Category Archive for “Graphics”

Here is a list of all articles categorized as “Graphics”. If you enjoy the high-quality content that I provide here at Perishable Press, you may want to subscribe to our main content feed to stay current.

5-Minute PNG Image Optimization

A great way to improve the performance of your site is to optimize the size of your images. Smaller image sizes require less bandwidth, disk space and load time, and ultimately improve visitor experience. In this article, I share my effective 5-minute technique for optimizing PNG images. This is a two-step, lossless optimization process that removes as much extraneous data as possible without sacrificing any image quality whatsoever. It’s fast, free, and highly effective. Step 1: Optimize with OptiPNG or Pngcrush For the first (and most important) step in our image-optimization process, we want to run our PNG images through a command-line optimizer like ...

Self-Publishing Survival Tips: On-Demand Book Printing at Lulu.com

For on-demand printing of books, calendars, and other desktop-published items, lulu.com is a popular choice. The on-demand service provides customers with online administration interface that provides automated tools for uploading, publishing, and managing their projects. Once published, books may be printed, purchased, downloaded, and/or distributed. Of course, the entire process of using lulu.com to publish and print projects is fairly complex, with many details contingent on your specific needs. As a recent customer of lulu.com, I thought I would share a bit of DIY wisdom for anyone considering using their on-demand printing ...

Fake Slifer Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards on Ebay

Believe it or not, one of my most popular posts here at Perishable Press is an article I wrote about a counterfeit Slifer Yu-Gi-Oh! card. Since its publication, I have received some very interesting information regarding the apparently extensive market for fake Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. Recently, reader Deana wrote to share her experience with an eBay purchase of a “very good counterfeit” Slifer card on eBay. As a savvy Yu-Gi-Oh! collector, Deana has purchased “some really great cards” on eBay. For example, she once scored an authentic, 70-dollar DDS-001 Blue-Eyes White Dragon card for about 35 bucks. She says that obtaining legitimate high-value cards through eBay ...

Focus on the Details: Optimizing Images for Humans and Machines

In this article, I discuss how to get the most out of your site’s images by optimizing them for both people and search engines.. For many sites, images play an important role in the communication process. If used correctly, images have the power to make your articles come alive with clarity and vibrancy. Some visitors may merely notice the image and continue reading, while others will want to know more about your images and dig deeper. While checking out your images, inquisitive guests will explore any clues available to them: alt tags, title tags, and captions, for example. Likewise, when classifying, categorizing, ...

88Teeth Site Redesign

[ Detail of 88teeth’s revamped “Manoid” ] Longtime friend and fellow-DLa member ThaneC recently has updated his personal/portfolio site, eightyeightteeth.com. ThaneC’s site has been completely redesigned and reorganized, featuring easy navigation and generous presentation of core content. Every page is overflowing with creative juice — thumbnail galleries of artistic works, digital photos, and custom wallpapers are a pleasure to browse. Full-size versions of each creative piece “pop-up” upon command. ThaneC’s unpretentious wit and artistic sincerity furnish each page with insightful ...

A Delightful Romp through the 2007 PDX Zine Symposium

Some friends and I recently gathered in Portland, Oregon for the 2007 PDX Zine Symposium. Held on the lush campus of Portland State University, this was the seventh annual zine convention, featuring an abundance of tablers, zinesters, and visitors. Although we did not purchase a display table this year, we did represent our graphic zine collective, Dead Letter Art (DLa) by making the rounds, checking out new zines, and sharing issues of DLa. Since the annual Zine Symposium began in 2000, ...

Local Paper Tarnishes Small Town

Front-page story attacks city Central Washington — The Columbia Basin Herald continues to describe Quincy as “stampeded by gang members, teeming with teenage pregnancies, constant shootings, stabbings, drugs and excessive consumption of booze.” They printed the story — believe it or not — on the front page. “Quincy is also known as ‘Q-town,’” the Columbia Basin Herald, a regional newspaper, claims. “It is overpopulated by gang members and individuals of hispanic decent who often believe they are of african background. Smoking marijuana is very popular and is ...

Digging the Ditch Witch

Ditch Witch, I think I love you.. On my never-ending quest for fresh graphical chunks, many a ridiculous warning sticker have caught my eye. Upon encountering such gems, I immediately slip into stealth mode and plan for attack. Once the stage is set and the time is prime, I move in for the kill — another ripe chunk cold plucked from the vine. Of course, only the nonsensical, pointless, redundant or otherwise ridiculous labels are snatched from existence — anything even legitimately informative requires a more compassionate approach.....

