Elf Yourself

Office Depot has a website where you can upload a head shot and have the person dance a little dance dressed as an elf. Here's a link that shows our favorite Vice President showing his holiday spirit.

Crayon Art

I've always disliked crayons, even when I was in preschool. Pete Goldlust creates art with crayons in a way that I've never seen before.

"There's a lot of empty space in this ad, but I'm just not sure that the audience we are targeting is the empty-space audience."

Adverbatisms Pay attention, professionals –or not- in Communication, Marketing and Advertising. These things happen almost every day; sometimes we don’t even notice them. But they’re here to stay. They are verbatims. And yes, they’re REAL.

Bad Design

Would you pull this fire alarm during an actual fire. Would you want to be chained to a burning building?

99 problems (the typography remix)

Typography meets Jay-Z

The Adfeed

Here's a great site pointed out by Brad Robertson that features all sorts of catagories and links to some nice advertising.
Thanks Brad.

Brand New Blog

My favorite Graphic Design site, "Speak Up", has spun off a new site dedicated to corporate branding.

It is our pleasure to announce the first official Speak Up spin-off: Brand New. A blog devoted solely to the monitoring, discussion and critique of brand and corporate identity work in all its manifestations and across all categories. With new work being created consistently – and Speak Up not being able, or willing, to accomodate every single new logo that comes out – we wanted to offer a space that would showcase this work and allow the design community to stay plugged in to the ever-evolving saga of identity work.

Really Cheap Halloween Costume

Some of us have actually seen the press operators wear these back in the good old days. The purpose of these hats, other then to keep ink out of your hair, was when your hat got blown off from the wind produced from the printing press then your head was too close to the moving parts of the press. It was time to back up before you get your head bashed in. Or so I was once told. After our 48-inch press conversion these hats don't fit my big head anymore... Bummer, I’ll have to find something else to wear for Halloween.

M&M's+fine art+dark movies

M&M's has created a little game to to help market their Dark Chocolate M&Ms. They have hidden 50 clues to the titles of "dark" movies in a painting and created a little game of solving the puzzle.
It's a great example of using the web in new ways to promote a product.
It reminds me of the Absolut poster with 82 hidden Absolut Vodka bottles...

Watching Words Move - Creative Assignment

Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar are two Icons of modern corporate art. Many of the logos they collaborated on 40 years ago are still seen today: NBC Peacock, Chase Manhatten Bank’s symbolic circle, Xerox and Mobile are still seen on trucks, copiers and letterheads. Geisman developed the roadway signage that is in use on highways in America and internationally.
In 1962 “Watching Words Move” was published, during the same era the two also were regular contributors to Playboy Magazine’s humor pages and regular prize winners in all forms of print and communication arts.
The simple, single word stories playfully express how type (the essential backbone of visual communication) had a brain and could speak, could mean; that the placement and subtle alteration of letters on a page could suggest motion, narrative‹‹just about anything.
The font they used exclusively was Helvetica. This Bauhaus inspired sans serif face was created in 1956 By Max Miedinger for a Haas Type Foundry (they actually created each of the letters in steel molds in which lead was poured to form moveable type; each variation; condensed, bold, italic, etc. had to be individually created) in Zurich and was considered a landmark in pure letter forms which emphasize cleanliness, readability and objectivity. It was a sensation world-wide and has become the most widely used sans serif typeface of the 20th century. Licensing and providing the molds made Haas Foundry very, very rich.

Your assignment is to create your own words that move. Your final piece must be just one word, black and white and Helvetica. The best one wins a prize…
Be Creative!

Thank you to Ron Linn for this project.

New Spin on Battle of the Bands

Here’s a little short film that pits album art against each other in a fight. It’s very cleaver and original.

Great use of sound in Banner ads

lubricate the bed
lubricate the playground
lubricate the fan

New Mouse Pads from Veer for Creatives

Veer's new mouse pads allow you to embrace what all those sales people think you do all day. There's buttons too.

Business want to love design, but it's often an awkward romance

Here's a Fast Company article about the relationship between business and its embrace of design.

Word it, Speak Up

For our next project we are going to go back to the beginning when you were all encouraged to participate in the "Speak Up" sites Word it projects. So your project is to do the October Word it. I think the word is READY. Again, you don't have to submit it to Speak Up but you can. But make sure you follow their rules and give me a hard copy before next Wednesday.
Be Creative.

