Bud Rodecker

Weblog


I Take Pictures Then Forget About Them

06 January 2009

IMG_3272 IMG_3325

I was going through my photos and found some from a day I drove around Chicago taking pictures of signs. It was a gorgeous day, the sky had some crazy clouds. I need to spend more time exploring and looking at Chicago, I spend too much of my time just passing through Chicago.


AGI

29 December 2008


AGI, Originally uploaded by Avenue53

Ben just found this photo on Flickr. It's a pretty cool feeling seeing my work on someone else's page. I worked on the typeface with Rick Valicenti, and Ben Animated it for the conference.


Merry Christmas

25 December 2008

I hope everyone is warm and with family today. Peace, goodwill towards men (and women), and all those type of things to you all.


I've got a brand spankin' new feed!

21 December 2008

This is for all of you rss subscribers our there. I know there's at least 2 of you! I've just burned my feeds with feedburner. So I'm asking you to please updated your feed reader with these two links:

This one's for my blog
feed://feeds.feedburner.com/BudRodeckerWeblog

This one's for my work page
feed://feeds.feedburner.com/BudRodeckerWork

I'm going to leave the current ones running for awhile but I imagine I'll take them down sometime next week. And hey, if you're not a subscriber yet now's the perfect time!

Also, let me know if you have any problems with the new feeds!


Writing a Bio is Hard

19 December 2008

I had to write a bio because I'm speaking on a panel discussion about Helvetica, the film and typeface. Emily helped me get started, and I tried to fill in the rest. Here it is... Ya'll should help me and add to it!

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Bud Rodecker studied Graphic Design at University of Minnesota Duluth where he learned the true meaning of cold. He took on the role of president of the Student Design Organization (SDO) from 2005 to 2007. Following graduation in May 2007, Bud came to Chicago for an internship at Thirst. At the end of the summer he stayed on as a full-time designer with Rick Valicenti and John Pobojewski.

He discovered his passion for design at age 14 when his brother gave him his first copy of Photoshop, but he didn't put a name to it until he took Commercial Design in high school. To this day, seeing Papyrus in a font menu makes him cry inside.

Bud is a multidisciplinary designer, creating work in close collaboration with Valicenti and Pobojewski for a variety of clients including Detroit's College for Creative Studies (CCS), the Merchandise Mart, and Lyric Opera of Chicago. While at Thirst he as created TV commercials for CCS' new MFA program, a website for architectural photographer Wayne Cable, and has worked on the branding campaigns for Lyric Opera and The Merchandise Mart's cultural events including NeoCon and Art Chicago.

While in Chicago, Bud has presented at an AIGA Small Talk hosted at Thirst and spoke about "What I Didn't Learn in College" for the design program at Harrington College. He was invited to participate at Design Inquiry, a week-long design conference that brought designers in varying fields from all across the country together to discuss the topic, "Fail Again."


Dear Chicago

16 December 2008

Dear Chicago,

Where are all your Plows!?
It took me an hour to drive 3 miles today.
None of the roads had been cleared off.
I highly suggest you get on top of that.

Sincerely,
Bud


Adobe! I put a doom upon you!

Dear Adobe,

What the hell are you thinking? Why is it that in illustrator, and photoshop it is possible to save to any previous version of their respective programs, but to do that with indesign you have to use something you've dubbed an interchange file? It's the same program! Why can't we save down to a previous version? Also, why the HELL does an interchange file put a black 1pt stroke around EVERYTHING. Do you realize how much of a pain in the ass this is? Or is this some kind of built in bug to force everyone to upgrade lest they go completely bat shit crazy from chasing black strokes around everything! Not to mention that first you have to package the file, then export an interchange file if you don't want your links to turn into gray boxes.

And now you've released CS4! And from my first browse though the program I'm not sure CS4 deserved to be a completely new upgrade. It seems that this version should have been reduced to a free update to all those frustrated CS3 users who found indesign harder to use than before.

Picture 2
Picture 2, Originally uploaded by budr


Now back to the Interchange problem! Look at this note on Adobe's official help page. REALLY ADOBE!?!??!?!?!! I If I'm a CS2 user and someone who works on CS4 wants to give me an indesign file one of us has to own CS3 and have it installed on our system!? How is that even remotely a smart design decision?

So to conclude this open letter.
WTF.