A bit of history

After Kazakhstan became independent, they chose to still rely on the Russian ruble. Kazakhstan was not really in the position to introduce their own currency, but also did not like the decisions by the Russian financial authorities. In summer 1992, Russia made the ruble a fully convertible currency. After the ruble became tradable on the international market, it lost a lot of value immediately (falling from 130 to over 450 rubles to the U.S. dollar). This caused a movement of huge amounts of old rubles to post-Soviet countries, particularly Kazakhstan, where the ruble was still the only legal currency. This lead to Kazakhstan’s money to quadrupled in just a few months. In November 1993, Kazakhstan introduced the tenge (Kazakh: теңге, teñge), their own new national currency at a rate of 1 tenge = 500 rubles.

Below is the first version of the tenge:

Latest banknotes

In 2006 the National Bank of Kazakhstan issued a new exotic series of banknotes (200, 500, 1000, 2000, 5000 and 10 000 tenge) with the same values as the previous ones.

The design on the obverse (front) has a portrait layout with the denomination written in Kazakh. The obverse all have the same design. The only difference are the size, colours, values (…obviously) and shapes and patterns in the background.

The most striking element is the handprint. In the hand is the signature of president Nazarbayev with fragments of the national anthem. Also, clearly noticeable at the first glimpse, is the Astana Bayterek monument/observation tower. Astana is the capital of Kazakhstan and the monument symbolises this status. It is also meant to embody a folktale about a mythical tree of life with a ‘gold egg’ that was laid by the magic bird of happiness, Samruk. Close to the top of the note is the blue and yellow national flag of Kazakhstan. More towards the middle is the Coat of Arms.

The reverse of the notes are all different with the value written in Russian. One striking element they do all have in common is the outline of Kazakhstan’s border. Inside the outline map each note has a different geographical ‘view’ and on the outside a unique architectural structure. The name of issuing in Kazakh, the logo of the issuing bank and inscription in Russian stating that counterfeiting banknotes is against the law can also be seen on the back of all of the notes.

200 Tenge (size 126х64 mm)

Outside the outline map is the Transport and Communication Ministry and a winged snow leopard on the bridge over River Ishim. Inside of the outline map is Ministry of Defence and steppes in the background.

500 Tenge (size 130х67 mm)

Outside the outline map is the Ministry of Finance and Akimat (City Hall) of Astana. The inside of the outline map are filled with gulls over the sea in background.

1000 Tenge (size 134х70 mm)

Outside the outline map is the President Culture Center. The inside of the outline map are with mountains in background.

2000 Tenge (size 139х73 mm)

Outside the outline map is the Abai Opera House. The inside of the outline map are with a mountain and lake in background.

5000 Tenge (size 144х76 mm)

Outside the outline map is the Independence Monument. The look of the monument is of great interest to me. It is in the middle of Almaty’s (the capital of Kazakhstan) main square. It is a six-meter figure of the Golden Man* and a winged snow leopard and features the most important periods of Kazakhstan’s history. On the note next to it is the Kazakhstan Hotel. The inside of the outline map are with mountains in background.

10000 Tenge (size 149х79 mm)

Outside the outline map is the Residence Akorda, the official residence of the President. The inside of the outline map are with canyons in background.

Central Bank of Kazakhstan misspells ‘bank’ on money

The first lot of the 2,000 and 5,000 tenge notes, issued in 2006 and printed, had the word ‘bank’ spelled incorrectly. This mistake was not just a spelling problem, but also a political issue. During Soviet times, Kazakhs were encouraged to speak Russian, which is written in Cyrillic script. Since independence in 1991, the country’s own Kazakh language came to use. The Kazakh word for ‘bank’ is “банкі”. On the new note, the word was written with an alternate Cyrillic form of the letter K – “банқі” – which has a slightly different pronunciation.

During the writing of this post, digging into the tenge, I also looked at actual photographs of the architectural structures on the money. Also looking at the different types of mountains on the 1000, 2000, 5000 and the canyons on the 10000 tenge. Kazakhstan has great travel opportunities for an interesting picturesque experience. Something I need to consider at some point for another blog post!

