Small Bites: March 9, 2015

Another week begins, although we are slowly inching closer to spring. Now that you’ve already lost an hour with this past weekend’s time change, go ahead and lose some more time by browsing these small bites of design.

Coca-Cola’s sales are falling, so the soft drink giant is going to experiment with new global packaging where all of their cans fall under the original, iconic red can. Their other product lines such as Diet Coke (Coke Light everywhere else in the world) and Coke Zero will now have a red can. On one hand, I do like the new packaging and I see the reason behind it. However, I hate to see anything interfere with the beautiful simplicity of the original all red can.

Wes Anderson superfans, including yours truly, can now buy loads of products with designs from his quirky movies. Stickers, posters and iPhone cases are available at the Etsy store, Very Troubled Child. You can even get the luggage used in The Darjeeling Limited. I’m definitely partial to the iPhone case for the green bus line where it says “As usual, she was always late.” I love Margot Tennenbaum.

It may not be Throwback Thursday, but check out what these super popular websites looked like on the day they launched, in the early years of the worldwide web. 8-bit graphics, reflex blue and tiny little GIF images made with 256 colors were the norm in the late 90s. Hard to believe the humble beginnings of giants like Google and eBay.

Design Milk posted a fun desktop wallpaper free download for March. It utilizes the famous quote by Picasso “Every child is an artist, the problem is when he grows up.” Add some color and Cubism to your daily screen.

Shirt Off My Back: Cool Tees

It seems to be a thing that graphic designers love cool tee shirts. We completely geek out on tees that have fun designer humor, neat illustrations, irony, sarcasm and great typography. It becomes a status symbol at events who has the coolest tee shirts. If I didn’t have a corporate dress code at my office, I’d probably come in every day in one of my tees, skinny jeans and a new color of Puma sneakers.

I like tee shirt design, because you can get really creative since it’s a large surface area. However, when you’re limited to things like one color, tees can be more restrictive which then forces you to come up with a more creative idea when you can’t rely on fancy finishes.

I like sites like Threadless and Cotton Bureau, because they reach out to artists, designers and illustrators to supply the artwork for their shirts. It’s a great system, because they give the designers a fair cut for their work and they have the means to get the word out. So many talented people are featured on these sites. I also love Johnny Cupcakes. He does his own designs, but he’s a really nice guy and started from nothing. He’s always an inspiring speaker at HOW and his shirts are really fun and original.

Small Bites: March 2

Ugh, someone is having a case of the Mondays. After a frigid, snowy weekend with more snow on the way, I’m a cranky cheetah and desperately need some cheering up. Luckily these creative bites are just the thing to bring a smile to my face on a gloomy Monday.

Photographer Jason Travis is doing a project called “Persona” where he is photographing people and the essential things they carry on themselves. It’s a great way to tell the personalities of people and see just what people haul around in their purses or messenger bags all day. My personal favorite is the guy carrying around the American Tourister flight bag and trademarks book. Reminds me of designer Aaron Draplin.

The predictions are in! Check out the predicted top 10 web design trends of 2015 by The Next Web. I’m glad to see that scrolling sites are still on the cutting-edge, since I just learned how to code those. I’m a little bummed the large background images may be on their way out, but I like that typography is taking a step forward.

The Creative Bloq does a daily post of “font of the day” where sometimes the featured font is free. This week was Fabfelt Script, a delightful retro script perfect for Throwback Thursday.

More free stuff! Designer and photographer Jim Krause, is giving away 10 free wallpapers for your computer and tablet. This HOW Design speaker gives away bright, cheery and a little bit quirky illustrations to grace your next device and bring in a pop of color to your digital screen.

And, finally, the “FYI: I’m a Graphic Designer” video that was making the social media rounds this week. Sadly, our profession is misunderstood by those not in it—it’s thought of as fun, coloring pictures, cute, easy, anyone with a copy of Word and some clipart can do it. Unfortunately, these misconceptions are perpetuated by movies and TV. Someone put all of these clips together to show how designers are portrayed in the media. Made me laugh until I realized how true it is and how hard we have to work for client respect.

Stuck On You: The Wonderful World of Stickers

I am a serious sticker fiend. The 8-year-old girl inside of me has never outgrown the love of beautiful stickers and finding surfaces to put them on. Sure, it can be a bit childish, but it actually seems to be a popular thing with designers. They’re successful give-aways at design events, and most of us glamour for them when we’re out and about. Oregon coffee chain Dutch Bros releases a new sticker every month at a limited supply. People proudly display their political affiliations or miles run on their cars. To me, besides being a source of beautiful design at times, are another avenue for self-expression. It lets people in on who you are and what you’re into.

