Beast Pieces: Squarespace Poster and Business Cards
I follow Beast Pieces regularly. I’m a fan of Squarespace. And Tyler and I have chatted on more than one occasion. It was a pleasant surprise to see the three come together in this post.
Source: cameronmoll
How to present designs to a client | Gavin Elliott |
Top designers give advice on the best methods for presenting designs to a client. Mostly directed at the web, but useful for designers in other mediums, like me.
Source: gavinelliott.co.uk
iA » Designing Firefox 3.2
Mac users have become increasingly spoiled for choice of late, as new web browsers spring up and existing ones acquire new functionality. Because of this, I have been moving between Chromium, Safari and Firefox on fairly regular basis over the past few weeks. This article from iA is a reminder of what makes Firefox truly awesome - its extensibility.
Source: informationarchitects.jp
Make Yourself Presentable | Jason Santa Maria
I just started a job in local government, where I will be working with a lot of different stakeholders and audiences and giving presentations on the aims and objectives of the project. Jason Santa Maria has some interesting insights on this most difficult form of performance art.
My first time speaking professionally in public was back in 2005 at the first An Event Apart in Philadelphia. While not my first time speaking in front of a big audience, it was the first time I had to prepare a slide deck and use Keynote.
Before and after view of a slide deck. On the left, you can see the bright red used to slides that need work, as well as black and grey for title slides, and blue for quotations.
Two basic rules: simple and big
When I use images, I almost always use them full screen and free of distraction.
Keep your title slides to a few words, then speak through the rest of the story.
A sample quotation slide.
Understandably, I was nervous, so beforehand, I had scribed lots of notes to guide me as I was speaking. On the big day, I used Keynote’s “presenter mode” which allows the presenter to see their notes while the audience sees the normal slides. A few slides in, I realized my grave mistake: I had entirely too many notes than would fit on my small screen, and no way to access the hidden ones. I was lost.
This conceptual video is a corporate collaborative research project initiated by Bonnier R&D into the experience of reading magazines on handheld digital devices. It illustrates one possible vision for digital magazines in the near future, presented by our design partners at BERG.
The concept aims to capture the essence of magazine reading, which people have been enjoying for decades: an engaging and unique reading experience in which high-quality writing and stunning imagery build up immersive stories.
The concept uses the power of digital media to create a rich and meaningful experience, while maintaining the relaxed and curated features of printed magazines. It has been designed for a world in which interactivity, abundant information and unlimited options could be perceived as intrusive and overwhelming.
A test for relationships
My wife has been advocating this means of testing the life giving vs life sucking quality of friendships for years. I guess she will be thrilled when I start taking this more seriously because Milton Glaser said it, rather than listening to her…
There is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them. Here is the test: You have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. It doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished. The test is almost infallible and I suggest that you use it for the rest of your life.That and the nine other things on the list are on my list to review often. (I also just have a thing for lists.)
Source: bobulate
Faking It
A reminder that we often often miss the glaringly obvious creative solution when trying to create. And let the mouse take the place of the hand. And leverage someone else’s creativity in the place of your own.
Think that about covers it. It’s like reblogging someone else’s post instead of writing your own…
“How do you get those uneven edges in your illustrations?”
“I draw them, unevenly.”“What’s the best way to get this to look like it’s cut out of paper?”
“Cut it out of paper.”“What typeface are you using? It looks so much like handwriting.”
“That’s my handwriting.”These are all real questions I’ve been asked by folks. At lectures, in class, over email. It makes me feel like I’m in the business of serving up plain, glaring answers.
“Care to shed some enlightenment, Frank?”
“Hm, I don’t know. How about a big pile of obvious?”Sorry folks, the most evident way of doing something is typically the way that I do it. No secret labs, no special tools, no computer gee-whizzery.
Disappointing, isn’t it? I’m not surprised that these people are asking these questions. I think everyone wants a peek into someone else’s process. What surprises me is that they infer there isn’t an easy, obvious answer to their questions. There’s a digital silver bullet somewhere, and damned if they aren’t going to find it. But still, surely people still know that handwriting something and scanning it in is an option, rather than using a typeface?
What’s interesting to me is that these questions are being raised because some peoples’ default states are to “fake it.” Maybe that’s a natural response to being constantly presented with things that are not real. Maybe it’s from working with tools whose reach is so wide, it’s sometimes difficult to grasp where their edges truly lie. The issue is that faking it is turning an awful lot of creative processes that have the potential to be deep oceans into shallow puddles. It’s weakening our physical connection to our work.
Our audiences have lower standards too. It’s unusual for them to be confronted with authenticity. When confronted with it, they’re startled. They don’t want to believe, and their first response is generally to scream “fake!” But, no green screen. No movie special effects. No camera tricks. Nothing that’s kind of like this other thing but isn’t quite it. It is what it is. And it really happened. I hadn’t fully realized it until recently, but authenticity is special now. Authenticity is special now.
“Wait, are you telling me they really released all of these bouncy balls down this big hill?” Yes I am. And if you have the choice, I think you should do it that way too.
Source: viafrank
