The Design Cubicle » Graphic Design

Tools and services I couldn’t live without in 2010

Brian — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:45:46 +0000

Every Builder needs a hammer or something equivalent to make their everyday work and / or life easier and more enjoyable. In the past year, I’ve signed up for both free and paid tools and services that have made my life easier as an independent Graphic Designer, while also getting rid of a few from last year that weren’t quite doing it for me. I often get the weekly email of preferred apps / services / tools that would help make ‘x’ job easier, so after reading a friends, Whitney Hess, blog post on her Top 10 Tools of 2010, I thought many of you might enjoy the same. I’ve also stacked the in order from ‘I would cry if I woke up without it’ to ‘This is quite handy and use if weekly.’

Dropbox

I’m sure there is no surprise here, but honestly if you are not using Dropbox or haven’t upgraded yet to more storage you are surely missing out. This past year I’ve upgraded to the 100GB plan, which means I’ve moved all of my work files, personal documents, Little Snapper ‘inspiration’ library, iTunes library, and iPhoto library and is now accessible whether I’m on my laptop, iMac, or someone else’s computer. I’ve even found myself uploading a large file that takes a few minutes, leave the house, open the iPhone’s Dropbox app and email a file off to a client – can’t beat that! This is certainly the ‘I’d cry if I no longer had Dropbox in my life’ tool.

Cloudapp

I’ve really come to love Cloupapp over the past year. With a simple keyboard shortcut you can quickly share links of a webpage you are viewing, upload files, or take screenshots of images that generates its own short URL that copies automatically to your clipboard.

I’ve come to create my own uses for it as well. For one, I love the Photoshop Raindrop integration. It allows me to keyboard shortcut the frontmost Photoshop canvas I am working on and uploads an image, which I typically will send over to clients for approval. The reason I love this Raindrop is due to the fact that I can tell when the client has viewed it (has URL click tracking) and it helps the client visualize what the website comp will most closely look like in the browser. Fast and simple – what’s not to love about it? Oh yes, there is also the Cloudette iPhone app that syncs with Cloudapp where you can generate short Cloudapp URLS, view hits and visit your past uploads.

Wufoo

I’ve been using Wufoo for around 3 years now and functions great for my online Project Worksheets. Simple to set up; customizable if need be; saves me plenty of time when clients get initially in contact and helps weed out the serious clients from the non. I am currently using the $14.95 per month “Ad Hoc” plan (since I need more fields)and its been well worth it.

1Password

I’ve just become a 1Password user this year and honestly can say I feel a bit guilty for jumping on the bandwagon so late. This tool not only saves me time, but frustration as well – not to mention great security with the long passwords it generates. For those unfamiliar, it stores all your passwords and allows you to access them with, you guessed it, one password.

What I most love is the keyboard shortcut for when you arrive to a site that requires your login, in my case, I hit Shift + Command + ‘down arrow’ and it automatically fills in the fields and logs me in. The iPhone / iPad app is also mighty handy for those on the go moments.

Little Snapper

I’ve mentioned Little Snapper a few times in past blog posts and it deserves yet another mention. Meant for capturing, archiving and organizing inspiration, I’ve used it t build a database of great UI elements, websites, color palettes, and more with notes of what I like or could use some improving.

Alfred app

For those familiar with Spotlight on the Mac, Alfred app is similar but on steroids – meaning its faster, prettier, smarter, and more useful. If you haven’t caught the trend that I love keyboard shortcuts from the above mentioned tools, yet again you assign a handy keyboard shortcut to bring up the slick Alfred search box, which can then control your iTunes, search files and folders, browse the web or your bookmarks and more.

Simplenote

Simplenote is a great solution to… well Simple note taking. While I mostly use it as an iPhone app, it also has a great web interface that automatically syncs up. I use it for everyday note taking to an ongoing “remember to pack for vacation” list.

Typekit

This year has been wonderful with webfonts and I couldn’t imagine it without Typekit. Paying $49.99 a year for beautiful, high-quality fonts at your finger tips seems like a steal to me. I’ve used it for everything for client sites to my personal sites, including FF Dagny Web for this here blog.

What I particularly love about Typekit is the innovation and improvements that get pushed out almost weekly. The folks there really have their act together and are generally excited about pushing web fonts further and faster.

Instapaper

If you haven’t discovered the joys of Instapaper you are truly missing out. From the website to the iPhone and iPad apps, Instapaper is a must have for me, especially catching all the great links on Twitter and having no time to read them at the given moment. The reading experience is enjoyable, has nice features such as tilt to scroll on the iPhone and iPad and the ability to easily share what you’ve just read.

