Oh geez. It’s November. Before you go throwing your flip-flops in the storage closet, why not download this nifty desktop calendar wallpaper? Your computer will thank you for dressing it up.
Click to download the November 2010 Desktop Calendar Wallpaper in 2560X1600, 1920X1200, 1680X1050, 1440X900 and 1280X800.
Hey all, and welcome to volume 31 of Found Fridays – the best design finds of the week. This week we’re all over the place: some fun Halloween wallpapers for your desktop, a great article on effective call-to-action buttons, furniture made from old mines (yes, mines), a must-read article for designers on justifying your design decisions, and a complete guide to WordPress as a CMS. Read on!
It’s that time of year! Know how I know? It snowed in Edmonton the other day. Thus, it must be close to Halloween. Anyway, get in the moment and rock one of these Halloween wallpapers. Well-designed to boot!
We’ve had a few questions of late from clients about call-to-action buttons – namely, their purpose and how they’re to be used. Here’s a good article talking about these very things, and showcasing some great examples.
Yes, this is furniture made from old mines. Sounds crazy – and it is – but it’s awesome. Just look at the fireplace and tell me you don’t want it.
As designers, we are constantly faced with the need to explain our design decisions & why we made them. It can be difficult at times, as we’ve all had clients who hire us for our expertise and then don’t use it. Read this article on Smashing Magazine to understand the importance of justifying your design decisions to clients and to learn best practices to do so effectively.
We are unabashed WordPress fiends. We use it as a CMS for a variety of reasons – it’s easy for clients to learn, it has a huge user base, it’s open source and more. This article goes in-depth about using WordPress as a CMS – read it if you’re interested in jumping into the WP realm, or even if you’re already a seasoned WP user. You might learn something new!
That’s it! See you next week.
Graphic design is a saturated field. Just look at the amount of design blogs, this one included, out there in Internet-land. Yes, there are many of us providing our services for clients – whether those services are web design, identity design, print design, all of the above or some combination. Getting into the graphic design field and providing services is one thing, but being a responsible designer is another. What, then, is a “responsible” designer?
As experts in our field, we have responsibilities to uphold. Three main responsibilities that come to the top of my mind are ethics, honesty, and environmental responsibility. These obvious don’t encompass everything about being a responsible designer, but it’s a good start. I welcome additions in the comments.
Welcome, internet trailblazers, to volume 30 of Found Friday – the best design finds of the week. This week, we have a roundup of the new announcements from Apple, a gangstafied Lorem Ipsum site, an online caricature-drawing service for $50, A List Apart’s web survey, and a free online web development estimation tool. Great stuff all around!
Crazy thin Macbook Air? Check. New OS? Check. Facetime for Mac? Check. Mac App Store? Che… wait, what?!
I’ve been known to have some fun with client mockups, from using placeholder photos of George Clooney & Fabio to sending along fake mockups drawn in MS Paint. If you’re like me, then, you’ll love the opportunity to use Gangsta Lorem Ipsum. If you can’t have any fun, why do anything at all?
Caricatures are a specific skill, and if you’re looking to brand yourself (or your client) as a welcoming, laid-back business person, Caricature Pro might be an option worth looking in to. Mine would probably end up with a giant head biceps.
A List Apart runs annual survey designed to gather information from web designers like you and I. Help out your own industry, take 5 minutes, and complete this survey!
A great little tool for those not completely sure about what to charge for a project, or to see if what you’re currently charging is accurate. Glad to say we were bang on! There are some items in the form that I hadn’t really thought of articulating to clients too, so that was a bonus.
That’s it! See you next week!
I remember the first album cover that truly grabbed my attention: Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell. Why my dad had a Bat Out of Hell LP, I don’t know. What I do know is that image of a guy on the chopper bursting out of hell in a cemetery on the cover, made me think, “I need to listen to this record.”
Such is the power of album art. It draws the viewer in. It can expand the story of the album. It can increase album sales. In some cases it can even achieve legendary status, like Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon or the Beatles’ Abbey Road. For years, designers have worked alongside musicians and record labels to create imagery and packaging that brings an album to completion. However, the landscape of album art is changing drastically with the rise of iTunes and similar digital music providers, and as graphic designers we need to adapt.
If we look at Soundscan’s 2009 stats for music sales in the United States, there are a few numbers that jump out.
What do these numbers tell us? Basically, digital sales continue to rise while physical album sales continue to decline. Read the whole article >