* The Golden Man is an ancient Sacae warrior’s golden costume discovered in the Issyk burial mound near Almaty in 1970; it is now on display in the Central State Museum in Almaty. The snow leopard, according to ancient Kazakh philosophy, guards the Universe. Together, they symbolize the freedom, peace, stability, grand spirit and spiritual unity inherent in the Kazakh people and Kazakh traditions since ancient times. The base of the tower has a group of allegoric sculptures – Mother Heaven and Mother Earth, and two children riding colts, who symbolize the future of Kazakhstan.

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Crack open this book after you fasten your seatbelt in Boston. Before you land in Chicago, you’ll stop worrying and finally, fully understand HTML5. As usual, Mr. Keith takes a complex topic and eloquently describes it for the rest of us.

It is a ‘light’ informative read (with comparisons throughout the book that has a funny twist to it), thus after a few weeks I thought to read it again. Even though reviews of this book have been popping up all over the interwebs, I want to have a mention of my own.

The beginning of the book, chapter 1, starts with ‘right from the beginning’. Some things you might know and some things I did not know and how HTML5 is moving things forward for a semantic web and web applications.

Chapter 2 explains about the basic structure of HTML5. Not necessarily the ‘birth of HTML5’, but the support for existing elements, elements that is obsolete, redefining some elements and the development there forth. This chapter also includes design principles such as “Do not reinvent the wheel” and “Pave the cowpaths”.  And once again with excellent comparisons, HTML to everyday things (from a movie, Greek mythology to train spotters) that made me smile.

Chapter 3 introduces the new exciting media elements. A thorough uncomplicated explanation of the <canvas> element with the available attributes. The limitations it has for now (lack of accessibility), but how it currently can be used in web design. The <audio> element also rolls out with a list of attributes and their values — if they have — in simple terms and the nifty things you can do with it.

Chapter 4 is dedicated to web forms. HTML5’s new and expanded form elements and how new additions replace the use of JavaScript (well, until all browsers support it). There are a lot of cow paths being paved…

Chapter 5 is all about semantics! It consists of a thorough list of new elements and their use in the HTML5 mark-up – paving more cow paths in the structure. It also consists of a handy update to the content models and their new names. It includes examples of how to use the new structure elements and how it influences the outline of a document.

Chapter 6 end the book off with how we can use HTML5 today.

In all seriousness of HTML5, the light hearted, quirky writing style made it a joy to read. The stylish, modern design and layout of the book by Jason Santa Maria complements the editorial.

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My first impression, holding the magazine in my hands — a bit smaller than I thought— 21X21cm to be exact. I think the sneak peek from the PDF, viewed from view port to view port on a relatively big monitor, put me under the wrong impression. To justify the excellent overall design and layout I had more along the lines of 25X25cm in mind.

Besides size and the excellent overall design and layout, I love the attention to detail. I received the magazine in decent packaging to avoid any damage in the post with a little 8 Faces sticker on the outside front. It is printed on a heavy uncoated stock. As a huge fan of print finishes, the silver foil blocked title is the cherry on the cake! Oh, last but not least, included is a bookmark (a MOO card) to say ‘thank you for the purchase’. Even though it is the digital age and a lot of people think print is dying, clearly there was a gap in the market for a venture like this.

The concept is an interview with eight leading designers from the fields of web design, print design, illustration and type design. Each interview end with the answer to the question; If you could use just eight typefaces for the rest of your life, which would you choose? The first issue feature interviews with designers Erik Spiekermann, Jessica Hische, Ian Coyle, Jason Santa Maria, Jos Buivenga, Jon Tan and Bruce Willen & Nolen Strals and The League of Movable Type. I guess, not strangely enough, the type designers choose mostly their own fonts.

The editor also hits it on the nail with the articles and interviewees. It ties in well with a few lines out of Jason Santa Maria’s interview:

What matters is the story that we’re telling: the content. And the design of that content is there to reinforce it – it’s there to help tell that story.

