How 'bout a device free Spring Break?

I Need a Virtual Break. No, Really. - New York Times

I TOOK a real day off this weekend: computers shut down, cellphone left in my work bag, land-line ringer off. I was fully disconnected for 24 hours.

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.

Mastering the Informational Interview

Mastering the Informational Interview - Shifting Careers - Small Business - New York Times Blog

Informational interviews can be a useful tool throughout your career, not just when you’re thinking about a new job or a new line of work. You can do informational interviews when you want to learn more about a certain career move or even what it would feel like to get involved in a new project like writing a book, starting a blog, or running your own company.

Senior Blog Links

I've added links to the senior blogs in the side bar. If your name is missing, it’s because you have not sent me your URL. Now you can start reading and commenting on your classmates’ posts. First post is due Thursday.

Getting Design Done

creativepro.com - Getting Design Done

Here's how to apply the principles of a well-known productivity system to your creative process. The resulting creative habits can boost your design skills while they reduce stress and free your mind to tackle big problems.

Inspiring Business Cards on Flickr

IDD Seniors – here's some inspiration for the tasks to come...

Business Cards - a photoset on Flickr

An Alternative Spring Break Anyone?

south by southwest festivals conferences

The SXSW Interactive Festival features five days of exciting panel content and amazing parties. Attracting digital creatives as well as visionary technology entrepreneurs, the event celebrates the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology. Whether you are a hard-core geek, a dedicated content creator, a new media entrepreneur, or just someone who likes being around an extremely creative community, SXSW Interactive is for you!

Good Examples of Innovative Thinking

19 Best Ads I Have Ever Seen - UADDit

R/GA in the New York Times

This is the company I mentioned in class yesterday:
Madison Avenue’s 30-Second Spot Remover - New York Times

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes - the ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing that you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things."
- Apple Computer ad, 1997

Online Marketing Tools for Creative Pros

creativepro.com - Online Marketing Tools for Creative Pros

It seems like each month brings another new-fangled online marketing tool -- too many, really, and who knows whether they work or will be gone by next year? Are they worth the time and money? It's hard to know, but here are some pros and cons of the latest relatively inexpensive and easy-to-use options.

Are you as creative as you want to be?

Are you as creative as you want to be? - Lifehack.org

The “genetic” view of creativity may explain part of each person’s ability to innovate, but any gift has to be nurtured and released to make it useful. I think that a “naturally gifted” person who takes his or her creativity for granted, and does little to keep it sharp, may well be less innovative in practice than someone with less natural aptitude but more determination to develop.

With that in mind, I offer these observations on ways to extend and polish your own innovative powers, whatever they might be. By using such approaches diligently, you can indeed become more creative than you are today — and maybe more creative than you even imagine.

The Ultimate Student Resource List

The Ultimate Student Resource List - Lifehack.org

It’s back to school time, yet again. In the spirit of the season, I decided to gather together the best tools, websites, and advice I know of to help make you a more effective and relaxed student this semester. Since I know you’re broke, it’s all free!

New Public Domain Images on Flickr

Flickr: The Commons

Back in June of 2007, we began our first collaboration with a civic institution to facilitate giving people a voice in describing the content of a publicly-held photography collection.

The key goals of this pilot project are to firstly give you a taste of the hidden treasures in the huge Library of Congress collection, and secondly to show how your input of a tag or two can make the collection even richer.

You're invited to help describe photographs in the Library of Congress' collection on Flickr, by adding tags or leaving comments.

More Library of Congress Photos on Flickr

Cool Posters of advice from graduating students to freshman

advice to sink in slowly

Advice to sink in slowly is a series of posters designed by recent and established graduates of University College Falmouth for the purpose of passing on advice and inspiration to first year students.

A poster is given as a welcoming gift to every first year student when they enroll.

Watch out for the Design Police!

They are coming to a classroom near you...

Design Police | Bring bad design to justice.

3 Graphic Designers Recreate D-Day

You have to watch this!



via Design Observer

Time to start planning for your portfolio website...

creativepro.com - View Source: The Easy Way to Add Dynamic Elements to Web Sites

Until recently, you probably only used the word 'spry' to describe an aging yet still nimble person. But Dreamweaver CS3 introduced the world to a new meaning of the word: an exciting set of tools based on Adobe's Spry Framework for Ajax. Spry is a set of JavaScript files that let you easily add dynamic elements, such as drop-down navigation menus, tabbed panels, and interactive data tables, to a Web page.

