16 posts tagged “design”
Looks like the British Government might have taken it too far according to some. The new anti-smoking campaign really steps up to the line and definitely has a shock value. Is this necessarily wrong?
I had to laugh at the complaints that it bothered some people's children. Personally I think a little shock value might make them think twice before lighting up. To me the ads served their purpose if they got that type of reaction. Also I really didn't think they showed anything that bad in the commercial. Come on!
It's amusing to think that the hundreds of complaints actually caused more publicity for the ads than they probably would have originally gotten. Now it will surely be all over the net and tons more will see them. No such thing as bad publicity these days!
Hooked Anti-Smoking Ad Sparks Record Complaints by Rueters
TV Commercials...
I have been in a writing / blogging craze over the last week. I wanted to share some of the posts I put up on a sister blog, The Whine Cooler. As part of a group of designs who network through a private forum, we decided to launch a group blog. It is in the infancy stages at this point but it sure hasn't stopped me from writing. Who knew the guy who hated writing papers in high school and college would turn into such a blogging nut. Boy do I love to write now. Ha!
Is a Dynamic Logo right for your business?
Over the weekend I was browsing the internet for articles on Branding
and Identity Design when I stumbled upon a great article from back in
February. The article talks about how dynamic and changeable logos... continue reading
Why a Designer Works a Niche
As I grow my own client list and pull in more design work I have
started to ask myself what I consider my niche to be. This isn’t an
easy question to answer because the work I have done has been varied.
Everything from logos to business cards to greeting cards to
advertisements to signage. As a designer I try not to limit what I do
for my clients and therefore find that I have my hands in a lot. This
is far from the idea of having a niche. The more I learn about it the
more I feel having a niche... continue reading
Mac User - Please Turn on Your File Extensions
...voice a bit of a pet peeve of mine. One of the biggest issues we run
into when handling files is that the file extensions are missing. Macs
tend to have less issue with this as compared to PCs. Macs have the
ability to turn on and off their file extensions. So when a designer
saves and packages a job, you can end up with a series of files without
any indication... continue reading
The World Through a Different Lens
As designers we just don’t see the world that surrounds us the same as
other people. It’s not a bad thing. It’s actually a rather fun and
exciting experience but sometimes our observations can draw rather
peculiar looks from friends and family. Not because they... continue reading
Happy Earth Day! What are some of your favorite ways to reduce, reuse and recycle?
As a designer there is one big way I try to be environmentally conscious. It is with the paper I recommend to my clients. A lot of paper companies are doing more and more to bring better quality papers made out of recycled materials. There definitely seems to be a big push about this throughout the design community. This is good and hopefully it will continue to grow. You can read some more about how paper companies are doing this in the article Thinking Green by Gordon Kaye in the magazine GD USA.
Happy Earth Day to all! It really couldn't be a much better day weather wise in Upstate New York. Spring is finally here!
There was a really interesting post on Rookie Designer the other day about a little program that works on the color display of your iPod. The program, Kolor Wheel from Koloroo, turns your iPod into a color wheel.
Obviously you don’t want to use this program on your iPod for color matching but it could definitely serve as a useful tool during meetings with a client. It could be a good way to show a client what colors go well together. It even gives the RGB values for when you want to apply them to your work.
However, as interesting as this program is, I am not so sure it will catch on. With the concerns about the screens calibration and its ability to show true color, it might be a bit risky to use in front of a client. Also the lack of CMYK values (only listing RGB) it might not be well suited for print designers and seems to be a bit more geared towards web designers.
It’s a nifty little gadget but I think that’s all this is right now. Maybe it can be improved upon and someone could figure out how to calibrate the screen. It’s definitely an interesting way to use your iPod and could be the start of something.
As a hearing impaired individual I was very pleased to find that InDesignSecrects.com has made an effort to bring their podcast to the hearing impaired. They had an individual write to them explaining that as a hearing impaired individual he felt that he was unable to enjoy the podcast that so many other InDesign users do. I was very impressed with the reaction from Ann-Marie Concepcion and David Blatner and how they addressed the issue in Podcast 22. They decided to provide written transcripts of their podcasts so that individuals not able to listen to the podcasts can read what was discussed.
