The Moosejaw X-Ray App is an augmented reality experience that lets users “see through” the clothing in its winter catalog, showing male and female models in their underwear.

(Update) Some of you called it “sleazy.” Others called it “creative.” Either way, it got your attention, racking up 1 million impressions on Twitter, 160,000 video views and 75,000 downloads in five weeks, according to data fromMarxent Labs, the company that developed the app. Not bad for a catalog with a typical distribution of 120,000. The app also drove sales, up 37% from the same period in November last year. Catalog response rates — that is, the percentage of catalog subscribers who purchased something from Moosejaw’s website in the weeks following the catalog’s release — were up by a full third to 4%.

LINDA. Magazine is overflowing with Layar this month! Pick up an issue and scan the pages to view exclusive bonus content with Layar Vision.

Generation Y Is Born To Startup

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There’s a fundamental difference between the rebels of the past and today: Generation Y are born entrepreneurs.

Every generation rebels against their parents. When parents approve, their offspring disapproves. Parent says black, adolescent teen says white. Psychologists who are expert in these matters explain that rebellion is a factor in establishing identity. It’s part of the journey of growing up — personalities are taking shape and a sense of self is being nurtured. Even if you haven’t quite worked out what you want, it helps to know what you don’t want.

But the times seem to be a-changing, yet again. Today’s teens are surprisingly in harmony with their parents. They wear the same branded jeans, have similar music in their iTunes library, are happy to accompany one another to a U2 concert, and if you ask them, many will talk about their friendly, supportive relationship.

Our conventional views of rebellion have been summed up in iconic images: think Marlon Brando wearing a leather jacket astride a Triumph Thunderbird motorcycle in ‘The Wild Ones.’ Or the young couple wrapped in a blanket, standing in the rain and mud at the famous music festival held at Woodstock in 1969. So, what’s going on? Has the rebellious stage bypassed Generation Y and their parents? How will this affect their budding identity? It’s too soon to tell, but there’s one fundamental difference between then and now: Generation Y are born entrepreneurs.

A quick visit to Facebook will show you just how many teens have begun selling products on their pages. A great video goes viral on YouTube, and suddenly kids are inspired to monetize their page and become content developers. Witness how the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations inspired the sale of hundreds of partisan T-shirts on the web—all managed from the comfort of their bedroom clutter.

Every day I’m contacted by at least 100 kids asking for advice on starting their own businesses. This is what I tell them:

You have nothing to lose
You have no mortgage, you have no husband or wife to support. So go for it! Be provocative, share your opinions. In other words, if you produce T-shirts, make them opinionated. No one stands out by being ordinary. The older you get, the more conservative you’ll probably become, so this is the time to test your limits, to see how far you can go. After all, if not now, then when?

Let your courage drive your business
When I was 15 years old, my local television station had serious problems selling television commercial space. So, I contacted them and we did a deal. I proposed producing a range of TV spots with advice to small businesses on how to, well, use TV commercials to boost their businesses. The station had nothing to lose. If nothing else they had a sweet story of a young kid who seemed crazy enough to do something different. We struck a deal and I began working with them and learning about television production and effective communication. Sadly, the station backed out a few months into the deal. By then, however, I’d learned so much that the whole exercise was worth it. You see, as naïve as I was, I had begun to build my own brand.

Here’s my advice: use your innocence, passion, energy, and fearless self. Knock on doors that you might find too uncomfortable to approach when you’re older.

Let others pay for your business
Let’s go back to the t-shirt business and the biggest mistake most entrepreneurs make. They imagine an avalanche of sales and, in their youthful optimism, invest heavily in stock. This results in a pile of stuff no one wants — and a credit card debt that will take months to clear.

Don’t purchase products in advance. Wait until you get the orders, even if it may cause a slight delay. Spend time working on a sorry-I’m-late letter. It’s far more important that you don’t end up with a product that no one wants. Let your customers finance your production.

Over-deliver and under-promise
The future is viral, and your business is 100 percent dependent upon it. If people like your product, they’ll tell their friends. But don’t make the mistake of thinking your great product is good enough. More effort is always required.

In Japan, it’s an old tradition to over-deliver and under-promise. You see it everywhere. Take, for example, when you order sake. First, the waiter will place a wooden box on your table. Inside the box there’s a sake cup. The sake gets poured into the cup, as you would imagine, but it doesn’t stop there. The pouring continues until the cup floats in the overflow. It makes for a challenging drink to sip, but it contains the essence of the over-deliver-under-promise principle.

Have you ever experienced this? If you have, I’m sure you still clearly remember it. Make this your mantra. If someone orders a t-shirt, include a free hat and a nice card. You can be sure that your customer won’t forget it; chances are neither will their friends.

