NuCreature (tm) Media

The Return

nucreature — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 01:15:28 +0000

Project: Demonstrate multimedia skills with Flash CS4. Details: Created this Flash presentation called “The Return” to illustrate the imminent return of Jesus Christ according to the Holy Bible. Incorporated vector images from Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop; and sound files from music library. Created motion tweens for animation. Programmed button behaviors using Action Script 2.0

NuCreature (tm) Media - web, print, & interactive media

NuCreature Flash Website

nucreature — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 23:18:46 +0000

Project: Develop a interactive web experience while enhancing company online presence. Client: NuCreature Media (Click links in above site or visit flash site ) Details: Developed this flash website using a pre-designed template. Modified buttons, links, behavior using Action Script 2.0 . Created images in Photoshop CS4 and converted to symbols/movie clips. Optimized for use on the web by publishing as a shockwave file (swf), inserting keywords, etc.

NuCreature (tm) Media - web, print, & interactive media

Interactive iPod

nucreature — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:53:30 +0000

Project: Create interactive iPod to demonstrate skills using Flash CS4 (Click Play) Client: Personal Project Details: Imported vector iPod from Adobe Illustrator into Flash and added interactive components like play/pause using Actionscript 2.0 to stream sound clip.

NuCreature (tm) Media - web, print, & interactive media

3D Website Display

nucreature — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:57:38 +0000

Show off your website on business cards, postcards, etc. with this easy customizable PSD file. Source | Download

NuCreature (tm) Media - web, print, & interactive media

Tri-Fold Brochure

nucreature — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:50:33 +0000

This Tri-Fold Brochure PSD is perfect for your next mock-up in web, print, or other media. Source | Download

NuCreature (tm) Media - web, print, & interactive media

Free Black Designer Business Card

nucreature — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:15:52 +0000

Source | Download

NuCreature (tm) Media - web, print, & interactive media

How To Design a Print Ready Die-Cut Business Card

nucreature — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 01:11:09 +0000

How To Design a Print Ready Die-Cut Business Card Need a new set of business cards? Follow this step by step tutorial to create a cool business card design in Adobe Illustrator. We’ll begin creating the vibrant pattern effect, then we’ll lay out the contact information and set up the final print ready file ready for us to print right here on our website using our online designer. Tutorial By Chris Spooner The business card design we’ll be creating as part of this tutorial features a vibrant pattern on the rear of the card, with a minimal design on the front allowing the contact information to stand out. The final printed card will be die-cut with round corners, so we’ll set up the print ready file appropriately with the correct dimensions, bleed and margins. Open up Adobe Illustrator and create a new document. I’m using UPrinting for this business card design, so I’ll use their dimensions of 3.5″ by 2″ with 0.125″ of bleed. This deign will be double sided, so enter 2 in the Number of Artboards setting. Draw a white rectangle across the whole of the first artboard, including the red bleed outline. Use the Line tool to begin drawing intersecting lines both horizontally and vertically. Add more intersecting lines to the design, this time diagonally by holding down the Shift key. Select all the intersecting lines and convert them into a Compound Path by selecting the menu option or hitting CMD+8. Add the white rectangle to the selection, then click the Divide option from the Pathfinder palette. Right click and select Ungroup, then draw a selection across the linework beyond the edges of the document to delete them. Set out a colourful colour scheme for your design (this one’s from ColourLovers), then begin filling random shapes with the first colour from the palette. Continue cycling through the colours to fill the empty shapes with swatches from the palette. Make a duplicate of the colour swatches and create vibrant gradients from the base colour to a lighter tone. Use the Magic Wand tool to select all the shapes with the first colour from the palette, then use the Eyedropper tool to replace the flat colour fill with the new gradient. Once all the shapes have gradient fills applied, zoom in and use the Gradient Tool to alter the direction of the gradient randomly for each shape. The random fills and alternating directions of the gradients creates a really cool pattern effect to fill up the rear of the card. Toggle on Smart Guides then use the Pen tool to fill a selection in the centre of the card to allow space for a website URL. Enter the address of your website in your favourite font, then adjust the sizing slightly to lower the prominence of the prefix and suffix. Give it a fill using the darkest colour from your palette. Select the text element and its surrounding shape, then give the shape an extra click to select it as the key object. Use the Align tool to centre the text to its container. Grab the Rounded Rectangle tool and click on the artboard to enter specific dimensions. Enter 2.5″ by 2″ with a 0.25″ radius. Right click on the newly created rectangle and select the Create Guides option. This will create a guideline to give an insight into how the card will be cropped down during printing. With the front of the card complete it’s time to move onto the rear. Fill a rectangle covering the second artboard with a swatch from the colour palette. Select and copy a series of vibrant shapes from the front of the card and position them on the rear to continue the pattern. Position these shapes running across the lower left of the card. In the remaining white space use the Text tool to enter your name, job title and contact details using the typeface of your choice. Give certain text elements more visual prominence by altering its case and size. The two contact telephone numbers are laid out side by side, so draw a small bullet with the circle tool to separate them. Align the text elements, then move them exactly into the lower right corner. Hold the Shift key then move the text elements back into their own space. The overall design of the business card is complete, now let’s prepare the file for print. First select all and convert all text elements to outlines to avoid any font related problems with your printer. Go to File > Save As and select the PDF option. In the settings alter the preset to Press Quality then alter the standard to whatever is recommended by your printer. In this case it’s PDF/X-1a:2001. You also have the options of adding crop marks, but in this case they aren’t necessary so just the Use Document Bleed Settings option is checked.

