Creative resources 07 April 2008
Lovely as a Tree – “the website that tells you everything you need to know to be a more environmentally aware graphic designer.” Any website that promotes environmental issues is good in my book. Tailor it specifically for the graphic design industry and I’m even more interested. Lovely as a Tree covers aspects such as choosing paper, choosing a printer and how to help in the office.
Steven at Vandelay Design brings us yet another excellent link collection. This time for typography resources.
Are you printing large format? Read this first. Lauren at Creative Curio brings us a fantastic insight of large scale printing, and offers tips for preparing artwork. She discusses file resolution, formats, scaling and photographs. Superb.
Eric of ideasonideas presents six suggestions that can make you a better designer. Topics of note include finding the problem, not being so smart, ‘sorta’ stealing, and setting the bar higher. Definitely worth a read. Oh, and if you touch Eric, he’ll take you home! I’ll pass. ;)
A guest writer on Noisy Decent Graphics put forth a plea for help. They work in a small design studio, attached to a charity, using PCs as opposed to Apple Macs. Their request went like this:
“What I need your help with is some quality, compelling, and hopefully financially beneficial arguments as to why this small part the organisation NEEDS to switch to Macs.”
An interesting discussion followed, in particular, those comments from ‘mave’, rightly stating how the Mac versus PC debate is incredibly outdated. Macs are nice, no denying it, but design doesn’t need to be nice. It needs to work. Great design was around long before computers.
Today marks the official launch of Aaron Russell’s new design website. I’ve been friends with Aaron since first learning of his miLienzo blog. Some of his new blog articles include: 25 inspirational design and creativity blogs, choosing the right print process: lithographic or digital, and five highly recommended web design forums. Best of luck, Aaron.
Starting your own business? Mark Boulton publishes another superb article with valuable advice for those going it alone. Mark talks about why to do it in the first place, what to include in your business plan, where you can get help and how to manage your accounts.
Does packaging design interest you? If so, you’ll love The Dieline – the self-professed leading package design blog. I’m not aware of any better.
If you have any resources to share, leave a comment or send an email.
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A great read and thanks for the info. Spent quite a bit of timing browsing through the links and found a lot of other ifo that will be useful to me. I guess that is why they call it crawling. Thanks For the Read!
Thank you for the link!! I’m honored to be among such awesome company. I really liked the article from Eric (Ideas on Ideas). He makes some great points in that and every other article he’s written.
LaurenMarie – Creative Curio’s last blog post..Free Vector Resources
Thanks for the multi-links, David. Due to the support you and few others have shown I’ve had a really successful first day with some decent traffic. Long may it continue.
Aaron Russell’s last blog post..25 inspirational design and creativity blogs
Thanks for the mention David.
Steven Snell’s last blog post..Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries
Eric’s article was great. I really liked the sorta stealing discussion. It is a real problem.
Hi David.
Another great topic. I have been reading your blog for a while now and it’s an amazing source of help and inspiration. Thanks for it and keep it up the good work.
Another nice usefull collection. Thank you david. I specially like ‘ideasonideas’, ‘the dieline’ and ‘mark boulton’. Thanks again for sharing.
You’re all very welcome. It’s always great to learn you’re interested in what I’ve offered up.
Lauren,
Eric really knows the business, definitely, and it was a pleasure to feature you here amongst the other resources.
Aaron,
Perhaps you can use miLienzo to keep us updated on the aaronrussell.co.uk progress? Maybe you can just do that on the new site, but the thought had crossed my mind (to update people of the Logo Design Love progress here on davidairey.com, keeping the newer site specifically for logos, and not stats).
Either way, glad to know the first day was a success, and indeed, long may it continue!
Love the template of AaronRussell!
Thanks for the link to Creative Curio about preparing for large scale printing, some great tips.
I like the website from aaronrussell, color usage, fonts, although the frontpage looks a bit like briangardner.com
Sander’s last blog post..Het Parool gerestyled
I found lovely as a tree a while ago, really like what they are doing
Thanks for the info and links
Brian Yerkes’s last blog post..10 CSS Web Design Resources
Nice list, David. I especially like Aaron’s new site.
johno’s last blog post..Sunday type: dotsquared type
One of my favorite’s is FFFFound.com, it’s got user uploads of photos, design work, etc. My favorite part of the site is that you can navigate via keyboard. Just a warning though, you could be there all day and get overloaded!
Dax Hansen’s last blog post..Elbow Hinge Design – Logo Concepts
Many thanks for the positive feedback, Fubiz and Johno :)
Aaron Russell’s last blog post..25 inspirational design and creativity blogs
Excellent stuff, shall have to come back and add a few more for you from my bookmarks at work. Thanks.
I like the first one. Since it is close to Earth Day, that’s my 1st choice. :) Thanks for sharing a very useful list.
Off topic: David, which box do you use? PC or Mac? :D Or both?
Rafie’s last blog post..Save The Earth!
The DieLine = Awesome! How come I’ve never heard of this site before..?!
Dax Hansen’s last blog post..Elbow Hinge Design – Logo Concepts
Fubiz, Sander, Brian, Johno, DeeDubya,
I’m very glad you liked the resources.
Dax,
I just found out about FFFFound.com recently, and ended up spending longer than I should’ve browsing the archives! The DieLine is a great blog for packaging design. Definitely.
Rafie,
Currently on a PC. I use both, but moreso a PC, mainly because they were used in the previous jobs I held before going self-employed.
Thanks in particular for the tip about Lovely As A Tree – the collection of information and resources there will be valuable for on-going reference. Last year I spent some time tracking down and getting quotes from FSC-accredited printers using environmentally friendly printing processes, and I was surprised and impressed to find that their quotes on the whole were very competitive – and in some cases cheaper – when compared with the more traditional printers I approached.
For Australians looking for a green printer, http://www.thegreenpages.com.au is a handy directory.
Tracey,
Thanks for adding your additional ‘green’ resource, and it’s good you liked Lovely as a Tree.