Reeder for Mac (and iPhone / iPad)

First let me start off by saying that I’ve been using Google Reader for years and every time the next “big desktop RSS reader” comes out, I give it a go for a day or two and then I’m right back to the web interface. However, since Reeder for Mac has been released (in Beta), I’ve been using it solid for about 2 weeks now and have no plans of turning back.

The folks behind Reeder really have a knack for simplicity, design, details (just look at how you can customize the unread count on the app box or display it as a normal badge), and forward-thinking. I also love the support of gestures while reading, browsing to the next article, etc., in addition to features like Readability integration for improved web reading experiences and ‘sharing’ services built in for a number of great sites. Don’t forget the beautiful iPhone and iPad versions of the app as well.

LittleIpsum

Well maybe I could live without this one, but LittleIpsum definitely is a handy menubar tool that I’ve used often this past year. I’m all about being in the right place at the right time and LittleIpsum hanging out in my menubar is a good fit.

Worth mentioning:

CopyPaste Character

I keep this bookmarked and accessible from my browser’s toolbar. I often can’t remember all the extra shortcuts so CopyPasteCharacter gets used around once a week at the least. Click and copied and ready to be pasted.

BackTweets

BackTweets allows you to subscribe to incoming Tweets that link to your site, blog or whatever you want. Running this blog and most of my work online it’s nice to see all the good and bad things being said. This way I am able to respond or react accordingly or just monitor what’s being said.

What are some tools, services or websites you couldn’t live without this past year?

In a sea of Designers: My ‘best’ advice

Brian — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 17:30:50 +0000

Just yesterday a third year design student had contacted me asking for one piece of advice I would provide to her and other fellow graduating students. Here is my response in long form:

In a sea of Designers

It’s almost 2011, the web is crawling with great talent by the day (just check out Dribbble’s Popular page), and both clients and employers are increasingly starting to use such sources to find designers. If that’s not enough, it also seems that everyone and their mother wants to be a designer. Oops, almost forgot about the 12-year old nephew sitting in the basement with a pirated copy of Photoshop making you reconsider changing careers.

So how do you prepare for the dive into the sea of many other designers? Learning, understanding and conveying sense of value to your work.

Learning value

It’s been awhile now since graduating college, however from what I can remember and from talking at conferences and universities with current students, schooling seems to only touch base on the craft and performance of design and designing.

“I worry about the medium, because not enough designers are working in that vast middle ground between eye candy and hardcore usability where most of the web must be built.” – Jeffrey Zeldman

Sure, adding pretty effects is a nice touch of style to a site, but if the website, for example, doesn’t function as intended or you cannot justify the decisions you have made to a client other than the fact that “they look good” you are in danger of failing as a designer and problem solver. Understanding the differences between style and design is the opening of doors to conveying sense of value.

Reading books and thinking about design from an experience and functional standpoint, rather than a stylistic standpoint is a great place to start learning.

Understanding value

Whether you are job seeking and interviewing with potential employers, working in-house and reporting directly to clients or your boss, or running your own independent design business, only half of what we do is actual design work. The other half, well, that folks is called “business”. Love it or hate it, you have to learn how to sell yourself, your services and your value. And you cannot sell any of those without understanding what exactly your value is.

If I was an employer seeking to hire a Designer for my team, I would be more focused on the ‘why’ rather than the ‘how.’ Give me a week with someone and I’m sure I could teach them the basics of Photoshop (ie: that 12-year old nephew I mentioned above), but understanding the basics of Design from a functionality and purpose perspective is what many lack, as did I fresh out of school.

Sidenote:

How incredibly timely of this email. Just as I was in the midst of writing, Mail App goes ‘ding’ and here is what appears:

Well, ‘name blurred by Mosaic filter’, this one goes out to you as well.

Conveying value

My best advice for Designers, future graduates, career seekers, and career changers, and anyone else looking to succeed (and by “success” I mean love doing your job day after day, year after year): convey ‘the’ and your value of design and decision making.

From a person seeking employment’s perspective, understanding and conveying your value and the value of each decision you made for each piece of work will keep you swimming happily on the bottom of the ocean, while the other fish float to the top (one instance where you don’t want to be on top… remember that goldfish you once had?).

Also, at some point while working in-house you will be reporting to either a boss that reports to “the Board of Final Decision Makers” or you might be speaking directly to the client, so having your value guns loaded will save you endless hours of frustration and revisions. Conveying the value to others will assist in them not making decisions based on look but rather other elements such as usability, functionality – you know the valuable things.

