Adam Dexter's Blog

Debbie Weil’s guest on Bulldog Reporter Webinar

Adam Dexter — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:37:55 +0000

I’m excited to announce that I will be a guest on Debbie Weil’s upcoming Bulldog Reporter Webinar on Corporate Blogging: How to Launch Better Company Blogs in Six Easy Steps

Debbie Weil is a DC based corporate social media consultant and speaker, she’s been involved in all kinds of cool soc-med events in DC and elsewhere and authored THE CORPORATE BLOGGING BOOK in 2006. See her site for more details, debbieweil.com.

The webinar is:

Postponed and now TBA
Thursday Oct 29, 2009
1:00 – 230 PM Eastern

Should be fun! For more details, or to register, click here.

Pagelime Logo Redesign

Adam Dexter — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:06:49 +0000

Last night the new logo went live, so I can finally write about my redesign for the Pagelime logo. Pagelime

is a CMS that allows you to update the content, images, and documents on your web site without installing any software. All you have to do is add the ‘cms-editable’ CSS class to any part of your site, and we host the application that edits your site.

(http://pagelime.com).

Here is the before and after:

(Click for a large .png)

Points of Improvement

When thinking about the redesign, one of the main things I considered was effective use of visual space. Since it will be used mainly on the web, I wanted it to make the best of where it was placed, be visible, draw attention and be recognizable/brandable. The previous logo used some random Japanese san-serif that came in only a view weights, it wasn’t very good reversed on black because it was so thin and could get lost on a page if the logo (we’ll call them wi-fi swooshes, swooshes for short) swooshes weren’t present with it. Spatially, the logo as it was, wasn’t really effective except in a banner or reconfigured with the swooshes underneath the type for a horizontal orientation.

The Brief…sort of.

Use a typeface that has a large family with good variable weights, this is so Pagelime could further be able to brand its documentation and print materials by giving them a face that could be used in multiple situations
visual scalability, since this was mostly to be used on the web it definitely needed to work at small sizes (aka resized on iphone screens), this actually presented the biggest challenge as scaling the kerning became an issue, at small sizes a normal, kern looked correct but at larger sizes, it appeared to be a little off between the l and i due to the small descender/terminal on the lowercase L creating extra negative space in the counter between the two characters. In the end, I went with a slightly negative kerning that was just enough to create space between the two characters at small sizes. Ideally, there might be two versions, one for use at sizes greater than X pixels and one for use less than X pixels, but to simplify its use and creation, I just kerned to basically “the line of best fit.”
have a brandable graphic element aka mark, although a strong typeface is key and can stand alone as a brand, having a graphic element was going to help add color and bring in another usable element, besides it needed a lime somehow.
strong visual presence, basically, that means I decided early on I was going to use a heavier weight for the type, I wanted to not only give the logo more weight and presence, but distance myself from the previous logo.
make a logo that is easily reversible, meaning, a logo that could be put on black, Pagelime has a few screens that use a black background and most of their dashboard used black in the modal boxes.

That’s kind of it, and this is what came of it.

Typography

image source: Wikipedia

too

FF DIN

DIN 1451

used in places of technology, business and traffic

JetBlue

Comparison

Here is an overlay of the two logos to show use of space and weight changes. Although the vertical height is a bit larger, the horizontal density is much greater, with the heavy type weight it give a really solid look to the logo.

Meet the Family

I then adapted the logo as a full set, including single color and greyscale versions for print use. Here is the full set/mood board.

Make sure to click through, for some reason the way this image is being resized makes all the colors look off.

And that’s really it, I’d love to know what you think of the redesign or if you have any questions or other comments.

Let me know in the comments or reply to me on twitter here.

Awesome Interview with Guy from The Red Chord

Adam Dexter — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:08:58 +0000

Guy from The Red Chord, shits on everyone

From Mom: Why Parents Drink

Adam Dexter — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:15:30 +0000

So I usually don’t read fowarded or chain emails, but this was actually amusing. I hope I have a kid as clever and badass as this some day.

A father passing by his son’s bedroom was astonished to see that his bed was nicely made and everything was picked up. Then he saw an
Envelope, propped up prominently on the pillow that was addressed to ‘Dad.’

With the worst premonition he opened the envelope
with trembling hands and read the letter.

Dear Dad:

It is with great regret and sorrow that I’m writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mom and you.

I have been finding real passion with Stacy and she is so nice.

But I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercing, tattoos, tight motorcycle clothes and the fact that she is much older than I am. But it’ s not only the passion…Dad she’s pregnant.

Stacy said that we will be very happy.

She owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children.

Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn’t really hurt anyone.
We’ll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people that live nearby for cocaine and ecstasy.

In the meantime we will pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so
Stacy can get better. She deserves it.

Don’t worry Dad. I’m 15 and I know how to take care of myself.

Someday I’m sure that we will be back to visit so that you can

get to know your grandchildren.

Love, Your Son John

PS. Dad, none of the above is true. I’m over at Tommy’s house.

I Just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than a Report card That’s in my center desk drawer.

I love you.

Call me when it’s safe to come home.

My photos are going to China! Sweet.

Adam Dexter — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:03:08 +0000

Alright, so today has been a good day (and I didn’t even seen 3 red cars in a row).

It’s a gorgeous day weatherwise, I busted out some sweet designs, made a pretty decent lunch. The place I work is going to pick up some really sick clients, so that means I’ll be working on some really awesome projects AND I just found out two of my images were chosen to show in Pingyao, China for the 2009 International Photography Festival. Which is apparently the “oldest and largest photography exhibition in China,” according to this tourism site. (Here are some cool pictures from last years show on a blog I found via google.)

So, if you happen to be around Pingyao between September 19th—26th, take some pictures for me, I’d love to see the show and my work there!

Oh, and here are the two images that were chosen (out of 450, of 100 others):

Delicious Links == Off

Adam Dexter — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:06:25 +0000

So I felt that, although I want to share my delicious links with you, having them post everyday like that was watering down my blog and pushing more “real” content out, so I turned them off. If you are really going to miss them that much, then subscribe to my delicious RSS feed or check out my profile: http://delicious.com/dex110

Ciao