Dazzle, Marvel and Wonder

One of our favorite command-line screensavers, DAZZLE is a two-dimensional kaleidoscopic program featuring a timeless display of perpetually evolving psychedelic viewscapes. Users may interactively manipulate over thirty image-creation algorithms, or set the program to automatically generate hours of dynamically morphing displays of colorful patterns and geometrically complex graphics. ...the best kaleidoscope program we’ve seen yet. The beautiful use of colors, enhanced even further by the use of fading in and out, is, for want of a better word, awesome. -- PsL News (713-524-6394) The DAZZLE screensaver features a wide variety of custom configuration options, and includes complete documentation1 covering every aspect of the program. Best of all, DAZZLE requires a mere ...

The Return of Dead Letter Art

Dead Letter Art (DLa) is an esoteric underground art collective. The collective consists of eight core members that have known each other since high school, and have been creating and sharing their art for well over fifteen years. Sharing many common interests and influences, the DLa collective explores diverse artistic media, both individually and collectively. Their vast media expertise includes everything from drawing and painting to website development and multimedia production. Further, the group also embraces the fine art of desktop publishing, employing their periodically printed zine, Dead Letter Art, with their recently redesigned website, deadletterart.com, as their vehicle of choice for ...

Cultivating a Successful Screenshot Archive

Let’s face it. Websites are as transient as the wind. Developers and designers spend countless hours producing sites that may exist online for mere months or even less before being restructured, redesigned or removed completely, forever disappearing into eternal nothingness -- or, even worse, into the sterile void of a search engine database. Clearly not the best situation for designers looking to maintain a complete record of their online work. Even for sites proactively encouraging their caching and archiving by the search engines, accurate and reliable online site preservation approaches the impossible. Unfortunately, search engines are extremely inconsistent when it comes to archiving websites. If you doubt that, ...

Chunks 101: Introduction to Chunkology

We are continually on the prowl for fresh chunks -- whether it’s business or pleasure, day or night, scanning the immediate environment for tasty visual gems is a constant delight. Perhaps you find yourself lulling over tacky magazines at the dentist’s office, when suddenly -- out of the corner of your eye -- you notice it: a small triangular decal attached to the side of the waiting-room television warning people about something with an absolutely ridiculous icon to reinforce its message. Unlike the typical media fodder enslaving the likes of "People" and "Time", the TV warning chunk shows true character -- slightly worn and abstract with a sense of authenticity and ...

Counterfeit Slifer Yu-Gi-Oh Card

Recently, my son traded three common Yu-Gi-Oh cards for the coveted Slifer god card. He was very excited, thinking he worked the deal of a lifetime. Indeed, Slifer cards sell for around $35.00 apiece, depending on the dealer. Nonetheless, trading three worthless cards for a Slifer god card seemed like a phenomenal deal.. What we discovered next nearly dropped us to the floor -- the Slifer card was a counterfeit! Within moments of checking it out, Mom immediately recognized the unusual coloring, odd syntax, and heavy gloss on the card. Upon closer examination, many errors were discovered -- spelling mistakes, missing graphics, and misaligned text -- all pointing to one inescapable reality: ...

Digital Flower Maker

Star Burst Check out the slick online digital flower maker at zefrank.com.  

A Nice Collection of Feed Icons

Here is a nice collection of feed icons. All are in PNG format, and all have transparent backgrounds (Although they may not appear as transparent if you are viewing via Internet Explorer). Download them individually or as a zipped set. In addition to the icons displayed below, the zipped set also includes two 500x500-pixel feed icons, one in standard orange and the other in greyscale. Please save these to your server and kindly refrain from hotlinking. Thank you. Unique Feed Icons ...

Imported Graffiti Art in the Desert Oasis

Aside from an occasional gang squirt, Moses Lake, Washington has no graffiti art scene of which to speak. Yes, there are many vast, open walls available for inspired artists to develop into colorful statements of creative expression. However, city officials and general public opinion frown on graffiti art as worthless, wicked vandalism. Granted, the city does offer several commissioned murals, mainly scenic visions of the ordinary rural variety. Unfortunately, those of us craving authentic expressions of genuine creativity must travel elsewhere to enjoy such diverse cultural fruit. Imported graffiti art, picked fresh daily Or so we thought. Recently we discovered a daily supply of ...

Website Cluster Graphs

Ever imagine your website represented as a cluster graph? Well prepare your DOM and check out Sala’s Websites as Graphs project. Each map represents a single website page, each dot represents a different tag, and each color represents a different set of tags. Here is the graphical representation for Perishable Press: Perishable Press DOM Graph