Small Bites: Design Links I Love | June 1, 2015

Happy June 1! For the last 31 days, we’ve had rain literally every single day in Colorado, and today is the first day it’s not in the forecast and temperatures are going to get above 60. So, I’m in a pretty good mood! Let’s celebrate with some awesome design inspiration on this lovely Monday.

We graphic designers are serious business card snobs. We judge on design, paper, coatings, the whole nine yards. It is basically a constant reenactment of the famous business card scene from American Psycho. Turns out we’re justified in our snobbery. Mohawk Paper published an article yesterday that reinforced the power of the business card. Granted, it’s a paper company, so maybe they’re biased, but statistics show that this 300-year-old method of communication is still the most effective business communication tool out there despite the digital age we’re living in now.

Art Director Craig Barber created Makerbook, an amazing directory of curated free resources for creatives. It’s categorized for free photos, vectors, textures, mock-up PSDs, video and audio files and is only referencing high quality, free stuff. This is a fantastic resource!

Print Magazine has released an updated list of all of the current political logos for 2016 presidential candidates. Some are controversial (Hello, Hillary), some look like a bank (Paul Rand, I’m looking at you) and some are downright terrible (Marco Rubio’s new logo with the USA as the dot in his “i” makes me throw up a little in my mouth), but all will spark a good conversation on design.

Bronwyn Chochinov has released a graphic novel of Les Miserables, and it’s awesome. That is all.

And, finally, a shameless self-promotional plug. This weekend, I started adding some more goodies to my Red Bubble Store. All of my hand lettering, brush script and calligraphy practice finally has a home. I’ve released 4 new product designs this weekend, and they’re available on a wide variety of goods including: tees, posters, stickers, phone/laptop cases and greeting cards. Visit the store and share with your friends!

Embrace your inner crazy cat lady with this lovely design. Original calligraphy and illustration work by yours truly.
Direct Link: http://www.redbubble.com/people/noeldolan/works/15066024-love-cats-meow-often?c=391111-typography-and-lettering

Life is too short to eat salad and stay at home. Travel the world and eat delicious food are good advice for living a full life.
Direct Link: http://www.redbubble.com/people/noeldolan/works/15058580-eat-delicious-food-and-travel-often

Who doesn’t have a deep affection for the chocolate hazelnut heaven known as Nutella? Declare your love for this culinary treasure with this design.
Direct Link: http://www.redbubble.com/people/noeldolan/works/15055457-nutella-is-my-spirit-animal?c=391111-typography-and-lettering

Celebrate the creative people in your life or your own creative spirit with this design. It’s available in black or white and is all original hand lettering.
Direct Link: http://www.redbubble.com/people/noeldolan/works/15056893-celebrate-the-creative-spirit-black-design?c=391111-typography-and-lettering

Small Bites: Design Links I Love | May 25, 2015

Happy Memorial Day! Hopefully, the majority of you are enjoying an extra day off today. A day off means longer time with your coffee and more time to waste surfing the internet. So, get started with this week’s small bites!

Fast Company published an article with advice for new graduates by top designers like Sagmeister & Walsh, Tim Brown and the design director of Facebook. Although it’s geared towards new grads, there is great advice in the article for even the most seasoned designers. Be nice, learn new technology to make yourself more marketable and keep your passion alive.

Full time freelancer sounds pretty glamorous. You have insane amounts of freedom, you can work from anywhere in the world, and you get full creative reign on all your projects. Not so much. Turns out, these ideas are some of the most prominent myths of pursuing a freelance career. Webdesigner Depot debunks the 13 most popular myths. Freelancing is a great option and you definitely do get some different kinds of freedoms, but you work longer hours, are at the mercy of clients and spend a lot of time hustling.

There’s a belief that once you hit the design big leagues and are working for large, successful, high profile agencies, you have total creative freedom and get to play with the office’s endless supply of cool video games and ping-pong tables. Design Taxi published an infographic that surveyed data from 46 people in the creative industry about their jobs. They used high profile people, but it turns out that whether you’re a small time in-house designer or the creative director at Target, designer problems are still designer problems. They have to work late, compromise with clients, subsist on coffee and wish non-creatives understood their process better.

