5 Reasons to Hone Your Verbal and Written Skills

Measuring Up: 5 Reasons to Hone Your Verbal and Written Skills — AIGA | the professional association for design

How do you rate in the workplace? What are best practices? What skills do designers need in order to excel at and accelerate in their careers? AIGA and Roz Goldfarb Associates surveyed a small, but geographically diverse group of hiring managers to learn about the skills they seek in creative talent beyond visual communication abilities. This is the first in a series of articles sharing their insights and constructive comments for designers, to offer a window onto the hopes (and frustrations) of your potential employers. We hope this information will be useful, so please share your thoughts and questions, too.

An Introduction to Graphic Design

An Introduction to Graphic Design: Observatory: Design Observer

Broadly defined, graphic designers (sometimes referred to as “communication designers”) are the visual ambassadors of ideas: their role is to translate, communicate — and occasionally even agitate — by rendering thinking as form, process and
experience. *

Vecteezy

Free Vector Art - Download Free Vector Art Graphics at Vecteezy!

Vecteezy is a community of vector art! We provide a place for vector artists to create and exchange a variety of free vector graphics like Vector Icons, Vector Patterns, Vector Swirls, Flourishes and other cool stuff to enchance your designs and creativity.

The Now Habit

The Now Habit: Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

I've read The Now Habit multiple times, I've given copies away to college freshman I'm teaching (every year I watch them struggle with procrastination and time management), and I've praised the book to anyone who confided in their struggles with procrastination and a sense of despair in the overwhelming nature of their work. If you've read books about procrastination and put them down in frustration after they turned out to be a rehash of the old 'just focus and work harder!' shtick, Neil Fiore's The Now Habit is a refreshing look at the habits and thinking that drive procrastination and what you can do to change the way you work and play.

The End of Forgetting

The Web Means the End of Forgetting - NYTimes.com

According to a recent survey by Microsoft, 75 percent of U.S. recruiters and human-resource professionals report that their companies require them to do online research about candidates, and many use a range of sites when scrutinizing applicants — including search engines, social-networking sites, photo- and video-sharing sites, personal Web sites and blogs, Twitter and online-gaming sites. Seventy percent of U.S. recruiters report that they have rejected candidates because of information found online, like photos and discussion-board conversations and membership in controversial groups.

Why Are College Students Studying Less?

A good read for the beginning of a new semester:

Why Are College Students Studying Less? - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com

Classes begin this week at many college campuses around the country. A recent report by two economists at the University of California found that over the past four decades the time college students spend in class and studying has decreased substantially, from 40 hours a week in 1961 to 27 hours a week in 2003. At the same time, a report released in July by the Delta Cost Project found college spending on instruction declining while spending on recreation and student services rose.

What are students doing with their time? Are hours that might be spent in library carrels being diverted to educational extracurricular activities? Or are students simply enjoying more leisure because colleges demand less of them?

Danish Design School Exhibition Images

Graduation Exhibition 2010 - a set on Flickr

The Danish Design School and friends celebrate and showcase the work of 75 designers on their way into the world.

August 19 - 31th
Carlsberg, Pasteursvej 4, 6. sal, 1778 Copenhagen V.
Opening Hours: 11am – 6pm. Weekends: 11am – 5pm.

The 2010 Graduation Show presents the latest prognoses for Danish design by 75 graduate students. With a very high graduation grade average this year’s graduates demonstrate that modern material skills, a strong theoretical basis and a playful conceptual awareness can make a difference.

From service design, redesign of stucco and campaigns for the Red Cross to fashion, new types of housing, pocket parks and user-friendly medicine packaging
From LED-driven glass objects, storytelling for TV, video and the web - to digital services, business models, patient hotels and service design that teach young people how to become experts on the Danish tax system. Meet crazy illustrations, new interaction design or industrial design with a playful, public approach to health issues. All examples of design that addresses essential questions which affect our daily life in 2010.

History of graphic Design Resource

Design Is History

As a designer it is important to understand where design came from, how it developed, and who shaped its evolution. The more exposure you have to past, current and future design trends, styles and designers, the larger your problem-solving toolkit. The larger your toolkit, the more effective of a designer you can be.

Part of the graduate thesis of designer Dominic Flask, this site was created as a teaching tool for young designers just beginning to explore graphic design and as a reference tool for all designers. It is supposed to provide brief overviews of a wide range of topics rather than an in-depth study of only a few. It is a constantly evolving, changing, expanding reference library.

A Blog on Ethics in Graphic Design

Ethics in Graphic Design

Eileen MacAvery Kane created this blog as part of her MFA thesis in graphic design at Savannah College of Art and Design as a forum for the exploration of ethical issues in graphic design, to provide resources for further investigation, and to create an open dialogue among graphic designers about these critical issues.

