This article on Food Photography for Bloggers is actually really useful for good blog photography in general — it doesn’t have to be food, though a couple of the tips are food-related. I especially liked the idea about the painted backdrops. I think some of these will be good for knitting photography.

While browsing Shorpy, I saw a link to Box of Apples — a site devoted to fruit crate label art. They sell giclée prints of them, but even if you’re not in the market, the gallery is a fun browse. They mention in their blog that “…one reason these labels are so pretty is that instead of the usual four-color printing (where cyan, magenta, yellow and black are combined to produce the desired hue), they used eight- and twelve- color printing.” Close-up examples are provided to illustrate this. They are all great, but I think I like this one the best.

Pre-pixelated clothes for reality TV shows: one of those ideas that seems so obvious once you see it. I love it! I want to buy a few of these.

However, in the comments below that post, there’s a fine example of how stupid people have gotten about copyrights and trademarks. A poster named Adam wrote:

“I do this for a living. I am the guy that watches shows and tells people what to blur. Funny shirts. However as one person pointed out if I saw these in a show I would have to blur them. If I can track down the person or place that owns the design I have them sign a release so I don’t have to blur the logo.”

What kind of a world do we live in that people have to be “pixelators” for a living? Who are the freaks that would sue if their logo was on someone’s t-shirt in The Real World? And what is the point of blurring something that’s already blurred? Gah.

(Incidentally, I love the design of the Ironic Sans website, with the ink sketched letters and side bars. It’s uncommon to see designs on the web that look this handmade and uncomputery, and yet so darned great.)

The US is getting a new nickel next year, and unlike the old one, this one will have Thomas Jefferson facing forward. I envisioned a really ugly coin, but it’s actually not bad. It sort of looks foreign, not having the head centered on the face of the coin. And I like the “Liberty” in Jefferson’s handwriting. What do you think? I just wish that next they would get rid of dollar bills and switch to coins like Canada.

Marlow Harris’ Seattle Unusual Homes website is kind of cool! Not all the homes are in Seattle, and some of them are less “unusual homes” than “unusual temporary decoration,” but they are pretty darned neat anyway. Browse through the rest of her real estate website, and you’ll also find pages about Seattle architectural styles, artists’ homes, etc.

We’ve all seen plain old boring chain link fences. Here’s a picture of a fence with a lace pattern made from chain link (scroll down to the picture).

Hewn and Hammered is a brand-new weblog about Craftsman, Mission, and Prairie design and architecture. The blog isn’t just about house restoration, but will also discuss the work of current and historical A&C artists and craftspeople, and include articles about the history and philosophy of the Arts and Crafts movement.

The site is edited by the editor of the excellent Typographica web site, so it ought to be good.

There are few sites that serve both font geeks and theme park geeks. This massive Disney fonts list is one. Want to know which font is used in the logo for Mickey’s Star Traders, or which font is included in the posters for the Haunted Mansion? How about the old Epcot logo font or the font used in the Magic Kingdom guidemaps back in the ’70s? It’s all here including links to purchase the fonts or find freeware alternatives. Wow.

The Essential Vermeer site is an vast collection of information about the Dutch master Jan Vermeer and his work. The site is published by Jonathan Janson, a painter who has studied Vermeer’s techniques extensively to produce his own Vermeer-inspired art. Interested in painting your own “Vermeer”? Janson provides instructions on how to do so. A lovely site with hours and hours of interesting material.

One of the sites that made the rounds of the Net while I was on vacation was Fontifier. It generates TrueType fonts from handwriting (or other stuff, like small drawings) you submit on a template. For now, at least, it’s free. I’ve made several fonts while playing with it, but so far the best result has been Wendiscript Regular, which looks like this:

There was a time about 10 years ago when my job was to create infographics for a daily newspaper. Every day I went in to the newspaper office, made a graphic or two, then went home. (It was a part-time job.) There are worse jobs out there, though after a while, the assignment “make a graphic displaying ‘job growth in the South Sound region,’ and it has to be different from the job growth graphics you did last month and the month before” was less than thrilling. Still, it was kind of fun.

I’ve just found an infographics weblog with a running list of links to a variety of infographics. It also has links to collections of infographics about 9-11 and the Columbia disaster. (The Columbia link is broken, but the page can still be reached at http://www.nixlog.com/infographics_new/space_shuttle_columbia.php.) Interesting stuff.