Focus on graphic design blogs
DesignNotes is published by Michael Surtees. He’s a designer from Canada, living in New York with his wife Tamara and their weimaraner, Maddie. In his past life he was the President of the Alberta North chapter and for a short period of time the National Vice President of Communication for the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC).
Michael’s blog covers topics from typography and magazines to advertising and marketing.
The text size is a little small for my liking, but Michael makes nice use of imagery, which is important. When I first visited I remember thinking there are too many categories, although DesignNotes has been running since February 2005 so there’s A LOT of info in there.
I recommend checking out Michael’s page full of his past blog headers. An excellent addition to his blog.
Noisy Decent Graphics is written Ben Terrett, a graphic designer in London. Ben’s blog is primarily about graphic design followed by design in general and then some related stuff about communication, ideas and inevitably brands.
Ben is one of five founders of a company called The Design Conspiracy, specialising in graphic design, branding and digital marketing.
I recommend reading Ben’s light-hearted About Me page, which takes the format of questions and answers. Here’s an exceprt:
I emailed you a few weeks ago and you haven’t replied. Are you ignoring me?
No. Either I haven’t got round to replying or your email slipped past my eager eyes. Send it again if you like.I emailed you again and you haven’t replied. Are you ignoring me?
Yes.
Again, the type size is tiny for the blog navigation, making it difficult to read, but Ben really knows his stuff so I’ll forgive that.
ideasonideas is a blog by Eric Karjaluoto who guides creative at smashLAB, an interactive design firm in Vancouver, Canada. I previously featured a great logo for sinkit by smashLAB which if you haven’t seen already is definitely worth a look.
Eric’s blog invites dialogue on issues relevant to communication designers and brand strategists. I’ve only recently learned about this blog, probably due to the large gap between blog posts. In fact, there are only 39 posts since December 2005. Not a great ratio for inspiring return visits. I’m focusing ideasonideas because there are some interesting posts, mainly:
You are working hard and are dedicated to running a good studio but it never seems to be enough. You’re not getting the contracts you want, staff are burning out and it feels like you are falling behind. Your studio isn’t as fun as it once was and you’re wondering if you should quit and just get a job at a high-paying ad agency instead. Before you do, I’d like to share some thoughts on focus.
There’s an interesting discussion on that one.
Designing identities for small companies
Most people do not buy identity systems regularly. This is easy to forget when you design identities daily; however, you might like to remind yourself of this from time to time. With small clients, the designer is often required to provide a substantial amount of counseling to help them through the process.
Ace Jet 170 is a blog by Richard Weston, an English graphic designer working in Belfast (a city close to my heart). Richard is married with two “very young, active, funny and very brilliant” boys. At work he mainly develops and implements brands and corporate IDs, works very hard and eats cake.
The cake was the clincher in featuring his blog.
The Ace Jet 170 project sets out to record the stuff Richard has found over the years and will find in the future. Stuff found on holiday, at boot sales, in book shops or junk shops, littering the pavement, dropped into a waste bin. Styles, colours, print quality, materials, subject matter, history, imperfections, relevance, irrelevance; Richard’s fascinated by it all.
Ace Jet 170 deserves a mention for the Pelican Book collection alone. Unable to fit them all into one post, you can see part two of the Pelican Book collection here, and Pelican Books part three here.
Richard thought he’d posted his entire collection in three parts, then a few more Pelican Books leapt out from his attic (which is presume is equal in size to my home town, Bangor).
The complete Pelican Book collection from Ace Jet 170 is also available on Flickr.
The text size on Richard’s blog is pretty small so I wonder if there’s some form of design pact I’m not part of. Besides that, his layout is impecably clean, and the posting of imagery is very consistent.
Other graphic design blogs
There are many other graphic design blogs that I read, and I’ll be focusing on them in the not-too-distant future.
UPDATE: 18 July 2008
View my top 50 graphic design blogs for more inspiration.
What graphic design blogs do you read and do you have any constructive criticism you can offer them?
Sometimes you become so familiar with your own blog layout that you overlook some obvious errors. If you think I can improve my own blog in any way please do let me know.
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Wow! A lot of sites to check out. Thanks for the info. I’ll bookmark your blog to come back :-)
not sure how i came across your site but glad i did. nice work.
Hi, thanks for recommending these blogs, lots of useful info.
I´d suggest this one http://www.z-oc.com/.
It´s not specifically about design only, but there´s some good stuff in it.
Cheers!
Hey thanks for linking to these, a couple I’d never seen before! Always nice to read something new.
Hi David,
Thanks for the note about ideasonideas–it’s nice to be mentioned in such good company. I’m also happy to hear that you enjoy the posts. Sorry for the irregular frequency with which we blog. We’re trying to change that, but those articles just take us so long! ;-)
Best,
Eric
Gee, I must say the pelican Books look great. I also like the header pic he has on his blog.
goldcoaster.wordpress.com
Forgot to add that I added you as a Technorati Favourite - good stuff you have.
(you could add me if you like :) )
goldcoaster.wordpress.com
Thanks for the recommendations. :)
Cameron Moll shouldn’t be forgotten: http://cameronmoll.com/
A List Apart could also be mentioned.
[...] Creative Design and Book Design [...]
Hey David - just getting reacquainted to net after not having it for a week. Thanks for the quick review, I’ll be sure to consider your typography comments once I start tweaking the design DesignNotes.