All in all 8 Faces #1, with Loreena McKennitt in the background, completed my Saturday afternoon. It is a great read on great designers touching topics such as lettering, typography and typography on the web today.

On the printing side of things

I read Elliot Jay Stock’s blog post On publishing. He talks about the production process of the magazine, different printing processes and how he decided to go with the digital print option.

For a print run of a thousand copies or higher, I am definitely a fan of lithographic printing. Some of the known issues with digital printing are the dot size, especially when it comes to printing a shade of a colour. Even more so, with gray shapes that is made up of a percentage of black ink only. Even though the quality of digital printers has improved a lot over the last years, lithographic printers are still ahead of the game when it comes to quality. The dot pattern of lithographic printing are a lot finer. This is noticeable in the gray text and lines in the magazine.

The advantage though with this issue printed digitally, was to dynamically number each copy. Even though I am more of a litho printed gray dot fan, for a digital printed magazine it is made really well. Another issue with printing digital is getting the registration spot on. The design of the magazine has a thick stroke that runs horizontal across the page through out the magazine. And through out the magazine it matches up perfectly, including from one spread to another.

From a print point of view it would be interesting the compare the first digital printed issue with the second lithographic printed issue. From an overall magazine point of view, I am looking forward to read the next issue!

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From a design point of view

Adobe kept the dominating colours that was implemented with CS3. With CS5 the Desktop Brand team at Adobe decided to concentrate more on the splash screen. It is based on the isometric grid similar to Otl Aicher’s work for the 1972 Munich Olympics. The five pieces give the shapes exactly the right amount of complexity and it ties in nicely with the fifth CS release. Read the in depth discussion about the design process at idsgn.

Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium

In a nutshell I will point out a few new features in Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium that consist of the following:
(Including Bridge CS5, Device Central CS5 and integrates with CS Live online services)

• Photoshop CS5 Extended
• Illustrator CS5
• InDesign CS5
• Flash Catalyst CS5
• Flash Professional CS5
• Dreamweaver CS5
• Fireworks CS5
• Acrobat 9 Pro

Photoshop CS5 Extended

Painting
Adobe has created a new painting engine in Photoshop. By clicking on the paintbrush and selecting the mixer brush, it will show a preview of an actual brush on the screen. ‘Pick’ up the new art brush from the walk-on tablet and a 3D preview appear by rotating the barrel of the brush. With previous versions, pushing colours was the only options. Now colours can be blended too. Paint directly over an photograph or just create original art.

Puppet Warp
This feature accurately warp images with exact precision. Say, you have an object with a transparent background, by selecting >Edit>Puppet Warp a mash will appear over the object. The mash can be turned on and off. By adding control points/pins to specific points on the object to lock areas down, you can achieve more control with accuracy. Different modes are available for this feature, for example normal and distort.

HDR Pro
Use it to merge together multiple images. It can merge together different exposures from the Merge to HDR Pro dialogue. In a drop down menu there are different toning presets. A new unique feature added on to it, is Remove ghosts feature. It isolates a preferred single master frame within the HDR image.

Refine Mask
The ability to make a very accurate mask a lot easier. It first makes a quick mask selection. It don’t necessarily has to select for example hair’s fine detail. In the masking panel under Refine Mask panel are the new controls to paint in the areas of transition. Radius and edge detection is the key to get the better selection for the mask. With a brush, go over the edges and defined details will emerge. By exporting the new mask it will create a new layer leaving the original untouched.

Content Aware Fill
This new feature works nicely with the Refine Mask feature for photo manipulation. If you have removed an object to a new layer and want to rid of it in the background of the original layer/image, this feature comes in handy. In the Fill dialogue, under the drop-down menu is the Content Aware option. With one click it removes the object from the background. It basically examines the area around a selection and replaces it based on what it decides is a good match.

Illustrator

Perspective Drawing
The new perspective drawing tools create a perspective grid that can be changed and manipulated to hearts end. By using any of the drawing tools and by selecting a pane, the artwork will go on the grid in perspective. With short cuts it is easy to change panels. Objects from other files can be applied.

