Introduction

There’s usually five hard ways to do something without any kind of guarantee of an available easy way. Sometimes there is an easy way, sometimes there’s just an easIER way, and sometimes there’s just hard ways. Realizing that some things just take hard work is an important step towards growing up (regardless of your numerical age) but it’s also the kind of thinking that can get you stuck. I’m a fan of hard work and, as such, sometimes I work a lot harder at something than I should. Case in point, the story I’m going to share with you.

I’m new to all of this… how can this article help me?

Approaching your technology problems can be daunting - especially if you know only one way to do things and that way is a P.I.T.A. When it comes to computers and the internet, it’s important to always keep in mind that there are probably 5 pieces of software that you never knew existed that do exactly what you need, 5 pieces of hardware that could solve one nagging problem, and a 100 people out there who are better trained than you are and are chomping at the bit to help you out (that’s me). All you have to do is keep your eyes open, your mind working, and your homepage on Google and you’re a step ahead of the rest.

Sometimes, there’s no need to swim uphill

So I know a guy with a blog. I built the blog for this guy. Blood, sweat, tears, and love went into putting together this blog. Then, even more bodily fluids went into typing and editing his blog posts to post on his blog on a regular basis. In the meantime, exponentially more effort went into editing, designing, copyrighting, and publishing his book. I was paid for most of it but, because the project was close to me, many hours flew by sans compensation (willingly of course).

He wrote a lot of material all at once and sent it over to keep me busy and have a “buffer.” This buffer was the only thing he would write for months despite my gentle insistence and cajoling. He said he liked to write but, in the end, if we actually like to do things, don’t we just do them? I like to write and, coincidentally enough, I end up writing a lot (here, at work, emails, etc). It occurred to me that maybe he wasn’t into this writing thing after all.

Still, I was working for him and if he wanted to write, well, dammit, I would do everything I could to make him write. So I bought him books about writing, wrote him blog posts about writing blog posts, and came up with a massive list of every possible industry topic he could write about. I kept (and keep) editing his buffer posts, every week posting less and getting closer to the finale of all of his earlier efforts.  I made him buy cards to promote his blog and his book, despite having very little left to post. I even added my own posts as the “administrator” of the blog talking about what I’ve learned and what to expect. In the end, I was working several hours a week on a blog that wasn’t mine for a purpose that I wasn’t clear on. I had stopped taking payments but kept trying to edit and post what was left. The idea started out so exciting and I was watching it peter out like a match in the rain.

New approach

This client had done radio work back in the day and, every now and then, reminisced about his days behind the mic. His voice is very calming. You can always hear his smile because he’s always smiling. On the phone or in person, he’s always wearing that big, friendly grin and telling you something to which you ought to be listening.

The idea of a podcast floated into my consciousness a few months ago but, in my head, it sounded like an expansion plan and I was not interested in expanding something that wasn’t going anywhere. The podcast idea wouldn’t leave my head, however, and today, after a rousing conversation about the matter, I just blurted it out.

“This blog thing just isn’t working. He should just do a podcast.”

And, with that, this blog thing was solved.

Despite what he says, at least for the time being, this client just doesn’t want to write. There’s no point in forcing something that isn’t happening. He has, however, had his ears open for a broadcasting gig hosting his own show on the radio without much luck.

A book and a blog, if it takes off and starts gaining attention, is just going to get more audience members for the blog and, at best, a great offer for a new book. For someone that finds it difficult to make the time and energy to write, this is a punishment in disguise.

If, however, he took this great wisdom he has, spoke it into a digital recorder, and emailed the final product to me, he’d never have to write another word in his life. The audio can be posted and hosted on the blog, submitted to iTunes, compiled and sold on a CD, or even be a spring-board to videos if he wanted. Not only that, if the audio broadcasts take off, there is the possibility of a book, sure, but it’s more likely that someone who knows what they are doing will want to keep him in the same format, the one that he’s succeeding at.

Exciting stuff

In the end, the solution to the problem was actually the expansion plan for the original idea. The middle point actually should have been the starting point. I kept trying to make something work that just simply wasn’t going to happen.

