I attended the 2008 Academy of Art University Spring Show in San Francisco last Thursday and was very impressed with the students from this school both in person while interviewing them and seeing their work on display. I’ve been to a variety of student galleries, and the quality and care I saw in this school was much beyond my level of expectation.

The one thing that still disappoints me, as with all art schools, is the shortage of interactive and web designers. There are large numbers of graphic designers, illustrators, 3D artists and photographers, but not many actually grasp the web and how art is applied to it. Many believe that simply being a graphic designer will make them a good web designer, however as soon as I look at their work, I can tell they have many lengths to go.

To AAU’s credit, the interactive artists -or as they call them- new media artists, had some great work to show off. I’d definitely attend another year.

Here are a few quick snaps from my Crackberry of the academy’s gallery.

I bought a Canon 40D DSLR which means I can finally say goodbye to the point-and-shoot Sony DSC-H5 I’ve been using. It was a great camera, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone looking to get into photography (some of those photos came out better than some photos I’ve seen from DSLRs). I can begin providing much higher quality textures AND in RAW format. I think many of you who are using my textures will appreciate the new flexibility of RAW. You should also notice less noise and blur by far.

I was finally able to get to posting the new textures! You can find them at the end of each category on the High-Resolution Textures page. Here’s a preview of a few of the new ones:

Enjoy, and as always, feel free to use them on your site or project.

I’m sure you’ve been seeing a major slow-down of the DarkNews.com site as of lately. I apologize - my host has been having some issues with the server and they have been taking quite a long time to resolve the lag. It’s getting much better, but I’ll soon be moving this site again off to a VPS this time. If you have suggestions on a good host like MediaTemple, please do let me know!