Ideas for painting the walls

I've been thinking about a creative way to paint our walls for some time now but I don't want anything that's too distracting. Something similar to these samples from an art gallery is kind of what I've been thinking about. I also like walls that are painted to look like Japanese screens with shadows on the other side showing through...

John Stossel and a 20/20 report on Graphic Design

A great report on Graphic Design by John Stossel pointing out some of the major mistakes you see today in graphic design.

Great Blog from Roger Black

I stumbled across this blog over the weekend by Roger Black. It focuses on design and newspapers mostly. I really like the look of the blog which reads similar to a magazine and if you can't stand the reversed type on the red background he even supplies a "simplify" but that changes the page to something a bit more readable.

Irregular ad sizes

Here is an post on NewsDesigner.com about "L" shaped ads turning upside down and breaking the traditional rule of having advertising above news content.

Newspaper Websites

Brad Robertson links to two great post on how the New York Times is making great strides in the web development and a list of 9 ways to improve your newspapers website.

I sure would love to see the Des Moines Register make some of these changes soon.

Chairs

chairs
Originally uploaded by waxpixel proprietor.

I was struck by the colors of these chairs stacked in the break room. So I grabbed the camera and snapped this pic.

Whiteboard Doodle

whiteboard
Originally uploaded by waxpixel proprietor.

On Katie's last day with us she suggested the I take a photo of our whiteboard to post on our Blog. So here it is. If you stare at it too long you will start to question the sobriety of the person/persons who drew it. The board is erased at the beginning of each month giving a place for people to doodle. This helps keep them from writting on the walls with crayons.

Website Spotlight.

Thanks to Cari for pointing out this nice little flash site from catalyst studios in Minneapolis.
And speaking of flash sites. Check out this fantastic site for BeBop clothing. That had to take some time.

Job Interviews

Our last project didn't get posted because it dealt with reviewing resumes. Mainly resumes that were so bad they could not possibly get an interview anywhere because of them. The highest number of mistakes, poor choices, bad design, etc. totaled over 30.
The biggest question is why do so many Graphic Design candidates create their resume in Microsoft Word with Times New Roman. If you cannot design and brand for yourself for something as important as getting a job, how can you design effectively for someone else?
Two recent posts by Seth Godin talk about interviews "the end of interviews" and "the juggler". With two open positions I have been conducting many lately interviews lately and I found these posts very enlightening.

Newspaper need to think small.

Small Should Be 'The New Big' for Newspapers and the Web
Newspapers should think small because of the nature of the Internet, and because the Internet is critical to the future of newspapers. They still need to better adapt to doing business in an environment where the next generation of readers/customers chooses to interact with them in the online medium.

By Steve Outing

Being Jackson Pollock

Use your mouse to paint your monitor like Pollock

Real World Illustrator

Here is a blog by Ex-Adobe Product Manager Mordy Golding all about Illustrator. It's really good deep stuff. Lots of technical insight into using the program such as this post about using the color swatches.

Looks like we are trailblazing again

The New York Times will be going to the 48 inch web in 2008 and the WSJ is putting ads on the cover.
At least when we went to the 48 inch web we didn't have Steven Colbert making fun of us...

R.A.G.B.R.A.I XXXV

In recognition of this RAGBRAI time of year, the next project will be designing a RAGBRAI logo for 2007. Who knows, if you come up with one good enough we can submit it to the marketing department for consideration.

Looks like we were on to something...

Looks like while we are contemplating redesigning the TaB can, Coca-Cola went and redesigned the Sprite can...

TaB Soda Can Designs

This project is redesigning a soda can. But not any soda can, one that is really outdated,
TaB.
Imagine in your mind that TaB soda is trying to make a comeback and wants you to design their can the fits the year 2006 and beyond. They need a new logo and can design.
Here is a link to some of their information. (World of Tab) Wikipedia.

I was amazed to find that they still make this stuff...

The can design size is 8¼ x 4¼.
By July 18, please print out a hard copy in my inbox and a digital version in my shared folder in Advertising place. There is a folder called “Tab Soda”

The Dangers Of Stock Photography

This post has links to several pages that show the same model in dozens of ads. I recognize the one from Liquid Library. I know she's been in some of our ads. It can be pretty comical.

