It's not always easy to find additional design resources when you need them. Sometimes the people you want to work with are working full-time, busy on other projects, or out of town. There's now an interesting new website called CollabFinder. Creatives upload their profiles, highlight skillz, and link to samples of their work. It's a great concept. I'm anxious to see how it grows and develops. Right now it seems very web-focused, but I'm hoping it will branch out different areas of design as more people sign up. And a search function would be helpful moving forward. Let's see how it goes...
Where Apple goes, the rest are sure to follow. We love our iPhones. We buy them cute cases, and socks (in case they get cold). We match them to our outfits, upload our favorite music, movies and applications. There is an endless supply of ways to customize your iPhone. Now you can get designer iPhone/iTouch wallpapers from designers and illustrators around the world at Poolga.com. So go ahead.... make a statement.
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. It's tag line is: Ideas worth spreading.
Every year, since 1984, the worlds most preeminent thinkers get together to discuss, share, learn and grow ideas that can change lives, and the world. More than 1000 people now attend this conference, and 50 speakers are required to give the best 18 minute presentation of their lives!
We're talking about hobnobbing with the likes of Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Amy Tan, Yves Behar, Bill Clinton, Bono and Richard Branson. Unreal. The clip playing above is of Bill Strickland. I was privileged enough to hear him speak at the HOW Conference last month, and I'm so happy I can share a bit of his inspiring story with you here.
From their website: The Ted Conference, held annually in Long Beach, is still the heart of TED. More than a thousand people now attend -- indeed, the event sells out a year in advance -- and the content has expanded to include science, business, the arts and the global issues facing our world. Over four days, 50 speakers each take an 18-minute slot, and there are many shorter pieces of content, including music, performance and comedy. There are no breakout groups. Everyone shares the same experience. It shouldn't work, but it does. It works because all of knowledge is connected. Every so often it makes sense to emerge from the trenches we dig for a living, and ascend to a 30,000-foot view, where we see, to our astonishment, an intricately interconnected whole.
You must be approved to join the TED conference. The fee is about $6,000 (though a regular membership is free and anyone can join). It's out of the realm for most, but us "little people" now have access to some of the most insightful speeches ever given through Ted Talks. They are free and you are encouraged to share them. I, for one, am completely addicted. It is time well spent.
Claire Leonie Brooker was one of the artists who caught my eye at 100% Design. She is a print & pattern designer, but her digital work is amazingly intricate. From afar her prints look like colorful snowflakes, and her friezes like traditional patterns. Up close, you can see the layers upon layers of design elements and an organic flair. Her work has been translated into wallpaper, friezes, and prints.
From her website: Claire’s intention in developing these designs is to encourage the viewer’s imagination to take hold and reflect upon the many associations that these images inspire: artistic, architectural, cultural, crafted and illustrative. Their aesthetic is contemporary yet they are at home within both modern and traditional interiors.
You can see more of her work on her site. Click here.
This is pretty interesting. Blogger.com (which hosts this blog) has launched a new application that shows all the images being uploaded to Blogger, in real time. Some silly pix, some interesting pix, some really bad pix. But a fun link to check out. The great thing is that if you do see something that peaks your interest, you can get more information and be redirected to the site it was posted on. Fun fun.
This is so cool! As a print and packaging designer, I spend a lot of time "comping" digital images to show how designs will look on pack, on a bottle, on a hang tag, on a display, etc, etc. This requires copious amounts of scaling, skewing, perspective, shadow and highlight placement. And while it looks ok, it's never perfect. So I am smitten with LiveSurface.
They have created a stock catalog of some of the most common items that need comping. They're all photographed as a blank canvas and saved as a hi-res TIF, which is good enough for offset printing! Beyond having a blank canvas to work with, they've created layers and masks in Photoshop, and pre-built vanishing point planes. It all sounds a bit technical, but basically you size your flat artwork on their template, paste it into the appropriate layer in Photoshop, and the vanishing point planes snap it into the correct position/perspective/etc. All this, and only 30 bucks a pop! Also, if you sign up with them, you'll receive a link for 1 free download.
Check out the video here to see how it works. Or browse the shop here.
After lots of hype and patient waiting... the iPhone is finally here. I don't really know how it works, or exactly what it does. But it seems like it does just about everything. Who cares. It's pretty. I'll take one!! (Especially if you can get those cute little accessories.)
