Category: Article

Simplest Document Setup for a Logo

My goal is to create a logo. It doesn’t have to be a Paul Rand quality logo. Instead, I just gotta like it. Adobe Illustrator (AI) is a fine tool for the job.

AI is flexible. Working in it feels more to me like programming than illustration. Don’t get me wrong though, it is a tool for designers, and, I am not. Although every Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) application includes at least one built in JavaScript interpreter, I am not talking about programming here. Instead the similarities between programming and illustrating are that

  • You are working in your cognitive space with the computer as the meta-medium
  • Creativity ebbs and flows, it is critical
  • So too having a plan is critical

My plan follows.

Continue reading “Simplest Document Setup for a Logo”

Techne (Emacs Friendly Keyboard): Operations Keys

The most important keys on any keyboard for an Emacs user are the Operation Keys (I made up that term). Without them Emacs would be useless. For Techne (the new name for my Emacs keyboard project) I decided to use symbols instead of letters for them.

The operations cluster is on both the left and right side of the keyboard. Yes, that is a full twenty keys just to make life happier in Emacs! I love keyboards so dedicating twenty keys to a critical task is perfect for me. These sections live on a eight row by sixteen column layout so there is plenty of room. It’s bottom left corner is position (1,1) (Row, Column) increasing as you go up and to the right (ala Cartesian coordinates). In the table I wrote the key name and then the symbol. The picture only includes the symbol.

Legend: C# (column number)

Row Four Five Six Seven Eight
Two Hyper ⬖ Super ⬙ Meta ⬗ Control ⬘ Space ⭕
One Alt ⎇ GUI ⃟ Ultra ◆ Shift ⇧ Enter ⎆

16-10-26-01_Left_Operations.png

Ultra is: C-m-S-H. Emacs can handle that including the Shift modifier along with it. In case you haven’t encountered it yet, here is how to get all of the Emacs modifiers on a modern USB keyboard.

My symbol choices started with Sun’s meta symbol. After playing around with that, reading Xah’s page on Unicode input symbols, searching for and comparing symbols with PopChar and playing around with a ton of combinations I ended up here. It is nice because it settles on the diamond theme.

Chapter 101. Managing Layer Panel Options 10:23

  • Isolation mode will be useful for working with individual keyboard-layers while still being able to see how things look overall
  • Double-click on an object to go into isolation mode automatically
    • Use that back arrow in the top-middle thing
    • Exit by double-clicking on the artboard
  • Select an object with the Direct Selection tool and search for it in a layer and it will list all instances it can find
  • Merge selection layers
  • Flatten every layer into a single layer
  • Select N things and collect in a new layer
  • Release to layers
    • Sequence: NA
    • Build: NA
  • Make the layer a template
  • Option-Show/Hide will hide/show everything but that layer
  • Out line others: WOW
    • Option-command click to do it too
    • Preview all layers to show them again
  • Lock Others
    • Option-Click
  • Paste Remembers Layers: Neat
  • There are general options for the layer panel itself
    • Show Layers Only
    • Make layers big
    • Do I need sub-layers shown?

Chapter 100. Layer Panel Options 4:26

  • Double-click layer name to change it
  • Each layer’s options are configured individually
  • Template Layer
    • Not designed to print
    • Designed to guide you
  • You can disable a layer from printing
    • Make it easy to read on a computer and also printed
    • Instructions on how to do something
  • Preview a whole layer
  • Dim images