Two Candies on the Web

First Daily Candy is a shopping blog that has some fantastically simple design. Very clean lots of white space and original illustrations. You don't get that everyday...

Second, CandyCulture.net. You can download their PDF online magazine. 238 pages of full color formatted for your monitor is what you get when nobody has to worry about production costs of printing. Lots of edgy design and a little fine art to boot… This is the 5th edition so when you have time you can check out the first 4 editions.

Fonts That Make You Look Lame

This website is for book design...but it has other great info that pertains to all design.

Fonts That Make You Look Lame
By Sheila Parr

Some fonts scream TACKY and others whisper amateur, but if you’re not a designer you probably have no idea if you’re committing a font felony. To protect yourself from snotty judgments about your taste and experience level, follow these two simple rules in all typed work: manuscripts, emails, proposals, and, of course, books.

RULE #1: Avoid the following five fonts at ALL costs,

1. Comic Sans. Unless you are writing a comic book or materials for a film adapted from a comic book (i.e., Sin City—great design) don’t use it.
2. Sand. Never. Ever.
3. Times. Very few books have body text set in Times. This is a dead giveaway of an amateur design.
4. Papyrus. Even for cookbooks. This font is overused to the point of exhaustion. Pay attention to restaurant menus and you’ll see what I mean.
5. Lucida Calligraphy. This common script font is very recognizable, but rarely appropriate.

RULE #2: Use the following three fonts at your own risk.

Copperplate, Eurostile, and Courier are great fonts—if you know how to use them. These typefaces are easily recognizable and have uncommon letterform shapes—a recipe for poor design if you’re not careful. Use these fonts sparingly, or leave them to a professional.

Thank you Cari for pointing this out!

A Day in the Life of a Graphic Designer

From Cari Johnson:
I found this on "The Princeton Review" website...www.princetonreview. Just found it very truthful about what to expect when becoming a graphic designer.

Career: Graphic Designer

A Day in the Life

Graphic designers create the visual presentation and design of goods, from gravestone markers to detergent boxes, from album covers to dog food cans. Work is usually done on a project basis. Designers must be able to work under extreme time pressures and very defined financial and design limits to produce quality material. A graphic designer must be able to synthesize input from a number of different sources into a distinctive image, using research prepared by a marketing department and cost specifications determined by a budgeting department, and produce a variety of sketches and models which demonstrate different approaches to the product. This takes a person who can listen to comments, has a good eye for aesthetic design and a flair for color, and a good understanding of the needs of the corporate world. “Graphic design isn’t one job. It’s twenty,” wrote one frazzled designer. “Salesman skills are very important if you want to see your designs accepted,” wrote another. Nearly all respondents listed communication skills as either second or third in importance for success in this profession. Over time, specialization is the name of the game, either in product design, packaging design, material use, or object arrangement. When projects are underway, graphic designers can expect to work long hours brainstorming and meeting with executives to discuss ideas. The job is highly visible; successes and failures alike are recognized and are put on display. Those who are insecure about their skills or their ideas have a hard time accepting the amount of risk and rejection this career entails. A successful graphic designer has an enviable life, choosing among clients and earning significant money. Be warned: An artist’s style may be very hot one season and turn into a parody the next; those who are unwilling or unable to change could find promising careers disappearing. Of the nearly 25,000 people who try to enter the field of graphic design each year, only about 15,000 last the first two years, and 8,000 last five years.

Paying Your Dues

No bachelor’s degree is required to become a graphic designer, but about two-thirds go to college, usually majoring in product design, art, or art history. Graphic designers must have talent and an understanding of the business world, including issues of finance and production, and should be familiar with computer technology such as PageMakerTM, PhotoshopTM, Adobe IllustratorTM, and other painting and graphic design tools. Graphic designers must be able to work in a variety of media and meet deadlines, sizing limits, and financial restrictions, especially those who wish to work as freelance graphic designers rather than in-house salaried designers. Basic preprofessional coursework should include design, drawing, computer artwork, and specific knowledge (for example, anatomy for medical graphics designers) relating to any area of specialization. Professionals must assemble a working portfolio to approach companies for work of any scale. For those who wish to pursue further study, over 100 schools offer accredited graphic design programs, according to the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, and each of them addresses issues of the working life of the graphic designer along with issues of design.

