We’re just obsessed with everything Faux Bois (fake wood). We love it in home decor—check out these lovely examples. But we also love it in design. Here are some examples to get you drooling:
Archive for September, 2009
Vector Dogs
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
Here is a cool technique for turning a photo into a posterized vector file using Photoshop CS3 and Illustrator CS3. (Dont worry, it’s relatively easy.)
Zoom Creates a Fuller Bros. Web site
Monday, September 14th, 2009
Last Friday, Zoom was abuzz with the launch of a new web site for a locally based company with a global reach—Fuller Brothers, Inc. We are extremely pleased with our efforts here and are proud to present the new Fuller Bros. web site.
Cheers to the Zoom Creates team that made this happen!
Digital Distractions
Friday, September 11th, 2009Oh, don’t act like we all don’t have digital distractions throughout the day … it’s seems to be par for the course these days. I was skimming through Google Reader this morning and came across a rather accurate depiction of the distraction food pyramid.
If you have trouble viewing the image, feel free to check it out here.
I found this really interesting because it takes an intentional decision to not be distracted by blogs, web sites, rss feeds, videos, and other time-wasters on a daily basis. Indeed, the Internet has done a great deal for us in terms of opening up the information highway and making the world accessible, but left unharnessed, we can find ourselves wondering what happened to the productivity of yesteryear.
Food for thought, my friends, food for thought.
Guess Those Beaver Biceps
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
We’d like to spotlight a site that we finished recently. Beaver Biceps is a web site sponsored by the Dairy Farmers of Oregon and Oregon State University. It’s a game where any Oregon resident can play a guessing game trying to match different pictures of OSU Football Alumni to their biceps. The prize is a year’s supply of dairy products, so why not give it a try? If we weren’t already non-eligible, we’d have entered.
So what are you waiting for? Head over to Beaver Biceps and guess. It won’t take longer than a few minutes, and it’s stimulating for your brain.
Oh, and while you are there, feel free to take a look at some of the code. We have some fancy jQuery stuff going on there for some fun pop-up action. Just make sure you disable No-Script or none of the game will work.
The Letter Q
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009Q is the second most unused letter in the English language, but when it does pop up, it’s quite lovely. The Q’s quirkiness comes from its delightful and sometimes frightful use of the letter’s tail. Check out our favorite uses of this uncommon swish:
A Small Menagerie
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009Last Wednesday, in addition to Hoss and Pepper in the studio, Fancy came in for the day as well. Fancy is a German Shepard puppy with HUGE ears who has visited Zoom once or twice before – just never when other dogs were here. I thought it would be pure chaos with Fancy and Pepper, but it was just the opposite. Fancy seemed unsure of these larger dogs and hunkered down under Corrina’s desk or by her water bowl. Pepper was curious about her but mostly sat on her pillow enjoying the heck out of a bone. Hoss was totally disinterested in her and did his best impression of a carpet for most of the day.
Holiday!
Monday, September 7th, 2009In honor of the Labor Day Holiday, we give you this festive holiday song.
Google is taking over the world!
Friday, September 4th, 2009We’ve been moving and shaking here at Zoom this week in preparation for the holiday weekend. We’ve been busy bees, workaholics, moving projects through with streamlined efficiency. While we’ve been doing that, Google has been continuing its efforts to take over the world, one Sony computer at a time.
This week came the announcement that Google Chrome will now come pre-installed on all Sony Vaio computers; this is the first deal of its kind for Chrome. It would be safe to assume that Google is hoping to boost browser awareness and may be slightly miffed at the disappointing usage stats for Chrome (2.6%) since its launch.
Watch the video below to see how little the world really knows about search engines, browsers and Chrome.
To answer the question “What is the difference between a search engine and a browser?” here are some words of wisdom, compliments of WikiAnswers:
A browser is a piece of software that runs on your PC. Examples are Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera and Firefox. The browser allows you, via a connection to the internet via your Internet service provider, to access web pages stored on computers (servers) that are connected to the Internet.
A search engine is a piece of application software that sits on a powerful computer (a server) on the Internet. This computer stores information about where web pages are stored on the Internet.
Happy browsing! I mean, searching! Rather, have a great weekend!
Fun with Flash: Gravity
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009A while ago, I built a Flash animation for one of our clients that showed particles floating around while an attractor sucked them up. It was so much fun building and testing it that I started building a game out of it. I took the magnetic algorithm I was using in the animation and put it in the game, but I replaced the particles with a single missile and used multiple attractors. I turned it into planets in space with an orbiting rocket. It’s entertaining to see how long your rocket will orbit the planets before crashing into one.
Go ahead and try it out. (more…)