You really should start thinking about portfolios

Speak Up › Small Design Ephemera: The Alternative Portfolio

A designer I met earlier this year, John Walsh, who paid me a visit while traveling in New York all the way from Manchester, UK was kind enough to gift me with an alternative portfolio. A hand-bound eight-by-eight-inch book with colorful tassels hanging from the spine, in a black cardboard sandwiched set of glossy pages with a rough-hewn look and feel that was hard to resist. A one of a kind book. Just for me. Inside, it was filled with loose images, logos, typographic treatments, spreads (or parts of spreads) and other things that may or may not be part of other projects...

2007 Trends in Logo Design

LogoLounge.Com - 2007 Trends

By Bill Gardner

At LogoLounge.com we look at A LOT of logos and see plenty of trends: Some are aesthetic, some conceptual, and some cultural. As the internet's largest database of logos – over 50,000 to date – you can't help notice the evolution of design – and trends.

The Story of Stuff = Must See

The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard

The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute film that takes viewers on a provocative and eye-opening tour of the real costs of our consumer driven culture—from resource extraction to iPod incineration.

Annie Leonard, an activist who has spent the past 10 years traveling the globe fighting environmental threats, narrates the Story of Stuff, delivering a rapid-fire, often humorous and always engaging story about “all our stuff—where it comes from and where it goes when we throw it away.” Leonard examines the real costs of extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal, and she isolates the moment in history where she says the trend of consumption mania began. The Story of Stuff examines how economic policies of the post-World War II era ushered in notions of “planned obsolescence” and “perceived obsolescence” —and how these notions are still driving much of the U.S. and global economies today.

The Website Development Process

PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things” - The Website Development Process

Time Management for Creative People

creativepro.com - Control and Creativity: A Match Made in Heaven

Some people think of creativity and organization as opposites. But Mark McGuiness believes that concentration is a must for the best creative work. If you don't consciously make time for being focused, you're vulnerable to interruptions that can stop your creative flow mid-stream.

How NOT to Plagiarize

Advice for Students: How NOT to Plagiarize - lifehack.org

With final essays and term papers coming due (at least here in the States) I thought I’d take a moment to offer some well-needed advice to this year’s crop of young plagiarizers who are about to fail there classes because of really dumb decisions they’re making as I write this.

Special Report on Design

Special Report - Innovation & Design - Business Week

Articles & lists of the best design schools.

Advice for design students

Advice for students - AIGA Design Conference 2007

To prepare for her role as moderator of the "Next" student symposium, UnBeige's Alissa Walker asked design luminaries to give their best advice and inspiration for students.

Visual Plagiarism

Obey Plagiarist Shepard Fairey

Most well known for his "Obey Giant" street posters, Shepard Fairey has carefully nurtured a reputation as a heroic guerilla street artist waging a one man campaign against the corporate powers-that-be. Infantile posturing aside, Fairey’s art is problematic for another, more troubling reason - that of plagiarism.

Image Resolution Info

creativepro.com - The Truth About Resolution

When I became a pixel pusher years ago, one of the toughest concepts to wrap my brain around was that of image resolution: What the heck was it, how did I change it without trashing my image, how much did I need when, and so on.

Advanced SearchTechniques

The ultimate guide to advanced searching within Yahoo, Google and MSN operators � Hybrid Search Engine Marketing | SEO Consulting to Help Rank Better

Have you ever taken the time to think about a Search Engine’s Query? Is there an easy way to monitor links to your site through these queries? How advanced can “searching” really get? Within this post I will show how Google, Yahoo and MSN have created “shortcuts” for their Search Engines.

More Typographic Inspiration

Jeff Canham

Typographic Snowflake Creator

TYPEflake*

Creative Business Cards

Hey Good Lookin'

We've collected the most beautiful, distinctive and offbeat business cards from creatives around the country. See how these designers make a great first impression.

All About Type

TeachingType

TeachingType is an initiative by tutors, students and people interested in typography, typographic education and related subjects. The aim of this platform is to develop and refine graphic design education. We believe that a constant discussion and evolution is happening in our profession and so it is in happening in its educational methodologies. Those procedures, aims, and purposes change not just from college to college or from student to student, but also from day to day. Rather than passively seeing where this fast moving current is taking us and our students, we passionately navigate in this stream; enjoying the journey; enthusiastically learning.

