Normally, I’m not one to complain of grammatical errors. You can sometimes find me writing run-on sentences, forgetting commas and creating sentence fragments. Hey, I’m no copywriter. But as a designer, there is one grammatical error that gets me boiling: double spacing after a period.

Now, I know there are many out there that say the double space after the period is the right thing to do. Just because your middle school English teacher says it was correct, doesn’t mean it’s actually the proper way. It’s grammatically illegal, folks (and in my opinion, should be punished by full force of the grammar law).

So, if it's not correct to double-space, why did we begin to do it? In the 20th century typesetters all over the world came together and decided we should use one space after the period. This is a shared belief among all typesetters. Then, the manual typewriter was invented. Cue doomsday music. The manual typewriter used monospace typing, meaning that every character occupies an equal amount of horizontal space. Skinny characters like "i" and "t" are given the same space as fat letters like "o" and "m" creating uneven, white spaces between letters and words. The two-space rule came into play to make the text easier to read and making it more obvious the sentence had ended.

Today, almost every font on your PC or Mac has proportional typesetting - less horizontal space is given to skinny characters and more space is given to fat ones. This is why we don't need the double-space after the period. I repeat, we DON'T NEED two spaces after a period. Most of us aren't' using typewriters, however, we are still typing like we do. So, unless you are using a typewriter, please refrain from giving the designer next to you a heart attack and use ONE space.

Recently, while designing in InDesign I ran across an easter egg in the software. It was fun to take a little break in the workday and play with this cute, new find. Who would have thought the software I have been using for years and for atleast eight hours a day had hidden little gems I have been missing all along? I thought it might be fun to point out some of the easter eggs that are hidden in Adobe InDesign and Illustrator, so you can enjoy all the hidden quirks in these programs! Here’s a few.

InDesign:
Go to InDesign > About InDesign.
Type “Butterfly” (characters will not show up on your monitor)
Click the butterflies to pin them, option-click to shoot them.

File > Print Presets > Define
Create a new print preset titled “Friendly Alien” > OK
File > Print Preset > choose Friendly Alien
Click the Page Preview box.
This one is my favorite. Now that the print preset is created, if you’re in the mood for a little fun, you can simply choose it and click in the print preview box to see the little friend again! Friendly Alien always brightens my day.

Illustrator:
Option-Click the Selection bar at the bottom of the page > Show
Click on any item from “Shopping Days Until Christmas” to “Click Counter”.

In the brush palette > New Brush
Select "Calligraphic > angle 5, roundness 26, and diameter 56.

While I’ve worked with InDesign for quite a few years now, it seems that I still learn something new every week. There are so many things Adobe programs can do and I run across a new function every now and then. Here are a few little tricks you may find useful.

• If you are working on a document that is super long and page heavy you can opt to view the document in multiple windows. This comes in handy if you are trying to fit copy in a certain amount of pages, you can delete copy at the beginning of the InDesign file and see how it effects the last page at the same time. Simply go to Windows > Arrange > New Window.

• InDesign also has a feature that lets the designer add the colors from another file to the swatches panel in your current file.  What if you don’t want ALL the colors from that file? InDesign has got you covered. In the Swatches panel > choose New Color Swatch > Color Mode > Other Library > Select the file with the color you would like to use > Choose which color you would like to add.

• Trying to figure out the best font for your design can become time consuming. You can try out different fonts on existing text by Selecting the text you want to use > Place your cursor in the font/character panel > Scroll through the different fonts using the up and down arrows.

• Tables can become mind-boggling at points, especially when trying to go from selecting cells to type. To easily do this, Click the type tool in the cell > Hit the escape key (Now the cell is selected) > Hit escape again (Now the text is selected). You can continue to go back and forth between the two selections with the escape key.

I’m a big fan of great packaging. More than once, I have bought something just because I enjoyed the way it was packaged.

Recently, I ran across a fabulous packaging design from Lee Jeans. Pushing their eco-friendly initiative, their “Never Wasted” campaign features a shopping bag that can be repurposed into many different items. These items include a game board and game board pieces, dice, masks, boxes, and a pencil holder, among others.

