Baha'i eBooks Partnership: One Year Later

One year ago today, I formally announced a partnership I'm very proud to have been a part of -- bringing my Bahá'í eBook cover designs to the eBooks at Bahá'í eBooks Publishing. BEP's beautiful formatting and freely-downloadable distribution model aligned well with my own design values, and it's been a pleasure partnering with them over this past year, including on the exclusive adaptation of Rúhhíyih Rabbani's cover for The Priceless Pearl.

Thanks to everyone for your support in this project, and look for some more eBook cover-related news coming soon!

Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to attend a pre-release screening of the first film in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy, and wanted to share my impressions.

The short (Hobbit-sized?) version: I loved it.

My initial thoughts? "It's so good to be back in Middle-Earth again." The production team behind The Hobbit did a beautiful job bringing the world of Middle-Earth to life on screen in a way that was familiar and fresh at the same time -- it felt like I was not only revisiting somewhere I had been before (especially in The Shire and Rivendell), but getting to walk around and see more of it than I had before. At the same time, it actually felt like I was seeing it in a time before The Lord of the Rings -- buildings and artifacts seemed ever-so-slightly newer, shinier, and less aged, as if we were really seeing them 60 years before the original film trilogy.

This brings me to one of the biggest things I loved about this film. Not only is it a solid and gorgeously-realized story in itself, but it also serves as a beautiful set-up to The Lord of the Rings films -- much more so than I had expected, especially having read The Hobbit multiple times. I admit I was a little skeptical when I heard The Hobbit was being split into three films, as I wasn't sure how a book shorter than any of the three parts of The Lord of the Rings (which each got one film) could be successfully strung across three separate parts. Having seen this first film, however, I'm thoroughly excited for the next two parts, and I think I see where they're headed with their integration of Appendix story information detailing the build-up to Sauron's resurgence and the skepticism of the guardians of Middle-Earth as to its validity. This, added to the main questing plot of The Hobbit, makes for a compelling story that I believe will scale well to a trilogy format, and will give us that much more beautiful filmmaking to enjoy along the way.

There were a few things I noticed that were different than I had expected. Two story moments from the first trailer, for example, were missing -- I'm wondering if they were cut, or perhaps originally planned for this film but moved to The Desolation of Smaug once the series was changed from two to three films? I'm speaking, specifically, of the shot of Bilbo looking at the shards of Narsil in Rivendell, and Gandalf with his sword in an environment that looks a lot like the old tower visited by Radagast. I'm thinking the Narsil scene was cut (though will maybe show up in the Extended Edition), and the Gandalf shots have been pushed to the next film -- but, of course, time will tell.

Howard Shore's music is fantastic -- the "Misty Mountains" song sung by the dwarves in the first trailer is even better in full in the film, and is fleshed out as a main theme throughout the score. I was happy to hear familiar motifs from The Lord of the Rings, though some of it felt a bit recycled; there were times when it felt like the orchestration was lifted without change from the original films, while other times, new life was breathed into existing themes to great effect. One surprising choice was the Nazgûl theme integrated into an otherwise heroic scene with Thorin Oakenshield and the Pale Orc -- perhaps some foreshadowing of Thorin's darker tendencies?

Apparently, others are enjoying the soundtrack as well -- not only is it currently 8th on the bestselling albums chart on iTunes, but the Special Edition of the soundtrack was sold out at the eight different brick-and-mortar stores I tried to purchase it at (so much for trying to support physical stores, eh?). While I normally purchase my music on iTunes, I wanted the excellent packaging and extras The Lord of the Rings soundtracks were known for, and wanted it immediately for a 2.5-hour drive I had the next day; since my efforts were fruitless, I've since ordered it online, prompting me to question why I didn't just assume I would want to purchase it after seeing the film, and buy it in the week before the premiere. Lesson learned for next year, I suppose.

