If you are looking for graphic design of all sorts: website, logos, apparel, packaging, environmental graphics, stationery, brochures, posters, CD covers, Facebook cover/profile images, WordPress blogs, corporate brands, and more, including photography – I recommend Metropol Omnimedia. They designed my band Ginger Ibex’s beautiful CD cover, band logo and poster. To see samples of their work, visit their Facebook portfolio
Some random Kickstarter projects I like:
I recently purchased a new album as a zipped download from the site Bandcamp.com to my Windows PC at work (because the network connection there has a much bigger “pipe” than at home). The zipped file contained eight MP3 files which when extracted should have gone into a folder with the name of the band and the album title.
I clicked to “extract all’ the files, and the program did so… until it reached the eighth and final track. At that point it failed and gave me the error message:
I tried again and got the same error, “Path too long”. After some research I determined what was wrong and how to work around it, plus told the band – they fixed it so that other buyers will not have this problem:
Note: this may be the last Friday Faves until December. I’ve signed on to do NaNoWriMo this year, which means my writing energies will be occupied with laying down a 50.000-word novel between November 1-30! Through the magic of pre-scheduled posting there WILL continue to be a weekly article each Wednesday.
New Music: my friends Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys recently composed and played live a soundtrack to the classic silent film Metropolis. Fortunately it was recorded, and you may now download it for pay-what-you-will on Bandcamp – I’m thinking it will make a great NaNoWriMo soundtrack too!
Kickstarter Trends
Besides the ubiquitous band-making-an-album, I’ve noticed a few trends lately in Kickstarter projects:
News for ASCAP musicians who perform their original songs! You may now upload your setlists in order to be paid for performing your song catalog live:
OnStage allows writer members to notify ASCAP of their live performances via Member Access. This data is processed and a royalty is distributed to the writers and publishers of the songs based upon the license fee paid by the respective venue.
If you are looking to buy an inexpensive Windows desktop PC in the Boston area but don’t like the idea of taking a chance buying on CraigsList, check out Semi-New Computers. They refurbish obsoleted PCs from Harvard and other corporate sources, then sell to you with a 90-day guarantee for about $200 depending on RAM and HD size.
Kickstarter projects I’ve recently backed: