With the recent change, modern browsers will now correctly render nearly any font that a designer wishes to use. Great news, right? We’ve taken a giant leap forward in terms of controlling a user’s interactive experience. But there’s one major hang-up.

In order for a user to view a non-traditional font on a web page, that font must be downloaded off the web server. In turn, this leaves the font exposed and anyone with the slightest bit of computer know-how can personally download it. As you guessed, that’s illegal. The hours and hours that a type designer has poured into the creation of that font goes right down the crapper when someone illegally downloads it.

Luckily, it doesn’t end there. A few solutions popped up in response to the legality issue, one being Typekit, a subscription-based service that allows you to legally use unique fonts in your site. Typekit has teamed up with type designers and foundries to create a large library of fonts, and Typekit personally hosts these fonts in order to protect them. In turn, a customer simply pays an annual fee and everyone wins.

An example of Typekit in action The New York Times Skimmer using Cheltenham and Franklin

There are other solutions out there, such as individual foundries creating web-specific font licenses Typotheque in The Netherlands for example and I’m sure we’ll be seeing many more solutions pop up over time.

So keep your eyes open, and you’ll see web typography develop more and more. Just be sure to shield them when you come across a site set in Curlz because as we know, both good and bad design will come from this.

An example of Typekit in action The Sew Weekly blog using Coquette and Proxima Nova

Our tour guide for the Mekong Delta, An, was the best Vietnamese tour guide Ive had so far. He was very knowledgeable and cracked some pretty good jokes. He told us to make sure we didn’t lose him throughout the tour because he wouldn’t recognize us due to the fact we all look the same to him with our round eyes. Hilarious.

Life on the Mekong Delta revolves around rice and the water. Many families live on boats in the river and do their shopping at a floating market. Some of the boat houses even sport a little bonsai garden!

Ladies rowing canoes. They row standing up. Photo by Heather Kennedy

Life on the river looked serene but the poverty was apparent. The boat homes and stilt houses on the edge of the river beds were a bit dilapidated and our guide said “everything is full circle.” Which translates to: the water is used for fishing, washing, drinking water and as a receptacle for all their waste. And I mean all.

In addition to the water, life truly revolves around family. Multiple generations live in one house or on one boat for their entire lives. They take care of one another and the children seem happy as can be. They literally jump up and down and yell “hello! hello! hello!” as the tourist boats pass by. Adorable.

Family on the porch of their floating house Photo by Heather Kennedy

We stopped at a few villages where we saw rice wine and crackers being made. In addition, our guide offered the men some snake wine, which is literally made from fermented snakes and a bird (gross) and improves virility. I believe he referenced “superman” in his description of the snake wine effects!

An pulling a fermented bird out of a vat of snake wine. If you’re man enough to drink alcohol made from fermented snakes and birds, I’m thinking your virility is not in question to begin with. Photo by Heather Kennedy

One of the villages we visited has a large Muslim population of Malaysians that were kicked out of their country at some point in their tumultuous history. They settled on the Mekong and live there in peace.

After our tour of the Mekong Delta we floated toward our final destination of Phnom Penh, stopping off mid-way to go through immigration. As it turns out, both Betsy and I ran out of pages in our passport. We both thought we had 4 pages left but apparently those pages are to remain blank. Great. Luckily, money solves most problems and for $25 plus a note of apology, we got our visa.

In retrospect, I think the $25 might have been “unofficial”, if you will, and we just had to grease the wheels a bit to get into the country. But it all worked out and we went to the US Embassy in Phnom Penh, first thing. It was kind of fun, actually. After a very thorough security check we were ushered into the passport/visa waiting room where I met several Americans. It was like experiencing a little piece of home in the middle of Cambodia! Right down to the bathroom, which was 100% western style, including the brownish colored paper towels and florescent hand soap that always smells the same. Heaven! (Do they import that stuff???)

I heard Phnom Penh was gritty, but I found it to be just lovely. The main part of the city lies on the edge of the Mekong and the architecture reflects a French style due to the many years of occupation. I loved every minute there. However, I will admit we were offered drugs a couple of times, including opium, and our new friend Jason from England was actually offered a Vietnamese woman, which is a little scary. Kids, if you are reading this just say no to drugs! Particularly if they are highly addictive and offered to you on the street in a developing country. Who says “yes” to this stuff???

A surprising moment was seeing an elephant walking down the street. Not sure what he was doing there, but he appeared unnerved by all the traffic!

Elephant just minding his own business Photo by Heather Kennedy

My desire to visit Phnom Penh derived from learning more about the Khmer Rouge and to see the Killing Fields. Not uplifting, but important to know about. It was overwhelming enough to save for a separate blog.

Heather Kennedy
Current location: Cambodia
Visit Heather’s travel blog, The Heather Report

Your Name(s) and Title(s):
Phillip Cohen President and Owner

Where are you located?
Austin, TX 600 West 28th Street, Suite #102 Austin, TX 78705

Why Austin?
I came to UT in 1983 and I never left! It might sound like a cliché, but Austin has everything from the lakes, the hills and trees to live music, great nightlife, theater, and tons of restaurants. I feel Austin has a unique and special type of persona – it’s a vibrant, young, hip city that is very health and environmentally conscious not like larger cities. And its a great city to raise your children in!

How many people does your company employ?
3 full-time, 2 part-time, over 50 Campus Reps at universities across the country.

What does your company do?
We are a Ski Tour Operator specializing in College Ski Weeks, Alumni Ski Weekends, Corporate Ski Getaways and Family Vacations.

Who are your clients/customers?
The majority of our customers are college students ranging in age from 18-25 years of age. We have also begun offering our ski packages to families and corporations.

What has been your greatest success?
We began a College Ski Week trip to Breckenridge, Colorado, the first week of January 1989 for University of Texas Students. In our first year we took 75 students to the slopes. And now, 20 years later the College Ski Week has grown to close to 3,000 skiers and boarders from across the U.S. and the world (Germany, England, Japan, etc.).

Where do you find inspiration?
I love what I do. It does get a little crazy sometimes, but I love being my own boss and offering our customers a great product at a great price. My wife and my boys are always willing to help out and give me encouragement. My parents have also been big influences in my life, showing and teaching me that hard work and treating people fairly will pay off in the end!

Where do you want to be in five years?
I hope to be doing the same thing and teaching my sons the business. They already have the snowboarding part down!

Why did you choose Creative Suitcase?
After receiving a few different travel themed mailings from Creative Suitcase, I decided to give them a call. Rachel came to my office and met with my office manager and myself. I was really impressed with how she handled herself very professional, personable and knowledgeable. She was also a GREAT listener. She listened to me explain my business, my customers and my needs for about an hour. I felt very comfortable talking to her and she seemed like someone I could trust with our entire marketing campaign.

How did you hear about us?
I received a direct mail postcard a couple of years ago from Creative Suitcase. At the time we were not happy with the direction of our website and advertising and were in the market for a new advertising and web design company. When I read the Creative Suitcase postcard, I loved the travel theme and felt they could be a good fit with our marketing needs.

What results have you experienced with us?
Our main issue was that all of our marketing had a different look. We needed to consolidate our image with a more modernized logo, design and theme. Creative Suitcase designed an entirely new website with an updated reservation system, a series of marketing posters, direct-mail postcards and an updated logo that met all of our challenges.

Top 5 items in your suitcase (your favorites)
Travel destination: I love the mountains, but Im a Beach-Bum at heart. Belize, Rosemary Beach, FL & Acapulco (just to name a few). And Vegas, too!
Take home souvenir: A stupid t-shirt and some great memories
Web site: ubski.com, snow.com, hulu.com, cnn.com, espn.com, itunes
Logo/campaign/tagline: the Hut or maybe the Shack (JUST KIDDING) E*trade babies, What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas commercials, I Want My MTV and Avis We try harder taglines.
Austin original: Guerros, Fonda San Miguels, Alamo Drafthouse, Lake Austin

Your designer should provide the final logo in a variety of files and formats. So for those of you reaching for that JPG right now, hold up and read this quick guide:

• EPS Anytime you see a file name with the extension .eps, take note that these files are ideal for printing. EPS files are created with vector-based programs like Adobe Illustrator and therefore can scale to an enormous size (if need be) while still retaining the original clean, crisp quality. It’s likely that you won’t be able to open EPS files if you don’t have Adobe programs, but the files should be clearly labeled so you can still send the correct one to print.

• JPG JPGs are probably the number one victim of file misuse. It’s a familiar extension, so clients often head straight for it. However, JPG logo files should be limited to web usage only. They are bitmap images as opposed to vector and therefore, cannot be scaled larger than the original file size without loosing quality.