The effects are -- as one would expect but should not take for granted -- fantastic, including the excellent performance of Gollum. Jackson talked about adding several new muscles to the Gollum model, especially in the face, and he looks even better than he did in The Lord of the Rings (especially the quality of his skin and the lighting on and in it). Assuming no major storyline changes were made, it's a shame we won't be seeing more of Gollum in the next two films, but the time we spent with him in this film was wonderful -- full of personality, humor, and emotion.

The other performances were also engaging and powerful. Ian McKellan continues to flesh out his brilliant interpretation of Gandalf, and Martin Freeman makes an endearing, entertaining, and multidimensional Bilbo Baggins. Richard Armitage's Thorin makes a tormented hero, and I'm excited to see the continuing evolution of his character (Gandalf, Bilbo, and Thorin make a compelling protagonist trio, and I think this works well on screen instead of focusing solely on Bilbo). The dwarves are fun and full of personality as a whole, though understandably not fleshed out much as of the end of the film (aside from Balin, whose encouraging words and expositional storytelling helped us connect with him more than most of the others). And the primary returning cast from The Lord of the Rings (Elrond, Galadriel, Ian Holm's Bilbo) play their roles well, filling in smaller yet important parts of the story.

I can't wait for next December! What did you think of the film? Share your thoughts in the comments.

For those interested, my prerelease screening was in certified IMAX 3D, at 24 fps. I'm looking forward to seeing the film again in 48 fps 3D, as well as trying it out in 24 fps 2D.

VOTE

The Colbert Report's opening title from Election Day 2008

It's that time again -- get out and exercise your civil liberties, everyone!

Feel free to post your voting stories in the comments, and keep an eye out for anything fishy going on -- take your smartphone and document it if needed. Demand Progress will be watching Twitter hashtag #videothevote for any posts about potential fraud or inaccuracies.

Also, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report's joint live election coverage tonight will not only broadcast on Comedy Central tonight, but also livestreamed! Watch it here.

Have fun!

TCR's opening title from yesterday

Site of the Day

I am exceedingly excited and honored to announce that my personal website has been chosen as Adobe's Muse Site of the Day for today, August 1, 2012!

The showcase honors sites that "exhibit strong visual design and usability, interesting and/or timely content, and innovative use of Muse features."

The blurb Adobe wrote about my site reads:

Graphics that play on light and dark are a central theme in this multimedia portfolio's design. Some images descend into darkness at the bottom, while others have light sources that glow from one edge of the image. The text graphics for headlines use shadows and gradients to appear lit from above.

My site has already had visitors from 21 different countries over the course of the day, and the day's not over yet! Thanks to Adobe for showcasing my site, and thanks to everyone who's visited and supported me throughout this journey. I'm looking forward to the next chapter!


Links:
My website
Adobe Muse Site of the Day

New Project Release: Replacement Adobe Creative Suite Icons!

I'm very excited to announce a neat new project I've been working on: a set of replacement app icons for Adobe's Creative Suite! They're available for immediate download at my website: ImanRastegari.com.

I've used Adobe's CS software for some time, and have enjoyed their app icon and UI design to varying degrees over the course of their version history. What really pushed me to design this set was the stark aesthetic of their most recent release, CS6 -- I wanted something more nuanced and multi-dimensional than their stock icons provided.

Over time, I've grown to appreciate the philosophy behind Adobe's design (I read a really interesting breakdown of their thinking here), but in the end, it was still a bit too bleak for my tastes, and I've been enjoying my alternative icons on my dock and Launchpad instead. I hope you do, too!

To facilitate easy access to these icon sets, I've also added a brand-new section to my recently-revamped website: Downloads! Currently on this Downloads page are full icon sets for both Mac (.icns) and Windows (.ico), along with a one-click downloadable archive of all of my Bahá'í eBooks covers. Both projects are available now, and are completely free to download and use. And as always, I'd love to hear what you think of them!

I know some of you have been asking for a breakdown of some of the changes made to the website when it was revamped a few weeks ago, and I'm looking forward to posting that in the near future. In the meantime, check out the new site for yourself, and enjoy the downloads!

