Don’t be lazy—pick up the phone I know it’s tempting, but don’t do it. Electronic communication makes it so easy to do business without ever talking to your client, but don’t get swept up in the virtuality of it all. There are times when you must have a real-time, live exchange with another person. And one of those times...
The redesign of a website is a prime opportunity to make important changes to content, navigation, and functionality. It’s also a good time to step back and analyze the business objectives of the site and overall internet efforts, as well as to develop a long-term plan for getting the most from this communication channel. One thing is evident: Excellent...
Redbook cover of Faith Hill; image via Jezebel In case you’ve ever wondered what’s in a day’s work for professional photo retouchers, the folks at fashion blog Jezebel.com have something they’d like you to see. In an effort to debunk fashion editorial mags’ unrealistic standards of feminine beauty, they offered a $10,000.00 reward for the person who could submit...
If you don’t subscribe to this principle stop reading now, as this post probably isn’t for you. So let’s say that a client approaches you and needs 10 pieces, which are all variations of the same campaign in different formats. Try as you might to understand the objectives and differences between all of these pieces, you just can’t figure...
1. “You don’t have to put copyright notices on your work anymore.” This myth arose because of the amendments to the Copyright law after the US became a member of the Berne Convention, the international copyright treaty. In Berne countries, copyright notices are not required. When a country becomes a member of the Berne Convention, it may not require...
Years ago, digital designers turned to the Macintosh platform because the essential applications performed better there than on Windows. In fact, the earliest versions of Photoshop and Illustrator were Mac-only. Today, these applications run just fine on Windows, but Mac remains the industry standard for design. So why not make the most out of the platform you use every...
Surprisingly this principle is often overlooked in design curriculums. Graphic design is ultimately your interpretation of information, and in order to design something you must understand it. In most cases the target audience knows as much or even less about the brand than you do. How can you communicate to this audience if you don’t know what you are...
Josh Chen We met San Francisco-based Graphic Designer Josh Chen at the HOW design conference, where he made a presentation about using handwork in graphic design. Josh is the founder of Chen Design Associates, and has over twenty years of experience in design, broadcasting, journalism and music. Named one of the “50 People to Watch” by GraphicDesignUSA, Josh is...
…or is it? I want! I want! I want! I want a new iPhone, and I want to take pictures with it, and download music onto it, and watch movies on it, and I want a million dollars to help me buy it and pay the monthly bill: one reason of several that only 146,000 iPhones were actually connected...
In this time of market saturation, what do you look for in the things that you buy? If you are like me, the latest and greatest stuff just isn’t enough. I want to buy from brands that I like and people I enjoy working with—companies and people who are accountable for their actions. These accountable companies ultimately make my...
