yuzey

Print Design Examples To Inspire You

2012-02-07T15:15:00.000-08:00

http://designresourcebox.com/new-print-inspiration-examples-to-inspire-you/

Designers See The World Differently

2012-01-30T17:58:00.000-08:00

Every object contains information about itself whether it is about the type of the object, the model or its cultural background (historic, ethnical etc..). Every cultural model, and respectively its object that represents the model’s properties can be analyzed from different points of view. The example of the canon as a cultural program is the most significant example because it is considered to be sacred, meaning it is illuminated by God and it is complete, meaning it covers all the existence of the canon. The first encounters with the canon show that it had different important roles in the life of humankind:

crystallization of the culture’s memory;
a source of order;
an ideal model for constructions;
a lifestyle program;

The canon has 3 systemic levels and this is what models the structure of different points of view regarding the object.

The systemic levels of the canon are:

a gathering of objects and structures that together form the cultural matter and at this level the canon determines the integrity of the material environment;
the conceptual consistency that includes the system of symbols and superior values, referring to the life of humankind and their material world. This level sets the idea, being the starting point of order;
the language of the morphology of the socio-material world as a perfect aesthetical system. This level determines the artistic techniques that can be determined through an analysis of the material environment seen through its system of values;
the process of the consumers activities (let’s call it the instrumental position);
the orientation of values and significations of the consumer as a member of the society or any other social group (the ideological point of view);
the culturally-linguistic point of view;

Of course, every object, as well as all the cultures included in it, involves all the levels described above at the same time. They are inseparable in real life and the designer acknowledges one of these levels as the starting point of a project.

The instrumental point of view of the object

When seeing the object from an instrumental point of view, one has to spot the most important traits of the object, like – comfort, efficiency, user friendliness or the flexibility of its construction. The design solution of an object sets its qualities into information that describes the shape. In the real world though, the designer is offered sections where the possibility to rethink the functionalities of an object is not visible, hence it is not suitable for the given way of life. This kind of situation will ask for a way of thinking that is not trivial because this is when the usual needs of the consumer are destroyed and the designer has to come up with a new social behavior, bringing into the day to day life totally unusual objects.

As a methodic instrument while searching this unusual type of object, is the extendibility of the searching territory by attracting different reality domains. For example while designing an object for home use; one has to take into consideration the prototype of an industrial object, while the industrial object can be associated with an object taken from nature and so on. This is how the routine barriers are broken regarding the traditional set of objects taken from nature. You will have to adapt it to a new environment and the objects that surround it. This process of changing a given object in accordance with a new environment and functionalities is called metonymic and metaphoric morphology.

There are two main things to be considered:

in the process of creation of a new functional object that would solve a new issue it is very important to see the imperfections right from the beginning;
rationality, being on the right track, intuition and creativity – all of these are design and cultural triggers;

The ideological point of view over an object

This type of vision over the object is dominant when its designer knows that a point of view that is strictly seen as an utility that will not guarantee the best result. In this case, the designer will mostly concentrate on a symbolic signification of the object for the potential client. The object is now seen as a symbol and is expected to meet different socio-cultural values. This point of view is more related to the consumer and his needs, rather than focusing on the object itself. People buy objects because they want to fulfill their needs. For instance they don’t buy a carpet, but the comfort of their home through this carpet. It is then important to know the needs of the future consumer, in order to design objects that would fulfill them whether it’s ethnic, moral, regarding age, occupation or social status.

In this case, in order to obtain a non-trivial result, the so called “theatrical approach” will have to be applied. The object is taken from one environment to another; let’s say we can take an object that is usually used as a household and put it into and exhibit or a stadium, hence totally changing its environment. The object has the complicated role to meet up the growing human needs.

Analyzing and object from this point of view, the designer first tries to come up with a symbolic morphology, hence analyzing the relationships between objects and people. Another analysis method would be allegoric morphology, hence representing certain values specific for a culture (military clothes can for instance represent the military culture). Once the designer finds a good solution to his analysis, he can bring new brilliant ideas to life, having new significations.

The cultural-linguistic point of view over the object

This point of view specifies that one object is no longer related to other object hence replacing one another. In this situation the object is related to the used language and to the designer’s techniques. If the designer is smart enough and sensible to certain trends from different art spheres, then the stylistic point of view will certainly be reflected in his designed projects. All the different traits and skills met in arts, painting or architecture help the designer achieve his goals and in a way marks his artistic career. It is important to mention that in arts, any events that happen will finally come to an end from an aesthetic point of view. It is practically impossible to create an innovative object in an environment that is aesthetically outdated.