This packaging has all the key elements of a nice design: Fun, Functional, and eco-Friendly. If anything, this design has made me want to go buy a pair of Lee Jeans just so I can get the bag.  And apparently, I’m not the only one. Lee Jeans stated “A surge in interest from patrons forced us to produce 1000 times more bags than the initial production of 3,000 bags.”

With the increasing popularity in digital music downloads, album cover art has become less important to music buyers. When you think about some of your favorite album art, they are more than likely from the 60’s, 70’s or maybe even the 80’s. This is the time when you actually had to walk into the store, pick up the album, run your hands over the cardboard jacket and marvel in the art that represented the music. These were items for a collection.

Nowadays, you press a button in iTunes and a song is downloaded onto your computer, completely bypassing the step to look at the artwork created for the album. You might not ever look at this piece of art that has been designed specifically for the music.

I have decided to present some of my favorite album covers that have been released in recent years that you may have overlooked.

Foo Fighters – In Your Honor Design by Kevin Reagan

Josh Ritter – The Animal Years Design by Jason Holley

Menoma – Friend and Foe Design by Craig Thompson

The Used - Lies for the Liars Design by Alex Pardee

Underoath - Define the Great Line

Keane – Under the Iron Sea Design by Sanna Annukka

Gungor – Beautiful Things Design by Ben Dirzino

Zac Brown Band – You Get What You Give

These are just my personal taste/opinion. If you have one you’d like to share, I’d love to see your favorites!

With more than 425,000 apps available for download in the iTunes app store, how does one know which are the gems and which are the duds? It’s so irritating when you have thumbed through all the apps available, finally made a decision on which one to purchase, waited for the download, opened the app and realized it was a dud; a complete waste of time, possibly money, and memory space.

This is why it has come to my attention that not only do we need the App Stores’ “TOP 25” category, but we also need a “Worst” category. I have taken it upon myself to go ahead and get this list started with six of the worst apps that have ever made it into Apple’s App Store.

#6  iTan
Users can select how many minutes they would like to “tan” and then hit Start. The screen simulates tanning bulbs and cautions users not to look directly into the light and to use appropriate UV protection. “Whether at work, on the bus or train, you can top up your tan and keep that healthy glow.” Really??  Reviews of this app have actually commented if it really works.

#5  Hold On!
Possibly the most useless app on the list, this app has a button in the center of the screen that you simply see how long you can hold it for.  Still holding?

#4  Hang Time
This app requires users to throw their iPhone in the air and calculates the hang time of the phone using the accelerometer (pending you have actually caught it coming back down). If anyone is paying 99¢ to throw their phone in the air, they need to get their head checked.

#3 I Am Rich
Simply put, this app costs $999.99 to display a glowing red dot on the screen and a pop-up message that declares you are rich. That. Is. All.  The official description read “It's a work of art with no hidden function at all.” Apple removed this app a little while back after eight users bought it, discovering they were not only rich, but stupid.

#2 Birth Buddy
You can now give birth via your iPhone. Birth Buddy is an app used to help pregnant woman track times between labor contractions. This app just strikes me as weird. Because the first thing I am going to do when going into labor pull out my iPhone.

#1 Baby Shaker
The Baby Shaker app has received national attention when iPhoners protested the app and Apple eventually yanked it out of their store. Baby Shaker displays a drawing of a baby crying on the screen. The only way you can get it to stop crying is to shake the baby, changing the image from a crying baby to a calm one.

“Now, Baby Shaker gives you a charming drawing of a baby sure to make those with a less than iron will fawn. True to life, it begins to annoy you immediately. See how long you can endure his or her adorable cries before you just have to find a way to quiet the baby down!

The day has come, my friends, when it has become possible to convert an InDesign file into a Microsoft Word file format while maintaining the original file's layout.

Recosoft, a software company, recently released an application called ID2Office that works as a plug-in for InDesign. This application allows text, paragraph styles, graphics, tables and many other aspects of the InDesign file to be given their coordinating properties in the Microsoft Word file. This plug-in is not only limited to Microsoft Word, it works with Powerpoint as well.

