; a diorama of Portland’s own Sandy Boulevard circa 1949, illustrating the start of the car culture; and, of course, the portrait of Stephen Colbert - thankfully hanging at the entrance to the popular culture section so we didn’t even have to wade through a crowd to see it. Then a quick skim of the Natural History museum mostly just to see the new Ocean Hall exhibit. Very nicely done, and covered a lot of subjects in not very much space.

Then on to big, bad New York City. Took the train up early, stayed one night, then caught an evening train the next day. That was about right, just enough time to see a few things, not so much time that it became unbearably annoying. We stayed at the Sofitel in Midtown (excellent European business hotel - especially the bar and bartender), and mostly just stuck to stuff within walking distance. The first afternoon we took the subway downtown to see Federal Hall - and Trinity Church, the Exchange and Battery Park along the way. We tried to do MOMA that afternoon, but it was their free Friday, and the line was around the block, so we just had a few drinks in the hotel bar, then dinner at Emporium Brasil around the corner (Aaron’s beef stew with butternut squash was divine). Accidently slept in the next day (oh well), so we only had time for a short walk through a bit of Central Park before meeting up with a friend from work for lunch in Bryant Park. We managed to prove that you can connect with someone you’ve never actually met in person, only in e-mail, on a street corner in NYC. Then we did finally go to MOMA, though the crowds were almost the same as they were the previous day. (MOMA appears to be somewhat of a hang-out for the natives, a very expensive one at that) Some Van Gogh thing was the big deal, but we’d already seen our fair share at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam a few years ago, so we were happy to skip that and just get to the permanent collection. All my favorites were well represented - Max Ernst, Giacometti, Mondrian, Brancusi, and a delightful exhibition of Joseph Beuys.

Back in DC for our last day we took a walk around Roosevelt Island on the Potomac. DC’s parks are always funny to me (as a federal lands geek) because they’re all US National Parks, no matter how small they are. We also took a hike around Georgetown and tried to go to Dumbarton Oaks, but it wasn’t open until the afternoon, so we just enjoyed our walk around the neighborhood.

All in all, a great trip. Saw lots of sights, but still managed to do the whole thing without getting stressed out. There’s always more to see, but I’ve become comfortable as a tourist just seeing what you get to see and saving what you didn’t for the next trip.

Historic Permits

Here’s an interesting item for residents of older houses in Portland, Oregon.

There is now a very interesting new feature on Portland Maps: Historic Permits. Portland Maps has always been a really great city website. It’s a simple GIS interface to all sorts of city data: schools, crime, census; as well as all the details about specific properties, including all the permits on file. All the newer permits would have been recorded electronically, but what to do about all the old paper ones? Well, now it seems that many of them have been scanned and entered into Portland Maps. Search on any address, and you can find scans of old (even really old) handwritten and typed permits that were taken out with the city.

So far it seems to be mostly plumbing permits, but even that has provided an unique glimpse into the history of my house. It’s an old house (built around 1899), and we’ve already found a couple of interesting pieces of history in it. There’s a cigar stub embedded in the concrete foundation in the basement by the water heater. There was a metal plate from an old harmonica in the crawlspace, and some shreds of newspaper (used for insulation back then) advertising the latest ‘98 bicycles clinging to a rafter. And I have a big bucket full of various bits of old iron (and a few pieces of coal) that I’ve found when digging in the yard. Rumor has it that our house and garage (original to the house) belonged to a blacksmith, but I have yet to confirm this story with the Brooklyn Historical Society. But thanks to the new historical permits on Portland Maps, I have a name to put to that imagined turn-of-the-century blacksmith, John Schmid. Good German name for the very German neighborhood.

And I also now know that our street was first connected to a city sewer in 1911, but it wasn’t until five years later that a bath tub was installed. Fascinating.

And I got a new roof on the house yesterday. Hurray!