More Writing Resources (you know you need them!)

150 Resources to Help You Write Better, Faster, and More Persuasively

As a student, writer, author, journalist, poet, or screenwriter, you know that you probably spend more time on research, editing, and proofreading than you do on the actual writing. Therefore, you might not have time to find resources to help you write better, faster, or more persuasively. This is where our list comes to your rescue, as the following links focus on places where you can conduct research, software that is free and easy to use, and services that will remove that 'extra work' monkey from your back.

Interview Questions & How to Answer Them

For my soon to be graduating seniors and students interviewing for internships:

64 Interview answers you need to know

Yound Designers Competition Results

“propose a strategy to raise the turnout of voters between 18 and 24” - brilliant solution - read it to the end!

Except You

If we've learned anything from MySpace and Facebook, it's that my generation values being a part of the group and having a say. We're mavericks of social networking, communication and internal organization. We become passionate about anything the peer consensus agrees to rally around, including skateboarding dogs. So why not focus that social muscle on something that really matters? Something like going to war. Or global warming. It's obvious that we care about those things. Getting us to act is the hard part.

Design Students and Typography

Interesting tale from portfolio reviews:

Type Means Never Having To Say You’re Sorry

It’s not the designer’s voice that concerns me here so much as the designer’s understanding of history — a body of knowledge that once acquired, can be edited, modified, even jettisoned at will, but only after giving it a good, hard think. Designers in general (and students in particular) have an overwhelming tendency to consider anything that’s been achieved in the past as a kind of “been there, done that” straitjacket, while the opposite is not only true, it’s surprisingly actionable.

Fun Hand Drawn Type Inspired by Spam

Spam One-liners - a photoset on Flickr

Improve Your Writing

Improve Your Writing with these Editing Tips - lifehack.org

Teachers, business people, and just about everyone else it seems complain often and loudly that people today (usually “kids today”) don’t know how to write. I’m convinced, though, that a big part of the problem (perhaps the biggest part of the problem) is that people don’t know how to edit. We labor under the notion that good writing flows easily from the pen or typing fingers, and that editing too much will “kill” our work.

The best writers know differently, of course — their memoirs and biographies and writing manuals are filled with stories of books that needed to be cut in half to be readable, sentences that took weeks or months to get just right, and lifetimes spent tinkering with a single work that never strikes them as “just right”. To paraphrase a common saying among writers, there is no good writing, only good re-writing.

99 Useful Resources for Graphic Designers

99 Useful Resources for Graphic Designers at You the Designer - Graphic Design Blog

I have used every one of these resources as a graphic designer and website developer and have hand picked all of these resources based on their usefulness and overall quality. I hope you find these resources as useful as I do! Enjoy!

Create Advanced Online Galleries

creativepro.com - View Source: Create Advanced Online Galleries

Do you need an online portfolio or just want to post photos from your kid's birthday party? The free Lightbox2 adds sophisticated JavaScript functionality you can customize. The best part? You don't have to do a lick of programming.

Font Design Spot with Steven Heller

IDD majors - this is a must see:

YouTube - Font Design

Software & Services that Are Free - NOT Scams

creativepro.com - Software and Services that Are Free -- and Not Scams

From file transfers to audio editors, conference calls to color explorations, here are free services and programs you won't regret trying. And no, we're not getting kickbacks from these companies -- we just think this stuff is cool.

Typographic Inspiration

ALPHABET: An Exhibition of Hand-Drawn Lettering and Experimental Typography

Focusing on an ordinary subject that we see each day, often by the hundreds of thousands, Alphabet presents 26 letters as more than just shapes for conveying information. The 51 artists and designers in this show conceive and interpret the alphabet in surprising and inventive ways, ranging from graceful and polished to witty and unconventional. The 63 alphabets featured in Alphabet were created by artists in North America, Europe, and Asia, and represent work from well-known typographers and designers as well as rising artists and design students.

Tips for concentrating and focused study

10 Ways to Make Your Study Sessions More Productive | Enhanced with Minerals for Taste

Establish a routine that utilizes any or all of these things to make your study sessions more productive.

