Posts Tagged ‘innovation’

We are so often asked to “think outside of the box” that the phrase has almost reached a cliché status. What does it really mean, and how can you train yourself to do it? The first step in changing your perception is to acknowledge your background and biases. Consider the following excerpts taken from Horace […]

In the film “Up in the Air,” Ryan Bingham makes his living traveling to clients and laying off their employees with his own special charm (he is played by George Clooney, after all). His upstart colleague, Natalie, proposes a new method via videoconferencing. But before the new system can go into place, their boss convinces […]

Isn’t it an annoyance viewing a rotating carousel of a homepage that won’t stop rotating? You’re in the middle of reading some ad or introduction to a feature article, about to click the Read More button and it changes. Then you have to navigate back if there is navigation or wait until it cycles around […]

Making Typographic Images: In this tutorial from PSDTOP Blog, you can make a typographic image from a photo using Photoshop techniques. The effect looks best on images with good contrast and light backgrounds, but you can easily adjust the contrast and background using Photoshop. I used these techniques to modify an image of my guitar […]

Stock imagery doesn’t need to be boring. When working within budget constraints, there are still ways to make your design pop. One way to do that is through the use of cinemagraphic photos. A cinemagraph combines still photography with video elements to create something that is more that a photo, but not quite video. The […]

The last session I attended at UPA 2011 Chauncey Wilson’s “Brainstorming and Beyond: Ideation, Innovation, and Insight.”  The slides from his presentation aren’t yet available online (I’ll update this post with the link when available), but I’m including an earlier version that he presented with Amy Cueva. In the session he shares a number of […]

Do you hit the bull’s-eye every time? If so, you are standing too close to the target. As Woody Allen puts it: If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything innovative. Everyone has a “risk muscle.” You keep it in shape by trying new things. If you don’t, […]

A followup to my graphic standards and style guide post: The more often you do something in the same way, the more difficult it is to think about doing it in any other way. Break out of this “prison of familiarity” by disrupting your habitual thought patterns. Eat ice cream for breakfast. Wear red sox. […]

In working with architects and the St. Louis Landmarks Association, I have often ran across a need to render a building or represent a landmark as an architect’s conceptual sketch. Trying out some technics in Photoshop one day, I discovered a wonderful filter called “Find Edges.” With this filter, you can make almost any photo […]

The challenge: Design a logo for a special company event with several color schemes. On websites, the logo needs to subtly change colors as someone visits the site. This would be an easy solution using Flash but because many users have iPads or iPhones that do not support it, those users would not see the […]

An architect built a cluster of office buildings around a central green. When construction was completed, the landscape crew asked him where he wanted the sidewalks. “Just plant the grass solidly between the buildings,” was his reply. By late summer the new lawn was laced with paths of trodden grass between the buildings. These paths […]

A high school teacher drew a dot on the blackboard and asked the class what it was. “A dot on the blackboard,” was the only response. “I’m surprised at you,” the teacher said. “I did this exercise with a group of kindergartners and they thought of fifty different things it could be: a squashed bug, […]