1. Found Friday Vol 23

   August 27, 2010 by Jeff
   Volume 23 this week. Michael Jordan. It’s gorgeous outside and I want to go for a bike ride, so that’s as good an intro as you’re going to get. This week: Twitter background designs & best practices, a great typography mug, 10 places that can turn your designs into actual things, a cool office that’s been made to look like an old cottage, and a fun website with ridiculous “I can’t come to work” excuses. Read on, readers!

   Twitter Background Design – Great Tips & Gorgeous Examples

   Twitter seems to be here to stay – so, if you’re a Twitterer (Tweeter? Twitterionian?), best make your background look as dope as possible lest the Internet mock you for lameness. Here’s a great article on how to do that. PS follow us!

   

   Font Me Typography Mug

   Thanks to swiss-miss for the find; I’m always up for a good nerd-style coffee mug.

   

   10 Services That Turn Your Designs into Real Stuff

   There’s a ton of sites out there that offer one-off printing or construction of your graphics and ideas. It’s like a new revolution! Check these sites out if you’re the creative type.

   

   Bartle Bogle Hegarty Offices

   I love cool offices; these guys went off in their own direction and turned the inside of their offices into an English-style cottage.

   

   I Can’t Come to Work

   Some light Friday reading for you – ridiculous excuses from people as to why they can’t make it into work. Example: “Due to heavy rain and high fever I am suffering from, I’ll be in once rain stops.” Yup.

   See you next week!

   Category: Found Fridays Tags: bartle bogle office, cantcometowork.com, font me mug, found friday, twitter background design | Comments (0)

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2. Found Friday Vol 14

   June 11, 2010 by Jeff
   Welcome one & all to Found Friday Vol 14. This week gives a special shout-out to SwissMiss, because 3 of the items featured here I found first on her blog. I suggest following & bookmarking her site, as it’s a gold mine for solid & interesting design. This week’s finds include a super simple link-compiling web app, a new entry into the simple online store category, a Tumblr blog devoted to awesome & old-school letterheads, a beautiful HTML5 infographic, and a good tutorial on using patterns in Photoshop & Illustrator. Enjoy, share, and see you next week!

   URLIST

   Urlist is a super simple & useful web app. It’s a way to compile & share links you’ve found – for example, say you are building a website that has a mega-huge navigation system. You could research for sites that have good examples of large nav systems, compile the URLs using Urlist, and share it with your client/designer. Like I said: simple & useful.

   

   Vendr

   It seems that, while so many web-related applications have gotten easier & easier to implement, ecommerce is still a little daunting. FoxyCart is great, but still takes a bit to set up and get running. Enter a new, purportedly simpler solution: Vender. Essentially, you set up a “store” link on your website, and when you click it, Vendr opens in an overlay (not a pop-up). Sounds pretty great; there are various pricing schemes to check out on their site.

   

   Letterheady

   Need some old-school print inspiration? Check out Letterheady, a blog dedicated to showcasing old-school letterhead designs. Charles Atlas’ is so awesome.

   

   HTML5 Infographic

   Confused with all this Jobs vs Adobe, HTML5 vs Flash stuff going on? Perhaps this (beautifully designed) HTML5 infographic will help you out. Creative-commons licensed, so download away!

   

   6 Ways to Use a Seamless Pattern in PS & Illy

   Patterns are a great tool for any designer, regardless of whether you’re a print or web designer. Check out this super-easy tutorial on using them in Photoshop & Illustrator.

   

   Category: Articles, Found Fridays Tags: found friday, html5 infographic, letterheady, urlist, vendr | Comments Off

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3. Found Friday Vol 12

   May 28, 2010 by Jeff
   Morning, readers! I’m back from Montreal, fully inspired and ready to dish on more great design finds. This week’s Found Friday features an amazingly well-thought-out and designed public bike system from Montreal, a Pantone Hotel in Belgium, a list of the top 10 CSS Galleries of 2010, a beautifully Swiss-inspired espresso machine (we all need it now and again), and a hugemongous compilation of Illustrator brushes. So check ‘em out, subscribe to our feed, and tune in next week!