From a design standpoint, I think they’re a great outlet. I like small areas to design within, because I think it’s more challenging to create something fun and unique.

Here are some of my favorites from my collection—share some of yours. 🙂

My car, Archer. Named after the font by Hoefler & Frere-Jones as well as the FX cartoon. This has some of my favorite stickers on it, including the pink sticker from VooDoo Donuts.

Yep, we understand that we think differently, we’re a bit weird and we bring a whole new view to common things in this world.

As a huge fan of the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, I hoard this precious Andre the Giant sticker designed by street artist Shepard Fairey.

Nerdy graphic design humor, obtained at the 2014 HOW Design Conference

Nerdy graphic design humor, obtained at the 2014 HOW Design Conference

This is one of my most cherished stickers. Artist and designer James Victore handed them out at the HOW Conference in 2013. He reminds us to take risks, go against the norm and it’s okay not to be perfect.

I keep a notebook with meeting notes at work. I put some of my most favorite stickers on the cover: Johnny Cupcakes (an amazing tee shirt designer), Apple (what designer doesn’t love this?) and a local screen print shop called Ragged Print Company.

Local coffee shop / bar Wild Goose Meeting House is an awesome hangout that promotes local music, great coffee and Colorado’s many microbrews. The lumberjack is one of my coveted stickers from Dutch Bros Coffee, one of my favorite haunts for java.

I’m not a beer drinker, but I adore this sticker from Denver brewery Great Divide. It’s for their Yeti Beer, which is an award winning beer. I love, love this sticker and find it fun to believe.

United PIxelworkers was a fake union for web designers started in Pittsburgh to really be a tee shirt company. UP sold union tees for each state and became a phenomenon. They even had the great Aaron Draplin design this logo. UP became so successful, they ventured into another tee business called Cotton Bureau and shut the UP doors this past December to focus entirely on Cotton Bureau.

Another coveted Dutch Bros sticker, definitely dig the Communist propaganda style artwork

Love Each Other is a great message from Justin Ahrens, an awesome Chicago designer who runs Rule 29 and focuses on doing design for worthy causes. He sent me this sticker when I bought his photography book of the children of South Sudan.

Small Bites: February 23, 2015

It’s another Monday, time to kick off the week with great creative small bites. Here in Colorado, we’ve been having a blizzard since Saturday morning, so I may be working from home this Monday instead of battling the roads. Have a great week and enjoy these creative bites.

FastCompany did a great article on redesigns of posters for the best picture Oscar nominees.  Shutterstock, which is a stock photo site, had designers recreate posters for each of the best picture nominations this year using only their stock assets. I attended a similar event at HOW, called Pixels of Fury, where designers had to be timed and only use stock assets to make a quick poster. I love how these turned out, and it shows the power of a great designer: you can make dull stock photography look fabulous.

I’m 33 and consider myself quite young…until I saw that Adobe Photoshop turned 25 this past week. I remember playing on the very first version of it as a little kid. I remember loving it and thinking, I wonder if I could get paid to play with this program all day? Check out this great video Adobe made showcasing 25 years of this game-changing software.

I am obsessed with maps. I can’t read them to save my life, but I collect them in terms of their design. This week, Design Taxi, featured the newest hand-drawn map creation from British artist Jenni Sparks of the City of Lights. This map of Paris is absolutely stunning. Her attention to detail is mind-blowing.

Oh I am such a sucker for anything typography related. Check out this list of 40 typography posters from Inspiration Feed that will help jump-start your creativity.

And, to close, since I’m learning responsive web design, here are 15 best practices for making a good responsive website.

Make What You Wanna Make

On Thursday evening, I had the pleasure of seeing “designy illustrator” Mikey Burton speak at the Denver Art Museum as part of the AIGA Colorado Speaker Series. Mikey is a funny guy who loves bears, breakfast and La Croix sparkling water (he says “La Croy” and claims only snobs say “La Crwa”). Despite some AV issues, he gave a great talk about his work, his process and showed his evolution from a designer to an illustrator from a student to his current status where he has clients like the New York Times, Converse, Playboy and ESPN.

