The video below shows all the cool things you can do with
Photoshop.
In all seriousness, this video is really amazing, and
extremely eye opening. It does an excellent job of getting
the point across that those images you see in magazines of
the models you idolize, are of normal people just like you,
and they need a ton of attention to look like that. From
hours in the makeup chair, to a computer program that
artificially enhances nearly every aspect of their faces.
It'd be great if advertisers didn't fill our heads with
lies. This particular case is very disturbing, because it
fills heads with thoughts of inadequacy, and can lead to
different disorders. Thank you Dove, for stepping up and
opening our eyes.
I recently withdrew some money from an ATM machine in the
lobby of my office building. Before I continue with my
rant, I must ask this question "why do we insist on adding
the word "machine" to the end of ATM?
Automated Teller
Machine machine?"
Anyway, on with the rant... This ATM that I stopped at
was not owned by the bank that takes holds my
money, however, I didn't have time to walk the 3 blocks to a
store that had an ATM owned by my bank. So, I decided to
bite the bullet, and use this one. Low and behold, a
message comes up that we are all familiar with, that states
that this machine will take some extra money out of your
account because you don't belong to their bank. Sadly, this
has become a common & reluctantly accepted behavior.
However, the message I received from this machine was
slightly different than most, and I must say, rather
insulting. This message stated: "A $2.00 Convenience
Fee will be taken from your account..."
Convenience Fee?!?!? Are you kidding
me?!?!? What is so "convenient" about some bank taking $2.00
out of my account, so that I can withdrawal $40? Sure, the
location of this ATM was more convenient than that of the
ATM belonging to my bank. However, I specifically don't use
this machine whenever I can avoid it, because the $2.00 fee
that is charged, is extremely INCONVENIENT!
All I'm saying, is that they really need to change the
wording of that message back to "Service Fee", because there
is absolutely nothing convenient about having to give
someone your money just so you can have access to your
money.
I put the finishing touches on my new design this past
weekend, and I'm pretty happy with the results. It still
maintains that clean look, but I've added a bit of pop to it
with the addition of the background, a few footer additions,
some font fixes, and other miscellaneous modifications.
The first thing I added was a new background, that fills
the left and right sides of the content with a bit of color.
The beauty of this implementation, is that the diagonal
lines, are actually a repeating transparent PNG. This
allows for me to change the background color to anything I
please.
Along with the new background change, I also decided to
keep a piece of the old design. My wife commented that she
really like the image of the leaf cradling the droplet of
water, and I agree with her. It's a nice image, and I feel
it has become a sort of staple of the site. Because of
this, I decided to put right back where it was. Because I'm
using transparent PNGs for this, the background color, and
the leaf don't appear for IE6 users, and I'm okay with this.
I don't want to bend over backwards for a browser that
doesn't support transparent PNGs.