And from the University of Kent:
Concentration

Concentration means directing one's attention on whatever one intends. We all have a natural ability to concentrate. Have you noticed how difficult it is to get young children's attention when they are playing? Do you remember the time when you were completely engrossed in an interesting novel, a super film, an exciting match or an exhilarating piece of music? You were concentrating then. At this very moment you are reading these words, you are concentrating.

The ultimate “mouse trap”

Remember the game? Well here is a real life conglomeration with too many brilliant devices to even try to describe.
Watch this!

Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality

Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality

Each item was purchased, taken home, and photographed immediately. Nothing was tampered with, run over by a car, or anything of the sort. It is an accurate representation in every case. Shiny, neon-orange, liquefied pump-cheese, and all.

Forever Skull

Forever Skull: Voice: AIGA Journal of Design: Writing: AIGA

The skull. Immortal icon of mortality. Overused, overexposed, overdone—and yet evergreen, everlasting, ever in play.

Muriel Cooper: The unsung heroine of on-screen style

Muriel Cooper: The unsung heroine of on-screen style - International Herald Tribune

If you're a digital design buff or graphics geek, you may know who she is. Otherwise you're probably thinking, Muriel Who? Cooper was one of the first graphic designers to apply her skills to the computer screen. Having co-founded the Visible Language Workshop at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973, she ran it until her death in 1994, and taught many of today's most gifted software designers.

Michael Bierut's 1979 Portfolio

May I Show You My Portfolio?

In the fall of 1979, prior to my last year of design school, on a trip to New York City, I went job hunting. I visited about six design firms. One of them, Vignelli Associates, eventually made me a job offer, and that's where I started my career one week after graduating from the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture and Art in June 1980. I didn't know it then, but that would be the last time I would look for a job.

Design Inspiration: 10 years of Webby Award Winners

Webby Awards Nominees & Winners

With nearly 70 categories, Website entries make up the majority of Webby Awards Winners, Nominees and Honorees. Some are beautiful to look at and interact with. Others are a testament to usability and functionality. And a handful excel across the board. To be selected among the best is an incredible achievement worthy of praise -- and perhaps a little bragging.

Design Process - Iteration

creativepro.com - What to Do When You're Out of Ideas

You can't always count on instant answers when you're tackling a design problem. Make iterative design part of your workflow, and you won't have to.

Write It Down!

Why You Should Write Things Down

The memory isn’t very reliable. Every time we remember something we recreate what happened rather than just replay a film from our mental archives. The recreation is directed by a number of things such our beliefs, our emotional state at the time and our self-image.

Beyond Wikipedia

Beyond Wikipedia: 20 References You Can't Do Without | Scholastici.us: Student Productivity At Its Finest

You may not know this, but there are actually a number of great references available to you that aren’t Wikipedia. Now, don’t get me wrong - I love Wikipedia, too. Whenever I first begin a project I almost always go and overview it through Wikipedia. It’s a great introduction to a subject, also connecting you easily to other related ideas, people and places. But it’s not all you have. Now, put aside the enormous amount of electronic resources your school gives you access to that you never use, this is mostly resources anyone can use (with a couple of notable exceptions). Some even make use of Wikipedia, though not in the usual way. We’ll start with general resources, and then get down to the resources available to a few specific disciplines.

How to use Facebook without Losing Your Job over it

How to use Facebook without Losing Your Job over it � Internet Duct Tape

The potential downside a lot of my friends and acquaintances don’t realize is that Facebook is more like LinkedIn than MySpace and it is “on the radar” of your employers. People have already lost their jobs because of their Facebook activity. Most people don’t think about online privacy concerns like these unless they’ve had a bad experience because of being too free with information.

Avoid Getting Fired by Facebook

How to Avoid Getting Fired by Facebook - lifehack.org

Everything is public. Act as though it is going to be on the front page of the New York Times tomorrow. Facebook just announced that in a matter of a few days or weeks, it will become indexed by the colossal Google search engine. People are now also able to search for listings from the welcome page without first signing up as a member. Welcome to the front page! Beware of what you air in places like Facebook, MySpace or Twitter that have become easily searchable, fairly permanent and highly public.