Ray Bradbury

It saddens me to mark the passing of Ray Bradbury, the famed writer of such stories as Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles. I actually first read his work in short story form, in the collection The Golden Apples of the Sun, which included possibly my favorite work of his, A Sound of Thunder.

Wikipedia article
LA Times article
NY Times obituary

The Priceless Pearl and more

Shortly before Ayyam-i-Há, I was given the opportunity and honor to adapt Rúhhíyih Rabbani's cover for her book, The Priceless Pearl, as an exclusive eBook cover for Bahá'í eBook Publications. It was an interesting and fun challenge, as I needed to maintain all of the major elements from the original design, while trying to adapt it to the theme and design aesthetic I've brought to my other covers.

The book was released as a beautifully-formatted and illustrated eBook during Ayyam-i-Há, and I recommend you check out the free download at Bahá'í eBook Publications's website! I won't be releasing this particular cover at full resolution on my personal website, as I made it as an exclusive for this release, but you can get a closer look when you download the book.

A few other updates: I will be posting an updated version of my dark blue Bahá'í Prayers cover, so that the central star design will show up more clearly on your reader screens. I'm also working on an under-the-hood restructuring of my website, that will also include some expanded content, so keep an eye out for that in the near future. In the meantime, Happy Naw-Rúz!

P.S. For those of you wondering, the full-resolution eBook covers are fully Retina-display-ready for the new iPad! They're technically even higher-resolution than the Retina Display, so they look gorgeous (as does everything on that screen). Enjoy!

Ralph McQuarrie

From the Art of Ralph McQuarrie website:

It is with the deepest sadness that we announce the passing of Ralph McQuarrie.

People say you should never meet your heroes. Ralph was the exception to that rule. We were all fans of his amazing art long before we were blessed with his friendship. But once you got to know Ralph it was impossible not to become a fan of Ralph the man.

Ralph was a very special person for many more reasons than his undeniable brilliance with a brush. He was an especially kind, sensitive, deep, modest, funny and fascinating gentleman. And as fine a role model as any one could have wished for.

His influence on design will be felt forever. There's no doubt in our hearts that centuries from now amazing spaceships will soar, future cities will rise and someone, somewhere will say...

"that looks like something Ralph McQuarrie painted."

 

Bahá'í eBook Covers Update!

 I've just updated my website with a bunch of new and tweaked eBook covers! As you can see from the sampling above, there are some new books, including a brand new design for the debut of books from The Báb, as well as some redesigning and updating of covers I had already released. 

This is the first book of The Báb's for which I've designed a cover; interestingly, the five-pointed design actually took longer than most of the nine-sided designs featured in the rest of the covers. I hope you like it! 

I've updated both covers for texts from The Universal House of Justice; changing their author credit to gold, and changing the color scheme on One Common Faith to be consistent with the unique shading of The Promise of World Peace. 

I've updated the cover of Gleanings to better reflect the full, correct title: Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh. I've also updated most of His other covers to more clearly show subtitles (for example, "The Most Holy Book", for The Kitáb-I-Aqdas). 

I created a new cover, as well as updated the existing ones, with a slightly more prominent star design for 'Abdu'l-Bahá. 


I hope you enjoy the updates, and always, feel free to reach out with your thoughts and comments! You can see and download everything from my site. 

2011

I can't believe it's over already -- 2011 seems to have flown by. I've never lost sight of what a privilege it is to have a readership, especially one so supportive of projects I'm working on. This year, my big project was the Bahá’í eBook cover idea, which was a success in its own right, and got taken to another level with my partnership with Bahá’í eBooks Publications -- the premier internet location for Bahá’í eBooks. The release of the eBook covers also prompted me to finally redesign and launch my website, ImanRastegari.com. I'm excited to continue my partnership with Bahá’í eBooks Publications into 2012, as well as continue working on some exciting projects that are currently underway. Thank you all for your support!