Associated Careers

Many artists turn to graphic design to make a living during their lean years, then return to art. A number become gallery owners and patrons and use the contacts they made as designers to help out any new talent in need of remunerative work. The large number of graphic artists who leave do so because of the scrambling lifestyle: The need to pursue work constantly and the requirement to act as a “salesman” for their own ideas. Others go in-house as design consultants and as magazine layout editors.

Customer designed

This great post on Trendwatching.com tied in nicely with something that you should be seeing in the future with our marketplace covers. In the spirit of Jones Soda labels and Flickr.com we will be using reader submitted photos as our mastheads.

Do You Consider Yourself A Type Snob?

Well, then. Here is a film called "The Creation Of Printed Type"
It's a short silent film showing a true type snob at work in his studio. You probably have heard of the guy in the film. His name is Frederic Goudy.

Brand Identity and a Letter form a Satisfied Customer

Dear Tide:
I am writing to say what an excellent product you have! I've used it all of my married life, as my Mom always told me it was the best. Now that I am in my fifties , I find it even better! In fact, about a month ago, I spilled some red wine on my new white blouse. My inconsiderate and uncaring husband started to belittle me about how clumsy I was, and generally started becoming a pain in the neck. One thing led to another and somehow I ended up with his blood on my new white blouse! I grabbed my bottle of Tide with bleach alternative, and to my surprise and satisfaction, all of the stains came out! In fact, the stains came out so well the detectives who came by yesterday told me that the DNA tests on my blouse were negative and then my attorney called and said that I was no longer considered a suspect in the disappearance of my husband. What ! a relief! Going through menopause is bad enough without being a murder suspect! I thank you, once again, for having a great product. Well, gotta go, have to write to the Hefty bag people.

New York Times and Tiffany

From Speak Up:
"So ever since seeing Child's Play, I've looked at page three of the New York Times differently: always looking for a correspondence between the narratives of news photo and Tiffany ad, a correspondence between text and image, or simply a correspondence of shapes.

It's become a daily observation exercise and a daily affirmation of the artists, critics and essayists whose work I loved as a young designer and who — whether they knew it or not — affect my daily outlook.

As a way to convey either how easy it is to make connections, or how frequently such combinations occur, here are thirty examples collected over the past year:"


Link
Check out the examples of how these newspaper ads work with the corresponding news photos.

InDesign User Group reminder

User Group Meeting
Tue, May 9, 2006, 6:00 PM

Meredith Corporation
1716 Locust Street
Des Moines, IA 50309
USA

Log in and register for this meeting.

Not a member? Click here to become a member.


Meeting details

Meeting is held at Meredith's Conference Core.

Agenda
6:00pm - Check in and Socializing
7:00pm - Meeting
8:45pm - Raffle
9:00pm - Meeting adjourned

We are pleased to announce the inaugural meeting of the Des Moines InDesign User Group. The featured speaker will be Noha Edell, InDesign Product Specialist, as she explores InDesign CS2 and reveals the fantastic new features in this groundbreaking release!

Featured Topic:
Unleash Your Creativity With InDesign
Looking to stay ahead of your competition by learning tips and techniques from an Adobe expert? Join Noha Edell, Adobe InDesign Product Specialist, as she unveils the spectacular features of InDesign CS2, Adobe's state-of-the-art design and layout program for print professionals. InDesign puts creative freedom in your hands by delivering industrial-strength power coupled with an ease of use unmatched in the print world.

Noha will present an inside look at the innovative tools in InDesign CS2, such as Adobe® Photoshop® and Adobe PDF layer support, editable transparency settings, one-step table creation, superior typographical controls, Adobe Bridge, Object styles, Anchored Objects, and much more. Plus, Noha will share her expert secrets for using your Adobe applications side by side in your work, so you'll always know which is the right tool for the job.

Creative Latitude

creativelatitude

The design makeovers features section is very good. Just a very good site for designers in general.

