Articles by Joyce

There are greeting cards that play music or smell like your favorite scent when you open them. Now, there are cards you can eat – sort of. American Greetings has come out with its new line of Tasties.

Each Tasty comes with a flavored, edible strip inside the card. The flavors include cupcakes, doughnuts and margaritas. Dissolvable flavor strips for the recipient to eat.

The possibilities of this could become a trend for many commercial printers. We have worked with a few that already use scented inks, and its only a matter of time until a printer near you applies this technology of taste!

With news that postage rates are going to increase once again. The print industry will need to contiune to look for new ways to entice design firms and others to continue printing their mailing pieces.

We have seen some pretty amazing innovations in the print industry already. A few of which that are combining print and digital media. Augmented Reality and RFID are a couple modernizations creating new experiences for consumers. However, those still appeal to the same senses, this innovation by American Greetings has added the sense of taste to the printing world.

My question to you is, will you try it?

Check out the newest sensory experience in the card aisle and get that cupcake taste without all that cupcake and calories!

The Yellow Springs Experience is an immersion in arts and cultural workshops and performances in Yellow Springs, July 9-18. A Launch Party will kick off the ten days on Friday, July 9, from 4 to 7 pm with live bands, arts exhibits and demos, kids performances, food, beverages, and more! Start your Experience.

More than 80 events are planned for The Experience, which brings together the Yellow Springs Arts Council and dozens of other partners, including area colleges and universities, nonprofit organizations, artists and cultural presenters, to welcome one and all to sample, stay and play for the week as a part of the community.

Wellness classes, arts workshops, readings, women’s retreat, sustainable building and farm tour, street carnival, skate music concert, youth and adult theater and dance are just some of the diverse tastes to enjoy.

The Experience is Yellow Springs’ most expansive invitation to the region and beyond with activities for all ages. Designed to support local artists and cultural practitioners of every stripe, the event represents 13 areas including visual arts, literature, theater, dance, music, environment, culinary, media, 3-dimensional, wellness, crafts, innovation and design. Popular summertime events such as the Antioch Writers’ Workshop, YS Kids Playhouse performances and Glen Helen EcoCamps are included in the Experience schedule.

Events will be held at locations throughout the village, including artist studios, educational sites and community centers. Tickets will be available for purchase online. Advance purchase is highly recommended.

Register at the Yellow Springs Experience.

You’re invited! Bing Design is pleased to play a role in a few upcoming events in Yellow Springs that will make it your destination.

This Saturday, June 12th, don’t miss the bi-annual Yellow Springs Street Fair. Starting with a 5K run at 9:00, the 2010 Street Fair promises a day of great activity! Over 200 booths selling fine arts and crafts, clothing, jewelry, and an abundance of unique gifts, this all-day festival will have live entertainment from a variety of musicians and street performances throughout the day. The event is free, open to the public, and handicapped accessible, so come out, should be a gorgeous day!

Just a stone’s throw away from the Street Fair that same afternoon, take in the Inauguration Celebration of Antioch University McGregor’s second president, Michael Fishbein, Ph.D., at 1:00pm on their campus. As a proud supporter of the inauguration, there is limited seating, so check the website for availability.

If you are thinking it’s difficult to take in Yellow Springs in one day. The Yellow Springs Arts Council has the “experience” just for you.

The Yellow Springs Experience that is! Ten days – July 9-18 – that will feature workshops and events in a range of categories including performing arts, visual arts, tours, nature, and wellness. Events are for all ages and performances include a street carnivale. Events will be held at locations throughout the village and tickets will be available for purchase online on their website.

Yellow Springs is an eclectic village known for recreational attractions, unique shops, gourmet restaurants, lively arts and healthful living. If you aren’t able to make it out to any of these events, be sure to check out our best of Yellow Springs map!

At the heart of every designer or developer’s office is their browser. The internet provides a plethora of online applications and add-ons. This suite is dedicated to making sure that your browser becomes the ultimate productivity suite.

Browser: Firefox

Because of the useful options already provided by Firefox, its popularity is growing. There are numerous free downloadable extensions and add-ons available on the web for Firefox. Here are just a few add-ons that keep my productivity levels high:

PDF Download – Lets you convert any (unsecured) Web page into a high-quality PDF that’s great for archiving, printing and sharing.

Firebug – Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.

Read It Later – Save pages of interest to read when you have the time.

Word Processing: Google Docs

I use Google Docs for word processing. Sure, it doesn’t offer every feature that MS Word does, but it contains almost every necessary feature, function and utility to make it the best online word processor. You can export files in all the necessary formats — .doc, .txt, .rtf, .odt, .pdf and more! — and the online storage is easy to organize, safe and secure, and conveniently tied to your Gmail account.

Online Storage: Dropbox OR YouSendIt

For small files, it’s easiest to just .zip them and email them. For big stuff, you’ve either got to go with one of the many free upload websites (YouSendIt) or get your own upload space (Dropbox). Both allow you to send files up to 2GB. Even the most frugal of online workers can find ample space to store work-in-progress designs, documents and other important files. This also reduces the risks and costs with secure managed file transfer that seem like hours when trying to send via FTP.

Presentations: Prezi

Powerpoint and Keynote are great tools. But with Prezi is a browser-based application. Instead of putting every mindless detail on a separate slide, Prezi allows users to lay out your presentations on a single plane and move through them at their speed, in their own order, and if required, change the presentation on the fly.

Calendar and Scheduling: Google Calendar

This one’s nice and simple, with features that will keep you remembering dates and appointments. Simply set your schedule in the simple interface, decide whether or not you want SMS reminders, and leave it for the week. Check out some features we highlighted using our Google Calendar.

These tools are all part of my office suite. Once you implement all or even just a few of these tools, I hope you will see a dramatically increase in your productivity and make your work easier than ever. Would love to hear what applications or platforms keep you productive.

Map Illustration Software

Anyone who has ever had to produce a location map knows how much time can be used up on the simplest things! MapDiva sounds like it will give Adobe Illustrator, the current software of choice, some competition! Touted as simple to use and priced low, with the emphasis on map creation, Ortelius not only allows designers to use their own geographic information, but includes fully editable, royalty-free vector outline maps of regions, countries, continents, and the world, to get you off to a quick start.

Thanks to the program’s 20 tools, designers have open options of choice of colors, fills, strokes, and adornments that allow them to assemble unlimited style and symbol combinations. Ortelius also includes WYSIWYG drawing and editing; layers and layer groups; and automatic junctions and style transitions.

Read all about it, and try out a free trial of the Ortelius Standard Edition for the MAC.