   BIXI

   Bixi, a combination term of “bike” and “taxi”, is a public transportation project in Montreal (and soon, other cities worldwide). Essentially, you pay $5 for a pedal bike from their moveable, solar-powered locking stations. This gets you a half hour of riding, and each half hour after that charges your credit card. There are stations all over the city, so you just drop the bike off at station when you’re done with it. It’s a brilliant way to promote an alternative, clean source of transportation.

   The bikes, and this whole system, really is a marvel of technology and industrial design. Read more at www.bixi.ca.

   

   The Pantone Hotel

   In case having the Pantone mug just isn’t enough graphic design nerdery for you, why not stay at the themed Pantone Hotel in Belgium? “What room are you in?” “Oh, I’m just over in 3005M”.

   

   Top 10 CSS Galleries of 2010

   Alright, so usually these kinds of lists don’t come out until year’s end. But, early bird gets the worm right? Here’s a list of 10 great CSS galleries for the next time you’re stumped for web design inspiration.

   

   Illy Y1 Espresso Machine

   I’m not a huge espresso guy – more of a black coffee one – but if/when we get an espresso machine here at the Paper Leaf offices, this Illy Y1 machine would be it. I don’t care how good the espresso is. The design is gorgeous, and that is FACT.

   

   1000 Free Illustrator Brushes

   I’m not a huge fan of these “one hundred quadrillion bajillion things you’ll never manage to use all of” lists, but some people are. There are a bunch of good, free Illustrator brushes in this list. For those of you needing to fill your bare brush cupboard in Illustrator… enjoy.

   

   See ya next week!

   Category: Found Fridays Tags: bixi, espresso machine, found friday, free illustrator brushes, pantone hotel, top 10 css galleries | Comments Off

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4. Found Friday Vol 11

   May 21, 2010 by Jeff
   It’s the long weekend, and I’m off to Montreal to see the sights. By “sights” I mean “riots” if the Habs win. Hopefully you have some good plans for the weekend too – if not, here are 6 tasty finds from this week in the design world to get you through the weekend. This week’s instalment includes a cool book for geeks who are dads, Google’s new font library & API, a cool poster explaining where cursors come from, an alternative to boring “Closed” signs, a free and useful vector pack of barcodes as well as a bunch of free offline tools for wireframing websites. Read on, readers!

   Geek Dad

   Are you a geek, who also happens to be a dad? Do you want some way to share your geekdom with your child? Then check out Geek Dad, a book of projects that geeky dads can do with their sons/daughters.

   

   Google Fonts API

   Font-face is great – we use it all the time – but it’s not without its flaws. There are other alternatives out there, like Typekit, but lookout: Google just entered the fray with their new Fonts API and library. Check out this post that explains it, and shows how simple it is to implement.

   

   Where Cursors Come From

   Oh, so THAT’s where cursors come!

   

   Yes, We’re/Sorry, We’re

   Need another way to show how unique you are? Then hang one of these bad boys in your shop window. Super cool idea.

   

   40 Free Vector Barcode Graphics

   These barcodes could be used for normal applications (like an album mockup), or as a design element in a grungy poster design or similar. Download it and keep it in your toolbox!

   

   Useful (Offline) Utensils & Toolkits for Designers

   We’ve talked before about being an efficient designer and working with pencil/pen before hopping into the Creative Suite. With that in mind, check out this collection of useful offline – ie. not on the computer – utensils and toolkits for designers. More for your toolbox!

   

   Thanks for reading – see you next week!

   Category: Articles, Found Fridays Tags: found friday, geek dad book, google font api, signs, vector barcode pack, where cursors come from, wireframing | Comments Off

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5. Found Friday Vol 9

   May 7, 2010 by Jeff
   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!

    

   Category: Found Fridays Tags: found friday, landing paying clients, nutritional plate, print ready artwork, tech blog, vintage t shirts | Comments Off

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