Blog

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 45.0 cm TL male/unsexed

Environment
Reef-associated; marine; depth range 1 - 280 m, usually 1 - 50 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 30°N - 32°S

Distribution
Indo-Pacific: Red Sea and East Africa to the Hawaiian and Tuamoto islands, north to Ryukyu Islands, south to Lord Howe Island. The Red Sea population differs slightly in coloration and has been known as Ostracion argus; closely related to Ostracion immaculatus from southern Japan. Southeast Atlantic: south coast of South Africa.

Short description
Juveniles bright yellow with black spots; the spots decrease proportionately and the bright yellow becomes a dirty mustard with growth; large adults become bluish with yellowish seams between the plates.

Biology
Inhabit lagoon and semi-sheltered seaward reefs. Juveniles often among Acropora corals. Benthopelagic. Solitary. Juveniles expatriating to subtropical zone from the pelagic larval stage. Small juveniles secretive in narrow crevices. Feed primarily on algae with a compliment of microorganisms, invertebrates, mollusks, sponges, sand dwelling polychaetes, crustaceans, foraminiferans, and fishes.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 455 cm FL male/unsexed; common length : 300 cm TL male/unsexed; max. published weight: 650.0 kg

Environment
Pelagic-oceanic; oceanodromous; marine; depth range 0 - 800 m, usually 0 - 550 m

Climate / Range
Temperate; 5°C - 27°C; 61°N - 50°S, 180°W - 180°E

Distribution
Atlantic, Indian and Pacific: tropical and temperate and sometimes cold waters, including the Mediterranean Sea, the Sea of Marmara, the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azov. Highly migratory species, Annex I of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea. Mt DNA restriction analysis reveal that genetic differentiation occurs between populations inhabiting the Mediterranean Sea and the tropical Atlantic ocean, indicating little genetic exchange occurring between the two.

Short description
Blackish-brown fading to light-brown below; 1st dorsal fin with blackish-brown membrane, other fins brown or blackish-brown. A long, flat, sword-like bill and no pelvic fins.

Biology
Oceanic but sometimes found in coastal waters. Generally above the thermocline, preferring temperatures of 18°C to 22°C. Larvae are frequently encountered at temperatures above 24 °C. Migrate toward temperate or cold waters in the summer and back to warm waters in the fall. Adults are opportunistic feeders, known to forage for their food from the surface to the bottom over a wide depth range. Feed mainly on fishes (Atlantic mackerel, barracudinas, silver hake, redfish, herring and lanternfishes) but also on crustaceans and squids. They use their sword to kill their prey. Large individuals may accumulate large percentages of mercury in its flesh. Are batch spawners. Spawning takes place in Atlantic during spring in southern Sargasso Sea. Migrate to cooler waters to feed. Females grow fastest. Determination of age is difficult since the otoliths are very small and scales are missing in adults. Year rings have been successfully counted on cross sections of the fin rays. Pelagic eggs measure 1.6-1.8mm and the newly hatched larvae is 4 mm long. Sword is well developed at a length of 10mm and young live pelagically in the upper water layers where they quickly develop into very voracious predators. Mt DNA restriction analysis reveal that genetic differentiation occurs between populations inhabiting the Mediterranean Sea and the tropical Atlantic ocean, indicating little genetic exchange occurring between the two. Good food fish, marketed fresh or frozen, and can be made into sashimi, teriyaki or fillets.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 2,000 cm TL male/unsexed; common length : 1,000 cm TL male/unsexed; max. published weight: 34,000.0 kg; max. reported age: 70 years

Environment
Pelagic-oceanic; oceanodromous; marine; depth range 0 - 700 m, usually 0 - 70 m

Climate / Range
Subtropical; 18°C - 30°C; 41°N - 42°S, 180°W - 180°E

Distribution
Circumglobal in tropical and warm temperate seas. Western Atlantic: New York, USA through the Caribbean to central Brazil. Eastern Atlantic: Senegal to Gulf of Guinea; St. Paul’s Rocks. Indian Ocean: throughout the region, including the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Western Pacific: Japan to Australia and Hawaii. Eastern Pacific: California, USA to Chile. Identified as one of the species with an unfavorable conservation status in Appendix II of the Bonn Convention for the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals in 1999. Classified as a highly migratory species, in Annex I of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) which called for ‘coordinated management and assessment to better understand cumulative impacts of fishing effort on the status of the shared populations’ of these sharks. Included in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) since May 2003 which regulates international trade of this species. This can partially implement the original objective of the FAO International Plan of Action for the Conservation and Management of Sharks (IPOA-Sharks). However, international trade still exists.

Short description
A huge, blunt-headed shark with a terminal mouth and a prominent checkerboard pattern of light spots, horizontal and vertical stripes on a dark background. Caudal fin crescentic, with a strong lower lobe but no subterminal notch. It has small, scale-like teeth and feeds by filtering plankton with special sieve-like modifications of the gill bars.

Biology
World’s largest fish, which is harmless to humans. Specimens rarely above 12 m. Often seen offshore but coming close inshore, sometimes entering lagoons or coral atolls. Sometimes seen cruising near outer wall. Reported to frequent shallow water areas near estuaries and river mouths, sometimes during seasonal shrimp blooms. Found singly, or in aggregations of over 100 individuals. Often associated with groups of pelagic fishes, especially scombrids. Highly migratory between ocean basins and national jurisdictions, but returns to the same sites annually. Based on tagging and DNA studies, males tend to do long-distance migrations while females migrate only short distances always going back to their original place of birth. Feed on planktonic and nektonic prey, such as small fishes (sardines, anchovies, mackerel, juvenile tunas and albacore), small crustaceans and squids. Often seen in a vertical position with the head at or near the surface when feeding. When actively feeding on zooplankton the sharks turn their heads from side to side, with part of the head lifted out of the water, and the mouth opened and closed 7-28 times per minute; these suction gulps were synchronized with the opening and closing of the gill slits. Ovoviviparous, litter size is over 300 pups. Females of 438 to 562 cm are immature. Utilized fresh, frozen, dried and salted for human consumption, liver processed for oil, fins used for shark-fin soup, offal probably for fishmeal, cartilage for health supplements and skin for leather products. Used in Chinese medicine. Highly valued commodity in ecotourism operations. Populations have been depleted in several countries by harpoon fisheries.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 11.0 cm TL male/unsexed

Environment
Reef-associated; marine; depth range 1 - 55 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 32°N - 32°S

Distribution
Indo-Pacific: Red Sea south to Durban, South Africa and east to the Tuamoto Islands, north to southern Japan, south to Lord Howe Island.

Short description
Side with two prominent dark bars extending to belly.

Biology
Found among coral heads and rocks of subtidal lagoon and seaward reefs. Common on coastal reefs at various depths. Mimic filefish, males are territorial and are often seen fighting. Feed mainly on filamentous green and red algae, tunicates, and on smaller amounts of corals, bryozoans, polychaetes, echinoderms, mollusks, and brown and coralline red algae. Form shoals (10-100 or more) often with the filefish, Paraluteres prionurus (about 5% of shoal) mimicking C. valentini to protect it from predators. Territorial and haremic; males spawn with a different female each day. One or more territories are occupied and defended each by a female where a single large male stands guard. All sexually mature females are territorial females. Demersal spawner.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 150 cm TL male/unsexed

Environment
Reef-associated; marine; depth range 9 - 110 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 32°N - 28°S

Distribution
Indo-Pacific: Red Sea and East Africa, including Walters Shoal to French Polynesia, north to southern Japan and the Hawaiian Islands, south to the southern Great Barrier Reef. Eastern Central Pacific: Costa Rica and Panama.

Short description
Distinctive pattern of light undulating lines and speckles on a dark green background. Snout often yellow.

Biology
A common species on reef flats among rocks, rubble, or debris and also occurs in lagoons and seaward reefs to depths of 26 m or more. Cavernicolous. Benthic. Nocturnal species that feeds on fishes, octopi, and probably crustaceans. Reported to be an aggressive species and prone to bite. Used in Chinese medicine.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 75.0 cm TL male/unsexed

Environment
Reef-associated; marine; depth range 1 - 50 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 32°N - 24°S

Distribution
Indo-Pacific: Red Sea south to Delagoa Bay, Mozambique and east to the Line and Tuamoto islands, north to southern Japan, south to New Caledonia.

Short description
Fish has a deep grove before eye; scaleless area around lips, continuing and narrowing posterior to corner of mouth; small forward-curving spines in about five rows on side of and a short distance anterior to caudal peduncle. Caudal peduncle compressed.

