Sep 29
September 2008
A (supposedly) True story.
A woman walks into an ice cream shop, steps up to the counter and orders a cone. After paying, she swings around and finds herself face to face with Paul Newman. He says hello and she nods, unable to speak.
Moments later, as she makes her way down the street, she realizes she doesn't have her ice cream cone. She returns to the shop and as she opens the door she again meets Newman who asks, "Are you looking for your ice cream cone?" "Yes," she concedes. He smiles and motions, "You put it in your purse with your change."
(Snopes.com calls it doubtful. Oh well.)
A few more of my favorites...
Sep 26
September 2008
That claim, of course, is the what we hope any new software upgrade will provide. For those who love new tools, Adobe has announced what they are calling a major upgrade of Creative Suite: CS4.
I, of course, will need all of this—and not just the wimpy pro packages. I will need the gigantic MASTER Collection which will allow me to conquer both the Earth AND many of the outlying planets. (Anybody got $900?)
Adobe Creative Suite 4...
In the Ideabook Design Store: FontHead Typefaces...
Sep 24
September 2008
Language is critical to design—what we do not show must be said. And there are many readers in the audience who will simply write us off if our messages include errors in grammar, spelling, and the misuse of words and phrases.
Are you a sufferer? Here is a great little document that "fleshes out" some of the phrases that some "couldn't care less about" but that others are "champing at the bit" to have used properly.
BTW, the solution to this problem is to have all copy edited and proofread by an expert. I use John Fakorede—an expert writer and designer whom I recommend without reservation (see the link below).
A good starter list of misused words and phrases from justsell.com...
BTW justsell.com has some other excellent sales performance resources for writers and designers...
You can contact one of my favorite proofreaders and editors, John Fakorede, through Studio Anino here...
In the Ideabook Design Store: Getting It Printed...
Sep 22
September 2008
My son Jeff Green, a design student at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), recently introduced me to the work of Hugh Dubberly. I should know of him, he is a well respected designer and teacher who worked for Apple Computer in the 80s and 90s where he contributed in no small part to its innovative approach to product development. These days he is the principal of The Dubberly Design Office (DDO), a firm that specializes in interface design, usability testing, brand development, and so on.
What caught my eye when visiting his site was the selection of "concept maps." As they put it, "We create concept maps, a type of model, to explore and learn about complex information spaces. By showing everything—the forest and the trees—in a single view, concept maps help people create mental models and clarify thoughts."
I'm just getting started with it. I'd love to hear you thoughts about the model. (Click "Comments" below.) Thanks Jeff!
A Model of Innovation PDF (44KB)...
A guide to the map...
More concept maps...
New in the Ideabook Design Store: Creative Advertising...
Sep 19
September 2008
Half the battle of organizing a toolbox is keeping track of what's in it. One handy resource we all have access to (but that I rarely use) is the collection of symbols and dingbats associated with various fonts on our systems. Jesse Gardner has made browsing and inserting these little gems a breeze with an ingenious tool called SymbolAssist.
The idea is simple: you locate the symbol you want to use on the SymbolAssist chart and click it to copy it to your computer's clipboard. Then, you simply paste it into whatever you are writing or designing. (Paste on the Mac is Command-V, on the PC is Control-V). Very cool.
SymbolAssist from Plasticmind.com...
In the Ideabook Design Store: Becoming a Graphic Designer
Sep 17
September 2008
Thanks to Suffolk Software for sponsoring an interesting new survey on color. They are inviting visitors to a match word (and its definition) to the colors that best matches it. I predict the exercise will reveal that there is no definitive consensus.
Why? Because there are too many variables. Our impressions of color are built on an incalculable set of influences--seemingly unrelated considerations such as our geographical location, upbringing, or education, or for explicit reasons such as the context in which the color is presented, the other colors it is mixed with, the background on which it sits, and so on.
