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Archive for the ‘Design’ Category

10 Cool Items for Your Design Workspace

August 31, 2009

As designers, we spend a lot of time in our collective workspaces. So why not make our workspaces the best places we can? Below are 10 cool items for your design workspace – some are free, some are cheap, some are expensive, and some are just plain nerdy. I have a couple of the items below, and those I don’t have are definitely on my list. Enjoy & share!

PANTONE MUG

I’m drinking out of one of these glorious Pantone mugs right now, as I type this. Orange 021 C, to be exact. A great way to get your morning fix and let everyone know that you are a super design nerd.

More after the jump!

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Free Friday Design Wallpaper: Frutiger

August 28, 2009

It’s Friday! You know what that means – another Free Friday Design Wallpaper. This week’s wallpaper is all about the lovely Frutiger typeface. Download links for your resolution are below.

frutiger_wallpaper

Click to download the Frutiger Wallpaper in 1920X1200, 1680X1050, 1440X900 or 1280X800. Pass it along!

How to Get Your Clients to Use a Design Brief

August 26, 2009

Ah, the design brief. For those designers who regularly use them, we will never go back. They provide focus to the project for both the client and the designer; they provide a resource to come back to during the design process; they are indispensable to the project. Most designers don’t need convincing on the importance of the design brief – but some clients do.

So, for those clients who need the gentle push towards the design brief – how should we do it? In my eyes, there are three main steps:

Educating the Client
Explaining the Benefits to the Client
Making it Easy for the Client

Remember, the design brief benefits all parties involved! With that in mind, let’s explore these steps towards getting your clients to use design briefs. Read the whole article >

For Our Clients: Logos

August 24, 2009

This is an article in a series called “For Our Clients”. The goal of these articles is to be as transparent as we can with our clients so as to help clarify how we think, what we do, and how we do it. We also hope that these articles can become a resource for clients – sort of an FAQ in article form – that will help broaden the understanding of why certain projects have the characteristics they do.

Your logo is the face of your business. It needs to project the image you want for your business; it needs to attract your target market; it needs to be effective in a range of mediums. Each client is unique, and thus each client’s logo is unique. So how do you know what a great logo looks like? How can you articulate the qualities of a good logo? What goes in to a logo design process?

Logo design by Paper Leaf for Jacek Chocolate

Those questions, and more, are what we aim to answer with this article. If you are looking into hiring a designer to create your logo, or rebrand your business, please read on. This article will tell you what to look for in a logo, and reveal to you exactly how Paper Leaf goes about creating logos for our [many, happy] clients. Hit the jump for more info!

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5 Ways to Be a More Efficient Designer

August 17, 2009

It’s an ugly fact of life, but time is money. To be a successful designer, you need to practice good time management – an area that often gets overshadowed by the newest web design trends, photo editing tricks, and so forth. The long and short of it is: if you’re not maximizing your time, you’re missing out on more project opportunities. To be efficient isn’t to be quick or sloppy; it is to be smart with your time. When you’re smart with your time, you can earn more money and your clients can save some of theirs. So, with that in mind, here are five ways to be a more efficient designer.

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