Mac Lover

I love my little white MacBook.  It’s 3 years old now, which is probably ancient in computer years, but I’m hoping that I can squeeze a few more years out of it.  I’m a self-taught PC convert, and I love all of the little details that Macs offer, and make my life a lot easier!  You can see my “Dock” below, and some of the most frequently used programs that I use.

I just want to say how much I love iWork, mainly because of how intuitive the programs are, and how versatile they are as well.  Pages is technically Apple’s word processing software, but it’s more like Word, Publisher and more rolled into one.  Numbers is the spreadsheet program (think Excel) but this is the program that I use to create e-decorating boards like this one:

Now how did I take a document that I created in Numbers and turn it into an image, which I saved in my Flickr account? Here’s how you do it on a Mac: File/Print/Click the PDF button, and there is an option that says “Save PDF to iPhoto” and it turns it into a .jpg and saves it in iPhoto.  This is a sample of something I was working on in Pages.

When I send a file to my clients, I convert whatever I’m working on, whether it’s a contract made in Pages, or a paint schedule made in Numbers, into a PDF.  I simply use the Print function here again and convert it to a PDF.

You can use the “Export” function as well, and this is how you convert to a Word doc, and it works well with multiple pages or sheets, but sometimes a header is missing or something, so I like to just print what I see.  If you also hit the “Preview” button, it converts it to a PDF to see how it will print, and you can save it from there as well.  Gotta love it!

Another great thing about Pages and Numbers is that it is also compatible with Microsoft documents (you can convert them so that PC users can read them, and you can open Word docs in Pages).  They think of everything…

Now I want to say that I am jealous of the interior design students who are still in school, because right after I graduated they incorporated a lot of great new classes into the program (I attended California State University, Chico – woot woot!!).  When I was there we did it all old-school; hand-drafting, hand-rendering, cutting out photos, gluing samples and creating large and multiple boards for each project.  We took an AutoCAD class (one class), but it wasn’t incorporated into our other classes.  We photographed our boards and created portfolios on the computer.  I’m trying to keep learning as much as I can, but I really loved being in school and love learning!  So keep that in mind while you view…my…portfolio.    And remember, I created EVERYTHING in Numbers…even my logo.  Enjoy!!

Numbers and Pages are great because you can save a page as a template, which is exactly what I did here to add pages to my portfolio.

I love the “Alpha” tool.  It removes backgrounds…just like Photoshop.  You click on the color that you want to remove, move your mouse outward, and it will find anything that color and remove it.  I completely removed Glenn from a picture using that tool when I needed a good picture of me for a mailer that I made, ha!

If you notice my samples (tile, paint, fabrics, etc.), you can easily make them all the same size by “masking.”  Masking is like cropping, but instead of deleting the part of the image you remove, it’s just ‘masked.’  That’s nice if you need to make changes, plus you can drag the image to show what parts you want to show instead of moving every single side like cropping.

You might notice that I also added shadows to give the pages a little more depth.

Pages and Numbers also has those cute photo frames, making the image look like a paper photo with the edges curled up.

I also love the color tools…just simply take the eyedropper to choose EXACTLY what color you want something to be.  For instance, on my e-decorating boards, I make a paint ‘splatter’ using a font (‘A’ looks like one paint splatter, ‘B’ looks like another, etc.), and then I make that ‘letter’ (paint splatter) the color from the Benjamin Moore paint website.  So great to show paint colors!!

You can also adjust image colors right in Pages and Numbers.  Very, very helpful.

These programs make it very easy to line images up, center them, straighten them…they really are very intuitive and all-in-one.

One thing that I did get a little experience with before I graduated was sustainability and education about eco-friendly design practices.  Now you can major in Sustainability!

This was my first attempt at SketchUp.    I love SketchUp and would love to learn more about it – I’ve seen some amazing SketchUp projects!!

And the end page…hand drawn by me!

So there you have it – the products I like to use.  I like to think that I use them a little creatively, but because they are so easy to use I can’t help it!  If you have any questions, I’d love to answer them for you…leave a question in the comments and don’t forget to check back or e-mail me at lindsay@lindsaychristensendesign.com.

xo, L.