Posts Tagged ‘inspiration’

As I flipped through my idea notebook recently, Musicovery’s mood pad jumped out at me as a particularly fun and inspiring UI. Breaking with more conventional controls for web radio, the site creators realized that most people listen to music according to  their mood. They developed the mood pad to allow you to select music […]

It’s almost redundant to talk about aggressive project schedules. The constantly evolving demands of markets, strong competition for market leadership, and increasing expectations for engaging user experiences require rapid delivery of products and services. While delivery may have to meet these schedules one way or another, true innovation rarely follows a Gantt chart so docilely. […]

“Critique is a life skill, not a design skill,” Adam Connor asserted in his presentation “Discussing Design: The Art of Critique” at the Big (D)esign Conference. His session as well as the critique activities in Dana Chisnell and Jonathan Knoll’s workshop “Design and Critique for Challenging Problems” made me realize how misunderstood and unpracticed this skill […]

I attended the Big (D)esign Conference last week, and as with UPA 2011, I was inspired and challenged by the opening keynote, Transformational Space: The Power of Place. Gwen Harmon, Director of Governmental and Community Affairs for the National Civil Rights Museum, (NCRM) talked about the museum and plans for renovation to create a greater impact on […]

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 […]

Being able to present your own work is a core design skill. If you’re working somewhere that won’t let you present your own work, get out of there. Though I believe in designers presenting their own work, let’s face it, some of us are better at presentation than others. I’ve been presenting design to clients […]

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, […]

Last week, I attended UPA 2011. The theme this year was Designing for Social Change. The opening keynote speaker Paul Adams, Global Brand Experience Manager at Facebook, shared his research (an earlier version of his presentation available on Slideshare) into social networks. Among the many insights of the presentation, his research showed that the change […]

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 […]