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“Amidst all the attention given to the sciences as to how they can lead to the cure of all diseases and daily problems of mankind, I believe that the biggest breakthrough will be the realization that the arts, which are conventionally considered “useless,” will be recognized as the whole reason why we ever try to live longer or live more prosperously. The arts are the science of enjoying life.”
- John Maeda: graphic designer, computer scientist, university professor, author
I want to share a multi-part series on design practice that I recently read in Voice: AIGA Journal of Design. Author David Barringer’s humorous and insightful writing begins to cover “the fallacies and truths of design practice in the 21st century” in Myths of the Self-Taught Designer: The First Conversation between Ego and the Devil.
The three-part series conjures a conversation between the professional designer (Ego) and the amateur designer (the Devil). Both characters represent and argue the extremes of their positions as educated or self-taught. It raises some good questions as to what skills are necessary for design and at what level of design.
While this conversation does address the feelings that many educated designers have about amateur design, it does not address the larger-picture concern that graphic design as an institution is adjusting far too slowly to the business demands of our internet culture. Our formal training has been stuck in the rut of previous decades. This has allowed amateur design to creep its way into the professional realm of graphic design.
Barringer’s imaginative writing is certainly worth a read and will at least make you consider both sides of the “educated vs. self-taught” argument.
Myths of the Self-Taught Designer:
The First Conversation between Ego and the Devil
The Second Conversation between Ego and the Devil
The Third Conversation between Ego and the Devil
Wordle is a simple and fun tool to generate typographic word clouds. It may only seem like a time-waster at first, but if you take a look at the gallery you can find some very clever word combinations and descriptions that are great examples of typographic solutions to design problems. The above word cloud includes all the major words from my last few posts, but there are more in the gallery that go as far as to include entire novels.
Prolific poster artist Alton Kelley passed away on June 4, 2008 at the youthful age of 67 from complications of osteoporosis. Kelley’s distinct concert posters for artists such as Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company helped define the visual style of the 1960s counterculture.
Kelley’s posters were heavily influenced by a wide range of historical art styles including Art Nouveau, Art Déco and Bauhaus, but also borrowed styles from Native American and Chinese artwork.
It has been a tough week for Rock ‘N Roll as Kelley’s death comes just two days after the death of legendary rock guitarist Elias McDaniel, better known as Bo Diddley.
The New York Times is running a story in which you can read more about the work and life of Alton Kelley.
I am a large proponent of creating all designs, whether it be print or web, from my own code and image resources. However, I also have to be realistic with business deadlines becoming increasingly strained both in full-time office environments and the freelance world.
As a designer, is it right to purchase images or code to use in your own projects? After dealing with many different types of clients and designing a vast variety of projects, I have to say, “yes, but…”. And it is a very important “but”. If you are going to purchase code or stock resources, do so for the right reasons. Use the functionality that you need and then make it your own.
I’ve had some recent conversations specifically about Flashden. The site allows users to sell and buy stock flash, video, audio and font files. There are some extremely high-quality files and some not-quite-so-good files, but all are priced accordingly by Flashden. Have I ever downloaded anything from Flashden? Yes, I have, but…I also have made sure that I only use the code if it complements my own existing files and that I have left all credits to the coder intact. In no way, should these downloaded files replace your own work. Passing someone else’s work off as your own, even if you paid for it, is deceiving and is not representative of your personal work.
I liken the use of stock flash files to stock photography and Drupal/Dot Net Nuke modules, but the main difference is that while some stock photography and Drupal modules are allowed to be used as is, I highly recommend using your own design for the face of your flash projects. Your designs will only be better if you alter your photos or actionscript specifically for your project and put your personal design stamp on it.
Designers are encouraged to use all of their own code and image resources for their projects, but Flashden is a great resource for learning actionscript and for pleasing that one client that only wants it one way. I have found their forums and blog to be helpful at times as well. There is only one catch with using Flashden…you have to be honest about it.
The AIGA design archives house some of the more extensive visual resources of graphic design history. I frequent them often and have found some great work in promotional design, motion graphics, package design, typographic design and more from the past. I will share what I find with you and post it under its respective title over the next couple weeks.
To begin, here are some brand and identity designs from the past few decades:
Imagination Incorporated, 1986
Douglas May Design
This Is My Card, business card, 1969
Larry Miller
Southern California Savings & Loan, 1980
Robert Miles Runyan & Assoc.
CHAQWA, 2006
Jason Schulte Design
Green City, business card, 1996
Sagmeister, Inc.
I am a very active supporter of minimalism because many times the simplest designs are the most successful. Which of the above do you feel is the most successful and why?
Back in March, during the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, TX, the American Poster Institute presented the Flatstock 16 Poster Convention. The show featured original graphic art by more than 80 of the most popular poster artists working today. Around the same time, I had posted about a rock poster and its art history influences so I think it is fitting to give Flatstock some coverage. Below are a few of my favorites from the show.
Aesthetic Apparatus
Daniel Danger
Pedini
Small Stakes
Seattle Show Posters
For those that live in the Chicago area and would like to check out some posters first-hand, Flatstock 17 will be held at the Pitchfork Music Festival this summer in Union Park.
There are a lot of lists of color tools out there, but how many turn out to be of any use? The best tools are user friendly, easily customizable and provide you with every code or file format that you need. Below is a brief list (in no specific order) of color palette tools that I find the most useful for creating web, print and video projects and that I have actually used.
- Kuler
Adobe’s color theme tool includes a large collection of community-created color themes that you can use for your creative projects. The most useful aspects of Kuler include the search feature by which you can search by hex color code, tags or theme title. The tags are great because you can find all of the themes related to a specific keyword. Kuler is an Adobe Labs application so you can download themes to use with Adobe Creative Suite applications, making integration with your designs a cinch.
- COLOURlovers
A similar community site as Kuler, but with a bit more community. There are also a few differences that could be key to finding the perfect color theme for your project. The main focus of Colourlovers is color trends. So while you can browse community member themes, you can also check out the latest color trends found in popular and successful websites and magazines.
- Colorcombos.com
Also has user-created themes and its combo tester application can be useful but nothing extremely different here except for usability preferences. However, the one thing that I really enjoy using is their tool that allows you to enter a website url and pull all of the colors used on that site. Really love the colors I use here on Dracula Vs. Eisenstein? Go to Colorcombos.com to find the color codes I used.
- ColourMod
A dynamic, DHTML color picker that you can use for your site (small fee) or, more importantly to me, can be downloaded (for free) as a widget for Mac or PC. I have the Dashboard widget and I use it constantly when working between design applications. I used to need photoshop open to grab a swatch hex code to use in Flash or Dreamweaver and it was not fun, even when using Spaces on my iMac. I save time and RAM which makes life a little less stressful.
- Dhtmlgoodies.com Color Schemer
You might take a look at this and wonder why this is on my list. Because its simple. Very simple. And quick. When you need a suggested complimentary color in a matter of seconds, this is a reliable tool. You click on a primary color or type in a hex color code and it generates suggested complimentary, split complimentary, triade, tetrade, analogic and monotone color schemes for you.
- Colorjack
Like ColourMod, Colorjack offers a OSX Dashboard widget as well as a website color picker (this one is free!). You’ll have to compare the two color pickers to see if they are worth what they say. The site also has a color theme generator that you may prefer to others. Colorjack’s homepage is a huge block of random color themes, which on its own can offer some inspiration.
I certainly don’t use all of these sites for one project and I usually find one more useful depending on the individual task or project. If you have any color palette tools or sites that you find extremely useful, please add them in the comments below.