Biology
Occur in lagoon, seaward reefs and sheltered inner reef slopes. Juveniles often associated with isolated patches of branching coral or rubble of shallow sandy protected areas. Adults occur singly or in pairs on the slopes of deep lagoon or seaward reefs. Often hostile towards divers and may attack unprovoked when caring for eggs. Feed on sea urchins, coral, crabs and other crustaceans, mollusks and tube worms. Oviparous. Largest triggerfish; females are reported to have attacked divers when guarding their nest. Also caught with drive-in nets. Marketed fresh and dried-salted.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 110 cm NG male/unsexed; common length : 80.0 cm FL male/unsexed; max. published weight: 34.5 kg; max. reported age: 12 years

Environment
Pelagic-oceanic; oceanodromous; marine; depth range 0 - 260 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 15°C - 30°C; 58°N - 47°S, 180°W - 180°E

Distribution
Cosmopolitan in tropical and warm-temperate waters. Not found in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. Highly migratory species.

Short description
Interpelvic process small and bifid. Body without scales except for the corselet and the lateral line. Swim bladder absent. The back is dark purplish blue, lower sides and belly silvery, with 4 to six very conspicuous longitudinal dark bands which in live specimens may appear as continuous lines of dark blotches.

Biology
Found in offshore waters; larvae restricted to waters with surface temperatures of 15°C to 30°C. Exhibit a strong tendency to school in surface waters with birds, drifting objects, sharks, whales and may show a characteristic behavior like jumping, feeding, foaming, etc. Feed on fishes, crustaceans, cephalopods and mollusks; cannibalism is common. Spawn throughout the year in the tropics, eggs released in several portions. Eggs and larvae are pelagic. Preyed upon by large pelagic fishes. Also taken by trolling on light tackle using plugs, spoons, feathers, or strip bait. Marketed fresh, frozen or canned; also dried-salted and smoked.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 110 cm TL male/unsexed; common length : 79.0 cm SL male/unsexed; max. published weight: 11.3 kg

Environment
Reef-associated; marine; depth range 100 - 330 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 35°N - 28°S, 38°E - 150°W

Distribution
Indo-Pacific: East Africa to the Hawaiian Islands, north to the Ryukyu and Ogasawara islands, south to Australia. Southeast Atlantic: Port Alfred, South Africa.

Short description
Maxilla extending to below middle of eye; interorbital space flattened. Dorsal and anal fins without scales. Generally blue-gray or mauve to overall reddish; fins yellowish to reddish except pelvic and anal fins which are sometimes whitish; margin of maxilla black.

Biology
Inhabits reefs and rocky bottom areas to depths of at least 100 m. Pelagic and benthopelagic. Feeds on fishes, squids and crustaceans. Marketed fresh.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 32.0 cm TL male/unsexed; common length : 26.5 cm SL male/unsexed;

Environment
Reef-associated; marine; depth range 5 - 50 m, usually 14 - 45 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 22°C - 28°C; 32°N - 32°S

Distribution
Indo-Pacific and Eastern Central Pacific: Red Sea to Panama, north to southern Japan and the Hawaiian Islands, south to the Lord Howe and Austral islands.

Short description
Distinguished by its relatively blunt snout and two thin black bars on the tail.

Biology
Inhabits barren, open areas of outer reef slopes. Occurs in pairs over rocks or sandy areas adjacent to reefs. Usually lives in a burrow of their own construction, often under a surface rock on sand. Has pelagic stage to at least 5 cm, hence smaller juveniles are not seen on the substrate. Benthic and Benthopelagic. Marketed fresh.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 70.0 cm TL male/unsexed; common length : 40.0 cm TL male/unsexed

Environment
Reef-associated; marine; depth range 0 - 30 m

Climate / Range
Subtropical; 62°N - 43°S, 180°W - 180°E

Distribution
Circumtropical in tropical seas. Western Atlantic: Nova Scotia, Canada to Argentina. Eastern Atlantic: British Isles (rare vagrant) and Bay of Biscay to Angola, including the Mediterranean and Canary Islands. Eastern Pacific: Vancouver Island (British Columbia, Canada) to the Galapagos Islands. Common throughout the Indian Ocean.

Short description
Body elongate, slender, and not strongly compressed; posterior end of upper jaw located at anterior rim of eye; dorsal fin with 4 or 5 spines followed by another spine and 25 to 29 soft rays; lateral line without scutes; caudal peduncle with well developed fleshy keels and with dorsal and ventral peduncular fossae. Body dark to pale bluish, with 6-7 broad, dark bars; white tips on caudal lobes and on second dorsal and anal lobes.

Biology
Oceanic species with a semi-obligate commensal relationship with sharks, rays, other bony fishes and turtles. Young are usually associated with jellyfish and drifting seaweed. Feed on scraps of host’s left over, parasites and excrement; also on small fishes and invertebrates. Eggs are pelagic. Marketed fresh and salted or dried. Captured at the surface using hand nets.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 333 cm TL male/unsexed; max. published weight: 2,300.0 kg

Environment
Pelagic; oceanodromous; marine; depth range 30 - 480 m

Climate / Range
Subtropical; 12°C - 25°C; 65°N - 65°S, 180°W - 180°E

Distribution
The species appears in warm and temperate zones of all oceans. Eastern Pacific: British Columbia, Canada to Peru and Chile. Eastern Atlantic: Scandinavia to South Africa (occasionally western Baltic, Mediterranean). Western Atlantic: Newfoundland, Canada to Argentina.

Short description
The scaleless body is covered with extremely thick, elastic skin. The caudal fin is replaced by a rudder-like structure called ‘clavus’. Dorsal and anal fins very high with short base; in swimming, these fins are flapped synchronously from side to side and can propel the fish at surprisingly good speed. Pectorals small and rounded, directed upward. Mouth very small; teeth fused to form a parrot-like beak. Gills 4, a slit behind the last; gill openings reduced to a small hole at the base of the pectoral fins. Gas bladder absent in adults.

Biology
The fish is found on slopes adjacent to deep water. The fish comes in for shelter and for seeking cleaner fishes. The fish is usually shy. However, it may become familiar with divers in some locations. The species often drifts at the surface while lying on its side. It swims upright and close to the surface. The dorsal fin often protrudes above the water. The species has been filmed in 480 m depth with the help of a camera equipped with baits (Lis Maclaren, pers. Comm. 2005). The species eats fishes, mollusks, zooplankton, jellyfish, crustaceans and brittle stars. A live colony of the cirriped Lepas anatifera were found attached to the anterior portion of the sunfish’s esophagus that was stranded in the south coast of Terceira Island, Azores Archipelago in 2004; an association with apparent advantages for the goose barnacles such as a regular intake of food and protection both from hydrodynamic hazards and from predators: but for the sunfish, it is not clear whether it is neutral, of advantage or causes feeding problems since the attachment may obstruct the sunfish’s esophagus. The fish is registered as the heaviest bony fish and as the one with the most eggs in the Guinness Book of World Records. Generally this species is not used as food fish; some people consider it as a delicacy. The fish can be utilized fresh and can be broiled. Some parts of the fish are used in Chinese medicine. Molas may contain the same toxin as puffers and porcupine fish. The fish does not adapt well in captivity. Juveniles are victims of California sea lions in Monterey Bay.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 240 cm FL male/unsexed; common length : 120 cm TL male/unsexed; max. published weight: 70.0 kg

Environment
Pelagic-neritic; oceanodromous; marine; depth range 10 - 70 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 39°N - 41°S, 7°W - 180°E

Distribution
Indo-West Pacific: Red Sea and South Africa to Southeast Asia, north to China and Japan and south to southeast Australia, and to Fiji. Immigrant to the eastern Mediterranean Sea by way of the Suez Canal. Southeast Atlantic: St. Helena.

Short description
Interpelvic process small and bifid. Swim bladder absent. Lateral line abruptly bent downward below end of second dorsal fin. Intestine with 2 folds and 3 limbs. Vertical bars on trunk sometimes break up into spots ventrally which number 40-50 in adults, and less than 20 in juveniles. Juveniles with large oval dark spots on body; middle third of first dorsal fin white, rest of fin black.

Biology
Distributed from near edge of continental shelf to shallow coastal waters, often of low salinity and high turbidity. Also found in drop-offs, and shallow or gently sloping reef and lagoon waters. Usually hunts solitary and often swim in shallow water along coastal slopes. Known to undertake lengthy long-shore migrations, but permanent resident populations also seem to exist. Found in small schools. Feed primarily on small fishes like anchovies, clupeids, carangids, also squids and penaeoid shrimps. Eggs and larvae are pelagic. A lipid-soluble toxin, similar to ciguatoxin has been found in the flesh of specimens caught on the east coast of Queensland, Australia. Marketed fresh, dried-salted, frozen, smoked, and canned; commonly made into fish balls.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 30.0 cm TL male/unsexed; common length : 20.0 cm TL male/unsexed

Environment
Reef-associated; brackish; marine; depth range 50 - 200 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 32°N - 28°S

Distribution
Indo-Pacific: East Africa to southern Japan and northeastern Australia. Recorded from the South China Sea and the Arafura Sea.