NuCreature (tm) Media - web, print, & interactive media

Funeral Home Website

nucreature — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 03:52:07 +0000

(Click image to view) Client: House of Branch Funeral Home, Chicago, Il. Project: Re-design funeral website from Joomla to WordPress in order to communicate & market to customers. Details: Build website using WordPress (CMS) and Photoshop CS4 (graphics), Microsoft Word (text). http://houseofbranch.net

NuCreature (tm) Media - web, print, & interactive media

WordPress As A CMS

nucreature — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 19:08:11 +0000

As defined by Wikipedia: A content management system (CMS) is a system providing a collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based. WordPress is the perfect platform for multiple users to contribute towards the content (both for blog posts and pages). To take advantage of your manual labor create roles: Administrator – has complete control over the site; can change themes, add new users, write and publish blog posts or pages. Editor – can write and publish their own posts or those of other users. Author – can only write and publish their own posts. Contributor – can write their own posts but not publish. Subscriber – can manage their own profile but can only read posts. Plugins: Always beware of too many plugins or using a theme that doesn’t have enough built in options; however, why not enjoy the labors of some very smart people and enhance the functionality of your WordPress blog|site with plugins? A few of my favorites are SexyBookmarks, WP Database Backup and NextGen-Gallery. Set the permalink structure – don’t leave it at default, you want to customize your URL’s. This takes 10 seconds and is great for SEO. (Dashboard -> Settings -> Permalinks -> Custom Structure, type in %postname%) Take advantage of the SEO capabilities: easy sitemap generators (plugin), add meta titles & descriptions, H1 tags. Many well built themes (SmallBiz) have SEO options built right into the theme, if you have chosen a theme that doesn’t have this, download All in One SEO. If you have chosen a WordPress theme that doesn’t allow any plugins, you need a new theme. Custom Menu – drag and drop your pages into a hierarchy of parent and child pages. If you have ever tried writing the code for a drop down menu you will bow down and pay homage to whoever implemented this function. A really cool use of the custom menus is to create secondary menus for categories or child pages which you may use in widgets and footers. By Eileen Lonergan

