Posts

Plan for tomorrow, live for today.

This is about life. Or to be more precise, death and my personal thoughts about it. Like the passing of time itself, we cannot stop it and it's a moment we all share. As my own father always says, “The one thing certain in life is death”. From the grand old tortoises that will outlast us all, to the humble mayfly that has an existence of one day on this planet.   But what is life? I'm not talking about 'the meaning of' - that is for minds across the generations to discuss at length. For the artists to depict, the poets to write about and the philosophers to imagine. What I'm talking about is the actual biological process. The moment where cells start dividing, following a plan of passed on DNA code that tells those cells what they will become. And what will the cells become? The afore mentioned tortoise or perhaps a tree? Or perhaps a bouncing baby boy? All of us, like the humble mayfly are created in this way.    What’s with the mayfly I hear y

To work or not to work

N ow I don't normally write on here, as you can see, but I'm so confused about the UK system of benefits that I thought I'd get my thoughts down on 'paper'. So I've worked for almost all of my adult life and only been out of work for a couple of weeks. I guess I'm lucky that way, but then I've worked my backside off to get to where I am today. I've chased jobs, I've worked weekends, I've done all nighters. And whilst I've got a nice little flat, a wife who loves me and two beautiful boys, I feel that I'm being treated unfairly with the UK benefits system. Now don't get me wrong. I'm proud to live in a country that cares for its underprivileged men, women and children. There are plenty of people out there who are still working hard, raising children, but still can't get enough pay to live on. They then rightly get top-ups from the government. It's so good that people come to this country specifically for it - but then t

Outlook 2013 OFT Issues

Well I don't write on this blog unless something really important comes up... and this is one of them. If you are an email designer, at some point you will be asked to create an 'OFT' file – an Outlook template file – that the client can send themselves. Whilst this is very easy to do (I won't go into exactly how here – just Google it) a new bug in Outlook 2013 has caused me issues recently. The issue involves embedding images in the OFT file – basically Outlook 2013 refuses to do it. It needs a proper external link – the thought process is to reduce email size I think? Here: http://www.msoutlook.info/question/730 explains this in more detail, and includes a fix on how to get around the issue. I hope other designers will find this useful!

Chrome font rendering issues

So this is a weird little bug in Google's Chrome browser that I've come across whilst building my own website. I'm talking about Chrome's strange rendering of web fonts - or lack of antialiasing - that leaves the fonts with jagged edges and looking rubbish! As a designer, the introduction of web fonts - @font-face and Google's own webfonts - has allowed us to give websites great typography - whilst keeping SEO compatibility to its maximum. These fonts look great and are cross-browser compatible - even down to IE6 - or so I thought... So here is what is happening. I've implemented fonts on my webpage. In Firefox, IE and Safari, looking good. Then I thought I'd just check Chrome - but knowing that the fonts are Google's own - there shouldn't be an issue... Ahhh!! Now that isn't how it's supposed to look? The fonts have jagged edges, look heavier than they should be, and quite frankly look awful. After trawlling the web for more than a f

Web stuff, emails and tips and tricks

Hi. I'm Ronnie. I'm a graphic designer. Over the last 15 years or so I've done work for multi-national companies (like Canon, Oracle, Nokia, TelĂ©fonica, Mizuno and the BBC), helped local start-ups and everything in-between.  For the last 8 years or so I've been mainly digital based as that is where I believe the world is going. I've started this blog to write down all the little tips and tricks that I've picked up over the years - and indeed the new things that I pick up daily! In the hope that I won't forget things - and that others can learn as well. Cheers, Ronnie