And, finally, some lovely packaging design, courtesy of The Dieline:

• Indibucha Tea
• Navigation Heritage Baby Gear
• Liefmans Fruitesse

The 100 Day Project: Days 40 – 46

The Great Discontent’s 100 Day Project is now 46 days in, we are almost half-way there! Created by artist Elle Luna, the goal is to do something creative every day for 100 days that has a specific focus and helps your creative process grow. Projects include photography, video clips, dance, and drawing. I’ve chosen to do 100 days of travel hand lettering. I’m working hard to improve my lettering skills and showcasing my love of travel.

I’m illustrating one place each day, either a place I’ve visited and loved or somewhere that is on my bucket list to visit in the future. This project is more about the process than the end result, and I am definitely seeing my process improve, even in this short amount of time. Plus, it’s helping me develop a good habit of drawing each day—a soothing exercise I desperately need in my chaotic and busy life.

This middle time period, I think is the hardest part. I equate this to a marathon (which I’ve run), and I found the hardest miles to be the middle ones—miles 15 – 20. They were where I hit the wall and wanted to die. That is pretty much how I’m feeling now. I’m at Day 46, so not quite half-way, and I’m really tired of it. It’s a great idea, and I’m proud for sticking with my commitment, but it’s really, really hard to find the time to do something like this EVERY SINGLE DAY. I was musing with my colleague, that a 52 week project would be better—one drawing a week. In this day and age of busy lives, it can feel like a drag to add one more thing to the “to-do” list. However, that’s probably the whole point of this. We are all crazy busy, much busier than we should be, and by forcing ourselves to stop every day, even for a few minutes to create is something we desperately need. I get it, lesson learned. Just a hard one to keep up with. I know I’ll stick to it and finish the project, but I think next time, I’m going to do smaller projects. Maybe 30 days here and there. I like the habits this is building and want to continue, just a smaller dose!

Here are days 40-46. Follow the progress on Instagram under the hashtag “#The100DayProject” and my specific hashtag is “#100DaysofTravelLettering” under my Instagram handle, @noeldolangd.

Day 43: Barcelona
Barcelona was a very cool city. Their architecture is amazing and super unusual. I loved all the Gaudi-influenced art that surrounded this great city. I had to go ornate and do it in calligraphy.

Day 44: Savannah, Georgia
When I was a kid, I went to Savannah, but as an adult I discovered “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” I was fascinated by the book and even enjoyed the bad movie. Ever since, I’ve wanted to go back to savannah to see if I could spot some of the crazy characters from this true story.

Day 45: Two Rivers, Wisconsin
Again, this may seem like another random place, but 2 Rivers is home to the Hamilton Wooden Type Museum, which has the largest collection of letterpress type in the world. I found out about it from a post from Aaron Draplin, and now I’m desperate to go and be in type heaven.

Day 46: San Diego
As Colorado hits day 22 of straight rain, I’m longing for the beach and sun. I’ve only been through the San Diego airport on my way to Hawaii, but I want a chance to explore this great city someday.

Day 40: Bali
Even before the Eat Pray Love phenomenon, I wanted to visit Bali. I love tropical locations. I was inspired by their beachy bright colors when creating this one.

Day 42: Niles, Michigan
This might seem totally random, but to any graphic designer, it’s sacred ground. Niles is home to the French Paper Company, an amazing family-owned business that makes stunning, high quality paper. They are an eco-friendly company who also promotes beautiful designs with their paper styles. Their mascot is a French bulldog, so I incorporated him into the drawing. I used bright colors to represent their line of “Play-Tone” papers.

Day 41: Pisa, Italy
Pisa is one of the best tourist traps ever. You see that iconic leaning tower your whole life and to see it in person is pretty awesome. It’s awful in that it’s super crowded, everything is very commercialized, annoying tourists are everywhere. But, as someone who loves kitsch, I had a thrill taking the quintessential photo of me “pushing it over.” YEA TOURIST TRAPS!

