design tag

It’s been a cou­ple months since the Apple/​​HTML 5 vs Adobe/​​Flash wars began and I am con­tin­u­ally amazed how much atten­tion this topic receives. While the tech­nol­ogy dri­ving the media we con­sume is an impor­tant dis­cus­sion, it’s not the con­ver­sa­tion which needs to be tak­ing place. What’s being glossed over is this; why, in 2010, are we still dis­cussing code instead of content?

I think the best thing to come out of the web design/​​development move­ment is the recent trend towards research-​​​​driven design. While noth­ing new to the big dogs on Madi­son Ave, it gen­er­ally is over­looked in the print world—especially on such a gran­u­lar level and rapid level. This is cer­tainly a trick more print design­ers need keep up their sleeves. At its core, A/​​B test­ing is exactly what it sounds like: you have two ver­sions of an ele­ment (A…

Another good read on the cur­rent deval­u­a­tion of cre­ative services—this time from the per­spec­tive of a Copy­writer. If you’re Web or Graphic Designer who has had the priv­i­lege of work­ing with a good copy­writer than you know they are more than a glo­ri­fied spell check, and how much eas­ier they can make your job. I’ve about had my fill of the cheap copy debate. In truth, there isn’t one. If you’ve got a com­plaint about copy­writ­ers charg­ing too much, you’ve…

Some­times you have to stop and con­sider what the long-​​​​term cost is by sav­ing a few dol­lars by skimp­ing on the ser­vices of a qual­ity designer. I won­der how many sales were lost from this? I bet it cost more than had they payed the designer. Client: “That’s way too much money to charge for an email cam­paign. It’s not hard to put a few graph­ics in an email.” Me: “I charge based off of my reg­u­lar hourly rate and that’s…

A detailed yet inter­est­ing arti­cle dis­cussing the nuts and bolts of under­stand­ing your Client. While it’s focused on web design I think any print designer could take a way a few tips to incor­po­rate into their work­flow. If your new to design—or have the bad habit of gloss­ing over the research phase to jump into the design work—this is a def­i­nite must read to out you on the path of good work­ing habits. Research actu­ally begins the moment we learn…