As always, here are some stats, courtesy of Google Analytics:

Readers from 22 countries visited the site, including the United States, Brazil, Israel, Australia, Russia, Bangladesh, Mexico, and India.

Of the 8 recorded OSs, more people visited on Macs than any other, followed by Windows, iPad, iPhone, and Android.

Of the 10 recorded browsers, more people viewed the blog on Safari, followed by Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.

The Top 5 Posts of 2011 (by total views) were:

1. Steve Jobs
2. Bahá'i eBook Covers Project: Launching Today!
3. Remembrance
4. Steve Apple Word Tribute
5. Announcement: Bahá'í eBooks Publications Partnership!

Thanks for a great 2011, and here's to an even better 2012!

P.S. Here are my end-of-year posts from 2008 and 2010, for nostalgia's sake.

Announcement: Bahá'í eBooks Publications Partnership!

I am delighted to finally announce that I have partnered with Bahá'í eBooks Publications to bring my eBook covers to their collection. I have been using their books as the basis for my personal Bahá'í eBook collection since I discovered them several months ago, as their formatting and layout is the best I have seen for electronic reading. Their attention to detail and technical skill in beautifully presenting the sacred texts makes it a pleasure to read their editions, and I'm honored to be working with them to bring my cover project to a larger audience.

My covers will still be freely downloadable from my website, where you can download them at full resolution and apply them to your own digital copies. I highly encourage you to check out Bahá'í eBooks Publications's work, however -- their eBooks are free, beautifully made, and they have a vast selection of texts from Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi, The Báb, The Universal House of Justice, and more.

We're starting by releasing three books with my covers, and will be expanding to more in the near future. The three (newly-updated!) editions with my covers are The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, The Kitáb-i-Íqán, and The Secret of Divine Civilization. Enjoy!

The official announcement from their website is copied below; you can also check out their tweets (first and second) and Facebook posts.

December 19, 2011 

We have entered into a collaboration with designer Iman Rastegari to bring you a set of unified covers for the Sacred Writings. We will be offering a choice of covers for certain books – Iman’s covers will allow you to create a unified set of book covers for your electronic bookshelves. When we have options for books covers, a number will appear beside the book so that you know that the only difference between the books is the cover.

Weird Al's Kinetically Typographical Inspiration

Over the past week, I've been thinking a lot about kinetic typography, and some projects I want to experiment with (more on that in future posts). In the meantime, I thought I'd share the video that kicked off my interest in this animation technique, Weird Al's music video for "Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me", the finale of his most recent album, Alpocalypse. It's one of the best examples of the medium I've seen -- if you have others that you like, please share in the comments!

Steve Apple Word Tribute

I made this while I was waiting for my laundry to dry (no, really), and wanted to share. It took some tinkering, especially to get the words where I wanted them, and with relatively even distribution, but I like the way it turned out.

I got the source image from here, and used WordFoto to make it.

Remembrance

There has been an outpouring of grief, reflection, and remembrance over the last 24 hours, as people around the world wrestle with the news that Steve Jobs has passed away. I wanted to collect a variety of pieces that have stood out; feel free to share your own in the comments.

A few quotes:

"Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world." - Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook

"Steve Jobs was our da Vinci." - @GuyEndoreKaiser

‎"Three Apples changed the world: The first seduced Eve. The second fell on Newton. And the third one was offered to the world half bitten by him." - trending on Twitter, source unknown.

"Steve's iLife is over, but now he's looking down at us from the iCloud." - former Apple employee, on Facebook 

"If there isn't a heaven, Steve Jobs will invent one." -  @SoniaTaitz

xkcd posted a rare Thursday cartoon. The alt-text reads: "There's always the hope that if you sit and watch for long enough, the beachball will vanish and the thing it interrupted will return."

My friend Jeremy Latour made this, based on the famous Think Different ad:

My friend Jamal Coleman sent me this photo link:

He also shared this poignant comic, by Scott Johnson:

MacRumors posted a great collection of statements and photographs chronicling the reaction to the news. You can read the full post here, including this photo they published from outside 1 Infinite Loop, Apple headquarters in Cupertino, CA. Flags at half-staff.

