If the 2010 Pakistan Flood Had Hit Portland Instead
The BBC microsite How Big Really? has created an application to put the size of this disaster into geographic context relative to anywhere else in the world. Had this massive disaster hit Portland, the affected area would’ve stretched from the Bay Area nearly to Calgary, Alberta:
I don’t know which relief charity is best, but please make a donation of any kind however you can. This might be the worst catastrophe of our lifetimes, including this year’s Haitian earthquake or even the 2004 Indonesian tsunami. Hurricane Katrina was a light shower compared to this. The number of deceased and displaced children is an unfathomable tragedy.
Portland Commodore Users Group
Yes, this exists. And why the hell not? For those born in the early-to-mid-1970s, the Commodore served as the “gateway drug” to basic (literally BASIC) computer programming and digital graphic design, whether it was the classic Commodore 64, 128, VIC-20 or even the (premium) Amiga.
At the height of the brand’s popularity, a Commodore was the only personal computer in millions of American homes. It was an actual computer like Tandy’s TRS-80 rather than a game console like the Atari 2600. With a Commodore you could teach yourself how to create your own rudimentary programs and graphics. Further you could save them to magnetic tapes, 5.25″ floppy disks and, eventually, 3.5″ disks and come back to them later, adding more complexity as you honed your programming skills.
Or one could go to the Walgreens, buy a company of RUN magazine, and spend hours upon hours entering machine code to create a simple game you wouldn’t pay 25 cents to play at an arcade. God help you if made typos in the process. Debugging was immensely tedious, to say the least.
Despite the limitations of the operating system developers were able to recreate passable facsimiles of arcade and console games from Bally, Namco, Nintendo and Atari. But the real genius went into the original game programming produced and published by companies like Epyx, Interplay, Accolade and Electronic Arts. The quality of the graphics and music was revelatory. The entertainment value was immense—in the context of the 1980s, especially—and the games could be replayed hundreds of times. Long before teenagers squared off in Madden contests over the internet, kids gathered in suburban basements to play all-night tournaments of the game de jour.
A player could wander the dungeons of the “Temple of Apshai” dozens of times, set the game aside for a few months or even a year, then return to rediscover all the old tricks and traps and techniques and…
…anyway, the group meets the 2nd Thursday of every month. And the gatherings aren’t just about nostalgia for long-gone cartridges and joysticks; they are about learning how to develop applications in a “dead language” like BASIC: the challenge of creating something unique and engaging with only 16 colors and 65,536 bytes of RAM to work with.
For more details, visit http://pdxcug.org/. They’re on Twitter, too: @pdxcug
Fisher Communications Centennial Interactive Flash Timeline
Upon their 100th anniversary, Fisher Communications—owners of Portland ABC affiliate KATU—has created a microsite with an interactive Flash timeline highlighting the company’s accomplishments.
It’s an interesting design, similar to the Oregon Baseball History piece that we created several years ago. Two notes: one, there is way too much copy in the Events column. Either cutting down on the content or including a scrollbar would’ve been good for the user interface (UI).
And second, the anniversary logo could be improved by omitting the years. Given the black background, the dates become imbued with funereal significance, as if to mourn the passing of a beloved public figure. Subtracting 100 from 2010 is pretty easy math for most people to do. The word “century”—instantly impressive—is sandwiched and buried. Make it bigger and give it room to breathe.
“Celebrating a Century” might be a better tagline: “service” and “innovation” are buzzwords that many, many businesses try to co-opt as their own distinguishing characteristics. These terms have lost any value they once held. Push them down into body copy or drop them altogether.
Kruger’s Farm Stand Opening Party
A fun event coming up this Friday in St. Johns: the grand opening of a new farm stand. Kruger’s Farm now will have its own place to sell fresh produce and flowers, jams, jellies, etc. And they sell delicious Mexican Coca-Cola, too.
Friday’s event will have music, food, beer, barbecue and more. It’ll be kid-friendly, too, so bring them along. Even the invite itself is warm and, uh, inviting:
The fun begins at 4 pm at 7316 North Lombard.
Kobbi Site Launches, Receives Recognition from CoolHomePages.com and iStockphoto
The Kobbi web site design might be our most popular and frequently complimented. It’s part of our web design and development portfolio, and we performed all the work on this site including some interactive Flash and eCommerce.
This post is from August 17, 2006:
After a thorough redesign process, the new site for Kobbi launched today. The new Kobbi.com includes eCommerce functionality and several interactive Flash elements for navigation and informational purposes. Upon launch, the site received immediate acceptance to iStockphoto’s Design Spotlight.
Kobbi, with a product line based upon the concept of “The Art of Thankful Living,” is based in Portland, where its products are sold in several retail locations in addition to its online store.
Update: As of January 3, 2007, the Kobbi web site design has earned a near-perfect 98.7% approval rating in peer-reviewed comments.
And from October 13, 2006:
The new Kobbi site was recognized by CoolHomePages.com for general excellence in design and specifically in the categories of Color Schemes, CSS & DHTML, E-Commerce, Flash, Products and Usability.
Update I: As of December 12, 2007, members of the CoolHomePages.com have rated the Kobbi home page design 9 out of 10 stars.
Update II: As of June 19, 2010, the site maintains its 9-star rating. More than 5,000 users have clicked on the thumbnail to visit the site.
Three Cosmonaut Stock Photos Used in Political Campaign Commercial
The marketing team/agency for Amanda Fritz, candidate for Portland City Council, selected three of our stock photos to use in their latest TV commercial. Our images appear at :06 (Portland City Hall), :11 (Portland MAX train) and :19 (the OHSU overhead tram).
UPDATE, 11/4/2008: Amanda Fritz won a seat on the Portland City Council.
Two Stock Photos Included in Proposed Ford Flex Campaign
Two Cosmonaut stock images—both U.S. Interstate 75 road signs—were used by designer Shane Morris of Jackson-Dawson Communications for a new Flex ad campaign proposed to the Ford Motor Company.
Morris’s design (click to see full size) helped the firm land the project with the world’s third largest auto manufacturer. The proposed ad campaign theme was “On the Road” with Ford Flex, which is now “Let’s Go Somewhere.”
The interstate sign image on the bottom right was taken at the Burnside Street on-ramp to Interstate 5 in Portland, then altered to its present form. Similarly, the sign on the top right was originally an I-5 highway sign, photographed near the Tacoma Dome in Washington state.
Interstate 75 connects Miami and Detroit, continuing up north to reach Michigan’s border with Ontario.
Mentor Graphics Launches SalesConnect at Worldwide Sales Conference
From January 17, 2007:
We’d like to celebrate the launch of Mentor Graphics SalesConnect, a powerful support site built for Mentor sales staff. SalesConnect was unveiled today by Mentor Graphics, the industry leader in electronic design automation (EDA) technology, at its worldwide sales conference in San Diego, California.
Cosmonaut served as the development firm for this enterprise-class software initiative, coding site functionality in ColdFusion, including a custom-built content management system (CMS). SalesConnect’s presentation layer and user interfaces were created by EDGE Design (now .
Mentor Graphics is a world leader in electronic hardware and software design solutions, providing products, consulting services and award-winning support for the world’s most successful electronics and semiconductor companies
With offices in Portland and Corvallis, Oregon, EDGE Design has provided creative services and design solutions since 1984. Their client list includes Hewlett-Packard, Iovation, Unicel Wireless and Oregon State University.
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