Single Image Sundays: Momentary

Two unrelated moments make sense for a moment here. This is made from a photo of a faux stone figurine of a child sleeping, from Pier 1 Imports, in Greensboro, NC (taken with Hipstamatic John S. lens & Rock BW-11 film), along with a photo of a steel pole with peeling paint in the Church Street Parking Deck, in Winston-Salem, NC. I used Photoforge2 to combine the images via layers. The concept was inspired by my favorite photographer, Jerry Uelsmann. Title inspired by The Misfits. Original images here.

For a limited time, this image is available for purchase on canvas here in 3 sizes: 12″ x 12″, 16″ x 16″ or 20″ x 20″.

What do you think? Have you ever combined two unrelated photographs for artistic harmony? What are some examples of this that you find inspiring? Let us hear from you in the comments!

Related articles

• Single Image Sundays: Skull Pendant (rsmithing.com)
• Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem, NC, Goes High Tech to Travel Back in Time (carolinaartsnews.wordpress.com)
• Single Image Sundays: Inch Nail (rsmithing.com)
• Before Photoshop (streetsofsalem.com)

Pinterest for Instagram

How to post Instagram Images on Pinterest

You probably already know that Instagram and Instagram-web-interface sites like Gramfeed are great tools for discovering amazing images, sharing your own creations and connecting with others through visual art. And you’ve probably also heard about the social and image-sharing website Pinterest, with its incredible growth as another medium for sharing and discovering based on compelling visuals.

Here’s a basic guide to using Instagram and Pinterest together that will help you share what you like on Instagram with others on Pinterest. To link Instagram to Pinterest is just a matter of selecting what to share. This also will show you some best practices for crediting Instagram artists for their work, which is not only proper etiquette for Pinterest, but is the right thing to do whenever sharing any artwork anywhere.

There are already plenty of resources on how Pinterest works beyond the scope of what’s covered here, so this post will assume you have a basic understanding of Pinterest and an account there. Now, let’s get started sharing the great images you already like on Instagram at Pinterest, with the help of Gramfeed.

Use Gramfeed & Always Give Credit

Gramfeed is not only a great way to participate on Instagram via the web, but it also gives you a convenient way to share and properly credit Instagram images on Pinterest. And it’s easier than you might think, for your own images as well as those of other Instagramers. Just follow these five steps:

1. 

   Open the image at full size to pin on Pinterest.

   Browse in Gramfeed to a photo of your own you’d like to pin, or photos you have liked. “My Likes” in Gramfeed’s top menu is a good place to start — since you already like those images.

2. Click on the photo you would like to share on Pinterest to open it at full-size view.
    
3. VERY IMPORTANT –  Pin directly from the image’s Gramfeed page. Just click the red “Pin it” button in the lower right corner on the image’s page.
   
   
   

   EASIEST WAY TO PIN IMAGES FROM INSTAGRAM: Using Gramfeed, just click on the photo you like and click the “Pin It” button to the lower right of the image. Select a board, and pin away. Click for larger view.

   
   Do NOT just pin the small thumbnail images from the list page using the Pinterest tool you may have installed on your browser. If you only share from a page of small preview images, the links associated with your pins will not work, and Pinterest viewers can’t click through to the original sources. By sharing from the full-size image page, visitors can click through your pin to the artist’s actual page, thus giving the proper credit to the owner – while also showing a beautiful full-sized image instead of a small preview. This is important, since larger images get more repins on Pinterest.

   

4. Finally, to give proper credit where it is due, I suggest you copy the artist name from their photo page and then paste that into the comments box of your pin with something like, “From Instagram by Instagramer-name-here.” You will then have given full credit to the artist whose work you are sharing, and lessen the chance that others may accuse you of stealing or taking credit for someone else’s work. Here’s an example of how I’m doing this with my own Pinterest board I’m calling “Instagramagic.” Note how all images link to the creators of the images and mention them on the pins.

Bonus Points: since Pinterest is more fun and you will gain more followers by interacting, try to say a few words about what it is that makes the photo special to you. Do you like the contrast, subject matter, or apps used? Say so in the comments when you’re giving credit and ask others what they think. Pretty soon, you’re likely to get comments and start discussions with other like-minded folks on the site.

Pinterest Boards for Instagram Categories

Pinterest is a great way to categorize images you find on Instagram. Just do a search in Gramfeed for a subject you’re passionate about, then set up a new board when pinning those images (while always giving credit). Do this a few times, and before you know it, you’ll have several visually-rich Pinterest boards with your favorite images, and you’ll be establishing yourself as a Pinterest pro.