From a freelancer’s perspective, conveying the value of your work and decisions will also prevent more headaches throughout the year. Understanding the value will help to keep projects from spiraling out of control, provide confidence in yourself and decisions, and help you better stand up for your work.

Next time someone asks you “why should we hire you?” or “why are we the best match for this project?” you might be a little more prepared for what you can bring to the table.

Even when designing that next project, think about if, for example, adding in that extra visual element is adding to the value or devaluing the task at hand. If great design lies in the details, then working with or for great companies lies in the value.

“Design without meaning or reason is nothing more than a pretty picture” – Unknown (but if you do know, please let me know and I will replace).

My Design Swap: A Day in the Life of Dan Mall

Brian — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:01:04 +0000

A few months back, Trent Walton (@TrentWalton) and Yaron Schoen (@Yarcom) asked if I’d be interesting in contributing “a swap” with another designer for their new project, Design Swap. For those unfamiliar, Design Swap is a way to “build closer friendships with other designers online by letting someone design on your website, whether it’s a blog post, banner image, or “tiny footer doodad.” I couldn’t have been more excited to be apart when asked. They also asked if I had anyone in mind that I’d like to partner with on this fun project, which at the time, I started chatting and DMing Dan Mall (@DanielMall) on Twitter more frequently.

Aside from being familiar with Dan’s work, Big Spaceship (the company he currently works for), a reader of his blog for quite some time, and a few quick chats back and forth on Twitter and Instant Messaging, I really didn’t know much else. This made for a great introduction for the Design Swap project: “Spreading Camaraderie Through Good Design.”

Dan kindly accepted working together, which began with a few brainstorming sessions over the phone for a few weeks. At the end, we decided what better way to approach the project than getting to know each other better through recording observations of each other day’s and then sharing what we both did on a particular day.

We also thought it would be interesting to add a few limitations to our swap by forcing each other to design in the other person’s website style. This meant my swap of Dan’s life had to look, feel and share resemblance of danielmall.com using the same fonts and style, which was inspired by the NY Times and LA Times. We left the idea of how we both wanted to approach sharing this information to the other person, as long as it followed the style restrictions.

Having always enjoying looking at infographics and always wanting an excuse to make one of my own, I thought this would be a fun occasion to do so, while also poking a bit of fun at Dan’s awesome and meticulous recording of that day. I hope you enjoy my Design Swap with Dan’s daily data: A Day in the Life of Dan Mall. Feel free to also read more on our swap over at Dan’s site.

It’s without a doubt been a lot of fun getting to know Dan on a more personal level (apparently he and I lived in Philadelphia at the same time for like 8 years and never knew it) and working with such a smart, talented and passionate guy on this swap! Also, kudos to Yaron and Trent for such a brilliant idea. As an independent designer, it’s really great to connect with so many other talented folks through digital format and glad Trent and Yaron both share that same vision of spreading closer friendships online.

Feel free to also get involved with Design Swap by signing up (for free of course!) and selecting who you would like to pair with. Happy swapping.

Designers Sketchbook Showcase

Brian — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:02:42 +0000

We are often fascinated with the end result of a project that we often forgot how a design originated and morphed into the work that is shown. Personally all of my designs, whether its a logo or the layout of a website, always start off in my sketchbook. Sketching helps to get the brain working creatively, get ideas out quickly, free your mind, and overall improve your design work.

I’ve always enjoyed viewing others sketchbooks as well, so I asked my Twitter friends if they wanted to contribute a page from theirs. Below is a showcase of designers sketches, notes, and other doodles within their sketchbooks.

Continue reading below on how to win 10 free sketchbooks by Logo Nest!

Jeff Sheldon – @ugmonk

“One of the early sketches for my “There’s More to Life” Ugmonk shirt.” The full process can be seen on Ugmonk’s blog.

Adam Olenchick – @adamolenchick

“I had the challenge of having 4 companies on a single full page print Ad. It’s not my favorite sketch but one that shows my process better than most. I find that working on gridded paper helps.”

Andrew Steger – @drewski1979

“This is a stream of consciousness sketch. I like to do this when I’m feeling stuck. I often find pieces in it that I like and end up using in later designs.”

Linzie Hunter – @linzieh

“A pages of doodles from my lettering sketchbook.”

Carolyn Sewell – @carolynsewell

“This is sketch of notes taken during the recent AIGA design conference in Memphis. I’ve found that if i like looking at my notes, I’ll read them more, be inspired more, and thus use them more.”