Year of Learning: Dr. Web Design…Or How I Learned to Stop Hating HTML and Love to Code

Five months ago, I decided to start learning web design. I had a very vague idea of a handful of HTML tags and CSS classes, but otherwise, it was a mystery to me. But, the world is going digital, and I have plans to break out on my own as a full time freelancer, so adding to my skill set was essential. I started with some basic lessons online, and I did a simple site for my mom’s business, but I had to take it to the next level. I decided my outdated site really needed an update, and it would give me new opportunities to learn some more advanced skills.

I decided I liked parallax design and wanted to do a single scroll site. Web trends are gearing toward single scrolls now that mobile and responsive design is so essential. Of course, 5 months ago, I didn’t know what parallax or single scroll meant. I had to Google that. I used super advanced search terms like “what is that animated background that scrolls on websites.” Google found it. Ha! It really was a process of learning what the trends were and searching websites for ideas I liked and basically using the internet to even find out what they were called.

Next steps meant some tutorials. I started with basic lessons on Code Academy, which is an awesome free site that offers web tutorials in HTML, CSS and the developer languages. But, honestly, after the basics, I just had to start doing. I built my wireframes in Illustrator, and then I went to Dreamweaver to start building my code. It was endless battles of trial and error and using resources like Stack Overflow and CodePen to troubleshoot the problems I ran into.

Frankly, I didn’t understand most of the answers. I began by cutting and pasting their code just to see what happened. Once I understood the functionality, then I started learning more and more ways to customize it to make it my own. I learned how to fix problems and make it work for my site. It was a challenge, because as a designer, I have a strict aesthetic that I feel my designs must adhere to. Therefore, I refuse to let a technical problem get in the way of good design. This is probably why it took me so long to get my site right, but I know I’m putting my best work out there, not a work around.

I wanted my site to be responsive. Given that I wasn’t even entirely sure how to design a site in general, taking it to the responsive level was a new headache, but essential for success. It took me nearly two weeks to figure out how to make my menu transition from a top nav bar to condense down into a menu that will toggle in a mobile setting. It involved jQuery, which is REALLY a mystery to me, but I was able to learn enough on Code Academy to be able to manipulate other code.

I’d always learned that web graphics were strictly low res GIF, JPG or PNG files. Turns out, with HTML5 and CSS3, you can now do vector graphics for the web, if you use the SVG format. Who knew?! Music to my ears though since vector art is so much more clear and crisp. CSS3 allows for fun transitions and effects on text and scroll functions. I wanted to add a scrolling image carousel for my portfolio work. The basic Boostrap carousel didn’t work for me and didn’t produce what I wanted, but I found a slider I liked better and made it work.

I had to ask a developer friend for help one time during that menu debacle, but otherwise, I did this entirely on my own through self troubleshooting and problem solving. I’m really, really proud. I feel confident that I’m getting the hang of this.

Web design and development is a complex industry that changes every 30 seconds, so it’s impossible to know it all, but I have a really good start. And, after all the screaming, head banging, I can actually say that I really love coding. It works a different part of my brain that I thought couldn’t function like that. It gives me a new outlet for my creativity and a new medium to express myself.

My site is 99.9% done, but the final tweaks are adding and swapping some portfolio photos, testing it in a few more mobile options and proofing my copy. All of the functionality is there. I can now tell people, I am a web designer with a growing knowledge of front-end development. Visit it at www.noeldolan.net to see the mostly finished product.

RESOURCES

• Twitter Bootstrap (Makes for great frameworks and easy to learn)
• Stack Overflow (You can find the answer to almost any problem here)
• CodePen (see how other people coded their stuff and practice your own, live in the browser)
• Code Academy (Learn the basics in small, easy to digest doses for free)

Homepage shown at full screen

Explore my work is my first option, seeing the intro to my work and the gallery is a cards style layout with rollovers that scroll up to reveal the product.

Example of my portfolio page, each one of my pieces will have an image gallery

Below the photo gallery is an explanation of my work, the client challenge, the deliverables, etc.

The portfolio pages have a small footer that includes social media information and basic contact, but doesn’t have the big contact form and big graphic seen on the main site.