The search for the right communication and language in the designing process is important and should take place at all times. In order to master the cultural-linguistic point of view, it is necessary to have an artistic taste developed in the first place, as well as the ability to work with color, texture and other elements in order to blend them perfectly. Another important thing is to have a certain style and respect its boundaries. In case the designer decides to ignore the rules and the stereotypes linked with a style he has chosen, he will first have to think of a way to do it gracefully so that the designed object will not risk failure. This innovative object is then considered to be an artistic technique that makes it special and original.

In order to design a totally new and innovative object, the designer uses the so-called homonyms and synonyms’ technique:

the homonyms technique focuses on the object on a cultural background where the object has its own linguistic traits. The cultural-linguistic environment chooses the objects and their purpose, hence building a relationship between form and significance;
the synonyms technique reflects the interior of the cultural background and the object can be seen from a stylistic point of view. The designer will pick the most optimal solution in order to design the object;

While examining the designed object from a cultural-linguistic point of view, the designer should never ignore the ideological point of view as well as the instrumental proprieties of an object.

These three points of view over the object make the designer choose the one that would dominate the creation of an object:

the instrumental coherence of the object
the cultural significance of the object
the expressivity of the used language

In the process of choosing the right point of view, the designer will first have to choose the object he is going to design, hence making the designer predict what kind of object he will have more success with.

The object soon to be designed will have to have the following:

is easy to be integrated in the actual cultural ensemble
keeps the symbols and values that the human have in this certain period of time
tells the people about itself through a morphologic language

Three different points of view of the designer over the object

Hence the object is represented through these three points of view of the canon, following the objective rule of the creation of objects that exist nowadays.

Inspired from I. A. Rozenson

Source: http://designmodo.com/designers-see-world-differently/#ixzz1kzrfrLKV

Retro Poster Vector Illustration

2012-01-27T07:08:00.001-08:00

A great inspirational collection of poster designs. The posters are all great vector illustration posters, a trend which I predict being more popular through out 2012.

1. РОБОТЫ – Comrades of Steel

2. Vote

3. Retro Poster in Photoshop

4. TutsPlus 2010 Commemorative poster

5. The Sleepers

6. Happy Holidays

7. Captin America

8. SpiderMan

9. The Dead Weather

10. IRobot

11. Merchants Bank Vermont Matters Campaign

12. Superman

13. Robin

14. L’Academie Fuzz

15. TOUR DE FROMAGE 2011 SEMIFINALS

16. Magazine “Liceulice

“

17. Studio Ampersand

18. Andy Lund

19. Explore Universe

20. Culture Club

source: http://creativenerds.co.uk/inspiration/20-beautiful-retro-poster-vector-illustration/

For Web Designers of 2012

2012-01-22T10:34:00.000-08:00

It's an interesting and inspiring time to be a web designer considering that we're at the beginning of a technological boom. Technology is evolving at such a crazy pace that web designers may begin to feel overwhelmed or frustrated. Things aren't slowing down either. 2012 will continue to introduce significant change to websites, the Internet, and the devices that we use to access them. Today, I'm going to make your design life a little bit easier by going over the new web design trends of 2012. You'll also find that I have provided helpful tools and useful resources to help get you started.

1. Web Fonts Have Arrived

Web fonts, or web typography, simply refers to the use of fonts on the World Wide Web. In the past, typography implemented on websites has been generally limited to just a few standard font faces and styles. In 2011 we started noticing more and more the use of handwritten fonts in website design. 2012 is going to explode with the creative use of website fonts by utilizing web-based font replacement technology.

Adobe Typekit - The easiest way to use real fonts on your website.

Google Web Fonts - Hundreds of free, open-source fonts optimized for the web.

Fontdeck - The professional web font solution.

Fonts.com Web Fonts - Add great looking fonts to your website in a few easy steps.

WebINK - WebINK is a service that lets you put professional-quality fonts on your web site.

Typecast - Design with web fonts, in the browser.

