Comedy Central: Expert Village on YouTube
This is a major reason why you just can’t trust the internet to give you the goods on design:
Step 1: Design the logo.
“I added a lot of filters”
Imagine.
Just a little food for thought since everything seems to be going digital. What happens when video games, toys, and other things are only downloadable? We only have socks and underwear to open on Christmas day.
Lego Architecture. Sweet.
It’s nice to see Lego embracing their inner geek and marketing to adults. Even more so now that they are doing architecture pieces featuring some great buildings.
The two that stand out the most are Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Falling Water” and the Guggenheim Museum. The other buildings I am on the fence about. They are nice, but look kinda simple. I hope this isn’t the case.
Your Twitter Background and You.
I am have become a big fan of The Twitter over the course of the past few weeks.
On the surface there isn’t much to it, but once you dive in it’s amazing. I know people can’t figure out what the buzz is all about, but it probably one of the most valuable tools for networking, news, and interaction that you’ll see today. It is also one where the limited room for telling people about yourself has people designing backgrounds based around getting more information out.
However, with that comes a lot of fail because of varying monitor sizes and resolutions. For me, I view at 1920 x 1200. Now I am not saying I am in the majority, but there are some of us viewing at it. Same goes for people viewing at 800 x 600. I don’t think the majority of us are stuck at the either, but I think you could walk a line and try to design for everyone. Some people are doing it well, some are failing.
Ideally, you can’t have too much info or people won’t be able to get to it easily. But consier that the feed is already almost 800px wide. You certainly aren’t designing the background for 800 x 600, and you only have about 125px for people at 1024 x 768. Ideally, laptop users are at 1280×800, so with that you have say, 200 pixels on both sides? For me, It’s probably enough room to sell myself, but if you’re feeling adventurous, go for it. Just keep some things in mind.
For graphics, I would either keep it flat, large or with a gradient which fades into the background color. I also wouldn’t care if anything overlapped. It’s bound to happen on someone’s monitor in my opinion.
Doing it well:
MSNBC has theirs done pretty well. For instance Tameron Hall’s Twitter page is done with nice gradients and keeping the focus in the top third of the page.
So is Rachel Maddow:
Doing It Big: The Exclamation Point (!)
When I first started revamping a few things on the blog end of my site I put this huge exclamation point in the banner, which itself was already pretty big…
I totally believe in subliminal messages and trends, but for the life of me I was unsure of why I had it there. Maybe I was announcing that this was a blog? Maybe I was excited over the new site format. Then it hit me: I have been seeing A LOT of these in use for identity and branding.
For instance: Pentagram just launched a library initiative in New York’s public libraries which utilize this:
A thought for Today, and Tomorrow…
Courtesy of fffound and Operation Nice
It’s important you know.
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
The evolution of the Photoshop toolbox is amazing. Amazing in that it really hasn’t changed too much in a long time. It’s a nice feeling, isn’t it?
However, if you haven’t seen Illustrator CS4 yet, you are in for a treat. There are some really great tools they added. Multi-page options, better brush tools, and transparent gradients are the first ones that really pop out, but I am really digging how the regular arrow is much more intuitive to paths, points and objects. Its like they took the best of inDesign and put it in Illustrator. You wonder how Adobe gets away with releasing this thing every few years and people rush to get it, and then you try it and you understand.
Its kinda crazy, isn’t it. I still can’t figure out who is using Photoshop for 3D, but thats just me.
I wish I had thought of this.
While browsing through the amazing and always inspiring ffffound site (a site that catalogs images via account users finding images from all over the internet) I came upon this very interesting and thought provoking image:
I really didn’t think of this.
It Ain’t Easy Being Cooper Black
Someone recently reviewed my portfolio and came upon a piece where I had used the typeface Cooper Black. While viewing it he asked me why I used it, by which I had responded that I thought it was a fairly approachable and friendly font. Now, the gentleman was just a bit older and told me that it had to be a generational difference regarding how the typeface was perceived.
I found this rather interesting in terms of viewing things from different ages and different perspectives. I guess this is true for many things. We can often look back on our many different facets of culture and see the strange quirks that we now know to be totally different. Case in point, I recently finished watching the movie Tron for the first time in the better part of over a decade, which in its time was visually captivating at the time, but upon further review, showed a very primitive way on how computers act and think. These are the times I wish I could just watch the movie and did not understand computers, as I am sure it would have been even better in 1982. By the by, Disney is working on a sequel to Tron (Tr2n) which looks pretty cool, but I am curious to see how the new one takes today’s computer culture and deals with updating what they did almost 30 years ago.
Now getting back to Cooper, I guess I see it in the same way. I am sure the gent who saw Cooper Black saw it much differently. Where I saw camp and swagger, I am sure he saw a typeface embraced by gun or liquor stores. From my perspective Coop symbolizes being smart and funny, and he saw ignorant and dumb.
I see The Beach Boy’s album Pet Sounds and Gary Coleman…
A Daily Dose of David Airey is Good for Your Design Health
Get it? D.Airey…dairy? Nevermind, on to the post…
I have been behind on the blog work, so there is a two for one this evening. David Airey recently featured one of his postings on a freelance opportunity that I turned down because I felt it was spec work (feel free to click the carton and be whisked away to his magical site). I really appreciate the chance to share my story with other people and upon reading the dialogue, which I really enjoyed on both sides, I felt I would write a follow up on the subject as a companion piece to which he wrote.
I think that overall, when you put yourself out in a public forum, there will always be a difference of opinions. One of the biggest things I found interesting is that some people found that the fact that I told her that I thought that what she offered was “unprofessional” was out of line. Maybe it was, but on the other hand, I don’t feel that I had anything to lose to someone who thought what I did was free, and to another point, should require a turn around of about 48 hours. Maybe more people need to take a stand against these practices and as a whole we can be strong together and let people know that what we do is a skill and what we do is a profession which isn’t paid in beer, peanuts, or empty promises. I have never been one to gloss what I say, but what I can say is that it was not my intent to one-up Donna or be crass. I was just standing up for something I am don’t advocate. If I came off as a prick, that is fine. It’s better to stand for something than fall for anything.
Another point that was made was that companies will often put together something for a perspective client, which is totally fair, but in my opinion one should never is complete original work for said client. I believe in making pitches, mood books, and even previous projects which should help you land the job. What I can’t advocate is getting a job folder and doing creative work for absolutely nothing. We can talk about rationale, heritage, or ideas which may lead to the work.
I know someone mentioned that architects and builders will build models or have plans for a perspective client, but I don’t believe that this is the same as what is proposed when designers are given the sort of thing I was given. I think a realistic comparison is to have the builder build the project and spend their own time and money developing it with the client only paying if it meets their satisfaction. This business model does not work, and apples to apples, it should never be asked of.