About me section, shows a brief bio and an option to download my resume. I inject some quirkiness with my design and list my cat as a production assistant

I offer brand identity, print design and web design services with my company

This is the main contact footer on the big page that includes a form and more elaborate design for the plane and social media. I used a plane since I’m a creative explorer.

I’ve included client testimonials on my site as a way to break up the content and show that my clients like my work.

The horrid responsive menu that took me weeks to figure out, but I eventually did. I’m so proud of that stupid toggle, it’s kind of ridiculous.

Small Bites: Design Links I Love | May 11, 2015

Happy Monday! Colorado has had a crazy, crazy week weather-wise. It rained for 6 days straight, we had 5 inches of HAIL that shut down the interstate and Saturday night there was an epic blizzard. Yep, life in the Rocky Mountain state is a bit wonky. Hopefully some good design inspiration is all you need to kick off your week.

Flat design still reigns supreme, but subtle patterns are finding their way more and more into web design at the moment and is called one of the hottest trends of 2015 by Webdesign Depot. Patterns help give depth and visual interest to the flat blocks of color that are trendy with flat design.

I’m an in-house designer, and overall in the industry, it definitely isn’t thought of as sexy compared to working in the big agencies a la Don Draper. However, in-house definitely has its perks. You could work for an exciting brand like Target or Starbucks who really take their creative to an agency level. It usually has less hours than agency work, more stability and allows you to really perfect a brand and work within the confines of a brand, forcing stronger creativity. This is a great article from HOW Magazine how to make the transition out of in-house into an agency or indie freelancer.

I’ve really been getting into podcasts lately. Normally I’m a NPR junkie on my morning drive to work, but when they spent 2 weeks doing their spring membership drive, I switched to podcasts. I need to switch back, because that is how I get my news, but I’ve found some seriously inspiring stuff. It’s an episode from 2014, but check out Shop Talk Radio’s interview with designer Jon Contino. It is so well done, and he is so inspiring. What’s great is that he really tells people to focus on the gifts they have and make them their own. It doesn’t matter if you’re a perfect lettering artist or photo realistic painter, take whatever style you have and run with it.

And finally, 50 free resources for web designers. Who doesn’t like free stuff? From UX/UI kits to fonts to icon sets, download some freebies and start your next web project today!

5 Sources for Creative Inspiration

Rodin had Camille Claudel, Fitzgerald had Zelda, and in this modern age, a lot of us resort to Pinterest for inspiration. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, there’s some good stuff there, but sometimes finding original inspiration is challenging. And then there’s the rapidly approaching deadline that can either foster that inspiration or lock it up nice and tight.

So, besides the usual stops of Pinterest, Instagram and Behance on the interwebs, this is where can you get creative inspiration.

1. Travel

My number one passion in life, besides design, is travel. I live to travel the world, and I find it’s my greatest source of inspiration. Being exposed to other cultures and other settings really heightens your awareness of what is around you. That awareness spawns new ideas and gets the creative juices flowing. Furthermore, making yourself take a break and take a vacation is so much better for your creative flow too. When you travel, take pictures of the little things—an interesting street a sign, a menu at a cafe, what people are wearing and file it away. When you’re stumped for an idea, they may trigger a new concept.

My favorite travel spots: Kenya, Paris, Venice and San Francisco

2. Quotes

I love the written word. I’ve always been an avid reader, and before I went to design school, I was an English major. I’m constantly inspired by beautiful language. Often, a great quote will inspire a great design with me. Whether it’s a typographic poster or something completely unrelated, that rush and high of hearing something inspiring will get your designy self moving. I keep an ongoing Word file where I paste in great quotes I hear. When I need a pick-me-up or a great idea, my first love of words is there.

A few of my favorite strings of language:

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.” —Steve Jobs

“You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart will always be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.” -Wayfaring.me

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“Miss Jean Louise, stand up, your father’s passin’.” —Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

3. Target

It doesn’t necessarily have to be Target, but the idea of going into a big store that sells a wide variety of merchandise, is a great place to gain inspiration. A great package design, a label, a pattern on a dress, going out to a store can really help trigger ideas. It’s easy and it’s convenient—sometimes going on an around the world adventure isn’t logical with a looming deadline, so just take a quick trip to your neighborhood store.