Prescott Perez-Fox – @scottperezfox

“Sketches for logo development for New Day Rescue & Adoptions. These all follow the “dog silhouette” route, which ended up being the final approach.”

Charles Riccardi – @charlesriccardi

“This page out of my sketchbook was used to create the first concepts for a logo project. The company is a green company seeking after better, more environmentally away lighting solutions.”

Poyin Voon – @poyinphony

“I wish i can go somewhere which can let my imagination grow…”

Luther Spicer – @designjones

“Ideas for an airport-based exhibition called ‘Perceptions of Beauty’. The central idea was based around giant luggage tags as posters that could be wrapped around anything in the airport i.e. columns, chairs & signage.”

Denise Lange – @deniselange

“I was creating (and practicing!) a handwritten script and elements to be used in a logo and accompanying branding materials.”

Dan Redding – @danredding

“I keep sketchbooks for creative inspiration and enjoyment. This page features a drawing I did of an creepy but beautiful abandoned mental hospital in Massachusetts.”

Chris Sharp – @csharpdesign

“Brainstorming sketches for a logo design. Basis was a theme of renewal and growth focusing on the letter ‘C’ (Change for Real – the client brand name) as a motif.”

Joey Ellis – @joeyellis

“In planning some games for my son’s pirate-themed birthday party, I decided I should take a moment and draw out some ideas.”

Misty Belardo – @mistygirlph

“This is a sketch of my TwitterBackground design. I did a new version of me. Hand drawn design of me was used to depict what I love doing.”

Paul Randall – @paulrandall

“These was some early concepts on a logo for a local community arts centre.”

Chris Skelton – @sk3lton

This is a double page from my Moleskine which formed the start of my logo design for the childrens outdoor activity and Forest Schools equipment supplier Muddy Faces. View the completed website.

Ashraf Ghori – @AshrafGhori

Concept design for Virtual Geographic for CG animated film www.Xero-Error.com

“A Medical Assistant vehicle design for my animated film.”

Josh Cagwin – @joshcagwin

“Rough wireframe sketch of a home page for a project.”

Delve Withrington – @delvew

“Sketches for the logo of my independent font foundry, Delve Fonts.”

Paul Barrera – @PaulBarrera12

“It was long day at the internship, working on a logo for a class / killing time. Go Sketch! it doesn’t need to make sense.”

Cynthia Lavigne – @clavigne

“This was an idea for a character I wanted to use in a Flash animation.”

Noel Miciano – @noel1215

“I hardly draw anymore, so I wanted to get back into it this year and introduce myself to typography.”

Martin Kulakowski – @notanotherone

“This was just one of the many sketches for my personal website that never saw the light of day. The main goal of the website was to showcase the latest portfolio work and the blog entries. I also wanted to allow the visitor to be able to switch between different “themes” with some CSS and PHP magic.”

Brian Hoff – @behoff

A mix of icon and typographic identity sketches for Dreamvast.

SKETCHBOOK GIVEAWAY DETAILS

About Logo Nest

Logo Nest is a place dedicated to creative designers, both professionals and amateurs, where they can share and compare their creative work. Publishing on this web site is free, and it includes no payment of any kind. Every day, every month and every year, we declare the best logo design, and all logos published on this site will be published in a book Logo Nest 01 at the begin of the 2011! My Nest is part of the Logo Nest as we want to promote sketching as very important part of the logo design process. (Giveaway now closed)

The Top Design Blogs Best Posts in 2009

Brian — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:50:07 +0000

Yahoo has a nice little Site Explorer search that allows you to request a specific website URL that displays results of the highest ranked articles/pages on a specific website.

Based on my Twitter list “Top Design Blogs,” I searched each of the blogs in this list in Yahoo’s Site Explorer and compiled a Highest Rank List of 2009 below.

CatsWhoCode
10 awesome .htaccess hacks for WordPress

Design Informer
Spectacular Holiday Typography

UX Magazine
Wireframing ahoy!

Drawar
Designs of the Year: 2009

Boagworld
7 Harsh Truths about running online communities

24 Ways
Working with RGBA Colour

Frank Chimero
Why Do We Art?

