Posts Tagged ‘design’

Papercuts – The Good Kind

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

While perusing Design*Sponge, one of my favorite blog sites, I came across another blog called PAPERCUTS by “MrYen” that posts about design finds and his own papercut artwork that he sells on Etsy (I am loving the whale papercuts shown). Paper cutting is as simple as it sounds, the art of cutting designs out of paper, but the process, however, is extremely meticulous, time consuming and involves an exacto and a steady hand.

I’ve done some simple papercuts of my own, and it’s always more difficult than it seems, especially when your goal is to get a perfect edge, while avoiding a ripped mess. Did I forget to mention that it is time consuming? I think the precision and detail of papercut art is so beautiful. Designs are delicately filled simple silhouettes, amazing textures and depth that you wouldn’t be able to achieve from plain printing. Below is just a sampling of what papercutting has to offer.

To learn how to create your own papercuts check out The Heart of Papercuts, who offer an introduction on how to start paper cutting. And for more inspiration and variations on the style you should also check out these amazing artists, Yulia Brodskaya, and Julene Harrison.





Christopher Doyle™ Identity Guidelines

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

While reading an article on Smashing Magazine about Designing Style Guidelines For Brands And Websites I came across a personal identity guideline by Christopher Doyle that makes fun of branding guidelines in a smart and humorous fashion. It’s definitely worth a look whether your a designerd or not! Download the full .pdf here.

The Champagne of Packaging Redesign

Friday, August 13th, 2010

A few months ago, I noticed that something was different about the packaging of the Champagne of Beers which is Miller High Life. It was much simpler, bolder and graphic with an emphasis on the logo and Lucy, the girl in the moon. After a little research, I found out that this redesign was done by the San Francisco office of Landor, with illustration assistance by Chris Mitchell.

The old logo on the left has been simplified by eliminating the bevels, gradients and hi-lights and the curves are a little more graceful. The letters in HIGH LIFE are cleaned up, thinner and more readable. It is also just a one color logo now.

Old Lucy on the left is also more simplified and now wears hearts instead of diamonds.

One nice detail of the packaging occurs when you set multiple sized cans sitting next to each other.

Overall, the updated look is definitely a breath of fresh air with many great details and graphics working together.

Cheers.

Work of Art

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Has anyone checked out the new reality series “Work of Art” on Bravo? Set in New York, fourteen contestants compete against each other to become the “next great artist,” win some cash, and receive a solo gallery showing. Judged by art enthusiasts, gallery owners, and art critics, the artists complete in challenges testing their skills in a variety of media from oil painting to silk screening, all based around the week’s chosen theme. Themes are all over the place — in one episode artists used trashed electronics to create a sculpture that would reflect their personality. In another the artists had to create a work that was symbolic of the moment their artistic expression began, using only materials found at the children’s art museum (crayons, colored pencils, pipe cleaners, etc.).

I love checking out what the artists come up with and getting a glimpse into their creative process. It seems like some people can just hit the ground running, while others hit a road block and just can’t get their head around a project till the last minute, much like working in any design field. Sometimes projects just click, and others you need to take a minute (or hours) to have that light of inspiration. The hard part for me is watching this with my artsy boyfriend; he thinks that the art really can’t/shouldn’t be judged, because it is so subjective, and I always get an earful of this throughout each episode. I can’t say that I don’t agree with him, because some of the things the judges are loving, in my opinion, look like piles of waste or feel completely off-theme. How can you really tell what is the best? I try to look past what may be considered this show’s obvious flaw and just enjoy the clashing egos, back stabbing, and of course creative ideas and designs. Check out all the action on Wednesday nights at 11 on Bravo.

Quick Tip: Math for designerds

Friday, July 16th, 2010

Generally I let the nerd herd (aka our talented team of web developers) be the ones to get excited about math related functionality. However, I gotta say, I do get excited about the way InDesign allows you to do math in the control panel. Probably because anything that does the math for me is exciting! How does it work? Imagine you have a frame with an image in it on the page and you know that it would probably fit better if it were 2.125″ bigger. In the Width field up in the Control panel, type +2.125 next to the existing size. When you’re done, press Tab or Return (PC: Enter) and InDesign will do the math for you to adjust the size of your frame. This also works in the X and Y axis fields — allowing you to move items by a specified amount without doing the math yourself. You can also use different functions, such as subtraction (–), multiplication (*), and division (/).

Inspiration Pad

Monday, July 12th, 2010

While browsing behance.net, I ran across this fun twist on a traditional notepad by Marc Thomasset. It was too cool not to share.

Looks like your standard regular notebook…

…until you open it up and check out the pages:

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One page websites: love ‘em or leave ‘em?

Friday, June 18th, 2010

I ran across this article on D-Lists the other day and then I got to thinking of different one page websites I’ve run across and how I felt about the user experience. A growing trend in web development is one page websites. Rather than lead viewers to different pages, usually it involves information being displayed in a drop down format. Although I’ve included screen shots, be sure to check out the actual sites to get a feel for how they display information. Do you find it to be user friendly? Do you prefer information to be displayed on different pages? Whaddayathink?

IndoFolio — this site uses an especially unique method; when a navigational link is clicked on, information scrolls side to side. I like the idea, but I don’t know if it’s actually easier or harder to take in information. I can see how the horizontal scrolling could be distracting for some sites. For creative sites (like this one) I think it adds to the experience. For a site that is heavy on information and text, I would prefer to see it displayed in the standard format. Additionally, unless the site scrolls seamlessly, I can see how it would detract from the overall quality of the site.

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Nerdy Notes

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

I love anything nerdy and design related, and when I came across these fun cards, they put a smile on my face. This is definitely the way to go if your searching for that perfect card for any of your techy, design friends (wink wink). I especially enjoy the ctrl+z (“undo” in designer lingo) letterpressed card. To get your hands on these and other gems check out PaperWheel on Etsy and Pop + Shorty.

Nerdy Notes

Quick Tip: Will you be my plus one?

Friday, June 11th, 2010

I learned a little InDesign trick recently that has really decreased my level of frustration when working with documents with multiple sections. Maybe it is just me, but every time I want to print or create a PDF of a portion of a multi-section InDesign document I run into trouble. I have the hardest time entering the section names/page numbers that correspond to the pages I would like to print into the Range box in the Print Dialogue box.

One way to help figure this out is to click on each of the pages you want to print in InDesign and check the page number box in the bottom left side of the screen. This will show you exactly how to enter each page number (eg Sec2:4). Then you will just need to type these pages into the Range box in EXACTLY the same format.

However, my new favorite way to avoid all of this nonsense is to use the magic plus sign! Simply put a “+” in front of the page number and it will tell InDesign to use absolute page numbering. So “+1″ always refers to the first page in your document, regardless of what section it is in. I love that!