Ethics: A Graphic Designer’s Field Guide, was created to serve as a handbook and reference for the topics. More information is posted on the guide page. Both the blog and handbook were created for her MFA thesis entitled “Ethics in Graphic Design: A Call to Arms for an Undergraduate Course.”

Comp It Up: A Studio Skills Foundation

As a professor of interactive and graphic design, many books cross my desk each semester. Every now & then there is one or two I get excited about. This is one of those books. If you are one of my students - this is a must read - order it now. :)

Amazon.com: Comp It Up: A Studio Skills Foundation (9781428322356): Rose Gonnella, Christopher J. Navetta: Books

Comp It Up: A Studio Skills Foundation is a one of kind practical and functional guide for students learning to produce professional-level comprehensive mockups and portfolio presentations in graphic design. This text not only covers a wide range of materials and techniques needed to produce these mockups, but it also promotes creative inspiration with hundreds of images and examples. Readers will also find dozens of step by step visuals to help them in learning how to work out more difficult techniques. Exploring both traditional print and new media applications, Comp It Up is adaptable to a variety of graphic design and advertising design applications. Using this text, students will not only learn the skills they need to build comprehensive mockups, but they will also gain the knowledge and confidence needed to present them professionally.

Another Color Palette Tool

0to255

0to255 is a simple tool that helps web designers find variations of any color. Perfect for hovers, borders, gradients, and more.

IDD Professor & Alumn Design Blog

Courtney Phillips has some great posts, go take a read:

All finals have been handed in and students have high-tailed it home for summer. Some are fortunate enough to have landed a summer job or internship to work on their skills and maybe even earn a little money, but others are left to wonder…what in the world do I do with the next 3.5 months? It’s a frustrating economy and time to be a design student, so here are some of my tips for using your summer wisely (looking for work and a backup)...

http://thecreativblog.wordpress.com/

Logotype/Wordmark

Logotype/Wordmark Logos: 30 Creative Examples

Logotypes (or wordmarks) are logos that use typography to represent companies, organizations and products. Logo designers show their talent and creative skills by crafting a logotype that’s memorable, clever, and symbolic of the company they’re representing. To follow up on our logo design tutorial that presented a process developing a logotype from start to finish, here’s a showcase of logotypes (wordmarks) for visual inspiration.

Portfolio Inspiration

Beautiful Personal Web Portfolios: A Showcase

Placing your portfolio on the Web gives you an additional venue to feature your work and gain more clients. In addition, in this day and age, clients expect you to have some form of web presence. For your inspiration, here is a visual showcase of some eye-catching web portfolios of creatives in various industries. This showcase follows up on Matthew Heidenreich’s tutorial on creating a portfolio web layout in Photoshop.

Package Design Resource

TheDieline.com: Package Design

Established in 2007 by Andrew Gibbs, The Dieline is dedicated to the progress of the package design industry and its practitioners, students and enthusiasts. Its purpose is to define and promote the world’s best examples of packaging, and provide a place where the package design community can review, critique and stay informed of the latest industry trends and design projects being created in the field.

Retro and Vintage Photoshop Tutorials

50 Beautiful Retro and Vintage Photoshop Tutorials

Retro and vintage designs are valued for nostalgia and sentimental memories. You can notice that retro and vintage design is created by using rich colors, grunge elements and various textures. In this collection, you’ll find 50 retro and vintage related Photoshop tutorials. These tutorials are useful and unique, so you will learn some new techniques that you can use in your next projects.

design mind by frog design

Work – Life - Issue 12 | design mind

About design mind

Published by global innovation firm frog design, design mind is a media platform that includes a print magazine, a website, videos, and events.

Written by frog designers, technologists, and strategists, design mind articles provide the design and innovation community with perspectives on industry trends, emerging technologies, and global consumer culture. design mind also features interviews with high-profile thought leaders, along with contributions from external writers, designers, and photographers.

The design mind Web site is regularly updated with fresh video, blog, and event content.

The print issue of design mind is published three times per year.

Drop Cap Inspiration

Daily Drop Cap

The Daily Drop Cap is an ongoing project by typographer and illustrator Jessica Hische. Each day (or at least each WORK day), a new hand-crafted decorative initial cap will be posted for your enjoyment and for the beautification of blog posts everywhere. To use a Daily Drop Cap on your site or blog, follow the instructions in each post and read about the usage limitations. Daily Drop Caps should be used in blog posts only and not for personal logos or branding. Daily Drop Caps cannot be used in any printed materials or stationery. Enjoy!

idsgn (a design blog)

idsgn

idsgn is a new blog about the things we see and enjoy (or sometimes hate) as designers.

We like to talk about graphic design, branding, typography, and sometimes we might post a video or two. Grab our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter where we post the extra bits that don't make it here.

Type Blog

Type for you.

Typeforyou is a blog on typography.