Vonster
How To: Get precise vector shapes with the pen tool

DesignWorkLife
Nonsense Infographics

Inspired Magazine
The Social Bird Icon Set

Web Designer Depot
Operating System Interface Design Between 1981-2009

Vandelay
25 Scripts for Dropdown Navigation Menus

ImJustCreative
12 LogoType Designs – Have you Seen These Series – Part 1

Speckyboy
21 Amazing Movie Posters Recreated with Lego

Smashing Magazine
Flavours Icon Set And Cute Tweeters Icon Set

Design*Sponge
DIY project: Recycled Cardboard Kitty Pad

CrazyLeaf Design
50+ New and Beautiful Free WordPress Themes

CMD+Shift Design
14 Applications to Make Your OSX Installation Better|

AisleOne
8 Ways To Improve Typography in Your Designs

Tutorial9
Colorful Glowing Text Effect in Photoshop

Fudge Graphics
Sticky Tape: Free Hi-Res Photoshop Brushes + Textures

Hongkiat
100+ Funny Photos Taken At Unusual Angle

Six Revisions
30 Exceptional CSS Navigation Techniques

I Love Typography
The first one’s the hardest

Cameron Moll
Exploring Cufón, a sIFR alternative for font embedding

Logo Design Love
Ten logo design tips from the field

ISO50
Wes Anderson Project / Student Project

Jason Santa Maria
Pretty Sketchy

Elliot Jay Stocks
Design Trends in 2009

Just Creative Design
The Top 100 Best Fonts Of All Time

Spoon Graphics
Twitter Background Design How-To and Best Practices

David Airey
Forbes calls designers snooty

CSS Tricks
CSS Sprites: What They Are, Why They’re Cool, and How To Use Them

Veerle’s blog
Simple scalable CSS based breadcrumbs

Woorkup
10 Beautiful Sketches for Website Prototypes

The Netsetter
So You Want to Start a Startup? 5 Places to Start

Abduzeedo
45 Amazing Type Faces – Typographic Portraits

Design Shard
300+ Free Hi-Res grunge textures you’ve never seen before

Colorburned
46 Stunning High Resolution Photoshop Light Effect Brushes

Fuel Your Creativity
Grid Based Design Toolbox

Grace Smith
Get Wireframing: An All In One Guide

Niki Brown
The Worlds Ugliest Websites

Vector Tuts+
How to Create a Mosaic Portrait from a Photograph

My Ink Blog
10 Awesome Free Handwritten Fonts

Build Internet
Sliding Boxes and Captions with jQuery

PSD Tuts+
50 Totally Free Lessons in Graphic Design Theory

Net Tuts
Top 50 WordPress Tutorials

Swiss Miss
Ctrl – Alt – Del Pillows

Grain Edit
Frank Chimero Interview

Jessica Hische
Hand-Lettering

From The Couch
How To Use CSS Sprites

Carsonified
The Evolution of a Website Design

What was your favorite blog post of 2009? Feel free to share in the comments below. Here’s to everyone having a happy, healthy and inspiring 2010.

Some Highlights and Future Goals

Brian — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:01:14 +0000

2009 has been a great year for The Design Cubicle. In the past 12 months TDC has close to 2 million amazing visitors and approximately 5,000 comments on 151 articles (an average of 33 comments per article with a rate of 3 articles a week)—ranging from freelancing tips, logo and web design articles, typography insights and great giveaways—and 11,000 subscribers via RSS and email.
I owe each and everyone of the above (and more) accomplishments to all of you. Without your thought-provoking comments, appreciated retweets on Twitter and generosity of following along, 2009 would be just another year for The Design Cubicle. I thank each and every one of you for your contributions and involvement. Really, thank you.

I only hope in someway I have helped to enlighten or inspire you in 2009 and look forward to bring even more energy and passion to TDC in 2010. Below is a month-by-month recap of 2009′s Best Articles on The Design Cubicle.

January

12 Common Photoshop Mistakes, a list to help educate new designers and “users” of Photoshop, not only become popular via TDC readers, but was 1 of 3 articles that hit the front page of Digg (accumulating 1,500+ Diggs).

Another January article shedding some light on the topic of What You Should Get From A Logo Designers, was an articled focused at both designers and those looking to hire a design professional. The post walks through all the files and formats and received 59 great comments.

February

How to drive traffic to your design blog provides personal insight into a few valuable tips that drove The Design Cubicle from the early stages. With 248 retweets on Twitter and 129 comments, this article still circulates around the web and Twitter quite frequently.

March

With the new year around the corner, its always good to start planning (or re-planning) your business, especially if you are a freelancer. The article, 28 Must Read Articles for Growing Your Freelance Design Business, highlights essential tools, resources, promotional tips and other articles that will expand any business.

April

April was quite a solid month for The Design Cubicle. With articles such as 50 Creative Business Cards of Graphic Designers, 600+ Free Design, Twitter and Social Media Icons, and 13 Beneficial WordPress Plugins For Your Design Blog, TDC had an impressive amount of positive feedback through comments, community contributions (designers participated to submit their own business cards) and traffic.