• GIF and PNG GIFs and PNGs are also intended for web usage only. However, these two file types are preferable to JPGs when it comes to iconic graphics like logos. In fact, PNGs retain the most quality of all three so opt for a PNG when available.

• CMYK and Spot Often your designer will identify the color usage in the file names: CMYK (4-color) and spot (PMS). These color differences are only applicable to printing, so you’ll likely see the differentiation in the .eps file titles. File selection simply depends on how you’re printing the material: CMYK or spot.

• BW and Inv Lastly, you should be supplied with a black (BW) version of your logo and an inverse (Inv) version. This pretty much goes without saying, but BW should be used when color isn’t an option, and the inverse version should be used when you want to place the logo on a dark-colored background.

These five points are just the bare bones but should be all you need. And if you have any questions, always consult your designer first before risking a print job.

First things first. Creative Suitcase is a bunch of clothes-lovin’ girls and we dig your threads, but isn’t it time to nix that MySpace page and get a real website?If I have to go on one more Google scavenger hunt to see what time you close, I’m going to give up and raid my granny’s closet instead. Just kidding Mimi, love you.

But let’s be serious. We all know that social media is a must and you’ve clearly got that under your Marc Jacobs belt, but let’s get an actual website up and running. Your MySpace + Facebook + blog trinity isn’t so holy.

Our thoughts:

• You have some killer photography. How about getting those carefully art directed photos away from the Cindy Crawford banner ads and onto your own Feathers website?

• With your own website, you could show off latest merch more prominently so cupcakes like me can hurry over. Maybe a home page feature? And with a content management system like WordPress, it’s just as easy to use as your current blog. So the next time another Saber-toothed bag walks in the door, you can post it instantly.
• If you’re constantly changing out merch and don’t want to deal with updating a full-scale website, how about creating a site that feeds from your blog, Facebook, MySpace and just about any other social site? You can continue doing what you’re doing but dress it up in your own feathers.

• Send out announcements via an email sign-up so I don’t have to get some spam-like MySpace email. Some of us like to steer clear of the mecca of animated-gifs.

Bottom line, you have some beautiful feathers and we’d love for you to show them off more. As we all know, there’s some stiff competition out there.

Sincerely,
Mimi’s granddaughter

Your Name(s) and Title(s):
Heather McKinney President
Al York Vice President
Michelle Rossomando Vice President
Will Wood Associate
Brian Carlson Associate

Where are you located?
Just East of downtown, on 7th street.

Why Austin?
Heather was moving back to her home state of Texas after going to school and working in the Northeast, and was asked to design a house for two high school friends in Austin.

How many people does your company employ?
13

What does your company do?
We are a general practice architecture firm, doing everything from university campus work to single family residences.

Who are your clients/customers?
We have been around for 25 years, so there have been a lot. A short list of recent clients we have had the pleasure of working with include The University of Texas at Austin, Texas Tech University, McGarrah Jessee, Capital Metro, Lake Travis United Methodist Church, and many private residential clients.

What has been your greatest success?
Heather McKinney, the founding principal and president of the firm, was recently named a “Fellow” of the American Institute of Architects, which is a great honor in the profession. We also completed our largest project to date this year, a new chilling station in the heart of The University of Texas at Austin campus.

Where do you find inspiration?
Our goal on every project is to allow the specific conditions of the site, the desires of the owner, and the local context to shape the design. As a result, we don’t have a signature style. A few things that weigh heavily in almost everything we do is the climate, historical context, and local materials and skills.

Where do you want to be in five years?
We would like to be recognized among the top tier of architectural firms in the state, maintaining and improving the design quality and sustainability of the work we produce.

Why did you choose Creative Suitcase?
We interviewed about 6 companies for the project and were impressed with Rachel and Creative Suitcase from the start. Creative Suitcase had a good portfolio of work, which showed us they were smart designers. In addition to that, Rachel really listened to us in the interview and immediately proposed several interesting solutions for some of our biggest concerns.

How did you hear about us?
Internet research

What results have you experienced with us?
Our two biggest goals were to have an extremely well organized site and to present our projects in a great format. Both of these things were a success.

Top 5 items in your suitcase (your favorites): Answered by Will
Travel destination: Taipei
Take home souvenir: I like to travel lightly and I’m an amateur photographer so I don’t have many souvenirs. There are a few dusk shots of the Grand Canal in Venice that I’m proud of.
Website: Freakonomics
Logo/campaign/tagline: Whataburger’s “Flying W” logo
Austin original: Lambert’s