Robin Delisle-tousley's 4.6.2 - Exercise: Found Type

"I think it would be safe to say that my inspiration for this project would be Matisse, Marian Banjtes, my kids and my love of baking/cooking." Robin Delisle

Gill’s most awkward offspring finds a home on the stage.

Posted by Stephen Coles, Jan 31, 2011

It can be healthy to see typefaces we hate used well. It opens our minds. Read more...

Interview with Christopher Doyle

Check out the full version of Chris Doyle's Identity Guidelines: Christopher Doyle_Guidelines.pdf (1.04 mb)

Chris Doyle is a Sydney based designer at Moon Group and recently produced a set of identity guidelines based on himself which is an instant classic. I tracked Chris down to find out more about the project ....

Hello Chris, I’ve seen your brilliant identity guidelines featured on numerous blogs recently, what has the public response been?

To be honest I have been completely overwhelmed by the response. People seem to have genuinely enjoyed the piece. I have had emails and text messages from all over the world, all just people writing to say they enjoyed it. I had a phone call from a guy in New Zealand who called to say how much he enjoyed it, that he felt compelled to call. That was so satisfying for me. From the start I was far more concerned with the idea and making it funny, than I was with it being a cool or fashionable piece of design. For so many people, designers or otherwise, to find it funny or clever, that's more than I could have hoped for.

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Macworld Cover Creation

Click here to watch the video

by peter belanger - http://www.peterbelanger.com/blog

After working on the latest cover for Macworld Magazine I wanted to show what is involved in making a cover. I focused on the three main areas: the photography, photoshop and design. I chose a time lapse format to convey lots of information in a small amount of time. The only drawback of time lapse is that since half a day goes by in 30 seconds, the whole process seam so easy! Lots of details were left out of the design process (like the cover meetings and rounds of layout options). I began to photograph the design process after the layouts had already been narrowed down to just three cover designs.

On the technical side, for the time lapse video, I used the Canon 5D Mark II with a 24mm-70mm zoom. I chose the 5D because of its great image quality with high ISO's. Canon's sRAW1 gave me the flexibility of a RAW file with the file size of a jpeg. The actual Macworld cover was taken with a Phase One P65+ digital back attached to a 4x5 Sinar X camera with a 65mm lens.

Many thanks to Rob Schultz for allowing me to invade his office and literally shoot over his shoulder.

The music was used with permission by The Brokenmusicbox.

Twitter Background Design How-To and Best Practices

With Twitter quickly becoming the hottest site to be seen on, everyone wants to stand out from the crowd. There has already been a range of quality designs showcased on various sites, which has shown an emergence of trends such as the ‘sidebar’. Let’s take a look at some of the best practices around Twitter background design and get to work creating our own. Read more...

Chris Spooner is a designer who has a love for creativity and enjoys experimenting with various techniques in both print and web.

Putting Some Spine Into Design

The spine of this comprehensive Italian dictionary from 1949 is striking and easy to read when the book is standing up, and stands out even on its side.

Adapted from dot-font: Talking About Design (Mark Batty Publisher)
By John D. Berry
Dateline: April 2, 2007

Maybe you can’t judge a book by its cover, but in a bookstore we judge most of them first by their spines. For most new books—not the ones lying out on tables or prominently displayed with their covers out, but the ones lining the shelves—the spine is all we see. The beautiful, dramatic cover, upon which great effort and sometimes even expense may have been lavished, never gets seen if a browsing bookbuyer doesn’t reach out and pull the book oV the shelf to take a look.

You might expect, given this cruel dynamic of the marketplace, that book publishers, and the designers of dustjackets and paperback covers for those publishers, would devote a lot of attention to what the spine looks like. But it seems to be the rare designer who gives the question much thought at all. Read more...

Hiring a designer? Eight things to look for

Jul 06 | by John McWade
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1) Passion, vision and self-motivation. Without these, you’ll be dragging a rock. You need someone who shares your vision. Nothing’s worse than a “what-do-you-want-me-to-do-next?” kind of designer. Well, no, yes there is. One who’s touchy and confusing, too.

2) Vocabulary. A creative lead should be able to articulate what’s happening and why, in language that you and your staff can understand. If you start hearing vague terms like “pop” and “impact,” make him explain what he means. Listen for, “If we do A and B, we can expect C.” This is not trivial.

3) Inquisitive intelligence. Look for someone who’s curious about almost everything and approaches life with a sense of wonder. Similarly, I want someone who’s taken the time to learn about my company and whose questions are perceptive.