Printing

Today i took a field trip to Downtown LA to visit one of the West Coast's biggest printers. It was pretty insane to see how much equipment and manpower it takes to go from my computer screen to a printed page. Whether it was the car sized vats of ink that feed the presses, or learning how it takes 5 months to fully install a brand new web press, it was pretty amazing to say the least.

I found these old vocational films somewhere on the internet...pretty interesting to see how much has changed since the 40's...its even interesting to see how much as stayed the same...


Watch Printing 1947 in How to Videos | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com


Watch Linotype 1 in How to Videos | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

New-ish Website

I've updated my personal design site www.christopherkosek.com with a new color theme and some design updates. The best part about updating your site is that with each new thing on your "wishlist" there often is a technical challenge that arises. In my case, replacing my masthead with my logo seems simple enough, but in a program like dreamweaver, its a bit of a challenge to make sure the columns don't bounce around from page to page. Needless to say I figured it out and learned something in the process. 

Pro Tip: having problems getting your color choices to take? make sure you have that pesky # symbol before your color code. Its a total "DUH" thing that you (me) will overlook and just might cost you (me) a significant amount of time wondering why your (my) sites color choices aren't obeying your commands. 

Making Iron Man

Actor Jeff Bridges who played the villain Obadiah Stane in the Iron Man movie, has a great photo essay up on his site of behind the scenes black and white images that he shot himself during production. 

I'd love to know what kind of camera and film he used. If i had to guess, i'd say good old fashioned Tri-X pushed a little bit (for the grain) shot on a Hassleblad Xpan??? 

Copy This Sketch...

Looking through some old magazines at work i saw some ads which has been pretty commonplace. Yes there was the artistic trade school ads but my favorites are the "if you can draw this you too can be an artist" types of ads that has been all over day time TV and in the backs of comic books for ever. 

But here's the kicker. The magazine i was looking through was a McClures magazine from 1908. This same batch of issues had a "where are they after the war" kind of article about once prominent members from the Confederate States of America. The war of course being the Civil War. Yeah thats an old magazine. And those little artist ads have been around for a really, really long time. 

I'm shocked that this amazed me...

But today i only paid $2.19 / gallon for gas. I don't remember when that happened last. Like maybe when my car was new...like 8 years ago. I don't remember when filling up my tank from empty cost me less than $30. 

The economy is still pretty scary, but at least the gas is kinda cheap. 

pardon the overused stock graphic...its just too funny to not use somewhere at least once...