Mikey Burton, a “designy illustrator” speaking at the Denver Art Museum as part of the AIGA Colorado Speaker Series.

What I really enjoyed about Mikey is that he presented work that were passion/side/self-generated (he hated all those terms!) projects that eventually turned into something. He redesigned book covers for his Masters thesis and received a C-, but two years later THE Steven Heller featured them on his blog and it launched into a line of tees and more book covers. He loves to draw food and draws what he eats every day, then Tumblr asked him to make a food tee shirt they could sell. They were his best projects, because he was creating work he wanted to create, without the pressure of a deadline or agenda of seeking a job. His passion and abilities were reflected in that work and it did lead to something professionally.

So many of us designers get stagnant in our work and bogged down by the job, that we forget why we got into design in the first place. It is our love, our passion, but the day to day and tight deadlines get in the way of that love. Most of the designers we little people look up to do encourage side projects, but it’s hard to follow that sometimes. For one thing, finding the time is a challenge, we get burned out and need the downtime, but I also think it’s a thing in the back of our mind that we secretly hope it’ll turn into something.

Mikey’s words really resonated with me—”Make what you wanna make and be patient and focus on your craft.” On my drive into work this morning, I was listening to Debbie Millman’s podcast “Design Matters” with the creators of The Great Discontent, a creative blog and magazine. They were quoting a friend of theirs, but they said the best advice they received was “learn to be content with the discontent” and then you can pursue your dreams.

Do your job and do it well, strive to do it better and create better work, but don’t forget to make the work “you wanna make” and find your passion for the craft you fell in love with again.

Express Yourself: Alternative Creative Outlets

As designers, I think we tend to be generally creative people who branch out into other arenas besides graphic design to express ourselves creatively. I also think it’s a good thing when a designer has a lot of other creative hobbies and interests, because those things tend to carry over into ideas for design projects. In this digital age, we’re glued to our screens and sometimes forget the world around us.

When I’m not designing or spending hours on social media reading tweets and posts about design, I like to cook, bake, dabble in photography, decorate my house, and now learn hand lettering. I love coming home after work and cooking a nice meal after sitting at my desk all day. It’s very therapeutic to put on music and get creative in the kitchen. My favorite thing to cook is what I call elevated comfort foods. I like to take old favorites like grilled cheese, a burger, a BLT and add a creative, gourmet spin to them. I make a Sriracha garlic mayo to put on my BLT, and it makes all the difference. I put a Parmesan garlic butter crust on the outside of my grilled cheese sandwich. I stuff my burgers with smoked gouda and bacon. I hate following recipes and usually the food isn’t nearly as good if I do. I look at recipes to get ideas for what flavors are combined and then do my own creative spin to it. It’s a great outlet for being creative, but it’s away from the computer.

Living in Colorado and my chronic case of wanderlust has spurred an interest in photography with me. I really enjoy taking pictures, and thanks to some great instruction from a guide I had in Kenya, I’m finally learning to get away from the hated “auto mode” and learning how to shoot real photos. I’m not a photographer anymore than I’m a chef, but it’s an awesome creative outlet for me. It gets me outside, looking at light and working on my composition skills as a I frame a shot.

The chalkboard wall in my kitchen is one of my creative outlets. During Christmas, I changed it to a Chinese food menu for fun.

The back wall of my kitchen is painted with chalkboard paint. Now that I’m learning hand lettering, it’s a great place to practice. Definitely not producing the results of Dana Tanamachi, but it’s fun and whimsical and it’s a nice way to relax. I liked changing up my designs, and it’s always a fun conversation piece when guests come over.

What are your creative hobbies to get the juices flowing, but away from work?

Small Bites: February 16, 2015

And, it’s another Monday…thankfully I’m off today for President’s Day, but I still want to share my favorite small design bites from the previous week with you all.

HOW Magazine is accepting submissions for their Promotional and Marketing Design contest. In honor of this, they published their 10 best winners from past awards. There are some really, really creative ideas out there. I think my personal favorites are the camping kit, urban bear kit and the deck of type cards. I always wonder how companies get budgets to produce such epic packages of designer fun, given that I work for a non-profit where we can’t even do spot color printing.

The Dieline blew me away this week with this edible Japanese zen rock garden packaging and product design. You get to rake the sand AND eat the candy rocks! This is fantastic work.

IKEA has released a set of emoticons. This makes me joyously happy and there’s really nothing else to say about this momentous event.