Thank you Cari

Typography Project

TYPOGRAPHY is the balance and interplay of letterforms on the page, a verbal and visual equation that helps the reader understand the form and absorb the substance of the page content. Typography plays a dual role as both verbal and visual communication. As readers scan a page they are subconsciously aware of both functions: first they survey the overall graphic patterns of the page, then they parse the language, or read. Good typography establishes a visual hierarchy for the page by providing visual punctuation and graphic accents that help readers understand relations between prose and pictures, headlines and subordinate blocks of text.

Legibility
Good typography depends on the visual contrast between one font and another and between text blocks, headlines, and the surrounding white space. Nothing attracts the eye and brain of the reader like strong contrast and distinctive patterns, and you can achieve those attributes only by carefully designing them into your pages. If you cram every page with dense text, readers see a wall of gray and will instinctively reject the lack of visual contrast. Just making things uniformly bigger doesn’t help. Even boldface fonts quickly become monotonous, because if everything is bold then nothing stands out “boldly.”

When your content is primarily text, typography is the tool you use to “paint” patterns of organization on the page. The first thing the reader sees is not the title or other details on the page but the overall pattern and contrast of the page. The regular, repeating patterns established through carefully organized pages of text and graphics help the reader to establish the location and organization of your information and increase legibility. Patchy, heterogeneous typography and text headers make it hard for the user to see repeating patterns and almost impossible to predict where information is likely to be located in unfamiliar documents.

Things to Consider:
• Legibility - Different fonts work only for headlines but not body copy. What characteristics about a font can cause that?
• Line length – the eye has a hard time tracking down to the next line if they too long, but being too short can be just as detrimental, what is the optimal line length of body copy?
• White space – why do advertisers and designers consistently ignore the benefits of white space? What are some of those benefits?
• Typefaces – How do some fonts compliment each other or lend themselves to a certain style – contemporary, grunge, certain time periods, etc.
• Type size – how small is too small and when does a headline become too large?
• Case – when is it appropriate to put things in all caps or all lower case? What benefits are to be had for choosing one or the other?
• Emphasis – How do you create emphasis in different or unique ways? There are options besides size and boldness.

Your job:
At your next creative meeting bring something in (preferably not an advertisement) that you see and/or read every day that you believe has strong typography and a lesson to teach. (Or if you’d like something with poorly done typography that makes you cringe) It can be your box of dishwasher detergent or your television remote. Be prepared to say more than “like” or “dislike”. Know why it works for the reader or why it doesn’t. Consider things like backgrounds behind the type as well. Look for something unique or unusual but is still effective.

This project created and written by Tonya and Renee

The Library

1. Post a comment. Anywhere on Waxpixel. Just prove that you are smart enough to figure it out.

2. Finish your font selfportraits.

3. Visit the new downtown library and comment here on three things that you observe that are good design, and three things that are poorly designed. Remember that design goes beyond just the external appearance of something and focus on the functionality and the experiences that you encounter.

Be creative.

Frog Design's Solute and Insight into Apple

from Frog Design's website
In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer... Nothing could be further from the meaning of design.

Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation.
Steve Jobs

The Robust Newspaper Business

Brad points to an article in the New Yorker highlighting the strength of the newspaper business. It’s good to hear a positive perspective for a change.

CSS Beauty

A project focused on providing its audience with a database of well designed CSS websites from around the world.

Gannett's New Division...

The Gannett Center for Design and Innovation
Press Release

April Word It

Clean

Des Moines InDesign User Group

Des Moines InDesign User Group has been formed. Do you feel like a joiner?

Time to quit your job

Why do you even bother to come to work? Stay home and make over $100,000 as a Graphic Designer and you don't need any talent.

Gannett: Newspaper or Internaet Stock? (GCI)

Brad Robertson blog linked to this interesting article on "Internet Stock Blog" from his blog

Douglas McIntyre submits: Does anyone remember Gannett (GCI)? The recent buyout and anticipated break-up of Knight-Ridder (KRI) has keep its larger counterpart out of the news. Its stock has done poorly lately along with the balance of the public companies in the newspaper business.

Gannett has some important advantages over other companies in this industry, its size and the ownership of USA Today being the most obvious. But, scratch the surface, and one of the things you find is that Gannett is one of the largest players in the internet content business.

Gannett’s online revenue grew 56% in 2005 on top of 60% in 2004. Gannett’s internet audience for its combined online properties was 21 million unique visitors in December 2005, which is almost 14% of the entire internet audience according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Gannett also owns large pieces of the online sites CareerBuilder and Classified Ventures.

