Graphic Design Week

// May 18th, 2009 // No Comments » // Graphic Design, Inspiration, Tutorials

I just got word on Twitter via @chrisspooner that It’s Graphic Design Week on Psdtuts+ & Vectortuts+. I found out this morning and have wanted to find a chance to learn some more cool things about graphic design. I pick up on a few things at school but I wanted a structured, extra curricular learning experience with graphic design. After reading the schedule it looks like I’ll have a pretty busy weeek of learning. When possible, I will post things throughout the week as I learn new techniques from watching tutorials, find inspiration, or just discover something interesting. Stay tuned, for MY graphic design week. I encourage the rest of you to share about YOUR graphic design week!

Graphic Design: The Forgotten Web Standard

// May 12th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Graphic Design, Inspiration, Web Design

I have always been drawn (pun intended) to cool illustrations sketched out in class when notes should have been taken, colorful abstract splatters of paint on a canvas and rule breaking typography. I never really got into all the “art” classes that were offered in school though and chose mostly athletics as a pass time. When my interests in design finally picked up I decided to give photography and web design a shot. I must have had some subconscious plans for my future when I enrolled in a few basic web and photo classes when I was about 15. These slide designs caught my eye in a 3 minute highlight video of them being created. It doesn’t stop there though, make sure to watch the presentation by Mike Kus that the slides were used for. It is another great example of how to bring graphic design and web design together.

Graphic Design: The Forgotten Web Standard – Slides in 3 Minutes from Carsonified on Vimeo.

Web vs. Print – Why They Should Be Similar

// May 7th, 2009 // No Comments » // Graphic Design, Web Design

As I promised this will be a short, but very informative little post highlighting Mike Precious’ Blog. It is a perfect example of a creative and very talented designer talking about information that is going to be interesting to the design community.

I wanted to share a video from Mike’s last post about Web vs. Print and Why They Should Be Simlar.

SVA Dot Dot Dot Lectures: Jason Santa Maria from MFA Interaction Design on Vimeo.

The custom design of the blog has kept it looking like it is still a part of his portfolio site and has a great navigational approach with clear hierarchy. With a little time and experience we too can be designing and blogging with the best. I think I will talk a little about Jason Santa Maria and the impact he has had on design real soon. Stay tuned!

Studio Showcase – Mike Precious

// May 7th, 2009 // No Comments » // Graphic Design, Inspiration, Studio Showcase, Web Design

The design Studio of Mike Precious is next on my list of creative web design portfolios and companies. Mike is another one of those utility players when it comes to his skills and experience. He displays three main categories in his portfolio: Web, Print, and Concept. All of which have a number of well designed and developed pieces of work. Main focal points are at the top of the site where there seems to be light shining onto the page. Favorite feature is the Portfolio page with the fixed sidebar element. It lets you navigate to another section of his portfolio or check out a different piece of work when ever you wish. Thought he had an effective contact page as well. He has included two different contact forms, one for getting a quote and another for just getting in touch. Giving options to the customer can help streamline the beginning of a project by getting right down to business with a quote. Another post coming very soon with some emphasis on Mikes blog.

Studio Showcase – Andrew Bradshaw

// May 6th, 2009 // No Comments » // Branding, Graphic Design, Studio Showcase, Web Design

Showcase today is not of a web design company but instead, a guy by the name of Andrew Bradshaw. His services include web design, print design, and branding. I liked his site because it has a very clean, and inviting look and feel. Again, another genuine guy who knows about being creative. I think those are the portfolios I am most drawn to. It is not the most fancy or complex portfolio, but easy to navigate and gets the point across. I like how he displays each of his portfolio pages, giving each project or piece of work a captivating thumbnail image that expands to a larger view, as well as a description of what the project was about. The subtle, but effective arrow next to each of the pieces allowing the user to move back to the top of the page is a nice feature as well. So, here is to AB, a talented web designer and active participant in the design community. I personally follow his updates on Twitter.

