When more money enters a market where the amount of existing products remains limited the result is price inflation. I think a similar phenomenon exists in Twitter that I’d call Twitter Inflation or Twinflation (the latter being the cutified version of the term).

This concept was hit on (sort of) at Media Shift in an article called Dealing with Friend Inflation on Twitter, Digg, which discusses managing a steadily growing list of Twitter followers. What I’m talking about is a bit more central to the basic concept of Twitter.

I think there’s a natural rate of inflation to Twitter follower counts, just like there’s a natural rate of inflation in an economy. A trend line, if you will, that can be expected to generally increase over time similar to the way worker productivity and compound interest naturally expand an economy. The reason is simply because as more and more Twitter users arrive and add new Twitter friends they steadily push up the follower count for those already using the service.

I think it would be interesting to look through the data at a site like Twitter Counter to see if there’s a determinable average rate of inflation in Twitter based on the growth rates of a large sample of users.

If this reads as slap-forehead obvious, I apologize. I have a hard time determining when something is less profound then pedestrian and vice versa.

Every so often I check through the search terms on Google Analytics that have led people to my site. Often people end up here after searching for very direct, pointed questions (mostly) about InDesign that are somewhat related to things I’ve already discussed. This series of posts seeks to answer those questions for others having the same issues.

Search Term: “Can’t delete unused swatch in Illustrator”

InDesign users will run into this issue all the time: you’re finished with your document and you want to tie up some of the extraneous loose ends that are a natural result of the design process so you go through and make sure all of your images are CMYK and properly linked, you don’t have any missing fonts, and you go through and delete all of your unused swatches in the Swatches panel, but you can’t make them all delete. Why do some of them refuse to go away?

The Answer

You have a placed vector file that you (or someone else) created in Illustrator. The swatch that you can’t delete exists in this file and is being imported into InDesign automatically. It can’t be deleted, because the setting that calls for “PMS 289″ for example is an Illustrator setting. Not an InDesign setting.

How to fix it

You need to open the original Illustrator file, find the offending swatch and convert it to a process (CMYK) color. To do this, double click on the swatch in the swatches panel that you wish to change.

Change “Color Type” to “Process Color” and “Color Mode” to CMYK, as shown. Then click “Okay,” save and close your document

Back in InDesign, update the link in the Links Panel if InDesign does not update it automatically. You should now be able to delete the offending swatch from the Swatches Panel.

“how to set 300 dpi for documents in indesign”

Above is one of the search terms that carried some wayward internet surfer on to the sunny shores of ATCO beach earlier today. (Metaphors are cool!)

Resolution in InDesign

There really isn’t such a thing as a “high res” InDesign file. An ID file establishes links to external image files that aren’t contained within the “filename.indd” file on your computer. (This is why you include all of the original images when you’re sending the final document to the printer). These individual images that you’re linking into your ID document must be high res for printing purposes. If they are, then you’re good. You don’t have to change any settings in InDesign whatsoever.

“High Res” on Screen

Images placed in InDesign appear to be pixelated and of generally low resolution on screen. This is an artifact of older versions of the software designed to run on computers with slower processor speeds. Every time the image scrolls around the viewing window the computer has to redraw it. Presenting images as low-res on-screen graphics speeds up this process.

As long as your placed image is 300 dpi (see below), there’s nothing wrong with the onscreen preview image. It’s just showing up that way to expedite your interaction with the document and to save on processing power. To see a the image in all it’s crisp glory, right click on it and select “Display Performance>High Quality Display” from the pop-up menu.

What I mean by “High Resolution”

Resolution is a product of the physical size of a file (height and width in whatever unit of measure is preferable to you) AND dots per inch (dpi). This is key, because it’s possible to resample a low res file to be 300 dpi but it will be extremely small in physical size (think postage stamp small).

To be truly high resolution, an image needs to have a resolution setting of 300 dots per inch at the size with which it is to be printed. You can make it smaller in InDesign, but you can’t make it much bigger without losing the crispness of the image.