NuCreature (tm) Media - web, print, & interactive media

Steve Jobs

nucreature — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 02:25:30 +0000

Steve Jobs was born February 24, 1955, to two University of Wisconsin graduate students who gave him up for adoption. Smart but directionless, Jobs experimented with different pursuits before starting Apple Computers with Stephen Wozniak in the Jobs’ family garage. Apple’s revolutionary products, which include the iPod, iPhone and iPad, are now seen as dictating the evolution of modern technology. Early Life Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955, to Joanne Simpson and Abdulfattah “John” Jandali, two University of Wisconsin graduate students who gave their unnamed son up for adoption. His father, Abdulfattah Jandali, was a Syrian political science professor and his mother, Joanne Simpson, worked as a speech therapist. Shortly after Steve was placed for adoption, his biological parents married and had another child, Mona Simpson. It was not until Jobs was 27 that he was able to uncover information on his biological parents. As an infant, Steven was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs and named Steven Paul Jobs. Clara worked as an accountant and Paul was a Coast Guard veteran and machinist. The family lived in Mountain View within California’s Silicon Valley. As a boy, Jobs and his father would work on electronics in the family garage. Paul would show his son how to take apart and reconstruct electronics, a hobby which instilled confidence, tenacity, and mechanical prowess in young Jobs. While Jobs has always been an intelligent and innovative thinker, his youth was riddled with frustrations over formal schooling. In elementary school he was a prankster whose fourth grade teacher needed to bribe him to study. Jobs tested so well, however, that administrators wanted to skip him ahead to high school—a proposal his parents declined. After he did enroll in high school, Jobs spent his free time at Hewlett-Packard. It was there that he befriended computer club guru Steve Wozniak. Wozniak was a brilliant computer engineer, and the two developed great respect for one another. Apple Computers After high school, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Lacking direction, he dropped out of college after six months and spent the next 18 months dropping in on creative classes. Jobs later recounted how one course in calligraphy developed his love of typography. In 1974, Jobs took a position as a video game designer with Atari. Several months later he left Atari to find spiritual enlightenment in India, traveling the continent and experimenting with psychedelic drugs. In 1976, when Jobs was just 21, he and Wozniak started Apple Computers. The duo started in the Jobs family garage, and funded their entrepreneurial venture after Jobs sold his Volkswagen bus and Wozniak sold his beloved scientific calculator. Jobs and Wozniak are credited with revolutionizing the computer industry by democratizing the technology and making the machines smaller, cheaper, intuitive, and accessible to everyday consumers. The two conceived a series of user-friendly personal computers that they initially marketed for $666.66 each. Their first model, the Apple I, earned them $774,000. Three years after the release of their second model, the Apple II, sales increased 700 percent to $139 million dollars. In 1980, Apple Computer became a publically traded company with a market value of $1.2 billion on the very first day of trading. Jobs looked to marketing expert John Scully of Pepsi-Cola to help fill the role of Apple’s President. Departure from Apple However, the next several products from Apple suffered significant design flaws resulting in recalls and consumer disappointment. IBM suddenly surpassed Apple sales, and Apple had to compete with an IBM/PC dominated business world. In 1984 Apple released the Macintosh, marketing the computer as a piece of a counter culture lifestyle: romantic, youthful, creative. But despite positive sales and performance superior to IBM’s PCs, the Macintosh was still not IBM compatible. Scully believed Jobs was hurting Apple, and executives began to phase him out. In 1985, Jobs resigned as Apple’s CEO to begin a new hardware and software company called NeXT, Inc. The following year Jobs purchased an animation company from George Lucas, which later became Pixar Animation Studios. Believing in Pixar’s potential, Jobs initially invested $50 million of his own money into the company. Pixar Studios went on to produce wildly popular animation films such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. Pixar’s films have netted $4 billion. The studio merged with Walt Disney in 2006, making Steve Jobs Disney’s largest shareholder. Reinventing Apple Despite Pixar’s success, NeXT, Inc. floundered in its attempts to sell its specialized operating system to mainstream America. Apple eventually bought the company in 1997 for $429 million. That same year, Jobs returned to his post as Apple’s CEO. Much like Steve Jobs instigated Apple’s success in the 1970s, he is credited with revitalizing the company in the 1990s. With a new management team, altered stock options, and a self-imposed annual salary of $1 a year, Jobs put Apple back on track. His ingenious products such as the iMac, effective branding campaigns, and stylish designs caught the attention of consumers once again. Pancreatic Cancer In 2003, Jobs discovered he had a neuroendocrine tumor, a rare but operable form of pancreatic cancer. Instead of immediately opting for surgery, Jobs chose to alter his pescovegetarian diet while weighing Eastern treatment options. For nine months Jobs postponed surgery, making Apple’s board of directors nervous. Executives feared that shareholders would pull their stocks if word got out that their CEO was ill. But in the end, Job’s confidentiality took precedence over shareholder disclosure. In 2004, he had a successful surgery to remove the pancreatic tumor. True to form, in subsequent years Jobs disclosed little about his health. Recent Innovations Apple introduced such revolutionary products as the Macbook Air, iPod, and iPhone, all of which have dictated the evolution of modern technology. Almost immediately after Apple releases a new product, competitors scramble to produce comparable technologies. In 2007, Apple’s quarterly reports were the company’s most impressive statistics to date. Stocks were worth a record-breaking $199.99 a share, and the company boasted a staggering $1.58 billion dollar profit, an $18 billion dollar surplus in the bank, and zero debt. In 2008, iTunes became the second biggest music retailer in America-second only to Wal-Mart. Half of Apple’s current revenue comes from iTunes and iPod sales, with 200 million iPods sold and six billion songs downloaded. For these reasons, Apple has been rated No. 1 in America’s Most Admired Companies, and No. 1 amongst Fortune 500 companies for returns to shareholders. Personal Life Early in 2009, reports circulated about Jobs’ weight loss, some predicting his health issues had returned, which included a liver transplant. Jobs had responded to these concerns by stating he was dealing with a hormone imbalance. After nearly a year out of the spotlight, Steve Jobs delivered a keynote address at an invite-only Apple event September 9, 2009. In respect to his personal life, Steve Jobs remained a private man who rarely discloses information about his family. What is known is Jobs fathered a daughter with girlfriend Chrisann Brennan when he was 23. Jobs denied paternity of his daughter Lisa in court documents, claiming he was sterile. Jobs did not initiate a relationship with his daughter until she was 7 but, when she was a teenager, she came to live with her father. In the early 1990s, Jobs met Laurene Powell at Stanford business school, where Powell was an MBA student. They married on March 18, 1991, and lived together in Palo Alto, California, with their three children. Final Years On October 5, 2011, Apple Inc. announced that co-founder Steve Jobs had died. He was 56 years old at the time of his death. ————————————————————————– Steve Jobs. (2011). Biography.com. Retrieved 10:30, Oct 06, 2011 fromhttp://www.biography.com/people/steve-jobs-9354805

NuCreature (tm) Media - web, print, & interactive media