Calendar Wallpaper Series

// May 3rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Graphic Design, Inspiration, Rants

I came across a few cool calendar designs by Franz Jeitz over at Fudge Graphics. Thought it was cool that he had some stuff in his portfolio similar to the stuff we had done in school. Sometimes I feel like work done in school that you didn’t get paid for isn’t credible enough to put inside a portfolio of professional projects. Learning that I could relate school work with stuff for the real work was a real eye opener and took me a little while to realize it. More things coming soon from Fudge Graphics, it’s a great place for resources, tutorials, and inspiration.

Custom Icons

// May 1st, 2009 // No Comments » // Graphic Design, Tutorials

My Macbook Pro is anything but stock. In addition to cool apps that make my workflow more efficient I have customized most of the icons on my system. Everything from folders to external hard drives. It really gives the interface a cool, unique look. My favorites are the ones that I see in my dock.

Custom icons are no secret. I found the set I use on my computer called Litho at the Iconfactory. It is a free set of downloads including a standard system set and there are now 5 additional sets for other various applications.

How to Replace System Defaults

You can go about this a couple different ways. First I’ll explain the teadious, boring way of switching over to a slick new set of icons. This technique can be effective if you only want to change a handful of icons.

First, get the info for the icon you wish to use to customize the look of your application. To do this select the icon in the Finder window and press command + I.

Do the same for the application you want to replace the icon for by going to the Applications folder, finding the application, and again pressing command + I.

Next, it is just a matter of copying and pasting the new, custom icon over the old, default one. To do this click on the new icon in the top left of the “get info” window. This will highlight the icon in blue. Press command + C to copy that icon. Then switch over to the “get info” window for the default icon and click on it. Then press command + V. That’s it, the icon will be replaced with a new, cool look!

Now just do that for the other hundreds of icons you might want to replace on your computer. Yeah right! This is where Candy Bar comes in. Candy Bar lets you collect, organize, and change Mac OS icons and works well with the Iconfactory’s download options. When downloading an icon set you have to option to chooce from a Mac, Windows and an iContainer download. iContainers are the files that Candy Bar uses to help you implement your new icons. I managed to get all the icons on my entire computer switched during the free trial period of Candy Bar. This app is such a life saver because it lets you change a big batch of icons with just one click. It also supports a cool drag and drop feature to avoid copying and pasteing. Hope you enjoyed this little tutorial, show come comment love!

Pulltab Flipbook

// April 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // Graphic Design, Inspiration

This may not be up my usually alley of web design and photography but I thought it was very cool. I could be a little bit influenced by the fact that it is from my boy Chris Coyier.

He describes the pulltab flipbook designed at Chatman Design (Chris’ day job) as being more complicated than you might think.

Envato Empire

// April 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // Branding, Graphic Design, Inspiration, Jobs, Networking, Organization, Photography, Promotion, Rants, Tutorials, Web Design, Wordpress

When considering all the information that I come across on the internet most of the things I see are influenced by Twitter, and my RSS reader. This got me thinking… If I were stranded on a desert island and I only had access to one group of networked sites it would have be the Envato Network. I swear by their umbrella of Tuts+ sites for great tutorials for all my favorite applications. I have touched slightly on the marketplace structure of sites they have including the most recent and a favorite of mine, Graphic River. Another one of those, “Why didn’t I think of this?”, moments when seeing these sites that allow anyone to buy and sell design related goods and services. That’s not all… In case you didn’t have enough excellent content to expand your knowledge there is a handfull of other services they offer. From AppStorm, for everything Mac related, to the must have RSS feed for any freelancer, Freelance Switch. Stranded and alone, I could survive with the Envato Network. Do you know of any networks this diverse? I want to open this one up for feedback, maybe to see if anyone reads these things.

TutsPlus Empire

// April 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // Graphic Design, Inspiration, Photography, Tutorials, Web Design

There are so many great places on the internet to look for resources, inspiration, and tutorials it can be a little overwhelming sometimes. Why not have everything you might need all under one roof? From graphics to web development, audio to video and more, TutsPlus has it all. Unless you have been living under a rock then you have most likely seen a few tutorials, or articles from one of the TutsPlus sites. I found myself learning enough from these sites it made sense to get a monthy membership and have access to bonus tutorials and other great resources. At only $9 it is hard to say no to such a great price on an endless amount of creative inspiration and knowledge.