Outside an Apple store in London. This is happening around the world, including at the Apple store fifteen minutes from my house. The photo is from the New York Times, which also posted this story about the outpouring of grief around the world and throughout the internet. In it, they mention "Twitter briefly buckled under the mass of Jobs-related messages, a veritable technology 21-gun salute."

Nightline broadcast a full-episode tribute last night, including an interview with Apple co-founder Steve "Woz" Wozniak. It was respectful, reflective, and reasonably comprehensive. You can watch it here:

ABC just posted this story of designer Jonathan Mark's re-imagining of the Apple logo, with Steve's silhouette as the "bite":

It seems appropriate to end with a quote from Steve Jobs himself. This is an excerpt from his Stanford commencement address in 2005, on the topic of death:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

[…]

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Please share your own thoughts, tributes, and favorite findings around the web in the comments.

Steve Jobs

I'm still reeling from the news that Steve Jobs, visionary founder and CEO of Apple, passed away earlier this evening. As I tried to articulate and process my thoughts, I decided to try journaling a bit. I wanted to share a part of what I wrote:

Steve was Apple, but Apple is also Steve. Apple is not going to be the same without him -- and yet, it is. Steve's character, his vision, his style, are deep in Apple's DNA. The people who are a part of this company are so because they -- we -- were attracted to what Apple stood for, which was what he stood for. We carry on that legacy, which, in turn, keeps him alive. In a way. It's still not the same. But it means that this is not the end.

Disney + Lord of the Rings =

A friend just sent this my way -- a clever piece of editing work (some of the lip-syncing is quite good), bringing clips from various Disney movies together to the audio track of one of the original Fellowship of the Ring trailers. Enjoy!

Hurricane Irene Timelapse

I meant to post this back when I made it, but it slipped through the cracks. I took this through my window, looking out at the street. The video doesn't come close to conveying just how powerful the winds were, but you can see on the massive bunch of trees just how easily they're being blown around.

This was taken over the course of about 16 and a half minutes; 500 still frames played back at 24 frames per second. Taken with my Nikon D7000 on August 28, 2011, during Hurricane Irene hitting Massachusetts.

Bahá'i eBook Covers Project: Launching Today!

It's been a while since I last posted, as I've been busy working on a number of projects. I'm really excited to share one of them with you today!

The Opportunity

More and more people are downloading Bahá’í texts, to read on a variety of screens -- their computers, e-readers, tablets, smartphones, and more. Project Gutenberg and Bahá’í eBooks Publications are both great, free sources for these texts, as are widely-used eBookstores like Apple’s iBookstore. However, there did not exist a cohesive and unified set of cover art that could be used with these digital copies, that would be freely and easily available to anyone who wanted to use them on their devices. Searching online yielded low-quality photos and scans of print copies, or sets of eBooks that had mis-matched or generic cover art.

The Solution

I wanted to design covers that would satisfy specific needs:

• Consistency: Clearly identifiable as a set, consistent design across all books. 
• Quality: High enough resolution to look good on all smartphone, tablet, or computer screens.
• Readability: Easy to read when full size, as well as small thumbnails lined up on a digital bookshelf.
• Beautiful: While beauty is certainly in the eye of the user, designing with the elegance and sophistication deserved of Bahá’í sacred texts. 
• Accessible: Free to download, openly formatted and easy to add to an existing eBook collection.

You can see the full collection of eBook covers, available for a free download as individual .jpg files, or together in one .zip file, at my newly-revamped website. There are also directions for how to use them, if you're not sure how to add custom covers to your existing eBook files. Feel free to share your feedback, and enjoy!

Hulu pulls an April Fools

Make sure to check out Hulu.com (not the app, the website) today for a great April Fool's Day joke! I particularly love the Guestbook and Netscape/IE links at the bottom.

The best scientific article. Ever.

I think it does a great job of explaining itself. Enjoy it here!