I have long thought that "blue means cool" is an over simplification of a complex, highly personal impression. How do you identify the meaning of a specific color? I don't think you can but I'd be delighted to be proven wrong.
The Cymbolism.com experiment...
In the Ideabook Design Store: Before & After: Graphics For Business...
Sep 15
September 2008
I was talking with a photographer friend today and we were talking about our propensity to get so wrapped up in the creative process that the business side suffers.
Digital Railroad, as they put it, is "An online archive platform and marketing services company for the professional photography community. DRR's mission is to empower the community of photographers, photo agencies, and image buyers with trusted technology so they can focus on what they love--being creative."
It is also a place for you and I as designers to license images from top photographers that you will not find on the mass-market sites.
Digital Railroad Marketplace—the front door for the buyer...
The back door for the seller or agency...
This will give you an idea of some of the seller who use the service...
An example of the quality of the work (in this case, by photographer Jimmy Williams)...
In the Ideabook Design Store: Pantone Guide to Communicating with Color...
Sep 12
September 2008
No kidding. In March of 2008 it was reported that Google spent over two billion dollars in R&D last year. The amazing thing is many of the products and systems they have developed can be had without cost. They range from something simple like Google Alerts, an e-mail service that notifies you when new examples of a particular search term or string shows up. To something as deep and wide as Google Analytics a complex tool for recording and analyzing web traffic. If you have not looked over the list lately, give it a look. I'm certain you will find something of great value. All for the cost of looking.
Wikipedia's list of Google Products...
A couple of favorites: Google Alerts...
Google Analytics...
And for a preview of things to come, Google Labs...
In the Ideabook Design Store: Before & After: Page Design...
Sep 10
September 2008
Pretty interesting idea here—design a web using what looks like an organizational flowchart. It gives the customer a very easy way to find an item. I wonder if it might even work better for a project where the product images were not so key (I tend to think showing multiple product makes a page more interesting).
The Eva Solo flowchart design...
The cover page...
A broad view...
In the Ideabook Design Store: The Desktop Publisher's Idea Book...
Sep 8
September 2008
Yeoh Guan Hong has a great talent for seeing. Take a moment, first, to read a few posts on his blog and then to watch how his simple, gentle insights influence his work. To me, it is a good reminder of how much of what we see day-to-day is reflected in the design we produce. I can't help but think that developing my abilities to explain what I see and record what I think will sharpen my design skills.
Yeoh Guan Hong's blog...
And his portfolio...
In the Ideabook Design Store: Templates for InDesign, QuarkXpress, or PageMaker...
Sep 5
September 2008
If you would take a few minutes to watch an interview of Leonardo da Vinci and Johannes Gutenberg, I recommend taking a look at this rare interview with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. I realize there are tens of thousands of other women and me who have made huge contributions to the development of personal computing, but I doubt that anyone would argue these two are not among the core contributors. Want to prepare for the future? Understand the past.
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates interviewed by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg...
In the Ideabook Design Store: Design-It-Yourself: Graphic Workshop...
Sep 3
September 2008
The world continues to spin into control. Now it looks as though there will soon be an economical way to create a few yards of fabric from your graphic designs. As they put it, "Spoonflower gives individuals the power to print their own designs on fabric that they can then use to make quilts, clothes, pillows, blankets, framed textile art and many, many other things that might surprise you."
Imagine the applications for creating one-of-a-kind imagery for presentations, product models, and so on.
Sign up to be invited to test the process...
A collection of what other designers are doing with Spoonflower fabrics...
The Spoonflower Blog...
NEW in the Ideabook Design Store: Tintbook CMYK Process Color Selector...
Sep 1
September 2008
John Parker, the Director of Brand Communication at Veer, has posted a sneak peek at Compendium. A hard-edged calligraphic script that boasts almost 700 glyphs.
Compendium Specimen (1.8MB PDF)...
Parker's post...
In the Ideabook Design Store: The Color Harmony Guide...