The way forward could be the one in your head, it could be the one in your friend’s head, or it could be the one that has not materialized yet. There’s no point pushing against a brick wall if, at the other side of that wall, there’s nothing you want. My mistake was not thinking down the road with the blog idea. I thought that, with a blog, he could go anywhere. But the blog was not only the barrier to entry, it wasn’t going to lead to anything better.

In the end, if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing and there’s not a big risk in taking your time, maybe it’s better to explore as many options as possible and see which one fits the best. If it sucks and sucks and sucks and you’re not getting anything out of it, chances are that you’re not going to continue doing it indefinitely (and that’s a good thing). Save your tenacity for the IDEA itself, not the execution. If you know what you’ve got is gold and it’s not going anywhere then you’re probably barking up the wrong tree. If I decided it was my calling to make hip hop beats, a blog about it probably isn’t the best way to go (though it might be). If I wanted to make money off graffiti art, it’s not likely that handing out fliers at the hot club downtown would get me anywhere (though it might).

There’s nothing wrong with trying something out… in fact, if you’re NOT trying out new things and exploring new markets, you’re definitely doing something wrong and probably selling yourself short. But you have to know when to bag it, when to try something else, when to stay true to your idea and just bark up a new tree. Staying true to yourself and staying true to your ideas means doing whatever is necessary. Plugging away over and over at something that isn’t going anywhere is doing a disservice to your talent and your product.

If you need some help trying to find a new tree, let me know.

I like finding two things that don’t intuitively mix and extend them out until they touch. It might seem funny to a graffiti writer think that the tools of logo/icon design (vector illustration software like Adobe Illustrator) could help them achieve new things and reach new people. To me, a computer nerd first, a businessman next, and a graffiti artist on the side, the whole process makes perfect sense.

This kind of thinking can work for any kind of artist. If you paint pictures, you can design shirts. If you draw cartoons, you can easily translate that to digital images for web sites or blogs. Find the niche, spread the word, and extent your influence. The more people you can reach with your art, the better (from a sales and reputation standpoint). If you do your art on the west coast and have build a following, there will be people on the east coast who have never heard of you and would probably love your work.

Here’s what I’m talking about…

I started with a simple drawing in my sketchbook. First step was pencil, then just plain old Sharpie marker on top. I don’t pretend to be an accomplished artist by any means but you get the idea. At this point, it was time to put some paint down so it was off the the Art Academy of San Diego.

Overall, this is definitely the best piece that I’ve done. It’s also the third time I’ve ever put can to wall and really went at one of my drawings. This art form is very cathartic for me… more on that another time.

The second picture above is almost where I stopped but I decided to add the white shine on the top and sides which really set the piece off. I really wanted a black outline but I bought Rustoleum satin black and that just is not the right paint for an outline so I ended up falling back to my old faithful, “blue note” by Montana Gold.

This could be the stopping point for an artist but, in my mind, there is more to do… much more.

With just ink on paper, there isn’t much that can be done with it but, as you can see here, I scanned the image into my computer (with my handy-dandy Canon MP610 printer/scanner which I highly recommend). Now, in Adobe Photoshop, I start playing with the image to make it look more vibrant and consistent. First, (this is always first for me) I opened the Image > Adjustment > Levels window. For those unfamiliar with Photoshop, this affects how much white and black is in the image; it’s like a contrast adjustment on crack. Just play with the levels until it looks right. Next adjustment was Image > Adjustment > Saturation. I use this to bring out the colors and make it look a bit more like my drawing (scanned images seem to lose a lot of color). Finally, to make the colors (black, light blue, and orange) perfectly consistent, I used the Eyedropper tool (”I“), picked a color the represented the color the best, then picked the Paint Bucket tool (”G“). At the top, I set the tolerance to “60,” found a spot on the color I sampled, then dumped it. Because the contrast is so high between these colors, it worked out perfectly. Then, using the same color, I picked the Brush tool (”B“), chose an appropriate size (”[" to decrease and "]” to increase), and cleaned everything up. I did this for each color.

This image is “finished,” meaning that this drawing has gone about as far as it can. To move forward and make something transferrable, we need to move it into a new program, Adobe Illustrator.

