My iPad homescreen (for now)

Customized, Peter Max-inspired wallpaper for my iPad.

New Books and New Canvases

As I work on a couple of new books with Robin, I'm also finalizing some digital images to be printed on canvas and sold for really high prices. 
Bwahahahaha!

DesignThink: the blog

DesignThink is a blog for Peachpit Press, written by designer/author/teacher/speaker Robin Williams and myself. It includes observations of design around us that we see in our daily lives, discussions of design projects we're involved in, and impression of designers we admire. DesignThink seeks to explore various kinds of design with a sense of creative curiosity about the thinking behind design solutions and techniques.

New paintings for the Shakespeare Collection

Robin's studies of Shakespeare in England are inspiring new canvases here at the Mermaid Tavern. Click images to show an enlargement.

Sad Hours Seem Long 

(40 x 30)

Hamlet Undecided 

(30 x36)

One of 16 images from the next issue of The Shakespeare Papers, on the press now and scheduled to be delivered to subscribers this month. 

Sweet Swan of Avon: The Masters Program in London on Shakespeare Autho...

From Robin's blog:

Sweet Swan of Avon: The Masters Program in London on Shakespeare Autho...: "This is a report on my experience, from Robin Williams Professor William Leahy made history in 2007 when he developed and inaugurated the f..."

Testing a new Safari extension: ScribeFire

The new version of the Safari browser enables you to download "extensions" that add features to the browser. I'm testing ScribeFire, a blogging extension that automatically uploads posts to a blog site from within Safari.

If you have Safari 5.0.1 or higher, you'll find in the Safari menu a link to Safari Extensions Gallery, a page on the Apple site that lists and describes extensions. Also in the Safari menu, choose Preferences and you'll see a new category, "Extensions," where you can manage installed extensions by turning them on or off, or click the "Uninstall" button to remove any extension.

Installing ScribeFire puts a ScribeFire button in the Safari toolbar (a black speech balloon). Click the button to open, in Safari, a window that enables you to add or remove blogs, create new blog articles, and publish to your blog.

You can also schedule when you want the blog to be published, or save it as a draft.

Looks pretty convenient  so far. Except that adding images looks awkward. Click the "Add image" button and a dialog opens asking for the image URL. No images for this test.

When finished, click the "Publish Post" button. Testing, one two three.

Dinner before La Bête

Still catching up on some blog notes and photos:


We picked up our tickets to La Bête with an hour to spare before curtain time. Scarlett and JohnD had spotted a sushi restaurant nearby they wanted to try. Robin and I went to a nice little Italian restaurant across the street from the theater that had a pre-theater menu designed for those of us in a hurry, going to a play. 

While waiting for our spaghetti I pulled out the small sketch book Robin gave me and did a quick sketch of Mark Rylance, using an iPhone photo I had just taken of the play's poster across the street. Robin wrote a note on the sketch (she knows him), tore it out of the sketchbook, and took it to the backstage door of the theater to have it delivered to Mark.