For 2005, total revenue for Gannett grew just over 4% to $7.6 billion. Net income dropped 5.5% to $1.244 billion. The newspaper and television station businesses just aren’t what they used to be in large part because of the internet.

Gannett has the opportunity, content, and capital to build its online operations and enjoy some of the valuation benefits of being viewed as an internet powerhouse. Whether management will pursue this is still an open question. But, putting capital into a business that grows 50% to 60% a year seems like a prudent investment. And, maybe a path to saying goodbye to the low stock price.

Des Moines - InDesign Users Group

We are pleased to announce the inaugural meeting of the Des Moines InDesign User Group. The featured speaker will be Noha Edell, InDesign Product Specialist, as she explores InDesign CS2 and reveals the fantastic new features in this groundbreaking release!

Newspaper Advertising Production Info

Asbury Park Press does a great job of designing a great webpage for their customers to get needed information. If you look at it, you may recognize some of the pages under the "Design" tab. This information was taken from the PDFs design by Suzanne many years ago. They are making their rounds throughout Gannett.

Fancy Tea Website

Katie pointed out this nicely designed website for tea.

Font Self Portrait

Slide Show Here

Illustrator Skills

Unbelievably good Illustrator rendering
Click on Vector and then Realistic.

Do something different.

I discovered this really cool sight on different (and better) ways to tie your shoes. There are 16 different ways shown. This is a great example of something that we do a specific way just because its the way it always has been done. I just retied my shoes.

The Hippest City in the USA

This article from FastCompany magazine is 2.5 years old. But it’s nice to remember that Des Moines is a pretty nice place to live. Looking at the chart at the bottom helps demonstrate why I moved to Des Moines from the San Francisco area.

Typeface Self-Portraits

Here is the next assignment. Make a self-portrait out of type. Like these...
My suggestion is to get a picture of yourself and put it on a layer in Illustrator or InDesign, then open the insert Glyphs palette and start slapping characters on your face. Delete the background and presto!
Put a copy of the self-portrait in the "self portrait" folder in my shared folder. Don't put your name. If you did it right, we will recognize that it's you.

Style Article about Typefaces

an article in The New York Times Style Section about fonts

The Invention of the Apple Logo

here

The Word It for March is....

finally posted

Removing Red Eye with Photoshop

I normally use the brush tool in the "color" mode to change the color of the red to a dark color I pick up with the eye dropper tool.
This site has a video that demonstrates a more complex and probably better way to do this. Give it a try.

Here is a photo you can download and fix.

Apple vs. Microsoft Branding

This is a great little film the demonstrates how good Apples branding is. Less is more. This reminds me of how many of our newspaper ads look. Pack it full until it is not longer effective...

Spiderman Reviews Crayons

This is what you get when you combine an active imagination and too much free time.

World's Best Designed Newspapers...

"The Society for News Design contest judging is done for the year, and they've announced the winners of the World's Best Designed Newspapers portion (which was actually judged last week). There are only two this year:

The Guardian, London, U.K. daily, circulation: 395,000
Rzeczpospolita, Warsaw, Poland, daily, circulation: 180,000"

Random CD cover design

The next assignment is a CD cover using 4 random words drawn from a hat: two nouns, one adjective and an emotion. For those of you playing at home we pulled from a hat for you. They are:
Puppy
Stove
Sweaty
Disappointment

Here are some other that people have drawn:

Myself: Bicycle-Box-Dirty-Disturbed
Wade: Puppy-Bathroom-Angry-pointless
Cory: Island-Computer-Love-Sweaty
Rhonda: Chameleon-Mom-Blue-Melancholy
Brandon: Cat-Purse-Lovely-Upset
Lisa: Handgun-Chameleon-Pointless-Nervous
Jim: Pumpkin-Purse-Massive-Melancholy
Carrie: Lipstick-Smile-Sweaty-Love

Put your finished images in the "CD Covers" folder in my shared folder in Adv Place.
finished CD covers can be seen here.
You have two weeks. Be Creative.

The Reason

Seth Godin has a great post about the reason we do things. How many things to we do just because "that's the way we always did it". Think of all the things we do that no longer have a good reason...

