This came from the WNYC web site.
Our latest Please Explain is all about typefaces and typography. Typeface designer Jonathan Hoefler, type designer and president of Hoefler & Frere-Jones and Steven Heller, co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts and author of the VISUALS column for the New York Times Book Review, will explain how typefaces are created and why typography is important to communication and design.
As promised, after putting everyone’s name in a hat, Stephen Emlund is the winner of Logo Lounge 1, the hardbound edition! Thanks to everyone who commented. It really helped me come up with some ideas that I’m working on, albeit very slowly.
Since I just can’t seem to leave well enough alone, I’ve decided to embrace that desire to change instead of fighting it. As a result, Use A Concept got a face lift for the start of a new academic year and is now running on WordPress. As I stated in an previous article, WordPress does have more features that make its less than designer friendly coding well worth the switch from Movable Type.
As I have asked for in the past, I’m asking for again, but this time with a bribe. I still want to know what content you want to see on this blog! Really give it some thought. It’s your chance to build a resource that caters to your specific needs as a student. Do you want podcasts and videos that are produced specifically for you? Do you want more articles that give you advice and feedback or is simply gathering all the articles from across the internet enough?
Post your comments here, with specific details, and those commentors who take this task seriously will be entered in a drawing for a free copy (shipping included) of Logo Lounge 1, hardback edition. The drawing will be held on September 30th. Remember to include your email address when posting or I wont be able to contact the winner.
The following is a way for you to get involved in the community and stay current in design.
NEW YORK, June 29, 2009. The White House and the National
Endowment for the Arts (NEA) have requested AIGA members’ help in
promoting public service opportunities in their communities during the “United We Serve” initiative, a summer of community involvement culminating in a National Day of Service and Remembrance on September 11, 2009.
On behalf of the Obama administration, the NEA has asked members of
AIGA, the professional association for design, to visually promote
local opportunities for community service and then create a visual
record of the results. “Designers should be involved as citizens and as
designers. Each designer has the ability to move others by making
stories visible and capturing the community experience,” said AIGA
Executive director Richard Grefé.
You can read the rest of the article on the AIGA web site.
Here is yet another article, this time by Jessica Helfand, to help inspire you graduating and returning students.
And that’s just the beginning in what seems, more often than not, to be
a series of paradoxical propositions. If you’re graduating in the
middle of a
recession, it’s likely that an arc of despair trumps the impending
thrill of your newly-liberated station in life. Conversely,
though, I can’t imagine a better time to get out of school. Nobody’s
hiring, but why let that stop you? While the mechanics of, say, having
a roof over your head suggest that a little modest income might be a
good thing, the actual economics of making work no longer depend on an
actual employer. The portfolio no longer means a big black suitcase
schlepped
around from studio to studio. Get your work online, put your videos on
YouTube, and get busy.
I just came across the “Best Live Design Discussion on the Internet.” While I haven’t participated in one of their video/twitter/social media chat myself, yet, it looks pretty interesting and I think everyone should got to the Design Chat website a try and participate in the Wednesday video chats that take place at 8pm CST.
This blog is all about you, my students (past, present and future) and I wanted to give you the opportunity to let me know what you want. Post comments on what type of content you want to see and read or how you can better interact with the blog itself. Don’t be shy, all ideas are welcome.
The Project
You can train your imagination the same way you train for a marathon, the more miles you put in the longer and faster you can run. The more you exercise and use your imagination, the more creative and quicker your imagination will become. The following project is an exercise you can perform regularly to increase your imagination’s creativity and stamina.
The Objectives
• Develop your imagination to be more creative.
• Discover your ideal working method.
• Train to be creative on demand.
The Process
Create 10 different concepts that visually solve one specific problem and create one thumbnail sketch for each concept. Spend only 2 minutes per concept (use a timer). For this project to be effective, each concept and thumbnail must be completely different from each other. Make the thumbnail sketches in a journal that you keep with you. Don’t worry about being neat or how effective each concept is. This is supposed to be quick and dirty, you never have to share these ideas with anyone if it will help you relax and be more creative and productive.
The problems should vary and have very specific goals and outcomes! Force yourself to think of ideas that aren’t obvious. The more limits you place on the project, the more creative you have to be with your solutions. To help get you started, come up with a poster that will let immigrants know of the value of the public library system and it’s new hours. Here is a news article you can download for more background information. Keep in mind you can make up your own projects if you don’t like this one! It’s not about the project or the solution, it’s about the repetition of doing!
The Format
Spend 20 minutes thumbnailing 10 different concepts. Spend 2 minutes on each thumbnail.
Spend 5 minutes journaling the circumstances, your mood and the surroundings you experience when doing the exercise.
Spend 5 minutes ordering the concepts from best to worst.
Tips
Do this project more than once a day or at varying times over several days and journal the results. For example were your ideas more creative just before bed or after a good lunch, do you produce better in a coffee shop or on the subway, was your first idea always the best or worst. Besides your surroundings, journal your moods, are you happy, sad, playful, excited, tired, etc. Over time, patterns will develop, maybe you’ll find that you’re more creative at night, maybe you’re more productive in the morning, maybe you’re less creative when too caffeinated or not caffeinated enough. Learn your working habits and exercise your imagination!
Here is a book I stumbled upon. I haven’t had a chance to check it out, but this looks like a wonderful way to stay creative during down time! You can check out the book at Amazon and I’ve listed the publisher’s description below.
You’ll love this collection of 25 papertoys ready to be cut out and
built. This fun project book includes step-by-step instructions,
diagrams, and a section about how to design your own paper toys from
scratch. Plus, a bonus DVD features patterns for all 25 toys and even
more templates to print out. Complete with interviews from the toy
designers, this fun guide gives you everything you need to build — and
even design your own — cutting-edge urban papertoys!
Hello Everyone,
Sorry for the lack of posts, I’ve been busy moving, visiting babies, friends and such. Anyway, if you haven’t designed anything since school let out, um, shame on you! So here is another exercise for you straight from the book Caffeine for the Creative Mind, enjoy!
Postage stamps are a normal part of mail delivery. Someone has to pay to have it delivered, don’t they? Over the years, postage stamps have been designed to celebrate everything from events and happenings to people and animals. We love postage stamps so much, people even collect them. Today, you’re going to get a chance to design your own stamp, only with a twist. Today’s challenge is to create a stamp design for the following scenarios:
• Gerbils have overrun the White House
• Peanut Butter and Jelly was elected National Sandwich
• Orange is banned from nationally recognized colors
• Badminton overtakes Baseball as the National Pastime
Your stamp can be any shape or size, but must include a denomination.