Think of the last toddler you saw who so desperately wanted to know "Why?" Part of us is still that toddler wanting to know why the sky is blue. Why is this logo green? Why is the bag brown? Why is my bankcard gold? Sometimes the logic is self-evident; the brown logo is for the local coffeehouse; the package...
Who is afraid of failure? Just about everyone, right? Blame the school system with the stark grades on a report card or red letters at the top of a report. Blame childhoods, blame the media, blame anyone or any system you choose. Yet here we are as a group of creative thinkers, creative minds, creators. We create, we don't...
To laugh in the face of danger has always been advised against. But when it comes to public safety and warning illustrations, this doesn’t always seem to be kept in mind. These signs are not approved by OSHA, so have a laugh and please, take care of your head.
If you have worked as a graphic designer for any length of time, you may have heard a few terms thrown around by your clients as they critique your work. You have tried your best to present a well-executed and thoughtfully designed piece and your client says, “It looks nice, but it needs a more, pizzazz. Can you jazz...
Through information graphics, or infographics, complex information that would normally be heavy in text form can be presented quickly and clearly. We see infographics almost everywhere now on a variety of topics, including food, technology, business, health, politics, media, transportation and even product packaging. We also see flow charts for making decisions, visually...
When I was a design student, we'd take tours of design studios. At the end of the tour we were offered a question and answer period. One question was asked again and again, "Do you do things by hand or on the computer?" Why was this asked over and over? Why was the question phrased as if the two...
Abigail Smith is an award-winning graphic designer who specializes in web applications and digital environments. Since 2002, she has worked with a host of arts and non-profit organizations from her home base in Brooklyn, NY. She's shared a collection of some attention grabbing humanitarian campaigns with us.
Subjectivity is the curse of design, and designers. Fortunately there’s a valuable, but often overlooked phase in the design process that can remedy this situation - testing. Testing provides designers a chance to see which design solutions will potentially work best. Testing also provides a counter balance to one of the biggest traps designers face – selecting designs based...
Communication and language are constantly, organically shifting. Letters and words are universal, but language changes by location, slang phrases change with fads, and dialect changes by region. The modern alphabet has stayed consistent for centuries; what has changed is the life surrounding our letters, and the means by which we can manipulate them. We have shifted from endless pen...
Yves Béhar is a visionary. Founder of fuseproject, a San Francisco based design agency, Béhar aims to break into new markets and disrupt old ones by bringing a humanistic approach to his work. You may remember him for the world’s first $100 laptop for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization.
