In case you haven’t heard, but Pantone has released their colour forecast for 2013. You can check out at [http://www.pantone.com/pages/fcr.aspx?pg=21005&ca=4].
For those who don’t already know, there’s been some really interesting conversation in the web design community on the topic of responsive design. In short, it describes a method by which a single site template can serve content for both largish sized screens like desktops and laptops, as well as smallish sized screens like smartphones, and perhaps tablets. But the typography guy in me has always been somewhat conflicted about whether the font sizes in the content are being displayed adequately. Especially after reading an article like the one on Smashing Magazine: 16 PIXELS For Body Copy. Anything Less Is A Costly Mistake. In short,…
What’s A Workback Schedule? A Workback Schedule is a useful method that reveals the milestones that a project will have to meet. It forces you to think about what a successful project will look like, and the steps you will have to take to get there. Why Use A Workback Schedule? Creating a Workback can protect both the designer and client from setting unreasonable expectations for a project. The designer is able to foresee and establish any required buffer or lead times and include them into the Workback Schedule. The Workback may also reveal additional task requirements a project must…
Some time ago, I had a discussion via Twitter with Roz Allen (@therozblog) about exactly what it is content on the web. Is it text, photos, video? You can catch our conversation here: https://twitter.com/kemosite/status/200696329880604672 As someone who has worked extensively with multiple media forms, I have seen that content is not limited to any one format or media platform. Content is modular, and is simply an item that communicates an idea. The idea is communicated by media types such as web pages, social media, or printed pieces. What do you think? What is content anyway? Feel free to share your thoughts in…
Here’s a post I never got around to finishing. Kind of surprising considering it’s a pretty simple concept. Adobe Illustrator has a neat feature to automagically pick out inverse and complementary colours. Have you ever wondered how to do that in Photoshop or InDesign? It’s not that difficult. Here’s how I do it. To get a complementary colour: Convert your colour into the Lab space. Invert the ‘a’ and ‘b’ values. That is to say, if your is L: 61 a:-17 b:-46, the complementary colour is: L: 61 a:17 b:46 To invert the colour entirely, you only have to go…
A quick follow-up to my previous post, I did find an economic system that might be a good fit for this design problem: Social capitalism. Check out more details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_capitalism
I want to say first that I think Michael Moore is a genius. I don’t always agree with his views entirely, but I love how he at least gets me thinking about government policy and society. I recently finished watching “Capitalism: A Love Story“, and one particular moment caught my attention. It was a clip of former U.S. president Roosevelt in his State Of The Union address of 1944, regarding the need for a second Bill or Rights. You can read a summary of what it was about on WikiPedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bill_of_Rights In it, Roosevelt declared an “economic bill of rights”…
Every now and again, I have to remind myself of the difference between additive and subtractive colour, and which colour mode, RGB or CMYK, uses which modal. The way I remind myself is with a simple rule called “which way to white.” It works like this: Take a piece of paper that has been printed like an advertisement, presumably CMYK ink printed on a white sheet. How do you get the white colour? Take the ink away. Therefore, CMYK = subtractive. RGB is therefore additive by deduction. The result: CMYK = subtractive, RGB = additive, and “which way to white”…
Here are some interesting logo design trends for 2009, so far. Logo Design Trends 2009 – Showcase | 1stwebdesigner – Love In Design.