Joshua Davis Design Troublemaker

Apple - Pro - Profiles - Joshua Davis

Joshua Davis is a design troublemaker. “A lot of printers ask me how I created my work,” he says mischievously. “Because technically, it’s not actually possible.”

cool sketchbook series

sketchbooks - a photoset on Flickr

Taking Notes that Work

Advice for Students: Taking Notes that Work - lifehack.org

Note-taking is one of those skills that rarely gets taught. Teachers and professors assume either that taking good notes comes naturally or that someone else must have already taught students how to take notes. Then we sit around and complain that our students don’t know how to take notes...

Design Opinions

A Brief Message features design opinions expressed in short form—200 words or less.

Understanding Strategic Design

Understanding Strategic Design: An interview with Etienne Fang

A merging of the ability to design and the ability to understand the full and widening arc of the design process is a continually growing aspect of what defines the current role of designers. Everyone from management to production must be involved in and understand the process in order to fully contribute and fully take advantage of its benefits. We’ve come to understand that design and strategy are not in a contentious relationship. Rather, they depend on one another in the realization of successful products, services and brands. From a strategic design perspective designing can be research and research can be designing.

Cool Back to School site for design students

Core77's Hack-2-School Guide

The Ultimate Design Student Guide

Make this Your Best Semester Yet...

Advice for Students: 11 Ways to Make this Your Best Semester Yet - lifehack.org

Right about now, America’s students are heading back to school for the Fall semester. Last week, I gave some very specific advice about using a wiki to store and organize notes, but keeping good notes is just part of being a successful student. Over the weekend, I decided to offer up some more general, all-purpose advice for students. Whether you’re just starting college or returning, the tips below will help you make the most out of the coming school year.

Daily Design Inspiration

The Serif

Your daily dose of design inspiration

Don't miss their blog on redesign challeges:
Redesigners

They also have a Facebook Group:
Facebook | The Serif

Make Ideas Happen

Behance :: Make Ideas Happen

The Behance team develops knowledge, products, and services for the creative professional community.

Our mission is to help creative people and teams make ideas happen. Why? Because we think that life is more interesting (and every industry is advanced) when the ideas in the minds of brilliant creatives actually happen.

Our work is based on the theory of Productive Creativity. The theory reveals a number of critical components for pushing ideas to fruition.

Life Management Tips

How to Work Like the Masters | LifeRemix

So when it comes to life itself, why wouldn't you at least consider what experts think? Trust me, I completely understand that the term 'expert' is often self-proclaimed. Nevertheless, it is up to you to hear, interpret, and evaluate information. What you do with it is ultimately your call.

Cool Project!

Skulking & Schlepping 2007

Type Gone Wild

The Best 80 Photoshop Text Effects on the Web

For some unknown reason, each time we try a new graphics application, we feel the uncontrollable desire to apply the most cheesy effects to beautifully designed typefaces. These so called text effects or type effects are carefully hidden guilty pleasures that most designers enjoy to try, but would never dare to apply in real life work.

For those like me that love text effects and have the courage to admit it, here’s a thorough guide to the best 80 text effects available on the web.

Type in Motion

mediabistro.com: UnBeige

Thanks to Mark Klaverstijn and Roel Wouters, we have a two-parter of the most amazing type-based title sequences known to man, edited together in a lovely non-chronological manner that links them together stylistically.

Graphic Design Students from Across the Pond

Central St Martins BA (Hons) Graphic Design 2007

Most students have a web portfolio link on their name page. Some really good work - check it out.

Data can be beautiful...

Data Visualization: Modern Approaches

Data presentation can be both beautiful, elegant and descriptive. There is a variety of conventional ways to visualize data - tables, histograms, pie charts and bar graphs are being used every day, in every project and on every possible occasion. However, to convey a message to your readers effectively, sometimes you need more than just a simple pie chart of your results. In fact, there are much better, profound, creative and absolutely fascinating ways to visualize data. Many of them might become ubiquitous in the next few years.

So what can we expect? Which innovative ideas are already being used? And what are the most creative approaches to present data in ways we’ve never thought before?

Hourly Rate Calculator

For my graduates doing freelance work, here’s a little tool to help you think about what you could/should be charging for your hourly rate. (Don't forget about the Graphic Artist’s Guild's Pricing and Ethical Guidelines.)

FreelanceSwitch Hourly Rate Calculator

We have developed this hourly rate calculator to give you a guide based on your costs, number of billable hours and desired profit. It is a simple tool for you to play with.