This makes me want to drink a Coke

This ad is disturbing. At least they aren't running it in the U.S. It's running in Australia, and they speak German, and Germans love David Hasselhoff.

February Whats...

Just so you don’t think I am all talk and I am doing these projects to... I finished my what over the weekend and posted it to Speak Up and they updated the site this weekend. Now Mike Blair and I are the only two to upload ours. Anyone else going to go public?

Need so help from you for the next project

OK, I need a little pre-work from you all for the next project. Can everyone submit to me by email, 2 nouns, 1 adjective and 1 emotion? No proper names (sorry Brian, Bob Dole is out).
The next project will include pulling subject from a hat. More detail later.
Can I get these by Monday so our first group that meets on Tuesday will have all of our words?
Thank you for the help and be creative!

Chocolate Website

This site does a great job of using an accent color with the predominately brown site. Click on the logo and watch the photos and color change.
Thank you Cari, for pointing the site out.

"Copy Goes Here" - Film

I nice little film about an ad adgency

Ewe Rock

ewerock
Originally uploaded by waxpixel proprietor.

I finally figured out how to get a second flickr account up so the valentines will be posted online now. Just click on the EWE and it will take you to the waxpixel flickr page were all of our future projects will be posted.

Art's Little Brother

An Essay in Icon Magazine about the Art and Design relationship – by Rick Poynor

Sometimes I find it more insightful to read the comments rather than the essay itself. –from DesignObserver.com

What?

Speak Up has 3 pages of "What" posted now. One of them belongs to Mike Blair, but I'm not sure WHAT it is...

Interesting insight from Brad

I thought I would point out a thought provoking post from our Vice President.

Iowa Newspaper Association 2006 Winners

On Friday night the 2006 INA awards were presented and The Des Moines Register won Newspaper of the Year for General Excellence. This is determined by overall points through all categories including News, Online and Advertising. Advertising played a large role in making this possible with our many winning entries.

Advertising Winners are,

Best Food or Grocery;
1st Place – Chocolateria Stam
3rd Place – Dahls Foods

Best Ad Featuring Professional Service
2nd Place – Des Moines Realtors

Best Furniture ad
3rd Place – Homemaker's

Best Auto Ad
1st Place – Karl Chevrolet

Best Miscellaneous Ad
1st Place – Iowa Stars
2nd Place – Des Moines Area Community College

Best Special Section (SWEEP)
1st Place – Homestyle Weekly
2nd Place – Merle Hay Mall
3rd Place - Mercy Hospital

Best Ad Series featuring Merchandise or Service
1st Place – Mercy Medical Center

Best Ad for Community Promotion or Event
2nd Place – Walk To Cure Diabetes

Best Ad Designer
3rd Place – Chris Hanson

Best in Class
1st – Homestyle Weekly
2nd – Chocolateria Stam

In fact there are only two categories that we did not have a winner in, Agriculture ad and Newspaper/Marketing ad.
Congratulations to all of our winners and everyone that contributed to these ads being so successful.

Worst Designer Ever...?

Elite Presence
Make sure you check out the pricing and the 20-day turnaround time.

Valentine Project

Okay, before February 10th each person is requested to create a "Work Safe" Valentine. When I say work safe, I mean Cheesy. Ones like the kind given by a 12-year-old boy to another. No love, no kiss or hug, even saying, "I like you" is too much. Think of the kind of Valentine that would be given by someone who thinks a slug in the arm is a sign of friendship.
Valentines must be able to be printed (or fit) on a 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. It can float...
When we are all done we might just surprise Advertising or even people in the skywalk by hanging them all up anonymously when we are done.
Be Creative.

Word it for February

What?

click on it for instructions. To be done anytime in February.

Expanding your Font Knowledge

I stumbled across a nice little PDF file the gives good simple information about fonts. There's some basic stuff, and an interesting part about font names such as "Old Style" "Humanistic" and "Grotesque" (Contrasting stoke weight and a slightly squared quality).
There is also a helpful little area that explains the differences of PostScript Type 1, TrueType, DFont and Open Type.

here is the link to download the PDF file

Creative Team Development

We have broken up our staff into 4 creative teams. Hopefully through our groups we can grow in our skills and knowledge and maybe have some fun while were at it.