2. The Rise of Clould Technology

Cloud technology, or cloud computing, is Internet-based computing whereby shared resources are provided to computers and other devices on-demand. 2011 was an exciting year for the cloud in that it changed the way that web designers work and collaborate. With more designers starting to accept the idea of using web-based services instead of traditional services, the sky is the limit! 2012 will raise more awareness while catapulting cloud technology to the next level, especially with the launch of iCloud.

Apple iCloud - This is the cloud the way it should be: automatic and effortless.

Dropbox - Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily.

Microsoft Cloud - The most comprehensive solutions for the cloud. On earth.

JustCloud - Professional cloud storage from JustCloud is simple, fast and unlimited.

3. UX Design Jumps The Line

User experience (UX) design is simply the focus of designing a website to be user friendly by utilizing flexible design that's accessible on all devices. Without users, a website doesn't exist. That's why UX design has jumped to the front of the line in the web design community. In 2011, popular phrases such as mobile first, responsive design and adaptive design shook up the industry. All three of these practices, among others, are standard attributes of UX design. 2012 will continue to make leaps and bounds for user experience while making design more accessible than ever before. Experts may even go as far as stating that 2012 will be the year of UX design.

Axure - Axure RP gives you the wireframing, prototyping and specification tools needed to make informed design choices, persuade any skeptics, get your design built to spec... and maybe win a few fans along the way.

QuirkTools Screenfly - Test your website at different screen resolutions.

Adaptive Images - Adaptive Images detects your visitor's screen size and automatically creates, caches, and delivers device appropriate re-scaled versions of your web page's embeded HTML images.

Responsive Web Design Sketch Sheets - To help think through layouts for various devices.

ResponsivePX - Find that tricky breakpoint.

4. HTML5 & CSS3 Are Paving The Way

HTML and CSS are basic coding elements of a website or web application. Now that HTML5 and CSS3 have been unpackaged and utilized, further experimentation and innovation appears to be promising. Although coding isn't a primary responsibility, or a job duty of a web designer, having the knowledge and understanding of both HTML and CSS is good to know. 2012 will prove that HTML5 and CSS3 are the future of the web and shouldn't be taken lightly.

Adobe Edge - Create animated web content using HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript with ease, power and precision.

HTML5 Doctor - Helping you implement HTML5 today.

The HTML5 Test - How well does your browser support HTML5?

Initializr - Initializr is an HTML5 templates generator.

CSS3 Generator - Border Radius, Box Shadow, Text Shadow , RGBA, @Font Face, Multiple Columns, Box Resize, Box Sizing, Outline, Transitions, Transform, Selectors and Gradients.

CSS Patterns Gallery - The patterns themselves should work on Firefox 3.6+, Chrome, Safari 5.1, Opera 11.10+ and IE10+.

PrefixMyCSS - Prefix your CSS3 code. Instantly!

5. Social Media is Just Getting Started

The Social Media industry displayed exceptional growth in 2011. We witnessed the exciting launch ofGoogle+ and the redesigns of both Facebook and Twitter. The importance of Social Media for web designers doesn't need much explaining. Social sites provide designers with fast, simple access to the latest design news and technological developments. 2012 will continue to garner lots of attention towards Social Media while will decreasing the gap between websites and social platforms.

Google+ - Real life sharing, rethought for the web.

TweetDeck - TweetDeck is an app that brings more flexibility and insight to power users.

HootSuite - The leading social media dashboard to manage and measure your social networks.

More 2012 Web Design Predictions:

Seasoned design professionals will migrate towards entrepreneurship and designer co-founded startups.
Monthly subscriptions for both physical and web-based designer tools will blow up.
Websites will become incredibly simpler, or minimalistic in nature to focus more on user experience.
Increased HTML, CSS and JavaScript innovation will lead the industry back to what Flash websites originally offered.
The overdue demise of Internet Explorer! Yes, I know that won't happen, but it's nice to dream!

Wrapping It Up

Everything changes. The Internet and technology as we know it today will be different tomorrow, that's just how things are. As we continue to move forward, web fonts, the cloud, UX design, coding andSocial Media will become a part of every web designer's arsenal. The growing understanding that design can make or break a website or product will show that designers are an essential ingredient of a successful business module. So what do you think? Feel free to share your thoughts or predictions for 2012 in a comment below!