Business Week - Pushing the Boundaries of Design

Pushing the Boundaries of Design

Innovation often arises out of crossing disciplines and combining technologies. That's a focus of our look for the top cutting-edge designers

InDesign's Pathfinder Commands

creativepro.com - Better Than Ginzu Knives: InDesign's Pathfinder Commands

This fun and accessible how-to gives you a grounding in Pathfinder basics, then walks you through two recipe-like formulas for using these tools.

Better Type in Photoshop

creativepro.com - Better Type in Photoshop

Got questions about creating, committing, managing, masking, filtering, or otherwise transforming type in Photoshop? Want quick answer to those questions? I thought so!

Another Job Listing Site

This one is specific to the creative industries. Check it out:
mediabistro.com: Jobs

I have been hearing from quite a few IDD grads that have been successful in the job market. Congratulations! And those of you still looking - don't give up hope - it sometimes takes a while to find the right thing.

How to hire the best people you've ever worked with

OR in your case, I want you to think how this applies to becoming the best person that someone has ever hired...

blog.pmarca.com: How to hire the best people you've ever worked with

Drive is independent of educational experience, grade point averages, and socioeconomic background.

(But Marc, isn't a 4.0 GPA a sure sign of drive? Well, it's a sign that the person is driven to succeed on predefined tests with clear criteria and a grader -- in an environment where the student's parents are often paying a lot of money for the privilege of having their child take the tests. That may or may not be the same thing as being driven to succeed in the real world.)

Graphic Design Forum - Critiques

HOWDesign.com - Design students/professors: How do you critique?

Senior Portfolios

This year’s crop of graduating IDD Majors:

IDD480A

Maria B (no url)

John-Austin C

Kelly D

Matthew H

Lindsay K

Jaclyn L

Claudia L

Rebecca R

IDD480B

Timothy A

Caitlyn C

Matthew K

Patrick K

Jared LS

Ilana LG

Justin LB

Michael M

Jennie M (missing url)

Jean-Patric M

James MC

Stefano S

Jessica S

Cassandra S

Ame U

Alex V

Cool business card designs

Man, I wish this post had been around in February when the seniors were working on their designs....

Cool business card designs | creativebits

You want a new business card, don't you? Of course. This is the most important element of your visual identity. It's the first thing people see when they meet you.

Here is a collection of cool business cards to inspire you. Most of them are from the Business Cards flickr pool, some of them from Ads of the World.

Here’s the Flikr Pool - some good & some not:
business cards - a photoset on Flickr

IDD315 Student Websites

These are the final project websites that the students in Scripting class created to house their ActionScript experiments.

Craig A.

Thomas C.

Matt F.

Mercedes I.


Amanda L.

Claudia L.

Billy M.

Dan S.

Eric W.

What do you wish you'd been told before you left school?

Ask The Readers: What do you wish you'd been told before you left school? - Lifehacker

It's the fair month of May, which means countless graduates will walk across a stage and receive their diploma in the coming weeks. An educator at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Hungary writes in:

Some of my students will finish the university this year and leave the dormitory. We've spent 5-6 really fine years together and I'd love to give them some tips before they enter life. What is the thing you wish you'd been told when you just left school?

I could fill a book with things I know now that I wish I knew then, but instead I'm putting the question to you wise lifehackers. Got a life tip to share with graduates everywhere? Share it in the comments - and congratulations, graduates.

6 Month Action Plan

1. Make list of books to read & start reading

2. Target software tutorials (if you don't use it - you lose it)

3. Make new stuff!

4. Update portfolio (& show it off!)

5. Research - whatever interests you...

6. Classes & Workshops - take ‘em

7. Network: with people in the field, attend AIGA meetings & design conferences, look up successful IDD grads (Facebook?)

8. Keep eyes open for new ideas (study design, trends, developments)

9. Get out of yourself… breathe, stretch, meditate, self-care, dance, relax, sing…

10. Keep in touch: with friends & professors

Possible Results from these actions:

-Build confidence
-Stimulate creativity
-Personal growth
-Economic growth (?)

***No matter how long your job search takes, Don’t Let It Get You Down, and Don’t Give Up!!!!***


Thank you for all your hard work and congratulations. I will miss you all.

XXPB

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