Author: Ryan Tvenge

I have always been a fan of san serif fonts when working with web. I just think it looks cleaner. Maybe that is just how it fits my style of web though. I have seen some sites that use serif fonts, and they look good as well. One thing is for sure, they can’t be decorative fonts. The body type has to be simple. It’s kinda like seeing comic sans in red on a black background.

The one Kiosk I have found that I used was the one in the wedge. I was very impressed with it. What I want to know is what was running it? Was it Flash just on a computer?

After playing Second Life, I have a very different look on the potential of the
internet. It brings it to the idea of what the writers of Futurama where
thinking. This was the first thing I thought of when I was in second life. Unfortunately
I couldn’t get off Orientation Island. I think if I would have spent more time
with it, I could have done more with it.

After being introduced to a band called The Faint, I heard of a flash game that
was made in reflection to one of their songs, Dropkick the Punks. Sidenote, they
play a killer show. I saw them at First Ave over break.

So I played a game called Dropkick
The Faint. It is really fun. It’s a bit violent, but if you take it
with a grain of salt, its not so bad. It’s very simple. All you do is hit
the space bar a number of times. You hit it once to get an accuracy and
again after you are running towards the punk to dropkick him. You get a
score based on how far the punk flies.

For the most part it was easy to use. At first I didn’t understand why I had
to push the space bar at the beginning because the accuracy bar is very small
in the top of the screen. Other than that, it did the trick. I killed a good
half an hour on this game.

It has been TOO long! I haven’t blogged since Cedar Point? That’s Bad.

I had some great experiences this weekend, and wanted to get them down on paper. (Well, ePaper I guess. My interactive teacher would be proud.)

For SDO we took a trip down to Mankato for the weekend. It’s something like Design Camp but for students only and a lot smaller but still just as fun.

We got down there about early this year. No snow storms to battle this year. We got there early so we got to chill in the hotel for a bit. Unfortunately for Ben his screen on his MBP had broken the night before and he was on the phone with Apple. He found out that this was probably not covered under Apple Care like he had hoped. At this point, it was “shit on Ben weekend.” But it’s a good thing Ben’s got a killer book.

Because life is not fair and there is no Chipotle in Duluth, we HAD to hit it up in Kato. It was just as good as I remembered it.

When we got to the school, we showed our portfolios after the first speaker that night. Ben put his out, and everyone swarmed to it. Lot’s of great work. I had put mine out as well. It didn’t get as much attention as his did. It was nice to see other people’s work and at what level they were working.

That night, the girls wanted to have a hot tub party, while we chilled in our room on our laptops. UGHHH. Kind of really boring. But luckily the girls came over later and wanted some pizza and possibly a game of Balderdash. We took them up on the offer.

If you are unaware, Balderdash is a game where you have a word, film, or acronym that no one would ever know and you make up definitions for them. The reason it’s fun is because people come up with some of the most obscure definitions. For example, the act of burning a cat, or a dog with poles for legs. We had a good time with this while kicking back some cold ones.

The next day was a busy one. Lots of workshops and speakers. The speaker that stood out the most was Jeff Johnson from Spunk Design Machine. He was a really cool guy. Their client base was very diverse. He showed a client who wanted cock rings designed, then leading into the next client who made holy books for Lutheran churches.

That night it was a mix and mingle at B Dubs. We got to sit with Jeff for dinner. Dinner conversation consisted of the whore boats in Duluth to the gay hook up sauna. He wanted us to make posters to support getting an Amtrak train back up to Duluth. He was very interested in screen-printing and risqué design.

After dinner kind of ended, Emily and I headed out to The Underground. Everyone else was pretty much underage. It was fun to mingle with the other designers and have a few beers.

The whole weekend was really fun. Learned a lot about what other people are doing in design. But mostly it got me thinking about getting a job and my book. Speaking of my book, that’s what I’m going to do next.

Peace.