Friday, September 07, 2007

Logo Trends 2007

Dos Helix, Radiance, Eco Smart, Urban Vinyl, Flora...

A range of new eco friendly household products?

No. These are some of the logo design style trends for 2007 as identified by The Logo Lounge.

These and other existing and emerging trends are discussed by Bill Gardner, principal of Gardner Design and creator of LogoLounge.com.

The other big trend for 2007 logos as identified by Smashing Magazine is Leaves. (The plant kind -- not the b*ggering off kind ).

There's even a tutorial on how to make one! How good is that!

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

The Wayward Wind

This could be A Very Useful Tip from CreativeBits if you are shooting pics with no tripod.

It suggests that blurring in hand-held photos is caused by tiny shakes of your hand basically applying a motion blur to your images, and tells you how to fix it. I guess it's worse after a night on the town or in a Wellington southerly!


Image from Wellington Airport site

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

The Rapid E-Learning Blog

The Rapid E-Learning Blog "shares practical tips and tricks to help you become a rapid elearning pro."

It is hosted by Tom Kuhlmann who "has over 15 years of hands-on experience in the training industry."

Copyblogger says "The blog attracted 6,312 subscribers in the 24-hour period following the launch promotion, and now has over 8,500 and counting less than a week later."

I'm checking it out as we speak.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

I Link, Therefore I Am

Some excellent sites (with feeds) for designers:
Graphic Define Magazine — "Focussing on the business of running a design studio". Issue 4 is up now.

And Smashing Magazine. It is featuring an interesting article about "Data Visualisation" and links to some cool free fonts.

A List Apart has a timely article on "Staying Motivated" by Kevin Cornell.


Gratuitous photo of Mt Ngaurahoe with halo.

Friday, July 20, 2007

In the Doldrums

Much as I love being in Blondini Gang — some days I have to remind myself of this quote that I saw somewhere: "The worst day of being a designer beats the best day of being a plumber."

Monday, July 02, 2007

Call me old fashioned

The post "10 tips from an old-school designer" at Creative Bits rang a few bells with me.

I must be showing my age, but I trained and began working as a designer when we drew all our lines with a 'rapidograph', made manual colour separations, used bromides, drawing boards, Letraset, rubber cement, scalpels -- and had to do arcane calculations before having someone set our type for us.

It was slow, exacting, satisfying.

I wouldn't go back. The (mac) computer is the tool of choice now.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

They took our proud Italian heritage, and named us after a ballet costume.

Well we aren't there yet in NZ, but after the final episode of the Sopranos in the US, the Design Observer has this to say: “Everything I Know About Design I Learned from The Sopranos”

A good read and it doesn't give away any secrets about the ending!

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Webstock Mini


Coming up on in Wellington (NZ), Webstock Mini

Featuring:

* Michael Koziarski workshopping on Ruby on Rails

* Leigh Blackall taking us on a tour of Second Life
"Come into Second Life and tour educational facilities and chat with educationalists using Second Life in their work. Then come back into your first life and discuss any thoughts ideas from the tour."

* Robert O'Callahan showing us new features in Firefox 3

Monday, May 14, 2007

Are you a typeface slut?

Michael Bierut at Design Observer writes about Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Typeface and reasons for choosing a particular font for a particular job.

It's an interesting article, worth a look if you are into typography — and who isn't?

Friday, May 04, 2007

A Good Idea!

Here's a really good idea. I read about it in the Springwise Trends newsletter, but it's happening in good old Godzone.



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