Team up 
Nothing’s worth anything unless you have a good distribution system. A friend of mine sells roses delivered to the door. Another friend sells luxury hams from Italy and exotic mushrooms from Japan. Those that buy the roses might very well be interested in a basket of exotic foodstuffs, whereas those buying the food might be interested in the flowers. One night the penny dropped. Today they share a distribution network cross promoting on another as they go.

A true entrepreneurial spirit is about passion, courage and creative thinking. Believe me, the time for conservative thinking, careful considerations and long-winded planning sessions will arrive eventually. But, before it does, help yourself to the smorgasbord of goodies before it’s too late.

Adobe Illustrator CS5 - My Top 5 Favorite Features

Adobe Photoshop CS5 - My Top 5 Favorite Features

In this episode of the Adobe Creative Suite Podcast Terry White shows how to remove an image from the background when the background is not a simple solid color.

With the furore in the graphics world surrounding Iron Man 2 and the interfaces in the film, when we were asked to produce graphics “in the style of “ the whole team jumped at the chance. 

10 Photoshop Tricks

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Hello,

Here is a quick blog post to share 10 tips and tricks I use daily to make tasks faster and more efficient. I believe a lot of designers are most likely aware of most but perhaps somebody will find something new in here. Prepare you claws for some action!

Anton Repponen

On behalf of the Fi Design Team

1. Removing “Copy” after duplicating layers.

Most of the time when I create an item in photoshop (video thumbnail for example) I need to duplicate it couple of times. I just hold the ALT key and drag the selected layer or folder to duplicate it. By default Photoshop will add a “copy” to the name of the layer or folder  and then I used to spend quite some time going into each layer title and deleting the “copy” to keep my layer titles clean.

In CS5 you can finally disable this “feature”. Just click on the icon in the top right of your layer panel and select"Panel Options". In the popup just remove check box near "Add "copy" to Copied Layers…" (Thanks JB for that one!)

But the most awesome thing happens if you click "Panel Option" while holding the ALT Key. 

2. Quick Screenshot.

A lot of people know how to take a quick screenshot on a Mac. Most common shortcut is COMMAND + SHIFT + 3, it will take a screenshot of the entire screen, some people use COMMAND + SHIFT + 4just to take a screenshot of selected area. 

I like to take a screenshot of the window that I need. Press COMMAND + SHIFT + 4 and after that hitSPACE bar just once. You’ll get an icon of the camera as on the image below. Select a window you need with this icon and click to take a screenshot.

The benefit here is that it takes the screenshot of the window and keep the background transparent including all the window shadows. 

3. Multiwindows.

When making an icon I create multiple windows for one PSD file and keep them on the side with different zoom levels, while working on the details in the zoomed in window. That way I don’t have to zoom in, add details and zoom out overtime time to see the whole icon again. Windows on the side update everything the moment you add something in the working window.

Just go to WINDOW menu, ARRANGE and select NEW WINDOW for …psd.

4. Adjusting kerning.

Many designers know the shortcut to adjust the kerning real quick. Just select an area in between the letters and holding ALT key use LEFT and RIGHT arrows to adjust the kerning.

But here’s where I find this shortcut really handy. If you use the default Photoshop underline tool, quite often your underline will be 1 or 2 pixels longer than the text. So using the same shortcut as mentioned above and keeping the mouse cursor at the end of the word, you can easily adjust the underline to match the length of the text.

5. Copying layer effects.

A quick way to copy a Layer effect without right click and selecting "Copy Layer Style" is actually just to drag the "Fx" icon in the layer panel from one layer to another holding the ALT key.

6. Keep all shapes in one layer.

When making an icon using shapes tool you can end up with multiple individual shape layers. It’s really useful to keep them in one layer in order to change the color, scale or adjust the layer style. Just select the actual shape thumbnail (the place where you can see a mouse cursor on the image below) and press COMMAND + C to copy it, then select another shape layer area and COMMAND + V to paste the copied shape into it.

Also while drawing an icon you can hold SHIFT key when creating a new shape object and it will keep adding all the shapes into one layer.

7. Quick color.

If you happen to have a rasterized object (non vector) and you want to fill it with color, the quick way to do it would be pressing SHIFT + COMMAND + DELETE and it will fill it with color that you have selected as your Background color.

8. Quick mask.

A quick way to mask a layer inside the layer below is to click right in between the layers while holding the ALT key (you should see the special cursor as on the image below)

9. Curves with dotted line.

There are many ways to create a curve with a dotted line in Photoshop. Many designers manipulate the brush to have more flexibility, some people would use Illustrator and import the object into Photoshop. The “quick and dirty” way to create it is just by using the Type tool. Create a shape you want your line to follow and then having the Type tool selected click on the curve. In the example below I just typed many dots with Arial that would follow the curve. You can always adjust kerning to have more space in between the dots.

10. All Caps.

A quick shortcut to turn your text to ALL CAPS in Photoshop without going to the Type/Character panel  — SHIFT + COMMAND + K