May

Articles that include 25 One Page Portfolio Websites of Designers on Twitter and The Hardest Part of Being a Designer were two popular articles that would not be possible without the participation of other designers on Twitter.

June

June marked the most successful giveaway and a popular article on the topic of typography: 15 Typography Books to Help You Learn and Love Typography. The book giveaway resulted in 116 comments with 2 lucky winners.

July

Another productive and memorable month was July. The logo-focused month not only provided information such as, 20 Questions to Ask Clients Prior to Designing a Logo and thought-provoking tips on How To Make A Flexible Logo, but I also gave away free logo services to one lucky reader.

August

August was more freelance and productivity-focused with popular articles that include:

» What to Include In Your Design Contracts
» How To Become A More Effective, Proficient and Informed Designer
» The ‘Hows’ of Pricing Your Design Work

September

September was bit of a slower month of new articles (hey, we call get busy from time to time) but I managed to follow up to last years popular post 10 Common Typography Mistakes (2008) with ten more.

October

TDC kicked it up a notch from the slower September with memorable articles such as:

» Content Heavy Websites with Beautiful Structure, Layout and Hierarchy (an astonishing 431 retweets on Twitter)
» How a design blog is attractive to clients – showcasing the benefits of a design blog and how it can built trust and stronger relationships with clients

November

Last month, November, was TDCs highest traffic month of the year. Four articles,consuming 216 comments and a combined 1,970, that include:

We also reached 10,000 subscribers in November, launched a more personal site, behoff.com and become a part of Smashing Magazine’s Smashing Network.

December

The ‘Vintage Posters’ post helped to inspire new color palettes and showcase beautiful typography. It also accumulated 530 retweets and 40 great comments.

What’s in store for 2010?

For the past few months I have been in the re-design phase of The Design Cubicle. Let’s just say, this is one of the toughest projects I’ve worked on to date, especially since it involves designing for myself. Hopefully in the next 2 months you will be looking at a brand new, custom TDC blog!

I am also working on a new ‘Typography Repository’ that will aggregate the highest quality, educational typography articles and videos that should be launching quite soon so stay tuned for that. The aim of the site is to help teach typography, not just inspire. Many articles out there show beautiful examples but few actually teach you how to improve your typography. To me, typography has always been the science of design, but an element that really sets apart the “men from the boys.”

I also look forward to bring more thought-provoking, discussion driven posts to The Design Cubicle. Bring back more of the educational aspect of design.

On a more personal note, I am also in talks with teaching at a local college and looking into speaking a design events. In short, I want to get more active in the design community.

The Best of Twitter 2009: Design Edition

Brian — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:36:33 +0000

For those non-weekend readers of The Design Cubicle, Sweet Tweets is my weekend round-up of the best design resources of the week I’ve discovered via Twitter each week.

Since starting Sweet Tweets I have accumulated 28 weeks worth of resources and for this post have hand-selected the best of each week for a Sweet Tweets 2009 Best Of the Best roundup.

Without further a due, I give you 28 of the sweetest, most valuable and must read design-related articles of 2009:

10 Mistakes Logo Designers Can Make When Designing Logos (#1)
“There are many mistakes we can make when designing logos for our clients or even ourselves. I have compiled a list of 10 common mistakes I’ve seen in mine and others work. This list is merely my view of a Top Ten.”

10 Logo Design Tips From the Field (#2)
“I’ve learned from quite a few mistakes during my time as a designer, and to save you from doing likewise, here are 10 logo design tips I picked up.”

10 WordPress Plugins That Will Increase Your Search Engine Ranking (#3)
“[...] But, there are some SEO features that aren’t implemented in WordPress core. You can easily archeive these features by installing plugins.”

30 Essential PDF Documents Every Designer Should Own (#4)
Free, downloadable books, manifestos, tutorials, magazines, and design/typography tips.

4 Principles of Good Design for Websites (#5)
“One of the areas of focus that I’ve taken into all my designs are the four major design principles. They include: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity.”

30 Top Sources of Typography Inspiration (#6)
“I thought it would be worth while for those of you who are typography lovers to point out what I feel are some of the best resources available for receiving inspiration of this kind from the works of other designers.”

15 Must Read Articles for CSS Beginners (#7)
“This collection of 15 articles pulls together some of the best must read blog posts for anyone looking to get started with CSS styling.”

25 Must-Read Books for Designers, Typography Lovers and Freelancers (#8)
“All these books can help make you a better designer and business owner so I thought I’d make a list of some of my favorite ones and include a short summary/quote, book authors and the topics discussed in the books.”