Short description
Dorsal spines disappear with age; dark blue above, silvery white below; 2-3 rows of dark spots above and below lateral line.

Biology
Inhabits deeper coastal waters near the bottom on both the continental shelves and around major island groups; sometimes in river estuaries. Found in schools. Feeds on benthic invertebrates. Readily dries in air without salting. Marketed fresh and dried.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 100.0 cm FL male/unsexed; common length : 60.0 cm FL male/unsexed; max. published weight: 14.0 kg

Environment
Pelagic-neritic; oceanodromous; marine; depth range 0 - 200 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 18°C - 29°C; 35°N - 25°S, 40°E - 137°W

Distribution
Indo-West Pacific: in warm waters including oceanic islands and archipelagos. A few stray specimens have been collected in the Eastern Central Pacific. Highly migratory species, Annex I of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Short description
Swim bladder absent. No trace of vertebral protuberances. Anterior spines of first dorsal fin much higher than those mid-way. Interpelvic process small and bifid. Body naked except for corselet and lateral line. Posterior portion of the back with a pattern of broken oblique stripes.

Biology
Occurs in open waters but always remains close to the shoreline. The young may enter bays and harbors. Forms multi-species schools by size with other scombrid species comprising from 100 to over 5,000 individuals. A highly opportunistic predator feeding indiscriminately on small fishes, especially on clupeoids and atherinids; also on squids, crustaceans and zooplankton. Generally marketed canned and frozen; also utilized dried, salted, smoked and fresh.

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 13.0 cm TL male/unsexed

Environment
Reef-associated; non-migratory; marine; depth range 10 - 100 m, usually 30 - 100 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 24°C - 26°C; 32°N - 23°S

Distribution
Indo-Pacific: Red Sea and South Africa to the Hawaiian Islands, north to southern Japan, south to New Caledonia. Eastern Pacific: Gulf of California to northern Colombia and the Galapagos Islands.

Biology
Inhabits steep outer reef slopes exposed to strong currents where it lives in large gorgonians and black corals. Benthic. Feeds on small benthic or planktonic crustaceans. The suggestion that this species lays demersal eggs is questionable. Pelagic spawning has been observed for this species from field observations. Monogamous, strongly territorial. Uncommon to rare in most areas.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Jellyfish (also known as jellies or sea jellies or medusozoa) are free-swimming members of the phylum Cnidaria. Jellyfish have several different morphologies that represent several different cnidarian classes including the Scyphozoa (over 200 species), Staurozoa (about 50 species), Cubozoa (about 20 species), and Hydrozoa (about 1000–1500 species that make jellyfish and many more that do not). The jellyfish in these groups are also called, respectively, scyphomedusae, stauromedusae, cubomedusae, and hydromedusae. All jellyfish are embodied in the Medusozoa subphylum. Medusa is another word for jellyfish, and as such is used to refer specifically to the adult stage of the life cycle.

Jellyfish are found in every ocean, from the surface to the deep sea. Some hydrozoan jellyfish, or hydromedusae, are also found in fresh water; freshwater species are less than an inch (25 mm) in diameter, are colorless and do not sting. Many of the best-known jellyfish, such as Aurelia, are scyphomedusae. These are the large, often colorful, jellyfish that are common in coastal zones worldwide.

In its broadest sense, the term jellyfish also generally refers to members of the phylum Ctenophora. Although not closely related to cnidarian jellyfish, ctenophores are also free-swimming planktonic carnivores, are generally transparent or translucent, and exist in shallow to deep portions of all the world’s oceans.

Lion’s Mane Jellyfish are the largest known jellyfish, and arguably the longest animal in the world.

Ref: Wikipedia.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 30.0 cm TL male/unsexed

Environment
Reef-associated; brackish; marine; depth range 1 - 17 m

Climate / Range
Tropical

Distribution
Indo-West Pacific: Red Sea and East Africa (including the south coast of South Africa) to Indonesia, north to southern Japan.

Short description
Body covered with prickles. Dark bars on side of head and below pectoral fins; juvenile specimens from the Pacific with longitudinal dark stripes on belly.

Biology
Inhabits weedy areas, often in estuaries; seagrass beds and mangrove areas in 1-1.5 m. Specimens caught by trawling over silty bottoms in 17 m.

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 75.0 cm TL male/unsexed

Environment
Reef-associated; freshwater; brackish; marine; depth range 8 - 25 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 30°N - 24°S

Distribution
Indo-West Pacific: Red Sea to Natal, South Africa (including Madagascar and the Comoro and Reunion islands); Gulf of Aden and the Persian Gulf eastward to Samoa, north to the Ryukyu Islands, south to Australia; Caroline and Mariana islands in Micronesia.

Short description
Plain grey with dusky margins on fins and gills when adult. Juveniles brown to near black, mimicking leaves floating in surface waters

Biology
Found in coastal reefs, sandbanks, and near estuaries. Enter freshwater. Small juveniles occur along sheltered sandy shorelines where they mimic a dead leaf by drifting on their sides. Adults mainly in protected inshore reefs to deep offshore, sometimes swims in small groups. Excellent food fish.

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 120 cm TL male/unsexed; common length : 75.0 cm FL male/unsexed; max. published weight: 15.0 kg

Environment
Reef-associated; marine; depth range 1 - 2 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 30°N - 30°S

Distribution
Indo-Pacific. Eastern Pacific: southwestern coast of Baja California Sur, Mexico and Gulf of California to Ecuador.

Short description
Color of juveniles and young adults bright yellow to silvery; broad and narrow black bars alternating; fins yellow. Adults with few black blotches or spots on sides; bars, if present, very faint. Lips thick and fleshy. Breast completely scaled. Pectorals falcate ; anal fin with 2 detached spines

Biology
Occur in deep lagoon and seaward reefs where they feed by rooting for crustaceans and other invertebrates in the sand. Also feed on small fishes. Small juveniles live among the tentacles of jellyfish. Form schools. Noted for their behavior to closely swim around sharks and other large fish, but also following divers to gain protection from likely predators. Marketed fresh and salted or dried. Juveniles are used in the aquarium trade.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 33.0 cm SL male/unsexed; common length : 25.0 cm TL male/unsexed

Environment
Reef-associated; oceanodromous; brackish; marine; depth range 10 - 50 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 30°N - 25°S

Distribution
Indo-West Pacific, East Africa to New Caledonia, north to Japan.

Short description
4-6 brown, dark brown or black bars on upper caudal-fin lobe, 4-7 brown, dark brown or black bars on lower lobe; a brown to black mid-lateral body stripe from tip of snout to caudal-fin base; body greenish grey above the stripe and white or beige below the stripe, with irregular dark reddish brown spots and blotches, also in paired fins; dark marks on or very close to first and second dorsal-fin tips; yellow barbels when fresh and with most of body and fin pigmentation retained on preserved fish.

Biology
Found over sand and mud bottoms near coral reefs. Known to enter lower reaches of rivers. Generally solitary, but forms small to moderately large aggregations at all sizes.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 40.0 cm SL male/unsexed; (Ref. 30573); max. reported age: 14 years

Environment
Reef-associated; non-migratory; marine; depth range 1 - 100 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 31°N - 28°S, 32°E - 144°W

Distribution
Indo-Pacific: Red Sea and East Africa to the Hawaiian, Line and Tuamoto islands, north to southern Japan and the Ogasawara Islands, south to the Great Barrier Reef, New Caledonia, and the Austral Islands. Not found in Easter Island, Rapa and the Marquesan Islands.

Short description
Juveniles are bluish black with concentric white circles. Adults blue with close-set horizontal yellow stripes on the sides and the adjoining dorsal and anal fins. Snout white; eye enclosed in a black vertical bar with blue edge; pectoral fin base area also black. Transformation to the adult color pattern occurs over the size range 8 - 12 cm.

Biology
Juveniles are encountered under ledges, or in holes of outer lagoon patch reefs or semi-protected areas of exposed channels and outer reef flats. Subadults move to reef front holes and surge channels. Large adults inhabit ledges and caves in areas of rich coral growth on clear lagoon, channel, or seaward reefs. Benthopelagic. Feed on sponges and other encrusting organisms; also on tunicates. Form pairs. Young and adults may clean much larger fishes such as sunfish. Frequently exported through the aquarium trade. Juveniles are distinguished by a white dorsal-fin margin.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 45.0 cm TL male/unsexed

Environment
Reef-associated; marine; depth range 15 - 30 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 30°N - 23°S

Distribution
Western Pacific: Ryukyu Islands to Australia. Occurrence of this species in the Indian Ocean is doubtful.

