Quick Designs, Quick Signs

Posted on November 13, 2023November 13, 2023 by Matthew

Last Friday was 2nd Friday in Downtown Mesa, Arizona where my girlfriend had a table set up for her Minazona Minerals. She had some signs handmade using preprinted hunter’s orange and black sharpie, but wanted to improve the aesthetics with a new design. Little did she know her boyfriend was a former Lead Designer for Fast Signs on Central. It was time for some quick designs, quick signs.

Quick Design

Example of a table sign - Rainbow Pet-Wood $1 an ounce

I promptly came home and went to work on a templated design using Adobe Illustrator. Illustrator is one of the trusted programs I use for clean professional vector graphic designs. I’m a little rusty. It felt like trying to run after years of sitting in a car. The first few steps were painful as the weight of my body impacted the ground sending a shock wave through the fat and unconditioned muscles. My hands trembled trying to remember how to create multiple artboards.

Quick Signs with AI in Illustrator

Screen shot of Illustrator's Text to Vector Graphic AI

The designing was gradually increasing in speed as my brain and fingers caught up to each other. I started with one star burst to create a representation of a geode, but it just wasn’t quite good enough. Then I copied and pasted the star burst rotating it and layering them. The final touch was applying transparency adjustments at 25% and multiplying the star bursts to create a representation of crystals. Sometimes that’s all a design needs is an artistic representation. A quick stack of ovals and viola, I had the template for the table signs.

There was something missing though. Clipart! I looked to my left and to my right and those old dusty books with clip art files on CD’s were no longer beside me. Then I saw the new AI “Text to Vector Graphic” panel in Illustrator. I thought to myself, “Should I? It’s not like anyone would know.” We typed in Amethyst and the results were spectacular. Soon I was looking for rainbows, earrings, and a copper heart. Holy Cow! The results were amazing. The AI was so good it even matched my color scheme.

Production of Quick Design and Quick Signs

Now the designs were complete and ready for printing. I didn’t have my printer set-up yet. Nor did I have a program to RIP and align the designs to make efficient use of the paper and ink. My first attempt at exporting a Jpeg was a fail.

Screenshot of importing an Illustrator file into Photoshop

It was time for Photoshop. I imported the whole sheet to Photoshop and made short work out of quick signs. Or something cool like that. They were easy to arrange and the design was good enough it naturally made their own crop marks.

I transferred the files to a USB stick and handed them off to Minazona Minerals for her to print and cut just in time to load up the wagon and hit the dusty Apache trail to downtown Mesa, Arizona for 2nd Friday.

Here’s the table set-up playing a little with video on my phone.

Learning Lesson

Posted on September 8, 2023September 8, 2023 by Matthew

After writing Natural Arizona and working with Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing I learned some important lessons.

#1 Don’t rush the process.

My thought when writing the book was I would take an artistic poetic approach. I found myself often just blandly describing the photo and story behind it. This was the result of trying to say I wrote a book. It was also a desperate attempt in my eyes to make some money from my photography.

#2 Amazon Kindle Direct is not the best option for a photo portfolio.

I’ve been in the printing industry for a while and was greatly disappointed that a world class company still requires CMYK conversion from RGB. A lot of pictures were void of vibrance and the subtle tones. Just another reason to slow down and find a publisher/printing company to produce the book.

Also Kindle Create is not made for images either. It seems it would work great for a novel. Just not anything like I created.

#3 F- the critics.

This probably could be said for anyone writing a book. It was nice not to have anyone (with the exception of my mom the editor) tell me it sucks. I would have never finished the book or had the courage to publish it. If anything I was writing the book for myself and sharing it with the world.

#4 Stick with the Programs I Know

I plan to go back and create a 2nd version with the lessons learned. I was constrained with the options of printing sizes and wrote accordingly. I spent more time trying to adjust the print and Kindle versions than actually writing. Next round is going to be using MS Word again for a draft and then InDesign for a final. Then I can control how the layout with a lot less frustration. Instead of a Kindle file I can just sell my own PDF version. The final Kindle file still isn’t formatted properly due to Kindle Creates limitations. It embarrasses me as a graphic designer and is extremely frustrating to work with. I can do better with a fixed PDF and maleable scaling with CSS and a simple line of javascript to adjust for screen size. Much like WordPress…..hmmmm.

#5 Appreciation

I am grateful for everyone that purchased the printed version and Kindle version. Or who will. Really it is just a bunch of gibberish with a bunch of pictures. Kinda like my blog.

New Book Natural Arizona

Posted on August 23, 2023August 23, 2023 by Matthew

I guess this is where I turn the afterburners on for marketing my new book Natural Arizona. Natural Arizona is a collection of my photo portfolio and short stories, thoughts, and poems. Yup much like my blog that you’re reading right now. <—-Link for SEO purposes…

Here’s an external link to my book for more SEO purposes. Now I can say I know a little bit about marketing….thanks to Yoast. <Adds skill to LinkedIn profile.> Oh wow, I am getting crazy with the cheez whiz.

Beck inspired those thoughts, so might as well.

I kinda feel like a loser. You can stop reading here if you want. I sunk myself into my renewed passion for Photography 5 years ago. I thought I was doing good enough that I could be one of those people in a van traveling the country thanks to my cooperate sponsors. Honestly I have no idea how that works. If it’s like some of these people making money as content makers, uh no thanks. Sounds like they are slaves to their brand.

