Take a look at your design portfolio. Does piece one for client A have distinct similarities to piece one for client B? By that I mean, do the pieces share similar concepts and/or layouts? Do the same typefaces, color palettes, and types of imagery appear project after project? Is there a “look and feel” that permeates everything you do?...
Can the graphic design of everyday products be used as anthropological tools? What does the look of matchboxes, notebooks and cold cream jars say about cultural attitudes and history? We invited design expert Alisa Grifo, proprietor of popular New York design store Kiosk, http://www.kioskkiosk.com which features interesting utilitarian objects from different countries for six months at a time, to...
Most designers are pretty familiar with shopping for royalty free photos and illustrations for use in their designs. For anywhere from one dollar to hundreds, you can find just the image you need from various stock library sites. Interactive designers often need more than images to get the message across. For many Flash pieces and videos, music or sound...
When most designers create a chair they make a sketch and build a prototype. When Swedish design collective Front create a chair they hook up a motion capture sensor to their index fingers to draw its shape in the air. Then they send the sketch file to a laser sintering beam that slowly builds the final chair from liquid...
I recently found an article that presented the 30 must-have fonts for designers, and it made me wonder what other must-haves that design professionals recommend for beginners… First off, those 30 must-have fonts I mentioned are found at justcreativedesign.com. Jacob Cass breaks them down by serif and sans serif, and includes some that you likely have handy (Helvetica, Lucida)...
Adobe Systems and the people at Cut & Paste have joined forces to present “See What’s Possible.” All manner of designers, photographers, and animators are invited to submit an animation or motion graphic video no more than 15-seconds in length that speaks to the theme: “Photoshop: See What’s Possible.” A panel of judges will select the five winners, who...
Though it seems like something we should have figured out by now, it is amazing how often the subject of whether to underline or not underline links comes up in design process (or, alternatively, how often links that should be underlined are not underlined). From a design standpoint, underlining links, especially when there are quite a few of them,...
It’s a question as old as freelancing itself. How much do I charge my potential client? Too much and you risk not getting the job. Too little and you risk a lot of things: looking low-end, not getting enough to cover your time and costs, dooming future jobs to similar low rates… There’s no hard and fast formula to...
Introduction This is the second in a series of articles I’m writing to cover a number of quick, easy usability tests that designers can do in very little time and at low or no cost. The first article covered testing button label clarity and effectiveness. This article addresses a test for something more ephemeral—branding and ethos. Test #2 –...
I know I’ve posted about it once, maybe even twice, but table-based web designers (myself included)… your days are numbered. I’m always surprised when I see so many web designers using tables for layout, but I can understand it. Most designers started with tables, and while tabled layouts are so inflexible, they’re quick and easy to create. Making the...