How to work with a professional designer (#9)
“In the 3 years I’ve been in business I’ve seen many different job requests come in. However, of all my job requests, only about 10% actually ever go through. There are all sorts of reasons, but many times it’s due to some common issues.

High-quality Free Font: Calluna Regular (#10)
Beautiful new serif available at MyFonts.com for free.

How to Make Your Web Design Stand out from the Crowd (#11)
“All web designers want their work to stand out from the crowd … but what does that take? In this post I’ll pick a few sites I think pack a punch and I’ll explain why.”

Color on the Web: Color Theory for Designers (#12)
“What is it then, about color, that we can investigate which will aid the process of fulfilling a design and the requirements of a need? In actuality, quite a few factors exist.”

6 Ways To Improve Your Web Typography (#13)
“Typography on the web is anything but simple, and for many, it is a troubling mystery. Today, we’re going to review six ways that web designers and developers can improve the typography of the sites they create.”

The Remedies For An Effective Online Portfolio (#14)
“The importance of creating an online portfolio is essential in their success. Online portfolios are certainly effective but most of them required a bit of technical knowledge to develop which may not be the core expertise of some designer.”

35 Excellent Wireframing Resources (#15)
“Wireframing is one of the most valuable parts of any web design project. It can save a designer tons of time by hashing out the details of a site’s architecture, functionality, and content prior to actually starting a visual design.”

3 ways to make your website stand out from the crowd (#16)
“Too many websites look the same as their competition. If you want users to remember your site it needs to stand out from the crowd.”

16 Favorite Cheat Sheets for Web Design and Development (#17)
“In this post I’m sharing some very excellent cheat sheets to help web designers and developers. These cheat sheets includes Photoshop, CSS, HTML, JQuery, PHP, MooTools, MySQL, Ruby on rails, Flash AS and much more.”

Case Studies in Design Portfolios (#18)
“In this post we will be featuring more than 30 portfolio sites to show how they are using case studies from their own design projects to communicate with potential clients. Not all of them are referred to as “case studies” on the site, but all provide much more information than just giving a screenshot with the client’s name.”

The Art of Branding Yourself and Your Freelance Business (#19)
“In this article, we’ll take a closer look at ways to define a brand for something as unique as a freelancing business, and what one needs to do to get started on the right track to a successful brand.”

Powerful ways to make typography talk on your website (#20)
“Typography is a very powerful tool in a web designer’s arsenal. We have seen simple websites glorified in an instant with the use of proper typography.”

Secrets from the world’s top 20 web designers (#21)
“What makes a world-class designer? It’s a simple question and yet once we started compiling this list we realised it’s not at all simple to answer.”

Getting to No (#22)
“I’ve been selling website design and development work for over 10 years, so you’d think I’d have this stuff licked. Hardly. I used to think the hard part was “getting to yes,” but over time, I’ve learned that the hardest part isn’t closing the deal, but ﬁguring out which deals are actually worth closing.”

Video walk-through of an identity design process (#23)
Artist Von Glitschka walks through his logo design process and allows us to peek inside his project folder.

6 ways to take your webdesign from good to great (#24)
“The difference between good and great webdesign is relatively small. The average person may not be able to explain the tangible differences that make up great design, but they can usually spot a design they like.”

On web typography (#25)
“There are many books and articles on typography, but considerably few explore typeface selection and pairing. With the floodgates poised to open and the promise of many typefaces being freed up for use on websites, choosing the right face to complement a website’s design will need to become another notch in the designer’s belt.”

Learn about design, not just making things look pretty (#26)
“Seriously. It’s all fluff and no context, criticism, or thought. Just pretteh pretteh pretteh, and no why.”

10 Principles that may make your work better or may make it worse (#27)
“I hate the word “tip.” It implies that there’s something that you don’t know. Some secret little gem that, when sprinkled on your work, your creative process, your diet, or your sex life will magically make it all better.”

Style versus design (#28)
“Many young web designers view their craft the way I used to view pop culture. It’s cool or it’s crap.” They mistake Style for Design, when the two things are not the same at all.

Designing with content in mind

Brian — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 03:56:36 +0000

Last week I read an article titled “If Content is Really King, Then What Is Design?” Not only did this article inspire a ‘Self-Expression Fridays‘ poster design, but it also had me thinking: If content is king, what can the design do to compliment the “king,” or in this articles case, the content?

If what you have to say on your website is so important, then what can we do to make it a more enjoyable experience and better compliment the content with the way we design for it?