Variable Stroke Width Tool
By using the Width tool, you can place plots anywhere on a stroke and change the width of the stroke. If there is a stroke that you are particular proud of and want to use again, just save it as a profile.

Shape Builder Tool
This tool detects various pieces/objects that is grouped together. By dragging the cursor from the one object to the other it creates one single shape. Hold down shift key to combine multiple objects.

Drawing Mode: Draw Inside
This feature constrain drawing within an object. Even if you draw outside of the lines, it will constrain (and mask for that matter) the drawing to the outline of the object. With this mode you can even paste grouped objects in live text.

Indesign

The new additions to Indesign that I mention here are all specifically ones that I have been waiting for. And talking to a few other Indesign everyday users, they agree.

Multiple Page Sizes
It is basically what the heading says. Now the pages can also change the orientation. This will work especially well with setting up a page foldout.

Spanning and Splitting for Columns
Normally I would have to create a separate text box for a heading to span over columns, which result in to many text boxes all over the page. Now by just selecting the header and choosing the ’span’ command with different options to the amount of columns.

Splitting works well with a list of bullet points that can easily fit in two columns within a column. With the Split command (opposite from the above mentioned), the selected text only can easily be split into 2 columns.

Borrow content from another Indesign Document
With Mini Bridge within the Workspace, you can select links from another Indesign project and drag it into the open Indesign document you are working on.

Gap Tool

This tool detects the gaps between frames and automatically drag and resize the frames whilst keeping the gaps between the frames equal. Interactive gap and frame placement takes place. By holding down the shift key, the two top and bottom frames can be change independently.

Interactive Live Corner Effect
Rounded corners is possible for frames of previous versions, but not with a live stroke. Dragging the corners changes the radius and by keeping in shift, each corner can be changed individually to get different corner effects for each corner.

Interactive Indesign Documents
Flip through the document, get sound, animations, roll overs, slide shows, flash video to play directly inside of the document. All happening in Indesign with out writing a single line of code.

Dreamweaver

Inspect Mode
Inspect Mode needs to be turned on by having Live View open. By hovering over areas on the page it uses colour codes to show how CSS is effecting the page. By hovering over a section, it freezes that state in the CSS rules panel. It makes it quick and easy to make changes to the CSS file.
This works well if you want to play around with different options for an element. A CSS rule can be ’switched off’ with one click. The result can be viewed immediately in real time.

Live View Navigation
I must have feature when working with a dynamic website. Make changes to a .php include and in Live View it will render the whole web page as it would in a browser. With this you can actually click around and navigate through the test website.

Dynamically Related
By turning on Live Code, it renders the code the browser see. Then there is also a way to get to all the related files and assets. Click on the new feature Discover, which will turn on another new feature, Dynamically Related files. There is an option to exclude some of the files in the list (that could be way to long). For example, by selecting CSS from a drop down menu it will only show .css files. A custom filter is also available to search more specifically.

Final Thought

I personally think there are enough useful new features to make the upgrade worth while (especially from CS3). CS Live will make my life a lot easier by streamlining work flow and save time and the client’s time. For those sharing the same excitement, the English language version is expected to be available for shipping by mid-May 2010.

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America Psycho is originally from the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. The psychological thriller is told in the first person by Manhattan businessman, Patrick Bateman. He is a serial killer in his ’spare time’. In 2000 the novel was adapted to the film by Mary Harron. The talented Christian Bale plays the role as Patrick Bateman brilliantly.

As a graphic designer, when I watched the move, one of the parts stood out for my amusement and appreciation. And in general it is one the most famous parts of the movie – the scene about the business cards. I like watching the business men use their business cards to compete with type, stock and print finishes.

That’s ‘Bone’. And the lettering is called something like Silian Braille.

Eggshell white with Romalian type. Nice.

Look at the subtle off-white colouring. A tasteful thickness of it. My God, it even has a watermark.

View the Business Card Scene on YouTube. I am not able to embed the video in this post. YouTube: Embedding disabled by request.

The image above, of the advert on the billboard has been going around the internet lately. An excellent add-on to the American Psycho repertoire.

I think I need to watch the movie again…

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