I’m not trying to say that Microsoft Word and Powerpoint are great design tools. In my opinion, they’re not.  Actually, you should never design anything in Word (there, I said it). So why would this application be useful? What if you have a client that would like to have a newsletter you created in InDesign to be editable by them in Microsoft Word? This would be the perfect application to use.

Obviously, this isn’t the ideal situation for any designer, but when push comes to shove, this handy, dandy plug-in will do the trick (for $199 per year).

What are the “IT” colors for the Spring and Summer of 2011? Rose, Marigold, Teal, Lime? If you guessed any of those, you are wrong. It’s actually Pantone 18-2120.

Pantone is all the rage! The new color for 2011,  Pantone 18-2120, is sort of a Honeysuckle hue. The Pantone marketing department has done a fantastic job of expanding their products into vertical industries outside of just plain old printing.

The Dessy Group offers Pantone bridesmaids dresses, for example. The dresses come in many different Pantone colors that make it easy to coordinate the your precise wedding day colors among all of your vendors.  So the next time someone asks the bride-to-be what her wedding colors are, how about this come back? “Pantone 15-4825 with an accent of Pantone 15-4502.”

You can also find Pantone products like folding chairs, bikes, cupcakes, magnets, iPhone cases and, my personal favorite, the Pantone Hotel in Brussels. The hotel is a basic white foundation with Pantone colors that pop in contrast. There’s nothing more relaxing than swimming in a pool of Pantone 15-5519 (which was the 2010 Pantone Color of the Year, BTW) or basking in the sunny rays of Pantone 12-0643.

Whether you’re a trying to flaunt your romantic style with Pantone 12-1206 or rock out in your favorite Goth swag like Pantone 419, there’s a different color for everyone, every occasion, and every item.

As many of you may remember, last November The Beatles announced their music would be available for download on iTunes. Hooray, right? No!

Forget The Beatles! Where’s Garth? As many of my fellow co-workers know, I am an avid Garth Brooks fan. A few months ago I decided to upgrade my worn out “Double Live,” “No Fences” and “Fresh Horses” compact discs for electronic versions. I need to have Garth with me at all times. I needed a more versatile format.

That’s when the tragedy happened. While searching on iTunes for my favorite artist, I realized that Garth Brooks is not available on iTunes.  Say what!? Yes, yes, I know it’s hard to fathom, but it’s true! The only thing that appeared in the search results were karaoke versions and covers of his most popular songs.

How could this happen? After devoting some time to Google to figure out this absurdity I came to an answer. Garth, along with a few other artists, believe iTunes should offer more variable pricing and allow album-only downloads. At the moment, iTunes makes artists sell their albums via two ways: 1.) through individual track purchases or
2) buying the entire album at one set price.
Garth doesn’t want his albums to be broken down into individual tracks for purchase.

Apparently, Garth isn’t the only artist holding out on iTunes for this reason. In 2007, Jay-Z took his album, “American Gangster” off of the popular music-downloading site because the site refused to make it an album-only purchase.  Jay Z said “As movies are not sold scene by scene, this collection will not be sold as individual singles.”

I get it, I really do! But what do I do when my CD’s have too many scratches on them that I can’t replay “Friends in Low Places” 100 times on my way to work? Or what if I want to listen to them on my iPod? I guess for now I’ll be stuck buying the CD’s again at my local music shop.

Other artists that have not jumped on the iTunes bandwagon:
AC/DC
Def Leppard
Black Sabbath
Bob Seger

Move over wedding planners, Google is my new go-to-guy!  The popular search engine has recently launched a new wedding planning site (www.google.com/weddings) in perfect timing for this year’s engagement season.  So, of course, the Bride-to-Be in me had to check it out.

The new site offers engaged couples many tools to help organize and plan a fantastic wedding day. One of the best features includes Google Docs that are customized to wedding day needs. You can basically find any spreadsheet you might need to plan your special day: to-do lists, address books, guests lists, budget planner, seating chart, the list goes on.

Google Weddings also provides couples with their own wedding website through a partnership with Picnik. They've created photo memorabilia and used Picasa to share pictures online. With the unique sharing feature you can even send out Save the Dates and Announcements.

With all these features at your fingertips, it’s hard not to say “I do” to Google Weddings.