Short description
Juveniles are dark brown to black with a brilliant crimson margin around the entire fish. Adults dull silver with short fins. Body orbicular and strongly compressed, its depth more than twice length of head and 0.9 to 1.3 times in SL. Head length 2.9 to 3.8 times in SL. Large adults (above 35 cm SL) with protruding snout, the front head profile distinctly concave. Interorbital width 34 to 42% head length. Jaws with bands of slender, flattened, tricuspid teeth, the middle cusp about twice length of lateral cusps. Vomer with teeth, but none on palatines. Three or 4 pores on each side of lower jaw. Preopercle smooth. Opercle without spines.

Biology
Adults are generally solitary and found under overhangs of steep outer reef slopes to a depth of at least 20 m. Juveniles are encountered in mangroves and inner sheltered reefs where they seek shelter in caves or under ledges. Feeds on algae as well as jellyfish and other gelatinous zooplankton. Sometimes adults are seen in large schools traveling over open substrate.

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 24.0 cm TL male/unsexed;

Environment
Reef-associated; marine

Climate / Range
Tropical; 30°N - 24°S

Distribution
Indo-Pacific: East Africa to the Marquesan Islands, north to the Ryukyu Islands, south to northern Australia, New Caledonia and Rapa. Throughout Micronesia (Ref. 1602).

Short description
Head and body silvery, scales often with blackish spot in centre. LL scales with pale red spot and black edges.

Biology
Found mainly around oceanic islands. It is an uncommon inhabitant of reef flats, lagoon and semi-sheltered seaward reefs to depths over 20 m. Occurs with N. sammara in coral-rich areas with large staghorn Acropora corals. Feeds mainly on benthic invertebrates.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 75.0 cm TL male/unsexed; common length : 50.0 cm TL male/unsexed

Environment
Reef-associated; marine; depth range 6 - 300 m

Climate / Range
Tropical; 30°N - 23°S

Distribution
Indo-Pacific: East Africa to Southeast Asia and the Marquesan and Society islands, north to southern Japan, south to New Caledonia.

Short description
Body elongate and sub cylindrical with small cycloid scales; head long and pointed. Mouth large and horizontal, the tip of the lower jaw protruding; intermaxilla non-protractile. Preoperculum broadly rounded. Lower limb of the first fill arch with spiny tubercles. First dorsal fin origin opposite or before the pectoral tip, the first spine shorter than the second. Color is generally blackish above and silvery below.

Biology
Nocturnally active, but occurring in large schools above lagoon patch reefs and along outer reef slopes during the day. Feeds mainly on fishes, but also on penaeid shrimps and squids. Sold fresh, frozen or dried salted.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

These were taken on the site of what is now going to be the Dubai Pearl development next to Dubai Media City.

I purposefully went too far with the colour and highlights to add a sense of drama to the shots.

If you’re interested in photography, and particularly HDR photography, I seriously recommend you take a look at www.momentaryawe.com

Size / Weight / Age
Max length : 13.0 cm TL male/unsexed

Environment
Reef-associated; marine

Climate / Range
Tropical

Distribution
Western Indian Ocean: Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman; off the Red Sea coast of Yemen and other islands to the south. Although the type locality was stated to be Reunion and cited by several references as occurring there, it is probably erroneous; the species apparently does not occur in the Mascarenes.

Biology
Found in coral rich areas of shallow coastal reefs. Occasionally in aggregations. Feed exclusively on coral polyps. Oviparous. Form pairs during breeding.

Ref: www.fishbase.org

For a chance to be August’s winner just sign-up for the newsletter via the contact page.

It’s been pretty windy here over the last couple of days and the tides have been coming up quite high. Tonight when I walked down the beach there were a few fresh cuttlefish washed up (not yet dried and picked over by the birds) and around a dozen sand dollars. I picked up one for Jasmine-Lily’s beach collection and left the rest for someone else to find.

Tons of jellyfish too, so I had to be careful where I was treading.

I’ll never look at cuttlefish the same way since I went snorkeling on the east coast of the UAE and saw a huge shoal of them just floating in the tide, mid-way between the sea floor and the surface. They were all just hanging there, changing colour simultaneously which was breath-taking. It reminded me of the scenes you see in old alien movies, when the alien spaceships are just hovering over the Earth waiting to invade!

Jason Kottke
Michelle at Design Evolution
Coochicoos
Candepop
Sandbox World
The Fine Art of Education
Jihanchao
Mom I Hate Broccoli

Thanks very much!

If you’ve mentioned, blogged, tweeted or written an article about the poster and would like a link, email me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

In July 2009 I worked as a graphic designer for a small brand strategy company in Dubai. It was a fun place to work for a while and we’d sometimes be set small internal briefs to keep our creative juices flowing. This time the brief was to design a desktop wallpaper on the theme of ocean awareness.

Most people in the studio took a very serious conservationist approach to the brief. At the time I had started taking my 18 month old daughter, Jasmine-Lily, to see the fish and sea animals at the local Dubai aquariums. One of the first words she ever spoke was ‘fish’ and later ‘shark’. As a result of these trips, and as a result of finding out that there was a fish beginning with every letter of the alphabet (I sort of cheated a bit on ‘x’!), my answer to the brief was to create a children’s alphabet-style chart based on the play on words ‘Learn Your A B Sea’.

The desktop wallpaper quickly became a large printed poster which is now hanging in my daughter’s bedroom.

In March 2010 I started using the online micro-blogging service, Twitter. I sent a tweet to the typography firm Hoefler & Frere Jones letting them know that I’d used on of their fonts, Gotham Rounded, on the poster. They re-tweeted my message to all of their followers (a lot of people!) and it was picked up by a designer called Jason Kottke. Jason included a post on his website and visitors to my site shot through the roof - over 2,500 in one day!

Some of those visitors left comments, mostly asking if the poster would ever be made available to buy. Almost exactly a year since the idea was born I had 200 of the posters printed, built this website and started selling them.

In the spirit of the original brief I pledge a $5 donation to the charity Ocean Conservancy for every poster sold.

neither fish nor fowl

via FormFiftyFive

Seriously considering buying a print of this to add to my super-stylish bird illustration collection

Clayton Junior

Sorry, can’t remember where I found this link!

Courtesy of The Consult

As I sit here writing this quick update at 1am in the morning, out in the hallway are four big cardboard boxes full of cardboard tubes. Inside the cardboard tubes are… A-B-Sea Posters!!!

In the heat and relative quiet of an Arab summer time I’ve finally got round to organising the printing of the posters. They’ll be available exclusively through an upcoming shop section of this site which I’m hoping will be up and running within the next week.

Leave a comment, register on the contact page or follow @abseaposter on twitter for immediate updates.

It was my Dad’s birthday yesterday and via a Skype call with him a few days before I’d learned that he’d got interested in Dieter Rams industrial design.

Dieter Rams, for those that don’t know, is a German industrial designer. He was Chief of Design at Braun from 1961 to 1995 and introduced some of their most iconic product designs ever. Rams came up with ‘Ten Principles for Good Design’, a list of modernist attributes that apply equally to designing toasters or annual reports:

Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design makes a product understandable.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is long-lasting.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
Good design is environmentally friendly.
Good design is as little design as possible.

Bibliothèque created a beautiful seven colour A0 sized poster featuring this design manifesto for Vitsœ, a company that has manufactured Dieter Rams’s 606 shelving system unaltered for the past 50 years (truly timeless design).

Hopefully it should be arriving at my dad’s house (slightly late) for his birthday any day now. Happy birthday dad! I hope you enjoy it.

PF Din Text Arabic
This font has actually been around for a while, but Parachute recently announced a package called PF Din Text Universal which includes eight weights of Latin, Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Greek Poly, Eastern European, Baltic, Turkish scripts.

There’s a great ‘making of Din Arabic’ blog entry on Parachute’s blog including comments from the designer, Hasan Abu Afash.

I’ve always been a fan of Din as a font that sits somewhere between Helvetica Neue, HTF Gotham and Trade Gothic and I really like this Arabic script adaptation. There’s a real lack of thoughtfully designed Arabic ‘sans-serif’ fonts which means reliance on a small handful which tend to be over-used and over-familiar. The addition of PF Din Arabic is welcomed.

Interestingly, FontFont also recently announced FF Din Rounded so perhaps we’re seeing the beginnings of a big Din revival.

Palatino Sans Arabic
Nadine Chahine seems to be working her way through all of the top type designers in the world. After working with Adrian Frutiger on Frutiger Arabic, then tackling Neue Helvetica Arabic she has now collaborated with Herman Zapf on this Arabic translation of the font Palatino Sans, Palatino Sans Arabic.