Tom McCracken

Published on January 19, 2012

http://newevolutiondesigns.com/5-new-things-for-web-designers-of-2012

Creative

2012-01-09T22:27:00.000-08:00

Creating Facebook Timelines As Marketing Campaigns

by Jason Keath

Sometimes doing something simple and creative for the firs time can become a big marketing win. Like Red Bull’s use of animated gifs on Google+.

Well, Facebook’s new timeline feature is indeed new and offers up a completely new platform where people to play.

A fictional character, Adam Barak, has been given a Facebook profile and timeline to help illustrate the dangers of drug abuse. The campaign is for the Israel Anti-Drug Authority and uses the split timeline to show several before and after images of Adam, before drug addiction and after.

The images are quite compelling, including the close up cover that shows Adam with almost an entirely different face and several images showing his life falling apart juxtaposed next to what a happier time.

McCann Digital Isreal (@McCann_Israel) created the campaign. The man in the photo is actual Daniel Barak, a copywriter on the project.

The profile took about 3-4 straight days to put together (not including the 2 months it took to grow out Adam’s hair and beard) according to Daniel Barak. The project initially was more complicated including location checkins, videos and various Facebook features. After 5-6 tries they decided to go simpler. It became too difficult to get the split to work correctly with so many elements in the profile.

Do you think creative uses of the Facebook Timeline will continue to be used in the future?

http://socialfresh.com/facebook-timelines-marketing-campaigns/?utm_content=http%253A%252F%252Ffeedproxy.google.com%252F%257Er%252FSocialFresh%252F%257E3%252FAB4JqIg3fMc%252F&utm_medium=Argyle%2BSocial&utm_campaign=Argyle%2BSocial-2012-01&utm_source=twitter

Designing for a Responsive Web

2012-01-07T02:38:00.000-08:00

The web as we know it is changing. In the past, designers and developers only had to concern themselves with one medium: the computer screen. In recent years, however, a plethora of fully internet-enabled devices with scores of different shapes and capabilities have cropped up, meaning that we now have to design our websites to fit comfortably in as many screen sizes, shapes, and resolutions as you can possibly think of.

Our old fixed-width layout approach is out of the question now. So what do we do? The answer lies with Responsive Web Design.

What is Responsive Web Design?

The idea of Responsive Web Design, a term coined by Ethan Marcotte, is that our websites should adapt their layout and design to fit any device that chooses to display it.

In his book, the aptly titled “Responsive Web Design” he outlines the three parts to a responsive website:

A fluid grid
Fluid images
Media queries

Because this article is intended for designers not developers, and because I don’t want to step on Ethan’s toes content-wise, I will not be discussing these three things.

However, it is important for you, as a designer, to understand the basic concepts of RWD so as to better design websites that will become responsive when coded. I very highly recommend you read these three articles by Ethan: Fluid Grids, Fluid Images, and Responsive Web Design.

Illustration by Kevin Cornell

If you only read one of those, make it the last one, written in May of last year. Reading it changed the way I, and I suspect many others like me, see the internet. Ethan’s work is nothing short of genius, and I believe everyone who makes a living from the web should be required to read this article.

The Designer’s Role

If you’re a designer who only designs, meaning you aren’t responsible for the HTML and CSS of the site on which you are working, a lot of this might just go over your head. You may even be wondering why exactly you need to know about Responsive Web Design.

I’ve always believed that whoever’s designing a website should be the one later breathing life into it, through HTML and CSS. I understand that this is obviously not the case for a lot of projects, and I would respect a person’s abilities should they choose to only put together the design or only write the code.

It’s important to understand that a website is not one or the other, it’s a marriage of both design and code, each depending on one another to create a seamless experience. To truly learn how to design a website, you must understand how the design will later be implemented in code, even if it’s only a rudimentary understanding.

I’ll remind you again: this article is for designers. In the coming paragraphs, I’ll discuss exactly how, as designers, we should change the way we design to better fit the process of responsive web design.

Grid Systems and You

The Grid System, a perfect example of a rigid, grid-based design that you should strive for.

Even if you’re not designing for Responsive Web Design, you should be designing with some sort of grid system. As the modern, educated designer you are, you should already have an understanding of what it means to use a grid, so I’ll skip the frilly bits.

One of the pillars of Responsive Web Design is The Fluid Grid. Essentially, it means that your grid, which was traditionally measured in pixels should now be thought of in terms of percent of the total page width. The actual calculated width of each column in a responsive web site changes every time the browser window changes size, and cannot be guaranteed to be the same across different devices.

