Vintage Lettering Book

I'm a huge fan of brush script typefaces, so when I came across this vintage lettering book I had to have it. I couldn't find a date in the book or online, so if anyone knows the exact date this was published, please post a comment. The alphabets in this book are a delight. These images link to the Flickr posts where you can view larger versions.

The Final Word on Transparent PNGs

It's becoming clear that the PNG image format is preferred for Web design. The JPG format might be a better choice for photographs, but PNG has many advantages over the prehistoric GIF. The PNG alpha-channel transparency seals the deal by giving designers Photoshop-quality transparency.

The only thing holding us back is a lack of support for transparent PNGs in Internet Explorer 6. While many Windows XP users have upgraded to IE7, it may be another year before we can fully drop support for IE6. There have been many different techniques to use the AlphaImageLoader filter to allow transparent PNGs in IE6, but one finally stands out in the developer community. It comes in two different forms, each applied differently, but both using almost identical code.

The IE PNG Fix v1.0 RC4 from Angus Turnbull is currently being using on the Apple Web site. You need the iepngfix.htc and blank.gif files, and apply the fix by adding behavior:url(iepngfix.htc); to your stylesheet. This can be done with one style for inline PNGs, and also added to individual styles if using transparent PNGs as background images.

The other form of this fix is SuperSleight by Drew McLellan. This one is published on the 24ways Web site and is well accepted by developers. It also promises to fix other issues with transparent PNGs in IE6 — issues besides just display. SuperSleight is applied by adding a conditional comment to target IE6 and load a javascript file that does all the work.

Even with these elegant hacks, IE6 still won't let you use background-repeat or background-position with transparent PNGs. For my personal Web site I rely on tiling a transparent PNG down the background, so in the end, I'm going to turn off PNGs for IE6 that are used in the background of this site.

Illustrator Artwork in Flash

During a previous project I lived through the horror of importing Illustrator CS2 documents into Flash 8. As you can see from the project, it contained a lot of gradients, and at the time, Flash would not accept gradients from Illustrator. Two years ago I was forced to redraw a shape in Flash if it contained a gradient. For a detailed illustration you might have hundreds of shapes, and redrawing them all is a nightmare.

Now that Adobe owns Flash, their compatibility in CS3 is greatly improved. This works as long as you use the AI import function from Flash (File>Import). Some of the older methods of transferring artwork to Flash, like exporting a SWF from Illustrator, still yields Flash 8 type results.

In a current project I am using the AI import function frequently and have found a few things that Flash doesn't like. I've looked around for a document from Adobe, or even a blog post, that outlines what techniques in Illustrator CS3 are not compatible with Flash. Adobe does tell us a few things that will work, but what I need is a list of common Illustrator techniques to avoid. I'd like to be able to give this information to the artist that I'm working with on the project. I've haven't seen any information posted about this, so I'll start a running list here. If anyone knows of any other lists, or have items to contribute, please post a comment.

• All Illustrator "Effects"
• Dashed Strokes (Though they show up as rounded shapes)
• Blends (Will create millions of little shapes, which hog memory)

Wallpaper Roundup, September '07

Here's a roundup of the desktop wallpaper that I use the most. I find that wallpaper is a good source of design inspiration, and I tend to choose wallpaper designs that won't interfere with my design work.