FF Amman Sans Pro and FF Amman Serif Pro
According to the FontFont website, FF Amman is one of the largest bilingual fonts ever produced and one of the first to include true Arabic italics.

Designed by German designer Yanone as part of his university degree, the font has already been widely used by the Greater Amman Municipality, capital city of Jordan, for marketing materials, signage and wayfinding.

Brief emails newsletters are sent out around once a month, often with extra content or downloads Last week email subscribers got an exclusive free iPad wallpaper and with the imminent launch of a new product, subscribers might expect to get discount codes…

As if that wasn’t enough to entice you, because I’m such a nice guy new subscriber names are entered into a random draw with a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift voucher every month.

To subscribe, fill out all the relevant form fields on the contact page.

Your personal details are absolutely, positively, never ever shared with anyone else.

It seems that to be born Swiss automatically provides the genes to perfectly combine Helvetica (or any other typeface) with clean, pleasing grids. idealismo have a portfolio of the kind of graphic design that looks so effortlessly simple, cool and timeless.

More here

Via AisleOne

From AdFreak:

“Old Spice and Wieden + Kennedy are well aware that they have a serious megahit on their hands with Isaiah Mustafa, aka “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.” He’s done the two main TV spots, as well as the mustache clip, and now, in a truly fantastic addition to the campaign, he’s doing a slew of personalized videos in which he thanks individual people—bloggers, YouTube commenters, Twitterers, celebrities—who’ve complimented his ads online. The writing is all great, and the work takes the concept of a brand joining the conversation online to wonderful new levels.”

For more, and there’s quite a lot, check out the Old Spice YouTube channel

The one project that really jumped out was this recently completed rebrand for the American Girl Scouts.

Massive credit to them for managing to subtly improve and update something initially created by one of the all-time masters of graphic design, Saul Bass, in 1978 (the year I was born).

Original Champions of Design

Via FormFiftyFive

At the weekend I found this great idea and website called kickstarter.com. It’s been around for over a year – since April 2009 – so you might have already heard of it, and perhaps already helped to fund a project. If you’ve no idea what it is read on…

The idea is simple, as all the best ones are. Individuals or groups who require funding for their creative project (art, movies, music, design, comic books, etc.) set up a profile on the site then write a description or upload a video of what they’re trying to achieve and how much money they need to raise. Projects range from individuals trying to get their first graphic novel published through to large teams funding entire movies.

Visitors to the site are then invited to contribute to the total through credit card transactions - these contributions can be as large or small as you like. In return for the contribution, or ‘pledge’, donors are offered gifts by the project’s owner. This might be a copy of the finished item, in the case of a book or poster, or a mention in the credits, invitation to the premiere or even a walk-on part for a film.

Pledges are accepted right up until the deadline, even if the target has already been reached and exceeded. This means highly successful projects can rake in as much as 900% over and above their target. This often prompts the owners to ‘upgrade’ their projects and offer more gifts.

A key aspect of the scheme is that if the project’s target isn’t reached by a set deadline, the credit card donations are not processed, no-one has incurred any expense and the project has essentially failed. This makes the scheme a great barometer for testing the potential market of creative projects.

The scheme is currently limited to projects based in the USA (a US bank account and address is required to register a project) but visitors from anywhere in the world are able to pledge donations. Projects posted on the scheme that reach their target are required to pay a 5% fee to kickstarter.com.

Take a look here.

In no particular order:

@QQwill Paul the Octopus is on Twitter. @PPsychicOctopus >> It’s not a verified account: could be any old octopus!

@Lord_Arse You know, if Paul the psychic octopus had put money on all these games he’d predicted, he’d be squids in by now.

@martynpedler Historians will one day wonder why we didn’t ask the precognitive octopus about something other than football scores.

@bloggerheads I think we’ve seen enough to trust Paul the Octopus with two boxes marked ‘Israel’ and ‘Palestine’.

@samry69 Heard Paul the octopus had to retire…He pulled a mussel.

iPhone 4 film - “Apple of My Eye” from Michael Koerbel on Vimeo.

Watch all the way through for a cool little ‘making of’ documentary at the end. The arguments for getting an iPhone 4 just keep on coming…

Via unlockingimovie.com

Created by Ben Prescott

via Ministry of Type

Sky from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Best viewed at full-screen with the sound turned on.

Via dtail

99% Conference 2010: Motion Graphics from 99% on Vimeo.

Art direction by Behance’s Matias Corea, animation by Hugh Gran.

Royal Enfield Classic 500

Above: Really love this core branding for Covent Garden, so simple and eye-catching.

Above: Always loved the Space.NK packaging but never knew who was responsible until now.

Much more here: http://www.bibliothequedesign.com/

For those that don’t know, a Swiss Army Knife is a small pocket-sized, multi-function, folding knife. The knives usually have a bright red handle containing a number of folding stainless steel utensils. Basic models usually contain at least a large and small blade, can opener, bottle opener, flat screwdriver, corkscrew, toothpick and tweezers.

History
During the late 1880s, the Swiss Army decided to purchase a new folding pocket knife for their soldiers. This knife was to be suitable to help the army in opening canned food and disassembling the Schmidt-Rubin model 1889 service rifle. In January 1891 the knife received the official designation Modell 1890. The knife had a blade, reamer, can-opener, screwdriver and grips made out of dark oak wood that was later partly replaced with ebony wood. At that time no Swiss company had the necessary production capacity, so the initial order for 15,000 knives was placed at the German knife manufacturer Wester & Co. from Solingen.

In 1891 Karl Elsener, at the time an owner of a surgical equipment manufacturing company, discovered that the knives being supplied to the Swiss Army were in fact made in Germany. He took over the manufacture of the knives, and after five years developed a spring-lock mechanism which allowed blades and utensils to be placed on either side of the handle. His first multi-function knive included a large blade on one side and a smaller blade on corkscrew on the reverse. To identify his knives, Karl Elsener used the familiar cross in a shield logo. In 1909, to commemorate the death of his mother Victoria, Karl renamed his company Victorinox - Inox being another name for stainless steel.

In 1893 another company began production of folding, multi-function knives and in 1908 the Swiss government awarded 50% of the production of army-issued knives to this company, Wenger.

On April 26, 2005 Victorinox acquired Wenger, becoming once again the sole supplier of knives to the Swiss Army. Victorinox has stated that it intends to keep both consumer brands intact.

The Modell 1890 knife was revised a number of times but remained largely unchanged for over 60 years until the Soldier Knife model 1961 was introduced in 1961.

The Soldier Knife model 1961 and subsequent consumer models based on the 1961 are the Swiss Army Knives I consider to be design classics.

Rethink the Shark from Save Our Seas Foundation on Vimeo.

Via Save Our Seas

A while ago I discovered a very clever little mini-site developed by international graphic design super-agency Pentagram. Called, ‘What Type Are You?’ it was a series of short interlinked video clips featuring a psychiatrist character asking a series of questions to determine which font matches your personality. Here’s the link. definitely worth a look if you’re into typography.

It turns out that my chosen characteristics – rational, understated, traditional and relaxed – makes my ‘type’ Baskerville Italic. I think I’d go along with that!

Small Worlds - Preview. from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

I was very fortunate to have international typographers, Hoefler+Frere-Jones pick up on the A-B-Sea poster I created for my daughter Jasmine-Lily. One quick ‘tweet’ from them and visitors to this blog shot up 3,000%!

As a result, a number of people have contacted me asking if I could make them a print of the A-B-Sea poster. Right now I’m looking into options and costs for printing and packaging so if you would like to be added to the list of people I’m in contact with about the poster prints, please leave me a comment or email me at absea ‘at’ jamesmattison.co.uk

I’m also planning to get a couple more photos taken of the poster which should give you all a better idea of the finished product.

UPDATE: August 2010.
The poster is now available from the ‘Shop’ section of the website. Click here.

Its been a while since I blogged, mostly ‘cos I’ve been busy trying to work out what Twitter is for (I’m getting there, follow me at http://twitter.com/jamesmattison).

Anyway, to make up for the lack of posts, here is my Schrofer font, available as a free download.

Right click and ‘Save As’ to get it.

I’m planning a series of short articles on common problems and solutions when typesetting Arabic copy, this post hopefully goes some way into defining a few of the terms that might come up later down the line.

The figures which are used in contemporary western typography, i.e. 1, 2, 3, etc. are what we commonly call ‘Arabic Numerals’ (numerals just being a posh word for number). A common place this term is found is when referring to clock dials - either Roman Numerals - Fig.1 or Arabic Numerals - Fig. 2.

Technically, the numbers 1 thru to 9 were developed in the 9th century by Indian mathematicians and then adopted and refined by the Persians into what we know today. From Persia the numbers were past West, reaching Europe in the Middle Ages where they would eventually replace Roman Numerals as the standard numerical format.

