What Do You Look For in a Designer?

Another good one from the Coroflot Blog (A blog dedicated to creative work: How-to's on finding design work and creative recruiting, advice on what leading designers are looking for, and showcases of great work from Coroflot portfolios.)

What Do You Look For in a Designer? : Nicolas Roope, Poke

Why Young Designers Should Avoid "Design Capitals"

Small Pond, Smart Fish: Why Young Designers Should Avoid "Design Capitals"

Automakers have Detroit, investment bankers have New York, and film actors have Hollywood: the bright shining centers of their respective industries. For those seeking a career in one of these fields, going to the Capital City is often a given, whether to get a foot in the door, or build an existing career. The creative professions have their Meccas too, and the gravity they exert on designers and other creatives is strong indeed; perhaps too strong.

To Score The Perfect Job...

To Score The Perfect Job, HR Professionals Suggest Geeking Out Online

The Black Hole. The Fortress. The Bottomless Pit (of despair). When recounting their last job search, friends and colleagues in the creative professions are prone to using terms like this to describe their most desired employers' HR departments. Most of us can probably recall a time when we felt the same way; as if every studio and firm we really wanted to get into had an army of technicians cleverly sealing off every point of access, and perhaps enfolding all the good jobs in a cloaking field of some sort. There are ads out there, of course, encouraging us to spend weeks tuning our portfolios and resumes, and so we hop through the HR hoops, then fling everything into that hole, never to be heard from again.

A Designer's Guide to Surviving Design Competitions

Coroflot - Coroflot's Creative Seeds Blog

What all these articles are pointing out is that there's great potential for exploitation here, and I'm inclined to agree with them. Yet most of us know about it, and we continue to enter, despite the downsides. Shortly out of school, I designed a piece of flat pack furniture for Designboom.com, and got a Shortlisted Entry out of it. No money, not a lot of notoriety, but I didn't feel cheated, and I'd do it again--in fact I'm working on an entry for Dell's Re-Generation competition at this moment.

Winners of the What is Graphic design poster competition

Winners of the What is Graphic design poster competition | Veerle's blog

The moment of truth is finally here! I’m ready to announce who is in for a prize. This wasn’t easy, as you’ve seen in my previous post there are a lot of great entries in this pool. I’ve picked a bunch of favorites let them rest for a bit and came back to them and made my final decision.

See also the contestants.

Manage Your Online Reputation

Life Hacker Feature: Manage Your Online Reputation

Are you happy with the results people get back when they Google your name? If not, there are easy ways to monitor and guide what information is published about you online. Two years ago we covered how to have a say in what Google says about you, and more recently, and how to track down anyone online. But a rash of social media sites have arisen that give you more tools to help you manage your online reputation and become more findable. Let's take a look.

Top film title design

Top film title design - Design Week

There’s no category for title design in the Oscars, but if there were, which movies would make the shortlist? Yolanda Zappaterra picks out some potential nominees before this Sunday’s glitz-fest

Typographic Fruit

You must see the Typographic Fruit.

Fuck style

ideasonideas – Blog Archive – Fuck style

Design is such a multi-layered practice that it’s often difficult to define. That being said, I believe that the word “design” is increasingly confused with “style”. For example, to most “I like the way it’s designed” means that they like the way that something looks.

The visual aspect of what we do is highly important, and style has a place in that. For example, if we want to connect with a particular audience, employing a style can sometimes be helpful. That being said, it seems that style often leads efforts. We have to break this habit.

IDD480 Job Resource Site

FILTER/TALENT

FILTER is a full-service creative resources company that delivers proven results. For businesses that need talent - either in-house or off-site - we offer staffing services and project-management expertise for a variety of design, production and content management needs.

By finding and fostering talent, we offer flexible, cost-efficient solutions for producing outstanding creative and marketing content. FILTER serves the creative industry like no one else, with a powerful combination of style, passion and matchmaking expertise.

Our clients include prominent technology and services companies as well as many of the leading design, advertising and interactive agencies.

Cult of the Sketch

Coroflot - Questioning the Cult of the Sketch

Designers must draw. We pretty much all agree on that one. Regardless of whether we're designing buildings, products, clothes or even web pages, a good number of us are judged--and judge each other--on our ability to snag a sheet of paper from the printer and quickly draft something beautiful and compelling.

Top 10 Interview Do’s and Don’ts for 2008 Job Seekers

creativepro.com - Top 10 Interview Do's and Don'ts for 2008 Job Seekers

For many professionals finding the perfect new job or even switching careers. For those seeking a better work environment or wanting to change their career track completely, Ron Axelrod, Senior Vice President, Business Development and Recruiting at NYC software testing firm RTTS, offers a list of job interviewing tips for those embarking on the job search and interview process. Axelrod understands how to help job seekers make the transition from one work environment to another as well as what potential employers expect during the interview process.

Bye, Bye, Facebook. Bye, Bye.

creativity/machine – Why I’m deleting my Facebook account

I know the zombies and pirates will be sad and my virtual garden/fish/panda will die, but I’m leaving Facebook. I swear it’s not a case of getting early adopter syndrome. Trust me, given my background in subculture theory, I have workshopped that one.

Courtney’s Portfolio

Here’s Courtney’s portfolio:
Courtney's Portfolio

Branding You

A New Brand

Design professionals are often great at packaging and promoting their clients ... to a defined market. However, many don't seem to consider, or take the time, to do the same for themselves,' says Jeff Fisher, 'Engineer of Creative Identity' for the one-person design shop Jeff Fisher LogoMotives.

Motion Theory in Fast Company

Loco Motion -- Video Production -- Motion Theory

The creative crazies at Motion Theory turn the video world topsy-turvy.

2008 Animated Shorts Academy Nominees

2008 Animated Shorts Nominees — OZOUX.COM

I just came across this year's nominations for Best Animated Short which is an interesting list. Notable by its absense this year is any of the shorts from the usual suspects, like Pixar's or Sony Imageworks. Here's the list...

Too bored to read this article on boredom?

Scientific American: Bored?

Don't blame your job, the traffic or your mindless chores. Battling boredom, researchers say, means finding focus, living in the moment and having something to live for...

In a quiet, darkened lecture room, you begin a frustrating fight against fatigue. The overhead projector hums, and you cannot concentrate on the slides. You stop absorbing information and doodle mindlessly. The professor lost you eons ago. You are bored.