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Found Friday Vol 9

May 7, 2010

Hey hey, and welcome to volume 9 of Found Friday: all the best finds in the design community this week. It seemed like this week flew past, but while doing so I found the following awesomeness: a great vintage t-shirt company, a cool wheel of nutrition plate design, 2 great articles on priming artwork for print and landing clients, and the launch of a beautifully designed new tech blog. Read on, readers!

Homage Clothing

I am the world’s pickiest clothes wearer. It takes a lot to make this trainwreck look passable, lemme tell you. One of the places I’ve recently found that meets my ridiculous standards for fit, comfort & style is Homage clothing. Their shirts fit like American Apparel, are super comfy, and have great throwback designs on them. Lots of old-school basketball references and the like. Dig it!

Wheel of Nutrition

Following the government’s stupid nutrition guidelines is near impossible, unless you like to carry around a calculator all day. This ingenius design solves that problem – a plate that’s a pie chart of the nutrition guidelines. Super cool (via swiss miss).

Is Your Artwork Ready for Print?

A great article from the Echo Enduring blog on prepping your artwork for print. Print design can be confusing sometimes, with the various color spaces, resolutions, templates & dielines and so on – check out this article if you’re in need of a refresher.

Swing & a Miss!

This article on how to talk to clients in order to land paying gigs takes a few hypothetical situations and breaks them down into dos and don’ts. Worth a read for sure.

Techi.com

The gents over at Web Designer Depot launched a new tech blog called Techi. I’m a Gizmodo guy myself, but the design of this blog is so much better than any of the tech blogs out there, I may just become a convert. We’ll see – check it out for yourself.

Thanks and see you next week! Oh, and if you want to see past Found Fridays, just click here!

May 2010 Desktop Calendar Wallpaper

May 3, 2010

I know I’m a few days late with this, but c’mon – we were on vacation. As we all know, it’s May – it’s getting nicer out, trees are budding here in Edmonton, and more & more people are out and about… which means it’s also time for a new desktop calendar wallpaper for our faithful readers. Hope you like it!

Click to download the May 2010 Desktop Calendar Wallpaper in 1920X1200, 1680X1050, 1440X900, and 1280X800 pixels.

3 Steps To Improving Client-Designer Relationships

April 19, 2010

Simple but true: the best designs are born from the best client-designer relationships. They aren’t born from relationships where the designer calls all the shots; the best designs aren’t born from when the client tries to play designer. No, the best designs are born from a client-designer relationship that follows these three steps: clear role definition, honest & open communication, and trust.

If you’re a freelance designer, chances are you end up playing creative director with a lot of your clients – project manager with some too, I bet. I know this is the case for Paper Leaf. With that in mind, to adhere to the above-mentioned three steps, you might have to be the one that gets the ball rolling; the one that starts the discussion about roles; the one that practices open & honest communication; the one that embraces the idea of trust. If you are a designer who works with a creative director or a project manager, hopefully they understand the importance of these three steps. If not, you may have to tread carefully and, again, be the one who gets the ball rolling.

All this said, why do these three steps matter? Let me explain.

3 steps to improve client designer relationships Read the whole article >

Paper Leaf Design in Parlour Magazine

April 14, 2010

We’re going to take a quick break today from our regularly scheduled, design-informing programming to jump on the Self-Involved Train and talk about ourselves for a minute. Why? Because this month Paper Leaf Design is featured in Parlour Magazine. This Edmonton-produced design, lifestyle and fashion magazine is available in Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver, and is noted for its great design, photography, and content.

We’re honored to have been mentioned (and so kindly!) in their favorites section – judging by the quality of the other talent featured in the section, it’s no small feat. So thanks to Parlour for mentioning us, and if you see Parlour in your city, pick it up! It’s free and the content is awesome – for example, this issue features articles on the Bouncing Souls and Metric, as well as highlights of up & coming fashion for the season. If you’re not in Edmonton, Vancouver or Calgary, read the new issue online here. Also, much thanks to Leah Rae Photography – she took the photo of us that appears in the ‘zine (and on our About Us page).

Here’s some shots of the inside of the magazine (we’re the big photo, where Andy is threatening me with physical harm).

Paper Leaf Design in Parlour Magazine