Numbers which you often see used in Arabic writing are, strictly speaking, Eastern Arabic Numerals but are usually referred to in the Middle East as Hindi Numerals. In this image of an old-style Abu Dhabi car license plate you can see the the ‘Hindi Numerals’ along the top row and the ‘Arabic Numerals’ on the bottom row.

This image also illustrates another important point to remember when dealing with numbers in the Middle East. Although words, sentences and paragraphs in Arabic are written from right to left, numbers are always written from left to right.

As you can imagine, understanding numbers when typesetting in English and Arabic becomes very important.

“We Are Green. So, You Are Green.” Says the email from Fat Cow “Our offices and data centers are all powered by 100% wind energy, which means your site is powered by 100% wind energy. Because we can’t generate wind power on site, we’ve purchased wind-generated Renewable Energy Certificates (REC) to offset 100% of the electricity used for our web hosting services.”

Thanks very much Fat Cow, our planet appreciates it.

The theme and title of the piece was ‘Learn your A-B-Sea’ and took the format of an alphabet chart illustrated with fish and sea creatures that could be found in the local stretch of water, the Arabian Gulf. One poster was made and framed and is currently in storage while we find somewhere permanent to live.

I got really enthused about this project, especially once I’d started researching the fish and found them to have such weird and wonderful names. The illustrations, based on similar ones I’d seen by Charley Harper, were kept as true-to-life as possible while allowing a certain amount of artistic impression to get that graphic feel.

The typeface used throughout is, perhaps predictably, Hoefler & Frere-Jones’s ‘Gotham Rounded’

UPDATE: August 2010.
The poster is now available from the ‘Shop’ section of the website. Click here.

The Sandpit by Sam O’Hare is a truly amazing tilt-shift short movie shot in New York. If you haven’t seen it yet, stop wasting your time reading this and go and check it out! Watch it in HD, full-screen if you can.

I used Fedra Sans and Fedra Serif teamed with Fedra Arabic in my project ‘Arab Science: A Journey of Innovation’. I loved the way the fonts integrated with each other and made typesetting the project relatively simple – typesetting dual-language English and Arabic documents is rarely completely trouble-free.

I’m happy to see that now the typeface has once again been expanded through another successful collaboration. Its pretty unlikely I’ll ever get to use this version and even less likely that I’ll ever be able to read anything set in it, but I still marvel at the amount of work and dedication that goes into these projects.

via Made by Six

Unhappy Hipsters is basically a collection of the ridiculously modern interior photographs you see in Elle Deco and Wallpaper magazine. The blogs author (and sometimes visitors, via a monthly caption contest) then suggest ‘alternative’ captions for the shots.

This one made me chuckle today:

The black hole had sucked everything out of the playroom. Save his sister or the coloring books? He made a split-second decision.

The following excerpt from the frequently asked questions section of their website completely sums up what turns me on to Stout/Kramer’s work:

Does your work have a recognizable style?
Yes, definitely.
The final solutions are the result of an analytical and rational way of thinking and working.
The design is simple, clear, without fuss. Dutch.

See more of their work here at www.stoutkramer.nl

The scientific name for this is your ‘Antipodal Location’ or ‘Antipodes’ coming from the Greek ‘Anti’ meaning opposite and ‘Podes’ meaning feet, literally, the opposite place of where you stand. Up until now I didn’t realise this is where the British term ‘antipodean’ came from, meaning someone from Australia or New Zealand.

The method for finding your antipodal location is very simple, as long as you know your current location’s latitude and longitude (this can be found on Google Earth, down at the bottom of the screen when you hover the cursor over a point on the map (fig. 1) or it’s featured on the Wikipedia page for most major cities - look under the map on the Dubai page for example).

fig. 1 Google Earth

Once you know your location take the latitude (which tells you which side of the equator you live on) and convert it to the opposite hemisphere - e.g. if you are sitting next to me in Dubai, your latitude is 25°07’26” North. Make this 25º07’26” South and you’re halfway there.

Now take your longitude (which tells you how far east of west of the Greenwich Meridian Line you are) and subtract 180º - for Dubai, our longitude is 55º08’45"E (lets just call it 55º East to make it a bit easier). 55º East minus 180º equals -125º East, otherwise know as 125º West

So the opposite side of the world to Dubai is 25º07’26"S 125º08’45"W. Great, so where is this? Right bang in the middle of the Southern Pacific Ocean, just 60km south of Ducie Island, an uninhabited island in the Pitcairn Island atolls.

fig. 2 Ducie Island

It turns out that there are very few places in the world that actually have a dry-land antipodal location. Perhaps not that surprising when you consider the earth is approximately two thirds ocean and that the majority of the land mass in is in the ‘top’ half.

If you’re too lazy to do the maths, check out this cool website to find out your antipodal location - www.antipodemap.com/.

And there endeth today’s geography lesson.

Very cool illustrations in this two sided glow-in-the-dark screenprint. The characters make me think of Adrian Johnson, but a touch more edgy.

I really like Erik’s use of coloured papers and the mix of sans and serif fonts in his self initiated identity for United Printing of Chicago.

Nice lo-fi aesthetic in this series of small books featuring the published ideas of America’s youth. Again, love the black print on coloured paper.

Its not surprising that Erik was formerly an employee at the incredible Studio On Fire. Now doing his own thing at Steady Print Shop Co.

Take a look at his portfolio here: www.woodsandweather.com.

Triplex’ed ColorPlan business cards… heavenly!

more here: http://www.lundgrenlindqvist.se

Performance
I’ve been using Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools for a little while to see what’s going on at the site while I’m not here keeping an eye on it. One useful tool in Webmaster Tools is the Site Performance analysis. This gives you a run-down of how well your site is performing in terms of the speed of the site. I’ve made a couple of tweaks to my CSS and removed some extraneous javascript files, and now the site should be running milliseconds faster. I hope you appreciate it.

Logo
I have a love-hate relationship with any identity I create for myself which is why I tend to go for something fairly basic like a monogram and rarely spend more than moment thinking about it. Those of you who’ve visited the site before (and have a freakishly good memory) will notice I’ve tweaked mine a little bit. This is modified Bauer Bodoni mixed with in with a bit of FF Din.

Mailing List
There is now a mailing list opt-in on the home page. This is so I can gather your personal information and sell it to unscrupulous real estate brokerage companies. I might also send out the occasional free goody by email, such as my Schrofer font… tempted?

Without wanting to turn this blog into another boring web developer ‘how-to’ site, I thought I’d share an experience I had today when consolidating a number of CSS files into one big, mother-ship CSS file.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Google Webmaster Tools had very kindly pointed out that my site wasn’t as efficient as it could have been. One of the ways it suggested I remedy the problem was to remove any unnecessary CSS files, or consolidate my CSS into one file. I decided to take its advice and set about copying my pasting the various parts of my CSS files into one file. It’s important to be careful doing this as CSS is read from the top down and your browser takes your final instruction on how to format a tag as the one it follows. Getting your CSS mixed up causes all kinds of weird and ‘experimental-looking’ effects.

I thought I’d be smart and add comments into my CSS file so I knew what was what when I came back and wanted to change something. Last week I spent a while commenting some HTML files and I’d remembered that the format was:

<!—comment—>

Easy peasy. I commented all my CSS, hit save and went to review the site. Oh dear. things didn’t look the way I wanted them to. I spent a long time double-checking I’d not accidentally removed a stray curly bracket or comma until I found another piece of commented CSS left over from a previous edit… Ah-ha! The correct format to comment CSS is:

/* comment */

Hope this saves someone else a few hours of frustration.

Around 18 months ago I was in the market for a wireless router. I owned a 13” MacBook, I use Macs at work and like many people, I’m impressed by the intuitive design and great looking products that Apple produce.

I visited my local Apple reseller (choices are limited here in the UAE and we seem to pay an inflated premium on all Apple products) and we discussed the options. He told me that the Airport Express had been replaced by a new product called a Time Capsule (TC). It sounded great, a fast wireless router AND 500GB of storage which I could connect to via Ethernet or wirelessly and would automatically back up my laptop with software installed on my MacBook - Time Machine - so long as I had the newest version of OS X.

I spent the money (I don’t remember exactly how much at the time) and took it home. Like all Apple products it was simple to set up and literally within minutes of plugging it in and turning my MacBook on, I was connected to the internet and transferring files back and forth to the HD.

This continued for around a year with no problems, the Time Capsule sat in the corner of the room, it’s little green light rarely turning orange to signify a problem. Over the year I had gradually transferred all of my work onto the machine, my entire iTunes collection, movies… everything that had been cluttering up the hard drive of my MacBook.

Then one day I came home and the green light had gone off.

