Lazyweb request: I am looking for some really interesting periodesque envelopes that I can mail my Roundbottom Foundation membership kits in. I received something once in a weird brown paper envelope with a red string tie once, and it was really awesome. The envelope needs manuscript size, so that prints can be included, along with a sheet of cardboard to keep the prints from being bent.
I think I have the stationary, sealing wax, and the rest sorted out, but cool sources for that stuff would be great.
Anyone have a great source? Links much appreciated. I’m aiming for the membership kits to be beautifully designed down to the paper and envelopes they come in, to make receiving it part of the whole site experience. Packaging should not be overlooked!
One thing I run into somewhat frequently is content being provided to me in a Microsoft Word file with embedded images. I used to struggle with getting the highest quality version of those images back out of Word and into Photoshop. If you cut and paste into Photoshop, you often get it at the resolution it’s been scaled down to, and often, the colors are wrong or even the aspect ratio is messed up. The solution is simple and having stumbled upon it, it is going to save me plenty of time. Maybe it can save you some time too.
The Solution
File->Save as->HTML
(I know, *shudder* at the thought of Word’s HTML. But we don’t need that!)
Word generates an images folder and creates a gif and a jpeg of each image at the maximum resolution. I was able to pull full 300 dpi photos from word files with this technique with none of the image screw-ups that you get when you try copying and pasting.
It’s just that easy. Do you know of a better way to get those embedded images out of Microsoft Word? Let me know in the comments!
Paul Raven made a comment today on his blog comparing the artwork on a couple of different magazine covers. Warren Ellis has recently been on about cover design as well. So I thought today, I’d look at the latest batch of covers for every magazine I could remember, and write some generalized thoughts on the design. I’m a self-taught designer, so take my comments and criticisms with a grain of salt.
Does the New York Times article on Steampunk mean the genre/fashion craze has made the high water mark and will begin to recede from here? What is the shelf-life of an aesthetic movement, and for that matter, what is the sociological force behind this particular movement?
It’s a Stylistic Rebellion
Particularly as an aesthetic movement, steampunk is popular primarily with an under 30 set. This is a generation that has rarely owned hand-crafted objects. Our consumer goods have been mass manufactured, extruded plastic blocks. Aesthetic appeal was rarely a consideration, and even if it was, each product was exactly identical to the other. You could try and stand out through your particular fashion sense and consumer good choices, but more often than not, you ended up looking like a thousand others.
Steampunk is a middle finger to the iPod, but it’s also a blown kiss. This movement says, “yes” to technology and science, but also “does it have to look so antiseptic?” The design aesthetic of Apple appeals to many, as evidenced by their stock prices, but it’s somewhat repulsive to others. And for a generation who has rarely owned hand-crafted objects, the attraction of taking something and modifying it, crafting it, until it is yours and unique–is very strong. The Victorian period was not the last time things were made by hand, but it’s an aesthetic distantly enough removed from the modern that it feels different, more so than the 40s, 50s, 60s, etc. Steampunk is brown and brass, in contrast to the whites and blacks of modern design. It’s metal and wood, not plastic. It’s lace, not lycra.
It is also a callback to a period when objects looked exactly as if they were capable of what they could do. A square block of plastic does not convey its ability to communicate over vast distances. There’s nothing inherently communicative about it’s shape. A steampunk ray gun, on the other hand, cannot be confused for much of anything else. Technology then was cruder, but you could tell what something did by looking at it. You could see the inner workings, and those inner workings were much easier to understand. I think most people feel they could learn to put watch pieces together. Not very many believe they could learn to manufacture circuit boards.
Has it peaked?
Unless you’re invested semi-professionally in the popularity of the genre as I am, then this question doesn’t probably matter to you. Having spent most of my spring preparing a series of images and storylines that draw heavily from this aesthetic, I am a little concerned that the popularity of steampunk is about to peak, if it hasn’t already. If the activity on the steamfashion group on Livejournal is any indication, popularity has already begun to wane. I recently rejoined this group, and I have found that posts to it are increasingly infrequent. Now it may just be that everyone is too busy making things, but I suspect some have already moved on to other fixations. After all, you could make a strong case that the fashion-aspect of steampunk evolved out of Goth culture, and so it’s not unreasonable to believe that it will continue to evolve and fracture off into other sub-cultures. We already have terms like clockpunk and dieselpunk, even if these terms don’t have the same traction in the zeitgeist that steampunk has right now.
The nice thing about a genre and an aesthetic that is based heavily on a historical period is, it probably never really goes out of fashion. There will always be some small subset of fans interested in the time period. Let’s face it: steampunk is freaking cool, and it’s going to take something pretty drastic to change that. Even if that does change, it’s not like being uncool has ever stopped fans from liking something.
Hi! My name is Jeremiah Tolbert, but you can call me Jeremy. I am a fantasy and science fiction writer, photographer, and web designer living in Northern Colorado. I am currently starting a new job and cannot take freelance work at this time. Drop me a line if you have any questions or comments. I love hearing from new people and I now have a lot more time to chat.
My story from the excellent anthology Seeds of Change (edited by the Anthology God, formerly known here as the Slush God, John Joseph Adams) has gone live over at Escape Pod. This is a story that was published to mixed reviews. But I am astounded by the job that Philippa Ballantine did here. Her reading [...]
Hi Folks. After a ton of work on the part of myself, Sarah, and my sound engineer and good friend Nate Periat, we’ve finished and posted our first Dr. Roundbottom Field Sounds podcast. It’s only 5 minutes long, so don’t hesitate to just go to the site and hit play. Please let me know what [...]
Do you remember that Disney CG film Dinosaurs? It’s original concept involved a feature length movie with animals that only emoted, and never spoke. Having always been a big fan of computer animation, I was excited at the early rumors of the film. Unfortunately, Disney execs got involved and the result was the talky-travesty that [...]
I forget where I got this, but I think that it’s the level of quality I’d like to see in more book trailers online:
Having Tim Curry as a narrator is probably outside of the range of what we can afford as SF/F writers, but still. Let’s go over what makes this awesome:
Located 15 minutes south of Fort Collins, Coyote Ridge is a natural area consisting if a couple hundred acres of prairie. A trail runs from the road up across several ridges. Today, I walked to the base of the second ridge before coming back. I’ll make the full hike to the end [...]