4. Magazines

Long before digital portfolio sites, there were magazines. Thankfully, there still ARE magazines. To me, magazines can be more inspiring than combing the web. When I get really stuck, I pull out my old issues of HOW, Communication Arts and my latest obsession, Uppercase. There’s something more thought-provoking to my process with a tangible thing than a phantom image online. Design magazines are great in that they have a lot of annuals that are filled with the best in the industry. It’s a great way to get inspired and push yourself harder with your own concepts.

Favorite Magazines: HOW, Communication Arts, Uppercase, Computer Arts, HGTV Magazine, Food Network Magazine

5. Your Design Community

Designers help inspire each other. I’ve found that our industry has a great amount of camraderie. Yeah, we’re all technically in competition with each other, but I’ve never seen such a tight bond among a profession as in design. We can talk ampersands for hours, help each other out with a constructive critique and love feeding off of each other’s creative energy. Find your local chapter of AIGA and get involved by attending events and meeting other designers. Network online through social media to meet other designers. If funds allow, try to attend a big design conference like HOW Live or AdobeMAX. Besides potential networking opportunities, your fellow designers are a fantastic resource to help get ideas flowing and listen to you vent when the client asks you to make the logo bigger. It’s awesome being part of a creative community and it will make you better at your craft.

Small Bites: Design Links I Love | May 4, 2015

It’s another Manic Monday….wish it were Sunday. Here are some design links to kick off your week with inspiring things I found on the web.

Creative Market published a series of posters called “Confessions of A Guilty Designer.” They are basically designers confessing to all the things we hate that the client does or says (“I hate flat design, I got a tattoo in Helvetica, I took that photo from Google images). They’re pretty hilarious and most of us are guilty as charged with a few of them!

In this world where we’re constantly bombarded with information and interacting with others, it’s becoming harder and harder to lose focus. Not only is that bad for one’s stress level and getting tasks accomplished, but it’s especially bad for creatives who need their energy to make good work. Blog 99U has some good advice for a simple 18-minute daily plan to help refocus your life and take a breather.

Logo evolutions are fun to look at. Some seem pretty consistent over the decades (Coke, Starbucks) and others started off in a radically different place from where they ended up (Apple). Design Taxi published the evolution of the LEGO logo this week. I actually didn’t realize those magical blocks had been around so long, but it definitely went through some very different incarnations in the earlier times than where it is today. I love the 1936 version the most and find it very reflective of the design of that time period. Second runner up is 1950. Today’s seems really boring compared to those classics.

Although we operate in a digital world, we designers still have a mad love affair with paper. We sketch, we doodle, we jot things down, but we’re very snobby about our paper choices. This week, Inspiration Feed published the best notebooks for designers. I’m definitely a fan of Field Notes for basic doodles, but for my calligraphy I use Rhodia. For better sketching, I love Moleskines.

And, finally, some packaging eye candy for you. Check out this innovative packaging for olive oil seen on The Dieline this week. They really went outside of the typical greens used for this industry and went bold with a bright yellow and black. Nice work, N.

Year of Learning: A Hand Lettering Milestone

Four months into the year, I’ve stuck with my New Year’s resolution of learning hand lettering, and I’ve completed my first full sketchbook with practice projects. Roughly 150 pages, I practiced nearly every day since I started and have actually gotten better. Furthermore, on my journey, I’ve discovered script calligraphy, which I’m actually not half-bad at. I find myself making time to draw every day, whether it’s lettering or doodling. I make sure I take time away from my screen now. The results aren’t quite at the level I want them to be yet, but I’m so proud of the development of this creative process.

I’ve always been completely dependent on the computer and lacked all confidence when it came to manual art. This exploration of a new activity has helped me become more confident and actually loving creating non-digital artwork. I’ve also noticed that drawing really helps to calm me down when I lead a fast-paced, somewhat anxious life.

I have miles to go before I sleep if I want to really try to master this craft, but maybe I won’t get to that point. It could just be an enjoyable hobby, something I need. I tend to pursue things that I want to incorporate into my business skill set, and it’s really important to have things that I simply just like to do. We’re way too busy in this modern day and age, and it’s important to take time to be. On to the next sketchbook…

My first sketchbook is complete, this was a freebie I got at the HOW Design Conference from a paper vendor’s booth.