The Great Discontent is doing an awesome project, starting April 6. It is 100 days of making, the brain child of Elle Luna. For 100 days in a row, make something—try 100 recipes, do 100 sketches, learn 100 fonts. It promotes creativity and consistency. Sign up and get your ideas flowing! As of now, I think I’m going to do 100 days of lettering, but we shall see.

Fuel your wanderlust with the 2014 National Geographic Travel Photos of the year. These are absolutely stunning, mind blowing photographs. It made me want to pack up my suitcase, grab my passport and head out into this amazing world.

Love is in the Air: Valentine’s Design

I really like Valentine’s Day. Although I’m single and usually have been on this day of love, it has never bothered me. To me, it’s not a couple’s holiday, but a day to celebrate those you love from pets to parents to spouses to friends. As a designer, I really like it because it it’s the holiday that celebrates my favorite color: pink, and there’s usually lots of really fun decorations and craft projects around. Script and hand lettered fonts dominate, and the stores have great candy. Valentine’s is a win-win!

So, in honor of Valentine’s Day, here are some great designy things and projects to celebrate.

Photo copyright by the I Heart Denver store, http://www.iheartdenverstore.com

Denver agency, Matter, is selling limited-editions of their Solidtype with special Valentine’s Day designs. Don’t live in the Rocky Mountain state? No problem—you can buy them online from the I Heart Denver Store, which sells Colorado themed goods made by Colorado artists and designers.

30 Hearts in 40 Seconds Video
Really well done little film just showing a world with love in it.

Hearts (The Valentines Day Video) from Moist Creation on Vimeo.

My Geeky Valentine

This is a fantastic library of design geek Valentines by designer Joanna Behar, who currently lives in Paris and works for Vanity Fair. Well designed and full of designer humor that will give you a chuckle. Enjoy My Geeky Valentine, courtesy of Behance.

Ladyfingers Letterpress Valentine’s Cards

Colorado Springs letterpress shop, Ladyfingers Letterpress, has released a fantastic line of Valentine’s cards. Hand lettered and illustrated by 719 transplants, Ladyfingers has a card for every person in your life. Shop local and support this awesome shop.

40 Days of Dating Book

Graphic designers Jessica Walsh and Timothy Goodman were best friends, but terribly unlucky in love. They decided to embark on an experiment where they would date for 40 days to see if they would fall in love. The blog became a phenomenon and is now a book, complete with the hand lettered artwork that appeared with their daily posts. Buy the book and enjoy!

The Year of Learning: February, Weeks 1-2

The year of learning is moving along quite nicely. I rarely stick with anything in terms of New Year’s resolution type goals, so I’m quite pleased to say that 2 weeks into February, I’ve been consistent! I’ve worked hard on my web design/development skills and managed to hand letter nearly every day.

The progress report…Wordpress as a development tool still eludes me. Definitely not as easy as everyone says, in my opinion. I’m trying to secure some one-on-one tutoring, because I think that’s all I need to get myself jumpstarted with it. So, right now I am pursuing refining my HTML and CSS and learning jQuery. I’m working on a website for my mom’s business, which is great practice. I was practically screaming yesterday when I got her jQuery slider navigation bar to work! I used basic code from my Code Academy lessons and then was familiar enough to manipulate it myself.

I also successfully installed Adobe’s TypeKit to do custom fonts on her site and am working on the style to fit with the big photo background trend that’s happening right now. The icing on the cake is that I was having a problem with the slider menu sliding underneath a container div to where the menu was covered by other content. Today, I was able to troubleshoot it myself and solve the problem with a simple “z-index” tag in my CSS. Woohoo!

Hand lettering is progressing as well. I finally did a piece that I thought was good enough to try to digitize with Adobe Illustrator. In honor of Harper Lee’s announcement about releasing a much-anticipated sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, I did a quote from my favorite novel. Digitizing it was more complicated that I had originally thought as if you don’t close your paths on paper, it’s harder to fill them on the computer, but overall it came out great. And, I was able to figure out how to use the Live Paintbucket tool, so another great learning experience.

I’m really proud of my progress and more importantly, my consistency. If you set goals for this new year, it’s not too late to pursue them. I definitely have learned that it’s better just to do a little bit every day instead of getting overly ambitious and biting off huge chunks. That just makes it too easy to fry yourself.

My first digitized hand lettering attempt utilizing a quote from my favorite book, To Kill a Mockingbird