If you have images placed in InDesign that are 300 dpi, AND they are either the same size as when they were placed in the file (or smaller), then you’re good. Your file will be “high res” in the sense that the original question intended. (Even though that’s sort of a misnomer).

High Res PDF

You can create a PDF right out of InDesign by going to File>Export and then selecting PDF. To create a high resolution PDF, select “PDF X-1A” from the file size menu in the next screen.

X-1A is a standard set of export settings for PDFs that create high-resolution images from which 4 color process color separations can be generated (translation: you can send an X-1A to your printer and he’ll be able to make it look right).

If you stumbled on ATCO in the last week and checked out my gallery page, I apologize for the mess. I’m an arrogant little cuss and I decided to try my hand at improving some of the blog styling on the home page.

“It’s a website,” I cried, brandishing a “gallery” classed div like Joe Pesci’s gun at the poker table in Goodfellas “What could go wrong?”

One frantic IM conversation with Nunemaker later, I’m back to a December 2008 style sheet backup, which will learn me to play with code without a back-up.

Anyway…if you haven’t, feel free to poke around in the Gallery now that it’s been properly cleaned and sanitized. If you get bored, amble over to my Flickr set where I stash everything else that’s in the general vicinity of portfolioic.

Nothing says “I can’t generate my own content” quite like a design blog post that begins with a number. Let’s begin, shall we?

I love fonts. I’m only slightly less enamored with not paying for them. The problem is that the internet is littered with a bunch of epically bad fonts masquerading as free fonts. (Well I guess they’re not really masquerading if they’re technically “free.” Even, I suppose, if they do enough damage to your design reputation that they should pay you to use them, but i digress…)

Downloading them is a crime against design. Actually using them in a design should carry with it an immediate revocation of any and all Creative Suite Licenses. You know the kind of fonts I’m talking about. Activating them in an unsuspecting, innocent, pure Illustrator document is likely to cause a burning sensation while peeing.

Finding a truly great free font is certainly a diamond-in-the-rough kind of pursuit. But finding these gems makes it all worthwhile. Here are four of my favorites

I make no claims about the licensing requirements of these fonts. Read the End User License Agreements (where available) before using them.

The good people at Ten by Twenty have blessed us with this great headline sans serif. In fact, Nevis looks like it could be the love child of Futura and Gotham (which is sort of the typographic equivalent of the movie Harold and Maude. //Crickets // Is this thing on?). I’m not a huge fan of the lowercase letterforms, but Nevis looks superb in all caps, and the uppercase “M” is so perfect that it looks like a tiny little corporate logo just waiting to be discovered.

Use it for

Headlines and large, bold, short lines of text. Nevis looks great as the dominant font on a page.

Where to get it

Nevis is available from Ten by Twenty and can be downloaded here. While you’re on the site, make sure to click on the “free downloads” link and check out their other free faces including the incredible serif face Jura.

DaFont.com can be a decent source for good fonts, but use caution: there’s a lot of crap lurking there too. One of the gems is Eurofurence, a playful modern face that reminds me a little bit of Avenir and a lot…bit…of VAG rounded or Helvetica Rounded. One of the great things about this font is that it is a true free font family, packing a normal and an italic cut of Light, Regular and Bold each.

Use it for

Eurofurence seems like a purebred poster font. It would be at home in a magazine ad for a trendy cell phone carrier as well. Use it in white on bright, solid colored backgrounds or in bright, solid colors on white.

Where to get it

It’s available from daFont.com and can be downloaded here.

The second result on Google searching for this font reveals this post at Typophile, presumably from the original font designer. Apparently, Miso was designed for use on architectural drawings. I think it makes a great subhead font. Miso has a neat, industrial quality that reminds me of Trade Gothic or DIN, but it also has a blurry softness not unlike…well…FF Blur.

Use it for

Subheaders and headers, but i really think it could be an interesting copy text too.

It’s available from Abstract Fonts and can be downloaded here.