What do you think? Are you on Pinterest and/or Instagram? Do you have any suggestions on how to share images through Pinterest? Let us hear from you in the comments!

Welcome, Bloggerheads

I do my blogging over at a WordPress-hosted site. WordPress, as you may know, is the arch rival of Blogger. At one point, I ported over my posts from there to here, but got distracted and never bothered again. With this post, I will be ending this practice, and sharing content I produce there with all of you, thus saving you the trouble of going to rsmithing.com for the real scoop. You're welcome.

3 Instagram Alternatives: Beyond Facebook's Instabillion Buy

Join me and together we will rule the galaxy!
Did anyone else sense a disturbance in The Force recently?
You may have heard the news:Facebook Buys Instagram for $1 Billion, Moves Operations to Secret Volcano Lair, Ignites Hipster Outrage.
I’m not afraid to say I love Instagram, and I anticipate continuing to enjoy it as a casual consumer for some time to come. It’s opened up a world of mobile photography and photo editing via smartphone that I never would have considered before. It’s been just enough of a social network to add engagement and hold my attention, while also making it easy and rewarding to discover some great images and have fun interacting with fun people.
I personally am encouraged by this news, since there’s only so much Instagram’s 13-person operation is capable of, and since their monthly hosting bill alone must equal the GDP of a small country. I think having the vast resources of Facebook will ease more growing pains than it will create, and I don’t plan to change how I use either service, for now anyway.

Instagram's New HQ (rumored)
That said, this opens up all kinds of questions about whether your Instagram content is now Facebook’s content, if Instagram will now have ads, or if the whole Instagram experience goes down the tubes.
Whatever.
I’m not so concerned, because, simply, Instagram is not the only show in town. It’s service is one of the most streamlined, accessible, and, ironically, the most connected with other networks. I think that’s ironic because it’s these other networks that offer so much of what Instagram already does: easy photo sharing, mobile apps, and interaction with like-minded folks. They also come with web interfaces – something you only get for Instagram through 3rd-party sites like Gramfeed or Statigr.am.
These other networks might not have filters at the ready, but most of my photos don’t even use Instagram filters, since there are so many apps far more capable of turning everyday snapshots into appreciable art. And once you’ve become handy with some photo editing apps that suit your taste, here are three other photo-sharing networks to consider:

Flickr

While more general-purpose and slightly more complicated to use than other networks, Flickr is a fantastic value (2 videos and 300MB worth of photos each calendar month for free accounts) and has a very robust web interface for organizing your images. You can use collections, sets, adjust privacy levels for each, and plenty more. Just like Instagram, there’s commenting, favorites (likes), followers (contacts), groups, but then there’s still more beyond that. And they have a wacky sense of humor (big points from me for that). The Flickr mobile app is also a great way to browse images and see those of your contacts.
Hopefully, this could be the business model Facebook anticipates, where the service is practically independent from its parent: much-beloved Flickr is thriving, unlike much-cursed Yahoo. It might take a little more searching to find arty pics here, but it’s worth a look if that’s your thing. If mobile art specifically is your thing, you might like…

iPhoneArt.com

Designed by artists for artists, iPhoneArt.com has an inherent elegance to the interface, both on the site and the mobile app. Full disclosure: I’ve been featured as artist of the day there, but as I’ve noted earlier, it tends to make Instagram look like MySpace, since one major distinguishing feature is that you can only upload five photos per day. So they’d better be good. You won’t find the deluge of mediocre snapshots all over the place highlighted for their so-called popularity, but you will find a talented community of creative folk who are into pushing the limits of what can be done with mobile photography as art. If art beyond the mobile platform is what you’re after, you might like…

DeviantArt

No, liking it doesn’t make you a deviant (let’s hope), butDeviantArt does offer an enthusiastic community and tons of content, all sortable and searchable depending on what your interest may be. DeviantArt is truly a social network for creatives, with a slant toward the artistic. There’s not a specific app, but that’s a non-issue, since their ultra-slick mobile-friendly version of the site gives you the same experience and functionality as the full-site version.

I’m already on Instagram; Why Reinvent the Wheel?

Good point. You don’t have to abandon ship. And I, especially, am not eager to learn a new photo-sharing interface just because of an acquisition – heck, I just recently figured out Pinterest. But one thing to consider is that unlike many other photo sharing apps or networks, these particular examples are very well-established – either in terms of how long they’ve been around, the depth of experience they offer, dedicated user base… or any combination of these and other factors that are of proven appeal to many Instagramers.
So if you think the party is over for our beloved Instagram, have a look at these other, less-likely-to-be-purchased-by-Facebook networks serving up their own style of social art.

