September is here, and we’re bringing you into it with this lovely desktop calendar wallpaper created by my wife & partner-in-crime, Andy. Download various sizes below. Dig it!
Click to download the free September 2011 Desktop Calendar Wallpaper in 2560X1600, 1920X1200, 1680X1050, 1440X900 and 1280X800 pixels.
Those of you who are regular Paper Leaf blog readers will have noticed that we have been posting less frequently these days. The main underlying reason is a good one – we’re very busy – but the end result is undesirable. The past week I took some time off, and during that time off I was thinking more and more about the old adage “the shoemaker’s son always goes barefoot“, and how this applies to us a business (as well as many other designers and developers out there). Why does this happen? Why do projects relating to our business fall by the wayside, like the shoemaker’s shoeless son? The answer: we don’t treat our design business like a client.
If we treated our own business (and business related projects) like we treated client projects, we would practice proper time management, hit deadlines, have a consistently fresh portfolio, and budget for the time needed per week to make these things (and more) happen. But we don’t – and maybe you don’t either. It’s tough sometimes – client projects pay the bills, whereas business-related projects have a more indirect benefit. Clients often give us some much-needed motivation, through phone calls or emails (hopefully motivation of the non-threatening kind), whereas we’re the boss of our business. Thus, we’re often putting client projects in front of our own, time and time again. If this stays consistent, however, our portfolio, print materials, blog and more will be an outdated reflection of our business. That’s bad news. Read the whole article >
Welcome to Found Friday! After a brief hiatus last week to do poor time management on my part, we’re back this week with: a jQuery plugin to simply beautify your web forms; some Pantone postcards; a bookmarklet to quickly identify a web font; a new WordPress plugin that combines social media with commenting; and a site dedicated to “faux” logos from films. Read on!
Consistently styling web forms across browsers is the leading cause of designer pattern baldness due to stress. Fact. Formalize helps ease this source of stress with a nifty dose of jQuery.
If you’re a design nerd, and have fellow design nerd friends, these Pantone Postcards are great for nerdy correspondence. But chances are your mom won’t get it.
Welcome to August, all! August is all about relaxation – hammocks, sun, and just generally taking it easy. This was the inspiration behind this calming desktop calendar wallpaper – various download sizes below. Enjoy!
Click to download the free August 2011 Desktop Calendar Wallpaper in 2560X1600, 1920X1200, 1680X1050, 1440X900 and 1280X800 pixels.
