Good thing designers are curious types, hyper-aware of the visual world around them. The designers I’ve met tend to mine their surroundings and experiences for creative fodder that feeds, consciously or subconsciously, into their work. Keeping an eye on trends—fashion, interior décor, color, type—is one of the ways creative pros can stay abreast of what’s fresh (or what’ll be fresh six months from now). So, how can you spot trends? Look at what teenage boys and girls are into, especially the cool kids on the fringes—they’re quick to adopt the next big thing. Keep an eye out for movies that are due to come out later in the year; as Pantone’s Leatrice Eisman has noted, the first “Shrek” movie made lime green very in vogue. And watch the trendwatchers. A couple of sites we like Read the rest of this entry »

I am among the last generation of copywriters who sat with art directors and designers as they sliced into type galleys to hand-kern letters, adjust word or line spacing, or piece together new words and sentences.

“Can we cut seven characters out of this copy block?” they’d ask, and I’d take up the challenge, think of another way to say the same thing in the same voice using not only seven fewer characters but also only the words and characters already typeset.

It was the final, laborious polish on the mechanical, and it was a team effort.

Now it seems there’s less sweat equity in the way copy looks. And that’s too bad.

Why accept an imperfect line break, a stray widow or orphan, or a repetitive word stack when the solution might be a minor re-write? As a copywriter, I think anything that enhances the visual appeal of copy, makes it more inviting, is worth doing.

It’s not just about legibility. It’s about fine-tuning the details to create great work.

In my development years as a graphic designer, I had a mentor named Phil Meggs. Unfortunately, Phil is no longer with us. However, one lesson he instilled in me made an incredible difference in my career. I’d like to share it with you: Never pass up an opportunity to learn from a master. I know, you’ve probably heard that before — but it’s time to take it seriously. Successful practitioners in the graphic design discipline will all agree that you don’t know where you are going unless you know where you’ve been.

Never pass up an opportunity to learn from the masters. Attend a seminar; visit a gallery show; take a workshop — particularly if the event is by a master. There are lots of opportunities, but you have to go and find them. If you’re in New York, try to catch a seminar or workshop with Ed Benguait. Yes, he still teaches at NYU. Read the rest of this entry »

Some folks aren’t aware how powerful Firefox is for web development. There are several extensions available to help with our job of designing web sites. Below is a short list to help get you started.

• The Web Developer Toolbar: [http://chrispederick.com/work/webdeveloper/]
Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools.
• Colorzilla: [http://www.iosart.com/firefox/colorzilla/]
Advanced Eyedropper, Color picker and Page zoomer
• MeasureIt: [http://www.kevinfreitas.net/extensions/measureit/]
A ruler to measure your screen with
• HTML Validator: [http://users.skynet.be/mgueury/mozilla/]
Adds HTML validation to the ‘View Page Source’ of the browser
• Screen Grab!: [http://andy.5263.org/screengrab/]
Takes a screen shot of your web page.

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From the NoD Sponsor:

Sessions Online Schools of Art and Design is an accredited online graphic and web design school offering:

- Web design classes and web design Certificate Programs taught by renowned design instructors.

Softbank Mobile is releasing the Sharp 812SH in 20 different colors…the best part, the colors all come from the Pantone Matching System!

Talk about Color Coordinating!

When the ideas flow, concepting is fun. When they don’t, I grind away over award books, archives, and stock photo sites producing page after page of tedious, trite, irrelevant, stupid ideas. Yes, I may be laying the groundwork for later brilliance. Or not. That’s why, when the deadline looms, it pays to have a few different approaches to concept development in one’s mental toolkit.

Here are more than 100 creativity techniques to unclog the brain. Many of them are actually information-gathering or evaluation techniques, but there are still a lot of different ways to approach a problem here. Three techniques that I’ve found useful are Brutethink, Laddering, and Osborn’s Checklist.

http://www.mycoted.com/Category:Creativity_Techniques

Design Matters: Packaging is a how-to package design book, (the third in the Design Matters series), slated for release in July 2008. The book was authored and designed by Capsule, a Minneapolis design firm, and published by Rockport Publishers. Capsule and Rockport are currently accepting submissions for publication. Visit site for submission guidelines, as well as book details and publisher info.

This is a time sensitive project.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: April 13, 2007

DETAILS

Alex Wipperfurth, brand marketing consultant and accessory to hijack.

Alex Wipperfurth is a San-Francisco-based marketing consultant who traffics in radical ideas. Through his agency Plan B, Wipperfurth has elevated grassroots marketing into something of an artform. Brands as diverse as Napster, Dr Marten’s, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Barbie have all benefited from Wipperfurth’s methodology, which often times flies in the face of big budget, mass media, focus group tested marketing. Wipperfurth creates a cult following for most of his brands through a creative, low-budget, person-to-person strategy that "seeds" the product with a target audience of trend-setters. The customer in effect "hijacks" the brand, sparking an authentic buzz that makes the brand cool.

Prior to the release of his new book Brand Hijack, we interviewsed Alex about what his ideas mean for visual designers. After all, marketers and designers do face the same challenges: How do we reach our target audience without placing an ad on Fox? How do we make a design "cool" without trying too hard?

Digital designers take note: Coca-Cola is the latest mega-product to move away from TV and into digital media as the advertising vehicle of choice. Calling upon an ad agency known for their new-media savvy and offbeat style, they’ve launched an ad campaign for their new calorie-free “Coke Zero.” Comprised of email campaigns, web banner ads, and video clips placed on file-sharing sites such as Kazaa and Limewire, as well as YouTube and cokezero.com, the campaign takes a wry jab at Coca-Cola’s gargantuan corporate status by suggesting that the executives at the original Coke brand want to sue Coke Zero over “taste infringement”…

MORE

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From the NoD Sponsor:

Sessions Online Schools of Art and Design is an accredited online graphic and web design school offering design career preparation including Web Design Certificates, Graphic Design Certificates, Multimedia Arts Certificates.

This week, I’ve been trading e-mails with Peleg Top, a designer in Los Angeles. I first met Peleg ages ago at a HOW Conference, and over the years we’ve become friends. Peleg was telling me that, after pondering the things he really loves to do—cooking, photography, music—he realized that he was spending absolutely zero time on any of them. So he recently took a major step toward his longtime goal of becoming a chef: He enrolled in The Kitchen Academy in Los Angeles, and he’s started a blog about his experience (http://www.thetopkitchen.com). All this while he continues to run his successful design studio. That’s right: He goes to culinary school at 6:00 a.m., and by noon is at his drawing board. I asked him how he does it, and he sent me this article: How to Become an Early Riser about getting up early … really early. Is there anything you love doing so much that you’d gratefully get up at the crack of dawn?

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From the NoD Sponsor:

Sessions Online Schools of Art and Design is an accredited online graphic and web design school offering:

- Graphic design classes and graphic design Certificate Programs taught by renowned design instructors.