Name your color...

I came across this interesting site. It's a good resource for color trends and ideas. Seeing other designs that inspire color are a great way to break out of a color rut. You can also create and name your own color. I chose the color below and named it "Fever." I imagine this is the hue added to your cheeks when you are suffering from a temperature of 104 degrees. Click the link below to create your own.


http://www.colourlovers.com/colors/add

Design Tip of the Month

Learn to use shortcuts. In today's time crunch world, designers have to pump out groundbreaking ideas over and over again. So save time where you can and learn shortcuts in your programs. You want to spend time working on your concepts and ideas, not finding the layer you saved that image onto so you can move it. So get these into memory as fast as you can:

Adobe InDesign CS5 Shortcuts

According to the internet...

play – noun#16:  elusive change or movement, as of light or colors: the playof a searchlight against the night sky.

As I post this month's definition of "play," I think about what it means to me. Elusive change or movement. How can that be transferred into graphic design work. Is it the depth a color gives, the shadows vs. the highlights, or the way a page carries its words? To me, it's all of these things, and why I love the word so much.  

Vintage Posters

Who doesn't love vintage posters? I can't get enough of them. Their simplicity and complexity works together to create artistic play on paper. I love everything about them. They use unique color schemes and fantastic lines. They may have lacked technology back in the day, but they sure had talent.  Here's a great blog with lots of vintage posters to peruse through:  http://www.postersplease.com

Some samples...I love the color schemes and ridiculous themes. Both are worthy of framing and hanging on my walls.

 

Show & Tell 10-16-10

Call to action:

I don't know that this has a strong case for argument, but it caught my attention. I'm curious, and willing to look into it further. I'm unsure how a bar code can feed the hungry, and so I did an online search because, clearly, I couldn't ask my local market since this was available a year ago...and in Belgium. It's interesting. You actually scan a barcode in a folder for items that are requested by local shelters and food banks. It makes it easy to turn that barcode into the food needed, hence the graphic. I like it. Simple yet intriguing.

 

Hat designs - good outlet for creative fun

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/xc-design-competition

I found this site today. Contests like these run the gamut of creativity, and there is some interesting stuff here. I really like this green one below. What would you create for a new hat design?

The Color Matching Challenge

"Get your colors as close as you can, but don’t sweat perfect. Close enough really is good enough."


This advice came from a blog I was reading (http://www.mcwade.com/DesignTalk/2010/10/) – and I think it's good advice. A perfect match in color is sort of bland, if you ask me. Subtle differences in swatches add dimension to a layout. If you've got an image that you want to pull color from, you can surely use the handy-dandy eyedropper tool. But maybe taking those few extra moments to use your own peepers and pick something close and complimentary is better. 

Show & Tell 10-09-10

Campaigns:
I particularly like the artistic value of the Intermix campaign, but the playful concept of the Ikea ads really grabbed my attention. Simple concept: Ikea storage traps monster mess. It works.

   

    

Nouns are used for a reason...

When print or display space is limited, important words will be eliminated.

Superbowl Ads

I like football, but don't love it. My husband spends countless hours watching the games, while I just wait patiently for the big one. That's right, the Super Bowl. Although, it's not the game I'm most excited about, it's the ads. Worthless as most are at doing the real job of an advertisement, which is to sell me something, I still love to watch them. Super Bowl ads have become a form of entertainment to viewers. And they are sort of like swimmies – sure they are fun but no one puts any real faith in them to do their job.

Check out the archives for your entertainment viewing pleasure!

http://superbowl-ads.com/article_archive/