2011 February Archive - Paper Leaf Design | Edmonton Graphic Design, Edmonton Web Design

Archive for February, 2011

March 2011 Desktop Calendar Wallpaper

February 28, 2011

It’s March! Here in Edmonton, the confused birds are chirping amongst a blizzard of snow and ice. Awesome. Totally what I associate with March and spring. Anyway, here’s this month’s desktop calendar wallpaper – some light 3D styling, some rainbow-esque colors, some dark colors, and plenty of contrast. It’s sort of a visual amalgamation of how March usually turns out in our neck of the woods, weather-wise: all over the place. Enjoy!

Download the March 2011 Desktop Calendar wallpaper in 2560X1600, 1920X1200, 1680X1050, 1440X900 and 1280X800 pixels.

Found Friday Vol. 44

February 25, 2011

Bonjourno, and welcome to vol 44 of Found Fridays – the best graphic & web design finds on the whole wide internet. This week, we have a Graphic Designer’s Roadmap infographic, a bunch of cross-browser compatibility tools, a fun internet wishlist site, a gorgeous iPod stereo, and some useful free wireframing tools.

Graphic Designer’s Roadmap Infograp hic

A while ago, I was interviewed over on SmartPress. We covered a variety of bases around graphic design, skills, career growth and more. Well, the fine gents at SmartPress interviewed many other designers, and compiled all the data into this solid infographic. Interesting questions answered interestingly, and beautified! Check it out.

10 Cross-Browser Compatibility Tools

Anyone who’s built a website knows the hassles faced when trying to optimize for all the popular browsers – Safari, Firefox, Chrome, IE *shudder*, and Opera. There are a bunch of tools out there designed to make our lives as web designers easier; have a look at this article for some of the best ones.

The Internet Wishlist

“The Internet Wishlist is a collection of ideas for apps and websites people are wishing for. Ideas range from web to mobile, realistic to imaginary, and helpful to humorous.” That about sums it up – definitely worth a look (via swiss-miss).

Thodio iBox

Expensive, but deservedly so – this iPod/iPhone stereo is simply gorgeous, and a bit playful too. Bravo to the designer who created this gem.

10 Completely Free Wireframing & Mockup Tools

Wireframing and mocking up website designs can speed up the web design process quite a bit; again, there are tools out there designed to do this very thing. Check these out.

See you next week!

Common Client Concerns with Design Projects

February 22, 2011

Graphic designers and web designers – especially those of us who freelance or run a small design studio – are constantly meeting new people, new potential clients, describing our work processes and so on. If you’re not doing this, chances are your design career isn’t going so hot. Anyway, many of these new or potentially new clients of ours have little to no experience working with designers – and as we all know, heading into the unknown can cause stress and bring about questions and concerns.

With that in mind, I asked a few of our recent clients some questions regarding their side of working with designers – what stressed them out, what their worries were, and suggestions for how designers like you and I can alleviate these concerns. Their answers were interesting, and by listening to these concerns, I think any designer can improve their next project and/or business relationship.

Common Client Concerns with Graphic Design & Web Design Projects

Read the whole article >

Free Friday: Banner Ad Template Set

February 18, 2011

Where’s the Found Friday, you ask? This Friday, we have something a little bit different on tap: a giveaway for our loyal readers. Many of you are either graphic designers, web designers, entrepreneurs or small business owners; in these realms comes creativity. Perhaps you have something you’ve created you want to sell or give away. Perhaps you have clients who need some online advertising help. Well, the nice folks over at Elegant Banners are offering a free banner ad template set for you to download to help with these needs.

The files are well-made, layered PSDs released under Creative Commons. You can use them for commercial use or give them away for free; but be nice and give Elegant Banners their credit.

Download the Banner Ad Template Set Here

Found Friday Vol 43

February 11, 2011

Welcome to Found Friday Vol 43; the best design finds of the week! This week we have the following: a great article on measuring the effectiveness of web designs, a roundup of new web tools/fonts etc for designers, a digital note-taking machine, a new file format for eco-friendly designers, and beautiful letterpress wallpaper.

How to Measure the Effectiveness of Web Designs

If you’re a freelance web designer, or if you run your own web design business, you learn pretty quickly that the sites you’re building need to be effective. They can’t just look nice, or else you’ll quickly run out of clients. This article outlines some tools and ways to measure your web design effectiveness.