My first entry in my sketchbook using faux calligraphy, things really evolve over time.

Small Bites: Design Links I Love | April 27, 2015

Coloradoans are spoiled with 300 days of sunshine a year, so we get pretty upset when we have the occasional cloudy day and tend to whine about it. It rained all day yesterday, which is much needed moisture, but makes me a bit of a sad cheetah. What better way to cheer up from gloomy weather and a case of the Mondays than with great design inspiration. Check out this week’s small bites.

UPPERCASE is an awesome design magazine. It’s pretty spendy, but it’s so beautifully done and full of unusual content, it’s well worth the price. It doesn’t do the typical design annuals like HOW or Communication Arts, but really focuses on design, the craft and art. My most current issue is on the art of printmaking, and it’s fantastic. HOW’s Illise Benun did an interview this week with UPPERCASE creator Janine Vangool that is worth checking out. You can hear more on the marketing-mentor.com podcast.

Who are the best designers of all time? Complex.com released their list this week, which I discovered thanks to Rule 29. I like that it includes architects and industrial designers as well. This is a really nice compilation of people who’ve contributed beautiful things to this world.

Being creative every day can be hard. The muse doesn’t always strike when a deadline is approaching. There are ways to foster creative thinking and ways to sabotage it. This week Lifehacker published how to not sabotage your creativity and Fast Company offered advice of how to keep it flowing with 5 habits. Work to protect your gift and treat it well with good habits.

Looking to update your portfolio? Design Taxi offers 20 tips on how to make your work stand out and provide the best possible platform for presenting yourself to potential employers or clients.

Respect for Creativity

When I tell people I’m a graphic designer, the usual response is something along the lines of “how cool! that must be so fun! wow, you got paid to color/draw.” I have friends who are engineers and the response they usually get when they tell their professions is “oh wow that’s really hard, you must be really smart.” I’ve never had this response during my 10 year career. Yet, graphic design is really hard. It does take someone really smart to do well in the field. All fields in the arts such as music, acting, art, photography and writing are quite difficult. In fact, they are just as hard, if not harder than engineering and science. Just because the product of the arts is more immediately enjoyable than let’s say an electrical engineer’s schematic, the arts are put into a lesser category.

Higher education for the arts is some of the most expensive there is and yet these programs are the first cut from public schools and the most underpaid and under-employed of any field. Students can spend just as much on art school or music school as medical school, but they never see the big paychecks. Supplies for careers in the arts such as instruments, photography equipment, oil paints and Mac computers are pretty spendy. So why does creativity have this reputation of being easy, silly, cute, and a career path for those who didn’t excel in math in school.

There’s an ongoing debate if creativity can be taught. Many, including myself, believe it’s an instinct you’re born with. Either you have the creative eye or you don’t. Michelangelo said “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” People without a creative mind would never see the angel inside. Creatives add human emotion and see things differently. I recently heard a story on NPR about engineering firms hiring artists to be on staff because they need the human touch to their projects. Engineers make it work, but the artists are needed to see if it is valuable to another person, what works for a human and what doesn’t. There is a value to a creative’s thought process that is seen as just as valuable to the mechanics of something working accurately.

Creative genius like Beethoven and Picasso is still genius. It’s just a brilliant as the minds of Einstein and Hawking, it’s just different results, but both spectrums deserve respect. One mind gave us the 9th symphony and the other gave us the atom bomb—which benefits society more? The earliest humans artistically expressed themselves with the cave paintings and designs on their pottery. It wasn’t just about function, but adding beauty to life. Without creativity, we wouldn’t have the Mona Lisa, the Brandenburg Concertos, A Christmas Carol, the Oscars or the popular TV show, The Big Bang Theory.

I’m not trying to dog on engineering or science or any non-creative field for that matter. Everyone has a valuable place in this world and makes great contributions no matter what area of study they’re in. That’s my point—it takes smarts and hard work to make something happen whether it’s make a building structurally sound or writing the next Broadway musical.