First, in Photoshop, I took all the color out by going to Image > Adjustment > Desaturate. I’m not going to transfer the scribbles in the middle nor am I going to keep the color, just the outline of the letters themselves and the outline of the background.

Now I select the image, copy it, and paste it into Illustrator. The next part is a pain in the butt (especially if you’re a novice like me).

I keep the black and white image from Photoshop and use it to trace. What we’re doing when we trace a pixel image (image from Photoshop) is creating a line path on top of the illustration. Because this awesome programs work with image layers, we’re not changing the original image (though it looks like we are). Image layers are the digital equivalent of clear transparencies. If you can imagine tracing a picture with pens on a transparency and you have an idea of these layers. The fun part about these is that the layers are basically infinite so minor changes can be made and altered a million different ways.

To make this outline, I took the Pen tool (”P“) and added an anchor point on each corner, following the outline of the letters. See how you can follow that line around the entire piece except for the dot on the “i” and the insides of the letters? Every continous line is its own path and will be traced separately and then combined.

I would love to write out a tutorial about how this is done but it’s a bit beyond the scope of this post. If you’re dying to know, here it is in a nutshell:

1. The path around the edge of each letters is 4 point with no fill (simple techniques you can learn on-line).
2. After creating the path with the Pen tool, it was really blocky with straight lines only. Correcting this was the tricky part. Hold down Shift, then press “C” to use the Convert Anchor Point tool. Click on the point that connects on of the lines you want to be curved, hold down the mouse button, and drag away from the point to make handles appear. If this doesn’t seem to work, zoom in and make sure you’re selecting the point. the two lines that connect to this point will likely be screwed up now. Click on the square end of one of the handles and drag it around the point to separate it from the other handle. You’ve now made a “combination anchor point.” Now, type “A” on the keyboard and screw with the handles until the line curves correctly. You’ll have to do this for all the lines you want curved. This is a pain in the butt, not intuitive at first, and takes practice.
3. The insides of the letters (4 paths… see that?) were subtracted from the outside by selecting all 5 paths (hold down Shift while clicking), then choosing Window > Pathfinder, clicking on the “Subtract from shape area,” then clicking Expand (both are in the Pathfinder window on the left).

After all of that, I finally had an outline. Why all of this work? This image can now be resized to any size, large of small, without losing quality. You can also do some awesome things with this but first…

….I added the original colors to show how clean this format is. Picking new colors is as easy as selecting the shape and finding a new color in Illustrator’s swatches. I was really excited to find some amazing combinations of colors, things I would never think go together. You can also use Adobe’s kuler.com site to import fun combinations (I’ll save explaining that until I actually use it but check out the site if you’ve never seen it).

Next, we can play around with new colors, line widths, and, everyone’s favorite these days, gradients (smooth shift from one color to another). Above, you see my shiny Halloween version. Gradients can go from any color to any color but add a nice sense of depth if you choose a color and a slightly darker/lighter version of the same color.

Additional designs can be added very easily in this format. In fact, anything too complicated should probably be left out when tracing with the pen and added later. In this case, I added the scribble-style fill that you can see in the original and converted it to some wacky ice-cream colors (because I have a sweet tooth)

Last but not least, we can have some real fun and extrude this design to make it 3-D. This control can be found under Effect > 3-D > Extrude & Bevel. There is way too much fun to be had with using Illustrator to modify an original piece of artwork.

The vector artwork is great because it’s the best version to use for printing because it’s quality is infinite. You could take the vector file of the image above and make a vinyl wrapper for a skyscraper and the lines would be as sharp as you see them above. In fact, you’ll notice, the images above have very sharp lines to them.

These designs can be used in magazines and books very easily now. Also, since the color information is very simple, these designs are great for screenprinting (though a but more work needs to be done). As I said above, they can be used in vinyl designs for vehicles or blown up and printed as posters.

The bigger implication here is flexibility and expansion. Maybe I’m not a great graffiti artist but maybe my simple illustrations above look like a logo someone wants and I get business drawing one up. Maybe someone out there is a great graffiti artist but translates his/her work digitally and makes it known that he/she can do more than just make a piece of paper or a wall look amazing.

Expand out and learn new things; you’ll never be sorry.