Yep, we are looking for another hero to join the We Love family. This time though it is a Project Manager we are hunting high and low for…

So if you are looking for an engaging position in an up and coming agency that is starting make waves in the industry then now is the right to join our tight team of super heroes. There are interesting times ahead…

Who are you? Well Agency experience is a must. You have dealt with large and small clients alike and understand the variables in each. You keep your head at all times, can manage a client and staff, keep projects on track and on budget. Run multiple projects at a time. Help create and define scopes and budgets. Reporting both ways with authority. You can PM agile or waterfall depending on need. Provide sanity in an insane world, make people smile and give a damn about your co-workers and the creative output that make up We Love. You are the glue. A lot to ask we know… but we find our own high expectations make for a happy creative life for all

As always… Excellent package for the right person.

If you are THE PM then apply to work@welove72.com

We Feel that the people that work for We Love are it’s most important assets. In fact, they are the DNA of the company. We are always looking for talent of all shape and sizes. We are currently looking for a:

Flash Developer / Web Developer

You ooze talent, you have vision and can code the ass off Kylie. You know your way round flash and can animate better than the Warner Brothers, ActionScript better than Cyborg. And are willing to prove yourself in a fast growing, fast paced industry.

Good OO principles required, though we won’t tie you down to PureMVC. AS3, php/python and a good knowledge of HTML/CSS a must – anything else will be a bonus. You use bzr/svn/git regularly and nowledge of the Gaia flash framework is favourable. Someone who is mature enough to understand a brief, can take direction as well as contribute and show initiative. A couple of years experience behind you is a must.

Mac happy and PC proud.

So stop arsing around and send your CV and Folio site to james@welove72.com

The clone tool is one of the handiest and most used tools in Photoshop, but people often get a bit confused on how it actually works.

Here is a brief overview, and a very simple example, of the basic capabilities of the Clone tool. This post should be used as a starting point to the more advanced techniques that are to follow in the upcoming weeks.

We will start with the following image, with the aim of removing the lady from the landscape.

The Clone tool works by sampling an area of an image, and then reapplying this sample to a new area, it can be used for removing unwanted elements from you photos, as well as adding new elements.

Open your image in Photoshop, and select the Clone Tool

Duplicate the Background layer by pressing Cmd + J, and name the new layer “Clone”

With the “Clone” layer selected, you now have to select a reference point for the Clone Stamp. For best
results, use a small brush size and zoom right up on your image.

To set the reference point, hold “alt” and select an area in your image which best matches the area you want to clone out.

In the example, we will start by cloning the top half of the woman. Sample an area of the sky to the left or right of the woman.

The key to getting a flawless clone is by using the tool in a “dabbing motion”, rather than “painting” the area. “Painting” leads to results which have a repeating affect which is very noticeable.

Continue this process until you have removed the majority of the woman, and only the bottom of her legs are still visible.

The process remains the same for the next step, but it is worthwhile dropping your brush size right down again. Due to the unevenness of the rock edge, it is important to select a sample area which is going to match that of where the legs join the rock. Don’t just sample one area of the image and use it for the whole process, you will achieve better results by changing your sample area to match the area you are working on.

This is just a very basic example, but once you understand how the Clone Tool works, you will continually be amazed at how handy it becomes!

In the next post I will run through some much more advanced features of cloning, including the Vanishing Point tool which enables you to clone areas with consideration for perspective!

On a recent flex project we had some complex animation – including alpha masks – to be embedded. Not sure why, but when embedding flash files in Flex with the tag, all action script is stripped out. It would be interesting to hear Adobe’s reasoning on this one, but here’s a solution to keeping the embedded swf’s actionscript intact.

The first step is to embed the SWF in your Flex project as binary data:

[Embed(source="complex.swf", mimeType="application/octet-stream")]
var theBytes:Class;

Next you need to load the data contained in your SWF by using Loader.loadBytes and instantiate the embedded SWF.

var loader:Loader = new Loader();
loader.loadBytes(new theBytes());

This will create your swf and if all you need is the actionscript to run, you can stop here.

Isn’t it fustrating how if you select multiple objects in a Flash file and choose Convert to Symbol, it places all the objects on the same layer, regardless of where they were before. Even more fustrating when you have nicely organised your file by labelling each layer. I found this quick Command to do just that. If you save in your Commands folder, and re-boot Flash, you can re-map your F8 key to use this Command instead of the regular Convert to Symbol Command.

fl.getDocumentDOM().convertToSymbol('movie clip', '', 'top left');
fl.getDocumentDOM().enterEditMode('');
fl.getDocumentDOM().distributeToLayers();

You can create simple Commands like this on your own. Just open up your History Panel via Window > Other Panels. The top right of the Panel has a menu that allows you to see the JavaScript of your actions!

Also, one thing I’ve always found annoying with distribute to layers, is that it tends to shift things to a half-pixel position like 24.5 – and our designers DO notice – which can be avoided by turning off Snap To Pixels before using distribute to layers, or this command

Many of you will be using firebug and console.log regularly to dump data from your javascript apps – mainly for quick and easy debugging. There are actually many more powerful logging functions built into console.log to help organise this data.

Logging object hyperlinks

You can pass any kind of object to console.log and it will be displayed as a hyperlink. Clicking these links will inspect the object in whatever tab is most appropriate. console.log and its related functions can do a lot more than just write text to the console.

String formatting

console.log can format strings in the great tradition of printf. For example, you can write console.log("%s is %d years old.", "Bob", 42).

Color coding

In addition to console.log, there are several other functions you can call to print messages with a colorful visual and semantic distinction. These include console.debug, console.info (blue), console.warn (yellow), and console.error (red). – give them a try!

Nested grouping

Sometimes a flat list of messages can be difficult to read, so Firebug gives you a solution for indenting in the console. Just call console.group("a title") to start a new indentation block, and then console.groupEnd() to close the block. You can create as many levels of indentation as you please.

Object inspection

How many times have you hand-written code to dump all of the properties of an object, or all of the elements in an HTML fragment? With Firebug, you’ll never write that code again.

Calling console.dir(object) will log an interactive listing of an object’s properties, like a miniature version of the DOM tab. Calling console.dirxml(element) on any HTML or XML element will print a lovely XML outline, like a miniature version of the HTML tab.

Hope these help!

Hi all – Hope you are enjoying your bank holiday

We are in need of an IA guru to join us for a 4-5 week booking (project price please). Starting around the 14th – 21st Sept. (Still waiting for confirmation of start date), for a fairly technical piece of work.

Be willing to work at our offices here in Maidstone for approx 50-60% of the time. The rest at home with a few days in the clients office in SE1.

Apply to james@welove72.com

Trying to find a solution to a specific problem in Magento? Rescue has arrived!

Snippi is a community driven Magento code snippet sharing site. Site was started by Branko Ajzele, author of ActiveCodeline.com whos blog is another great resource. Not just another code sharing site – this is all about Magento code snippets and even has the tested version number next to each post. More likley than not you’ll find your answer here, far quicker than the documentation and forum slog at magentocommerce.com

This site has been a real help in our recent project for Sugagloss – watch this space. Check it out here: http://www.snippi.net/

A message to all you late 80’s / 90’s throwback ADs and CDs out there!!