Appropriate typefaces

Typography is not about picking a font that looks cool, but rather choosing a typeface(s) that compliment the medium and purpose. With recent advances in web typography (ahem, Typekit) we now have more control then ever over what typefaces we use for our content — but with more control, we must be even more careful and have a better understanding of type.

Web typography tips:

» When choosing a font for prolonged reading, try something with a larger x-height (for smaller body copy) or study serifs for improved readability and reader comfort.

» Choose typefaces that compliment the content, look and layout

For more on font pairing and web typography:

Breathing room

Websites or blogs with tons of reading require breathing room — or better yet, remember that white space is your friend. It’s difficult to read and stay focused on any information that is, for example, being crammed up against ads, has tight line spacing, or has cluttered design elements.

Don’t worry, it’s alright for users to scroll vertically to get to information. Don’t feel like you need to cram it all in there.

Here are a few design tips to help your content breathe:

» Improve your line spacing of body copy: a good rule of thumb is 1.5 em line-spacing of your body copy font size.
» Remember, white space is good and less is more

Websites with good breathing room:

Establish an information hierarchy

When it comes to readable content, one thing to remember is people do not like to read — they like to scan and get the information they want quickly. Establishing a strong hierarchy allows the reader to easily scan your website, blog, article, etc. for information without spending too much time on information they do not want to see or read.

A hierarchy guides your readers around the page and creates a more enjoyable experience for them.

Allow for digestible information

If your website or blog has length passages of information or words, try designing in a way that breaks up the content into smaller, digestible blocks of text. A possible solution could be having a home page with short excerpts of articles/information that lead to the entire story by clicking on a link.

Use color and use it well

Color should not only be used to create a mood, but also to draw attention to specific areas or text. Websites that use color sparingly and well typically have great results because of it. It helps readers scan and draws attention to important information.

A few tips on color usage on the web:

» Reversed out (white) text on dark backgrounds can make for difficult, prolonged reading.
» Using too many colors can distract the user and can cause confusion over important content/information
» Use color to communicate a mood

Contrast and call to action

Contrast and call to action allows information to be broken apart and also (like a good hierarchy) easily scan-able. Contrast can be used in typefaces as to separate headlines from body copy, while it can also create areas of darker/brighter color to draw attention or call upon a certain area of your screen.

Contrast can also be used to create tension and set a mood for the content. Try complimenting your content with appropriate typefaces or color. Also note that establishing call to actions early on in the sites preliminary stages is important content management and structures the users experience.

While all of the above factors seem simple in practice, it is often easy to just begin designing and forget about the content and medium in which we are designing for. Remember, content is king, but design is the land of which the king rules. If you have the above thought out and planned before you start designing it will pave the way to a more successful and relevant design.

My favorite follows on Twitter

Brian — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:30:37 +0000

A while back I wrote an article posing the question if Twitter was taking over RSS? To summarize the post: since the popularity of Twitter increased and more information was being shared and spread quicker than I could open up my RSS reader, I began thinking if RSS was starting to become “old school”.

Only thing was before Twitter lists were introduced, I still found myself enjoying RSS feeds simply for that fact that I was able to organize my information and see only what I wanted to see…. Now we can do just that with Twitter lists!

Below I have organized 3 separate lists: My favorite design blogs I read on a regular basis, typography resources/info and my personal favorite ‘Top Twits’ list.

As I encounter more great resources the list will be expanding, so check back often. Also, if you are not already feel free to add myself (@behoff) and/or follow TDCBrand updates on Twitter.

A showcase of designers drawings

Brian — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:33:25 +0000

Having grown up from a very early age painting, drawing and doodling, I never really put much thought into how my fine art background played a role in my work as a graphic designer, or maybe I just took it for granted.

Just the other day while reading the introduction of the book, Logo, Font and Lettering Bible by Leslie Cabarga, I came across an interesting statement that made me stop and think about how an artistic background enhances my work:

“The difference between a designer and an actual artist is, a designer can indicate preferences and arrange preexisting graphic elements but cannot draw well enough to bring his best visions to fruition by his own hand. A designer’s inability to draw may also unconsciously limit his ability to conceptualize.”

While still on the thought of this statement and how it effects my own work, I asked my graphic designer followers on Twitter to submit an example of their work if they also come from a strong artistic, drawing background. Here’s what they had to show, with links to their website and Twitter accounts.

Also, I am always on the lookout for contributors for upcoming posts, so if you would like to participate on future articles subscribe for free by email or RSS and/or follow me on Twitter.