Yeah I’ve been putting a lot of effort into this production of my brand, me as an artist for a while I guess. In the early days I sold paintings, mostly for a pint of Guinness or a place to stay. I wrote poetry, prose, and even some outlines for a novel, because I thought one day I’m going to be like my heroes. I gave it all up for a while to sink into oblivion. Kinda. I used to think I was an amazing poet when I was drunk. “

“I’m a driver, I’m a winner. Things are going to change I can feel it.” – Beck – Loser 2:54

Sobriety changed a lot for me. I wasn’t as carefree as I used to be. I managed to get on board with a company developing self-driving vehicles. Then went on paid vacation for 1-2 months for a triple bypass, and again for a cooperate “oh fuck!” that ended with a nice severance. One good enough to chase this dream by purchasing a beginners digital single lens reflex, what we like to call DSLR in the biz.

I took this and starting going places I had always wanted to go, but never been. I’ve tried to sell the photos for a few years now. Or my skills. I came to an understanding of myself that I am an artist. So it’s best to present my inspired creations rather than try to find that inspiration creating for others. It doesn’t hurt as much getting rejected for art related jobs anymore.

Ooops another inspired paraphrase.

There is frustration that I know many artists went to their grave with. And some others got the break they needed to be themselves and get paid for it. I would be happy with just being able to quit driving to create whatever my heart desires.

“I’m a driver, I’m a winner. Things are going to change I can feel it.” – Beck

Rained Out Super Bloom

Posted on March 13, 2023March 13, 2023 by Matthew

I had a friend in town for a conference that I had met playing Fallout 76. We got to talking and found out we both have a passion for photography and he would be visiting in March for a conference. Fortunately for him there are some super blooms of poppies and lupine going on around the central to southern part of Arizona. In my head I’m thinking Saturday afternoon is perfect. We planned on meeting on the way to Horsheshoe Dam Rd. near Bartlett Lake. Phoenix was showing cloudy weather and even on zoom.earth an hour before arriving they looked like cirrus cloud cover, those are the ones that look like brush strokes.

Here’s a couple flowers to look at.

A patch of poppies displaying the yellow despite being closed up.

Well that didn’t last for long. I don’t know if it was the mountains, but it was probably the mountains that created some rain clouds directly over our route. Mountains kind of act like a wall where wind is forced up combining with cold moist air and creating (condensing into) thicker clouds that rained on our short road trip to find poppies. There was even a little thunder and lighting. My friend was a bit nervous about me driving a low clearance vehicle on a dirt road and talking about how flash flooding made all the deep cuts of erosion we were avoiding on the road and shoulders.

A view with a telephoto lens about 5 miles away on a hillside. The yellow patches are poppies.

My friend got over any apprehensions pretty quick as we found our first field of poppies. The poppies also answered his question, “Do you think the flowers will be closed up?” They sure were in a state of nyctinasty. The petals that usually bare all to the shining sun were in fact rolled up tight. They did however still provided brilliant colors in a dramatic environment as we cleared the storm cell.

The mountain ranges were contrasting each other as the sun shone through breaks in the sky and sharp shadows covered other areas in the distance. Almost like a spotlight made to direct attention to the beauty of the green valleys full of old Saguaros standing tall like soldiers with sporadic patches of yellow poppies. Ah the Super Bloom!

We stopped a few times until we reached a point I wasn’t so sure my Hyundai Sonata could pass. A small stream was crossing the road with some soft sand and an ankle deep pool with some good sized rocks. Although I did ask the people near by how much they would pay me to try. A beer and help getting unstuck was the final offer. Well look at the time! We gotta get back to the top of the hills if we want to catch the sunset.

I drove carefully back through the storm that seemed to park itself over the worst parts of the road. We passed by an unfortunate family stuck in an area that was not meant for passenger cars. Luckily everyone one was friendly in trucks and jeeps and a couple decided to stop. Well almost everyone was cool. We had a red-orange Tacoma go flying by with in a foot of my parked car earlier. I’m surprised they didn’t throw their empty beer cans at us.

Absolutely Gorgeous Arizona Sunset looking east towards Bartlett Lake from Horseshoe Dam Rd.

We arrived back on the paved road to an area with a decent view of the horizon. I had pointed the section out early as our fall back position if things didn’t go well. As my friend put it. It turned out to be an Epic Sunset. The view east had some of the most vivid colors at the start of the golden hour with clouds just barely light enough to hover over the mountain peaks.

Absolutely Gorgeous Arizona Sunset looking west from Horseshoe Dam Rd.

Then to the west as the sun sunk behind the mountains, the light created a lustrous yellow glow that slowly turned into orange, pinks and purples with the last perceivable light before complete darkness passed the blue hour.

Final colors as the sun settles behind the horizon line.

We may not have seen the Super Bloom in it’s full glory. Hell, it was even a little chilly and questionable if I made the right choice. As you can see sometimes plans go sideways, but if you persevere and stay malleable, plans can turn out better than expected. I’m glad my friend trusted me and nature delivered on the goods.

Arizona Based Photo & Design

Year: 2023