Flickr: The international graphic design Pool

Take a swim - it will be inspiring.

Flickr: The international graphic design Pool

For my IDD seniors about to graduate

I think you may need a few smiles this weekend. Design Coding by m0serious. Enjoy.

Designer Portfolios

Design Meltdown � Designer Portfolios

Designing your own portfolio is probably the most frustrating thing in the world. Everyone I talk to starts over multiple times. I restarted mine at least 5 times before settling in on the current design. Which I am of course not nearly satisfied with. Clearly it is our connection to our own work that clouds our judgment. Most designers who I have talked to about their frustration with their portfolio seems silly. Usually the portfolio looks fantastic, it is just the individual that sees it in a way no one else does.

Building Your Portfolio Website

Building Your Portfolio Website: Six Things to Always Do

So by now perhaps you've read through last week's advice column on how to keep from making the most common mistakes when creating your online portfolio (and perhaps you've written in to say how horrified you are that coroflot would suggest using a template, rather than building the whole thing from scratch -- that's fair, there are some good arguments on both sides). Assuming you've decided to make the leap and start publishing your work, whether through a template, a custom-designed site, a hacked blog, or something else of your own (hopefully low-Flash) design, there are a few additional suggestions that have cropped up since then from an array of sources.

Your Individual Development Plan

Your Individual Development Plan - Lifehack.org

Where do you want to be in 5 years?

This question is one of the lynchpins of the personal development field. It’s usually followed by instructions to visualize yourself having achieved those goals, and maybe an admonishment to ask yourself if what you’re doing now will get you there.

None of this is hard. What is hard, though, is making a plan that will get you there, once you cut out all the stuff that won’t. It’s fairly easy to figure out the steps you need to take for a big project, even one that spans several years. It’s harder to plan for big life goals — things like becoming better at your job, spending more time with your family, getting more organized.

Footers In Modern Web Design

Footers In Modern Web Design: Creative Examples and Ideas | Design Showcase | Smashing Magazine

According to classic principles of web design, everything at the bottom of the page isn’t that important. Most users think like that. And most designers are convinced that this is true. Site elements at the bottom of the page aren’t really able to catch visitors’ attention which is why footers are often forgotten or ignored and not given the attention they deserve.

Mid Century Modern Design Inspiration

Flickr: The Mid Century Modern - Sticker, Label Stamp Club Pool

Package Design Blog

TheDieline.com: The Leading Package Design Blog

TheDieline.com was founded by Andrew Gibbs, a senior packaging designer in Southern California. “I started The Dieline because as a packaging designer, I wanted a resource where I could go to see the latest design trends and styles. When he realized something like that didn’t exist, The Dieline was born.” The Dieline was launched in January of 2007, and has quickly become the web’s leading packaging design blog. “Product packaging not only secures and protects a product, it is the direct link between the brand and the consumer. It is what determines if a product will be a success or failure. Packaging plays a pivotal role in influencing a consumer’s perception of the brand and product.” TheDieline.com defines good packaging and is the ultimate resource for packaging designers in the field.

Designing with type characters

Techniques for designing with type characters ~ Authentic Boredom

After weeks of code speak, let’s totally shift gears and talk exclusively about visual design in all its splendor and beauty.

Typography and typefaces, without a doubt, are two of the most fascinating aspects of visual design. Great designers can execute great designs with typefaces and nothing else, if required, and certainly if preferred. Design legends Saul Bass and Paula Scher have proved this many times over, and they comprise only a fraction of a very long list of luminaries who can wield type brilliantly.

Fabulous Design Internship

2008/2009 Walker Art Center Design Fellowship

Since 1980, the Walker Art Center Design department has maintained a graphic design fellowship program that provides recent graduates (both undergrad and grad) the opportunity to work in a professional design studio environment. Selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants, fellows represent a diverse range of graphic design programs, such as Art Center College of Design, California College of Art, California Institute of the Arts, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Eastern Michigan University, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, NC State University, Rhode Island School of Design, Royal College of Art, Werkplaats Typografie, and Yale University, among many others.

Another Film/TV Titles Blog

The Art of the Title Sequence -

Helpful Illustrator How-to

Illustrator How-to: This Technique is a Real Knockout | CreativePro.com

My friend at Nike was struggling to create double stitching. Knowing how often apparel designs change, and how newer designs evolve from existing designs, it becomes increasingly important to work with objects that can easily be edited. If you had to draw two paths to simulate a double-stitched line, that would make it twice as more difficult to make edits.

Portfolio Website: Six Things to Never Do

Coroflot - Coroflot's Creative Seeds Blog

So, you've got a corefolio posted; you've put together a nice PDF sampler; you've printed out a gorgeous little book to take to interviews. You're working your networks, both real and virtual, and so far...not much. Potential employers are looking over your work, and maybe they like what they see, but somehow this isn't translating into more gigs, or that one crucial interview.

Why do I make you blog?

Here are some of the reasons in a wonderful article by Henry Jenkins, Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program:
Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Why Academics Should Blog...

Current students. By design, students in our program come from many professional and disciplinary backgrounds, and will follow many career paths after they graduate. Early on, several students began to create blogs around their thesis projects -- in part to motivate them to write regularly, in part to get feedback on their ideas. Ilya Vedrashko, for example, started a blog called the Future of Advertising, which quickly became a favorite among industry insiders and reporters. The blog's visibility opened up new contacts and resources, which supported his research. Before long, he was also being courted by some of those companies for postgraduation jobs. Eventually, a major company created a position specifically for him.

Great Illustration How-To

This is How We Do.

A documentation of illustrative process of Frank Chimero in 16 easy steps.

Modern products made to look vintage

Worth1000.com | Photoshop Contests | Are you Worthy™ | contest

The rules of this game are thus: Take modern products and advertise them in a vintage way, or take vintage products and advertise them in a modern way. As always, quality is a must. We will remove poor entries no matter how much we like you. You'll have 48 hours for this contest, so make your submissions count.

Designer Manifestos

<img src='img/menubarDA1.gif' alt='header file' /> Manifestos, etc. | design activism

If you need evidence that designers are struggling with the questions of activism and becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the way the profession engages is social and environmental issues, you need look no further than a spate of recent manifestos, etc. Although some of them are discipline-specific, many are not, and they are not institutionally specific. That is, they speak to the broad population of their audience, whether across disciplines or within a discipline. Often adopting the language of politics–revolution, even– these texts urge designers to take more action for social and environmental good. Here are some examples, arranged in a timeline.

Louise Fili creates a restaurant's brand

A Logo Is Worth 1,000 Words - Best of Buzz - Zagat Survey

Learn how Louise Fili creates a restaurant's brand from the logo to the bill.

Chip Kidd Interview

Chip Kidd by Robert Birnbaum - The Morning News

The estimable Chip Kidd, designer of books’ fronts, backs, and spines, chats with our man in Boston, ROBERT BIRNBAUM, about what it’s like to work on the words that come in between.

Excellent Design History Blog by Students

Design History Mashup

Rather than viewing history as the linear progress of civilizations or chronicles of “great men,” we will explore alternative approaches, having short, tempestuous affairs with historical designers and movements that allow us to “give birth” to new work. Our mascot is Kid Eternity, the 1940s comic book character who could summon dead heroes to help him fight evil.