I unplugged it and plugged it back in. I checked and changed the fuse in the plug (twice). I tried it in a different electrical socket. Nothing could revive my poor little Time Capsule and I started to worry about the ten years worth of portfolio work I had placed on it. The eight gigabytes of music, collected over the last eight years. Plus all the other little bits and pieces I wouldn’t be able to get back. It was well and truly dead.

At this point you may well imagine I considered throwing it very hard off of my balcony, and I did. But luckily common sense prevailed and I, using another internet connection in the house, searched the world wide web for a solution. I came across this site. It seemed I wasn’t alone. The ‘beautiful’ design of the TC had blinded me, and many others, to the fact that stuff like this needs to breath, it needs air or it overheats and dies.

And it seemed there was no solution. I wasn’t going to send my dead Time Capsule away to its grave without retrieving the data on it so I bit the bullet, took the advice found on this site... and performed a Time Capsule autopsy. After some swearing and the unscrewing of many little screws, the Time Capsule eventually donated its internal organs and the standard hard drive is now happily living inside my G5 tower. I managed to retrieve all the data which is now backed up in a number of different places.

A relatively happy ending, but a message to everyone taken in by the outward appearance of the Apple products - they don’t always get everything right and sometimes its what’s inside that counts.

—

Update:
I feel compelled to say that Apple have recognised and fixed the problems with the version of Time Capsule I was sold. Current versions of Time Capsule are reported to be much more reliable. It’s also worth pointing out that one point of backup is rarely enough, especially if it’s kept in the same place as your original files. This week I’ve been looking into online ‘cloud’ backup services, but more about that in a future post.

Here are three of the shots I particularly liked, although I could easily pick another 100 or so. I’d love to find out exactly how he processes and post processes the images and how much of that wonderful warmth comes straight out of the camera.

Click here to visit Matt Mawson’s website
Click here to see Matt Mawson’s Flickr photostream

This isn’t a surprise to me, the small ‘branding’ company I worked at before my current employer had been been told this was happening and had even put in a bid to assist in the delivery of the entire signage system across the cities of Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and the Western Region. Luckily the Abu Dubai Department of Municipal Affairs has seen sense, rather than giving the job to ‘a friend of a friend’ and gone with a company properly qualified to complete the job to the standard required of a major capital city:
“DMA is working with ARRB Group, international specialists in transport research and consultancy, to prepare the manual that will set guidelines for municipalities to implement the new addressing system.”
As with everything else going on in Abu Dhabi, the standards are set high:
“DMA is setting the standards for a world class addressing signage system in Abu Dhabi. Working together with other government entities and internal experts, we will be able to provide residents and businesses an improved addressing framework with easy-to-navigate street signage that will make their life and processes convenient and effective,”

Source: http://dma.abudhabi.ae

I know that designing Arabic typefaces to match existing Latin type such as Helvetica causes a stir amongst some Arabic type ‘hardliners’, but the bottom line is that in today’s multi-cultural Middle Eastern societies, there is no getting away from the fact that almost all communications in the MENA region is required to be set in both Arabic and English.

By carefully and thoughtfully creating Arabic type to match well-established Latin fonts such as Helvetica Neue, Palatino and Frutiger, Nadine Chahine not only assists the creators of these communications materials, but also their audiences by allowing the medium to properly convey the message.

There’s a great article with more details here and the font is available to buy here. My purchase order is already on the accountants desk!

Read Nadine’s blog here (updated about as frequently as mine unfortunately!)

Download the photos here at 1440 x 900 dpi (perfect for an Apple MacBook Pro 15”)

Avid followers of my blog (are there any?) will no doubt remember that many many months ago I spent a short time creating a font based on some drawings by Jurriaan Schrofer:

I came across this image on flickr.com this morning, the cover of a book called ‘de internationale avant-garde tussen de twee’ (which Google translates as ‘the international avant-garde between the two’ - feel free to supply a more accurate translation, confirm this is correct or give more details about the book if you’ve read it).

It was designed by Jurriaan Schrofer and shows that my own glyph shapes are very similar to the ones he’s used, (although in this example Jurriaan’s are taller than mine) The layout is also kind of similar to my own sample.

Now the hunt begins for a good copy of this book and more examples of Jurriaan’s work!

PS.
I also found another fan of JS’s work on the Behance network, take a look at him doing his thing here

Naturally, as I watched the Google Wave keynote speech, I began to think about ways I could apply this communication and collaboration technology to the type of work I do. I was thinking of all the tiny interactions between the many different parties involved in the process of creating something like a company annual report and accounts. A challenging, technical job which is usually required within a relatively short time-frame and pulls in a wide range of human resource:

Client side
managing directors, marketing managers and executives, department heads, accountancy staff

Agency side
client relationship managers, accountancy staff, creative directors, art directors, designers, artworkers

Freelance or outsourced
copy writers, editors, photographers, illustrators, translators, printers

I began to put together a workflow here in the blog of how all these people are connected throughout the process and where Google Wave could be of benefit (which pretty much turned out to be at every stage), but the scope was just too large and would have resulted in a very long, uninteresting post. I might write it up and create a PDF to be downloaded for anyone interested enough. I’ve also contacted Google and explained briefly how Wave could fit into my workflow, hopefully they’ll give me a few beta licenses to start trying it out.

If you’ve ever sat in a design studio until 6am in the morning, working on a pitch that you have a sneaky suspicion you have absolutely no chance of winning (and not due to any lack of expertise or effort on your part) you should direct your MD to Blair Enns’s website, Win Without Pitching.

Blair’s Win WIthout Pitching manifesto is a twelve part solution to the problem of free pitching, amongst other things. He is an incredibly personable character who can make a two day training seminar into something fun, memorable and incredibly beneficial.

Go take a look at his website!

Like the boy scouts, Be Prepared. The biggest piece of general advice I can give is to be very well prepared. Meet with your photographer a few days before the shoot in the location you will be shooting so s/he can assess the logistics of the shoot, lighting requirements and what equipment he’ll need to bring. It might be that the lighting in the area is dramatically different from one time of day to another so you may need to come back at various times to assess.

Gather images which demonstrate the end result (subject, lighting, processing style) you want to achieve so you can discuss them with the photographer.

Draw up a shooting schedule and distribute it to all the people involved in the shoot which takes into consideration:
1. arrival at the scene of the shoot - always longer than you anticipate with all the hand-shaking, cups of coffee, etc.
2. equipment set-up times - depending on the photographer and the type of shoot this could vary between 10 minutes and 3 hours.
3. Models arriving late, being called into meetings, taking telephone calls and/or requiring preparation before any shots are taken (hair, make-up, etc)
4. The number of shots you need to achieve within the day
5. If you are taking shots in various locations, calculate the time spent breaking down the set-up, moving locations and re-setting up the equipment
5. The realistic amount of time you can expect the photographer to work in a day - taking into consideration lunch breaks, stops for cigarettes, coffee, etc.
6. Any restrictions you have set on you by forces outside of your control - natural light, poor weather, etc.

On the day of the shoot I always bring what I call my “art directors toolkit”. It’s basically a small bag, similar to a washbag, filled with gaffer tape, safety pins, blu-tack, spare batteries, X-acto knife, screwdriver, etc… anything you think you might need to solve the little problems you run into. This can be adapted to fit the requirements of each individual shoot, but knowing what to bring is a learning curve and you’ll ALWAYS need the one thing you didn’t bring!

If you are shooting staff members in a company environment, always make sure they are informed in advance (a couple of days before with a reminder the night before) so they can ensure they dress appropriately, groom themselves, etc. I always bring a couple of spare ties in plain conservative colours in case we run into the wacky office joker who thinks its funny to wear his ‘piano keys’ tie on the day of the shoot.

You’ll always run into people in an office environment that don’t want to have their photographs taken, if possible, leave them alone - they’ll just eat up your time to-ing and fro-ing - and concentrate on the ones that are more comfortable in front of the camera. You and your photographer will be vital in putting inexperienced models at ease and getting the best out of them. Find some common ground, have a chat, get them to relax and forget about the camera.

These pieces of advice are based on experience I have gained doing commercial photo shoots for various businesses and organisations.

My art direction experience includes:
• exterior architecture,
• interior architecture and design,
• products,
• construction industry,
• commercial and educational operations,
• board level and senior management commercial portraiture,
• studio still life,
• animals (studio and natural environment),
• children,
• special events and PR

As I wrote about in an earlier post, I recently ordered a couple of books and downloaded some information and software for creating and editing fonts. Often with a personal project of mine that’s as far as things get and I never find the time or motivation to continue.

But I’m very happy to say that this time (despite my books still not arriving from Amazon) I have made some progress. Earlier today I followed a link from one of my news feeds which led me to the Google Books website and the book, Dutch Type.