This is why you must use a grid when designing for Responsive Web Design. It is a necessity, not a nicety. You cannot create a responsive web site without a grid-based design; it’s simply out of the question, it wouldn’t work.

Knowing that your design won’t have the exact same pixel measure for each column as in your design comp, there are a few other measures you should take to insure that your grid scales without issue.

Try to refrain from using textured borders in your columns, like this:
These kinds of things would be difficult for your developers to use in a responsive web site, because they wouldn’t scale well horizontally. If you make the column wider or thinner, the textured borders would struggle.
Horizontal gradients are another no-go.
For the same reason as the previous point, namely the inability to scale horizontally, do not do this. Yes, it’s possible with new CSS3 properties, but if you’re targeting an audience of less tech-savvy users, many won’t have a compatible browser and the effect will be useless.
If you do have a textured background in a column, make sure it is one that can be tiled easily. Do:use grain, grunge, whatever. Don’t: use a photograph, illustration, or otherwise un-tilable image.

Thinking With Proportions

In scaling your design down horizontally to accommodate smaller screens, there will come a point at which some text on the page will simply be too big. Sure, that 100pt headline looks great in your psd, but it simply won’t work on an iPhone screen, for example: it’ll be too large and the text will have to wrap over several lines, reducing the impact of your original decision.

Here the developer, using CSS media queries, will adjust the font size to better fit the screen. This is a design decision, so as a designer, you should have a say in it, right?

To help the developer as well as to help maintain the integrity of your original design, you should decide what text on the page should remain constant, that is, stay the same size at any screen width, and what text should be adjusted. A good example of the constantly-sized text would be body copy, or small headers that act as a larger version of the body copy.

You should also decide, concerning the text that will be adjusted, how it should be adjusted.

Here’s the wrong way to do it: x should always be 20pt bigger than y. Not only is this thinking a big hassle for the developer, it also doesn’t make much sense in the responsive canvas, because you’re factoring in a constant, a value that will never change no matter what the screen size. For RWD, this is a huge mistake, as it doesn’t properly take into account the inherent fluidity of the web.

Here’s the right way to do it: x should always be 1.5 times as big as y. This way accepts that the only truemeaning a design gets out of font-size is how big or small the text is compared with the other text on the page. A constant value, like 24pt or 67pt, is meaningless.

Once you have all this figured out, make sure to convey this information to the developer. That’s the only way to make sure that your decisions, as the designer, are displayed in the actual web page that viewers will load into their browser and enjoy.

Make it Modular

The final piece in the Responsive puzzle is Media Queries. In case you’re unfamiliar, Media Queries are a way to apply CSS rules to the page based on (for our purposes) the size of the displaying browser.

The incredible power of this is that you can adjust, and indeed re-design, the entire layout of your website to fit a smaller or larger browser than the one for which you originally designed.

In order to best design for this eventuality, you should start thinking about the different parts of your design, such as main content, sidebar, header, and navigation, not as pieces of a puzzle that must stay in the same place relative to one another, but as modules that can be re-organized, re-sized, and shuffled without their original significance getting lost.

Here’s an example: imagine that you’re designing a website that looks like this (I’m sure you’ve worked with similar layouts before):

The crucial part of this example is the identification of groups of elements that must stay together for anylayout. For example, all the navigation links must stay together, because otherwise they would make no sense. This is a module, a section of information that can be moved around amongst the other modules without losing its meaning.

Building your site with these modules in mind makes it easy to imagine how your layout will adapt for different viewport sizes. For instance:

See how although the modules are in different places, they still display the same information as the original, just in a form more easily digested by mobile devices or other, differently-sized browsers.

There isn’t anything you will have to change in your layout to make this modularity work, it’s just a different way to look at the same image. Hopefully though, this new perspective will help you make more informed decisions as you work on your future design projects.

Conclusion

Like so much on the internet, Responsive Web Design is evolutionary, not revolutionary. It’s simply the natural next step for the web, not a complete rethinking of everything. As designers, we must continually adapt our workflows, and this time is no different.

Responsive Web Design is the future, or at least, it will be when developers and designers alike embrace it. As web designers and developers, we are the only ones with the power to see this wonderful new standard come to fruition. Make it happen, for you, for me, for the internet at large!

http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/design-theory/designing-for-a-responsive-web/