What do you think of Facebook’s Instapurchase? Are you already on one or more of these networks? What has your experience there been like vs. Instagram? Is there another network (not app, but network) you would recommend? Let us hear from you in the comments!

Related articles

• Facebook Buys Instagram (appdaptation.com)
• Instagram I Heart You for Coming to Android- Finally Fabulous Photos(adaptivelearnin)
• Instagram and iPhoneography (atomicplayboy.wordpress.com)
• Instagram and Facebook: A Love Story Begins at $1Billion (Delphine Remy Boutang)
• What Facebook’s world-class engineers will do to Instagram(venturebeat.com)
• How To Become Popular on Instagram: 10 tips (rsmithing.com)
• How To Keep Facebook From Ruining Instagram (Gizmodo.com)
• 12 Instagram alternatives: Camera+, Picplz and Deja Mi (shinyshiny.tv)
• Instagram Alternatives: 8 Great Choices (TheNextWeb)
• Who Isn’t Inspired by Instagram? (curvewire.com)
• Instagram Compared on iPhone and Android (cultofmac.com)
• Facebook Buying Instagram for 1 Billion Oddly Makes Sense(usabilitycounts.com)

Single Image Sundays: Traditional With A Twist

So I’m at Anthropologie with the Mrs., and since she’s far more likely to shop successfully here than I am, I find a Man Chair, snap this quick photo of a flower, and sign on to the free wi-fi for some Instagram time. It’s a traditional shot, and the twist is that it’s a synthetic blue decorative faux-flower. But it turned out pretty well for a Hipstamatic challenge (see: mxgxpx), so hey. Thanks, Anthropologie.

PR Through A Font? Believe It.

Here’s some good public relations for Chattanooga, Tennessee design firm Insigne Design, and for the importance of typography in branding.

Chatype for Chattanooga

A recent story from Marketplace sets the scene with a picture of the city’s renaissance, then gets right to the fontspeak, showing how some cities and their local businesses/governments are adopting unified custom fonts, seeing typography as a “sexy idea” with real potential.

Click to read transcript &/or listen (10-second ad, then 4-minute audio):

Sexy Nerdspeak


Image credit: Good.is
I like this story for so many reasons. It’s about typography and design; it’s about a clever concept for effective public relations from a branding perspective; and in the space of four minutes, reporter Blake Farmer brings all these concepts together in practical application. As I said earlier on Twitter, “From “nerdspeak” to “sexy idea” in four minutes? You guessed it; we’re talking about a font.” Gotta’ love that.
Jeremy Dooley, Jonathan Mansfield and D.J. Trishler, all featured in the story, saw through this brand of design work via Chatype and successfully raised funding to get the idea out there. Check out the full presentation on Kickstarter and enjoy D+J‘s video overview here of what goes into crafting an effective font.

Now What?

I have to wonder though, what comes next? Do the designers offer free installation on computers of local businesses? As a design studio promoting this font, living in the city it was designed for, do they now throw all other fonts out the window and use this one exclusively? Do they use this as a tool for new business by offering, say… 250 free business cards or free signs that use the font for local establishments, with an offer for reprints at a discount for incorporating the font into the branding? Imagine the PR a local business could stir up by saying, “Ladies & Gents, check out our new bathroom signs – more than meets the eye!”  How about some QR code magic? Here’s a sample I whipped up just now:

Maybe a bar or restaurant runs a contest for customers to “spot the font” somewhere on site. There are so many opportunities, and I hope exploring them brings good press, profits, and most of all — fun, for everyone involved.

What do you think? Do you get a sense of tone, feel or personality from a typeface? Or is this just about making something pretty for pretty’s sake? Do you see the return on investment in this from a public relations angle? Or does this type of coverage even amount to anything in the long run? Let us hear from you in the comments!

Related articles

• Can A Font Help Chattanooga Make A Comeback? (urbanvista.net)
• Chatype: A Chattanooga Typeface?! (ashleyworley.wordpress.com)
• Does Seattle need its own special font? (seattlepi.com)
• Changing your font could save you money (Marketplace Radio)
• Cooper Union Typography (cooperuniontypography.wordpress.com)
• Shiny And Colourful: Typography (shinyandcolorful.wordpress.com)
• Letters to Loveliza: Typography (letterstoloveliza.wordpress.com)
• Scrabble Recreated for Typography Lovers (apartmenttherapy.com)