I had a quick scan through and a couple of images caught my eye, in particular the work of Jurriaan Schrofer, who I’d never heard of until now. Although I’m aware that members of the Bauhaus movement had pursued experimental geometric type, I was surprised how a lot of Jurriaan’s work, completed between 1950 and 1970, looked like it could have been designed in the last few years.

I could instantly see how some of these modular, geometric typefaces could be easily reconstructed using Illustrator and FontLab Studio, so with a low-res JPEG as my guide I got to work.

Below is the result of four hours work (a good proportion of which was spent figuring out exactly how FontLab Studio works - big thanks to Alec at haikumonkey.net for a great tutorial). I’d be surprised if these letters hadn’t already been made into an electronic font. I’d be interested to find out.

I called the font Schrofer, after the great man himself. At the moment its just lowercase letters and numerals (and I have no plans to expand it just yet). If you’d like a copy, leave a comment with your email address.

Yesterday, a couple of colleagues from work and I set out to get a few art supplies for a project. I knew of a pretty cool little stationery shop on Dubai’s main highway, Sheikh Zayed Road, which is called Dubai Library Distributors. It stocks all kinds of basic art supplies, including some really cool sticker sheets of illustrations straight out of 1950s biology school books and the novelty erasers that the smelly girl in glasses at your school used to collect.

I also knew that the Japanese book superstore, Kinokuniya, in the recently opened Dubai Mall had a lot of interesting Japanese stationery, especially markers and pens (there was a rumour they stocked Sharpies, which turned out to be untrue).

And then I’d heard about another store, further into the depths of old Dubai and a little harder to find, called Emirates Trading Establishment which had a very comprehensive selection of art supplies. One of my colleagues had also been told about it and he managed to get a good description of where it was and we went off to look for it.

We found it surprisingly easily and, as I walked in, I thought I’d been teleported to the London Graphics Centre (OK, that’s a slight exaggeration). But there it was, a huge showroom packed full of absolutely every art supply you could ever think you might need. As we started to poke around, I joked that we might even find Letraset transfer sheets somewhere in a dark corner… 15 minutes later and there it was, a huge stack of loose sheets, in various states of poor condition, pushed under the bottom shelf. It was expensive otherwise I think we would have bought the whole lot, but we managed to negotiate a 30% discount and came away with about 20 sheets. I also got some Daler Rowney artists inks, a couple of nice brushes, which I’ve had trouble finding in the UK, and various pads of paper. The only negative thing was that they didn’t have Sharpie pens… the hunt continues…

Its hard to describe exactly where this place is, but I’ll try.

As you are coming down Sheikh Zayed Rd from the direction of Abu Dhabi / Jebel Ali towards the Creek, follow signs for Maktoum Bridge until you reach Umm Hurair Rd. Head down Umm Hurair Rd towards the bridge and before the road forks and rises up over the bridge, take the right-hand exit onto the service road. You should drive past Emirates Trading Establishment if you took the correct turning but if not, park in the large car-park and get out and walk around (a tall order during Summer, I know), you shouldn’t be too far away. The area is called Oud Metha and nearby landmarks to look out for, or ask directions to, include Lamcy Plaza, a football stadium (not sure which one) and Al Nasr Cinema.

What makes someone suddenly decide that the 987,473,745 fonts already on the market isn’t quite enough and that they should be the one to create the 987,473,746th? This is a question I’m currently asking myself as I order Designing Type by Karen Cheng and The Typographic Desk Reference by Theodore Rosendorf on Amazon and get myself a copy of FontLab Studio.

For me, this is ‘Part One’ - doing some internet research, bookmarking a number of useful sites, downloading some PDFs, making some notes, ordering a couple of books and, if necessary, downloading a trial version of some software and reading its manuals.

Stay tuned to see how things go…

*after 5 minutes of trying to come up with a witty title for this post, I gave up. By then I’d forgotten what I was going to write, other than I can’t seem to find any t-shirts that I like. This is a real pain in the ass when you live in a country where the average day-time temperature is in the mid-40s.

Maybe I’ll design one for myself.

These are simplified versions of the final advertising posters. The headline copy reads “Why Additives?” and were to be used as a starting point to educate the public about the use of additives in foods, when they were necessary and when they should be avoided.

I’ve always liked this clean, iconographic style of illustration and while working at Cubic, at the time of drawing these, was probably heavily under the influence of Mutabor.

Jasmine-Lily, my 16 month old daughter has given me the excuse, and the motivation, to rediscover classics such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell.

Here are five of my favourite sites which seem to consistently come up with interesting and original content.

The Ministry of Type
A weblog by Aegir Hallmundur about type, typography, lettering, calligraphy and other related things. Aegir’s posts are always well-written, original and thoroughly researched and usually backed up by great images. The site itself is simple, attractive and very easy to use. I just wish he had more free time so he could post more often.

TypeNeu: An Odyssey in Typography
This seems to be one of the ‘go-to’ sites for a lot of other blogs about contemporary type and typography. A very innovative (if sometimes confusing) navigation system houses concise entries that are usually just beautiful images with links to the source of the work. What more do you need?

FPO: For Print Only
This is a relatively new addition to my bookmarks, but so far I’m enjoying it a lot. Part of the larger graphic design appreciation site, UnderConsideration, FPO is a round-up and in-depth review of recent print-based projects which includes a great deal of technical information. A fantastic source for inspiration when it comes to printing and finishing techniques.

Fleuron
I followed the site ‘The Serif’ for a long time and got a bit upset and confused when the site stopped working, it always seemed well put together, well-read and regularly updated. It wasn’t until a little while later that I found out that The Serif had re-invented itself as Fleuron. An interesting mix of graphic design, typography, illustration, etc. Its mostly just links to designers and agency websites rather than in-depth stories, but still a good source for hunting out undiscovered talent and discovering new inspiration.

NOTCOT.ORG
A well-known blog site which manages to provide links to a wide range of interesting happenings in design, art, photography, architecture and fashion. Great when my head gets a bit too full of graphic design and I need something a bit different to look at. Its also very active and I’ve been known to spend the first 45 minutes of the morning clicking through the many feeds that have miraculously appeared overnight.

I’m really looking forward to receiving them later this month, I’ll post up some pictures of the books and my thoughts once they arrive.

A recent pitch I worked on for a national food health and safety organisation called for a simplistic and ‘wholesome’ illustration approach and I instantly thought of Adrian Johnson. Since there wasn’t time to brief the man himself I did my best at emulating the style and applying it to our campaign. I was quite happy with the results (not being an illustrator myself) and I hope that if our pitch is successful it will mean the opportunity to work with Adrian on the project.

There’s a good interview with Mr. Johnson here on grain edit.

1. Watches
I’m not sure when or where this particular fetish began, but I have a gut feeling it was all my father’s fault. I was always fascinated by his watch which wasn’t anything fancy or expensive. My earliest recollection was of something very similar to the 1972 Porsche Design Chrono 1 watch, an image so burnt into my memory that having a good condition version of this watch has now become my holy grail.

Since this is a list of five different items I currently like to think I couldn’t live without, I’ll choose my Omega Speedmaster Automatic (or ‘Reduced’) – so called because it’s slightly smaller in size compared to the regular Speedmaster, but perfect for my skinny little wrists.

2. Moleskine notebooks
Yawn… how boring and predictable! I know, I know. But they’re so nice… Go on, stroke their faux pig-skin exterior and run your fingertips over the subtly debossed logo. Ping the elastic strap like a naughty adolescent school boy… you know you want to.

Oh, and when you’ve finished making all kinds of irrelevant sexual innuendos about the cover, you can open them up and carefully write on the (in my case) gridded pages with great precision. For instance, when my daughter was born our health visitor asked us to keep a diary of when she fed, poo-ed and wee-ed (my daughter, not the health visitor). I wrote it down in my Moleskine notebook and wouldn’t let my partner write in it for fear she’d ‘mess it up’ (getting an idea of how anal I am yet?)

3. Volkswagen Golf GTI
I’ve been in and out of love with this car so many times in the one year I’ve owned it, but when I look around at what I might replace it with, I always come up blank.

4. Sharpie markers
Apparently they’re available here in Dubai… I’ll be hunting a big box of them down tomorrow. Combined with a Uni-Ball Vision Micro-tip roller pen mankind need never invent another ink-based mark making system (as far as I’m concerned). Obviously, avoid blue, black is best.

5. Converse All-Stars
Another design cliche (oops, I mean classic?), For a long time I thought that a pair of shoes made out of a very thin piece of canvas glued to a very thick piece of rubber couldn’t be anything other than excruciatingly uncomfortable. How wrong I was, and now its very hard to bring myself to put anything else on my feet. I tend to go for the low-top leather version in plain white… I’m not quite wacky enough for the red high-tops.