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I wish < and > were keys on the keyboard.

WordPress is great place for writers. But what about for artists? Are your needs fulfilled by the built in tools WP provides, or do you rely on plugins to present your images the way you want them to look?

Is there a theme that works best for you, or does it lack certain features? Are you concerned about your images being copied or reused in some way without your consent?

Do you prefer to present your images on your site or on social media? What are the pros and cons of either approach?

These are some of the questions I’m hoping to answer over the next few months as I build a theme optimized for artists, and other folks for whom presenting their images online is the primary purpose for having a site.

The speakers are good, but it is hard to sit still for hours at a time. I like workshops much better.

I’m at the typecon conference and a lot of people are talking about how to teach typography in the education forum.

My take: Tap into the love of typography students had when they first learned how to write. My kids all scribbled and stuff, but the revelation came when they learned how to write their names. Nancy, in particular, writes hers all the time now, and puts curly flourishes on the ends of all the letters.

Kids grow up loving to write letters–but usually not the letters they are forced to write by their teachers. They (the interesting ones, anyway) fill the edges of their notebooks with all kinds of funky letters and words.

My conclusion: every typography class should feature a section on hand-lettering. It could be structured like the kind I learned about in my workshop with Stephen Rapp yesterday, or more informal and experimental, like one I would love to teach. Once students reconnect with the fun of letters that they may have lost long ago, typography has hooked them.

My idea is so good I know I could get a grant. How do you get an artist grant, anyone?

I’ve never found anything I can’t do with it that I had to do before with JavaScript.

It’s less lines of code.

I had planned on picking up a new mini for my kids once the imac g5 loaner goes back, but this puts me over the edge:

http://www.switched.com/2009/03/17/new-ipod-shuffle-only-usable-with-apple-authorized-headphones/

It seems that apple has begun the same downward spiral toward pissing off the customer base that nearly ruined Microsoft. I hope they can turn it around.