This move by InDesignSecrects.com to make an effort to get hearing impaired individuals involved got me thinking about how so many other podcasts could do the same. It also got me thinking about the fact that videocasts are not usually available with closed caption. Why is this? Is this something that can be changed? Web designers make an effort to add "alt" tags to images on the web for those who are blind and have special software that reads them websites So why can't the same courtesy be given to hearing impaired individuals when it comes to videocasts and podcasts? I think this is something that needs to change and the blogosphere should be reactive to these requests.
There are some places trying to bring closed caption to their videos. Lynda.com is one of the first sites I saw that has the availability on some of it's videocasts. There is even a write up on their site about closed caption. Personally I think they need to grow the number that are available but I applaud them for being out front of what I hope will be a movement to make things a little easier for hearing impaired individuals.
As a hearing impaired individual I want to personally thank InDesignSecrets.com and Lynda.com for making the effort. I am sure there are others out there doing the same and I hope they will come forward to tell us who they are. If you know of a site making this same effort then please post a link to their site in the comments. If I get enough I will write another post listing those that have been mentioned. Hopefully more podcast and videocasts will take notice of what others have done and make an effort to do the same. It will be appreciated by those who would otherwise not get to be involved with those communities.
Over the last few weeks I have been catching more and more of the Whiteboard Commercials for UPS. I think these are great marketing pieces and wonderful design. Can't get any more K.I.S.S. than a whiteboard and a guy drawing on it.
I was really curious who the guy was doing the drawing so I did some research. I made a really cool discovery. The guy doing the drawing is actually from the agency that pitched the idea to UPS. Andy Azula is from Martin Agency in Richmond, Virginia. Supposedly, UPS did a search for someone to do the drawing but didn't find anyone they liked as much as Andy Azula. There are a series of 11 commercials being run by UPS. You can see some of these on the UPS website set up specifically for this ad campaign. You can also read more about this set of commercials at the Chicago Sun-Times website. I also like the little extra drawing bits Andy Azula throws in at the end.
Here is an example of one:
I was watching Rocketboom's Tuesday video cast when I saw a really awesome device that I think every sports watching beer drinker needs. The device is the Beer Launcher. It takes the beer out of the mini-fridge for you and tosses it to you. Can it get any better than that? Accuracy is unbelievable!
I posted this afternoon on my graphic design blog, Prepressology, about some rumors being turned into exciting news.
Photoshop has become a household name over the past few years. It might be in some part due to it being one of the biggest programs illegally downloaded and hacked. However, I like to stand on the more positive side and say it is because Adobe has done an amazing job of broadening their customer bases. For a long time Photoshop was a program that only photographers or graphic artists talked about. Adobe has changed that with the availability of the free Photoshop Album Starter Edition, Photoshop Elements for the amateur photographers and even Photoshop Lightroom for the professional photographer. All of these are trimmed or tweaked versions of their big brother Photoshop, which is part of the Creative Suite.
With this move into the broader customer base, the brand Photoshop has become a well known name. Many times the word Photoshop is used as an adjective when describing...
I have been a fan of others projects Catherine (cat) Morley has worked on. Some of which include Designers Who Blog, No!SPEC and Creative Latitude. The news that popped into my Google Reader today was definitely some cool stuff. I actually received the news from Neil Tortorella's blog, Inside the Marketing Mind. Neil is one of Cat's partners on this new project.
This new project is called Business of Design Online or BoDo for short. As a designer who is trying to work my way into self employment with my own design business, I find this new site to be a very exciting addition to my bookmarks and RSS reader.
According to the BoDo site...
BoDo is
Where to come for practical business advice. Maybe you’ve already made a range of expensive mistakes. Maybe you are trying to avoid the possibilities. No prob, your-mistakes-are-us.BoDo is grass-roots-get-down-and-dirty-love-yo-mamma. We’ll talk about serious subjects such as “When to bring in a PITA clause,” “How to keep your clients” and “How to fire a client.” As well as lighter fare like “Working in your undies” and “How to tell when your down time is up.”
Honestly I feel this is exactly what I have been looking for and the fact that it is being run by some designers that I admire makes it even better. The information is going to come straight from people who have experienced it first hand and are willing to share those experiences with us. This could help us prevent stumbles or even full out crashes with our own business.
I look forward to what BoDo is going to offer. This is exciting news and I want to wish all the parties involved in this project the best of luck!
