The Design + Diversity conference explores proactive ways to make the design industry more diverse. This is the only conference this focuses on diversity issues in the design field. This event provides a platform for constructive conversation among those who design, innovate, and lead. We welcome the perspective of diversity and inclusion professionals, designers, and any active enthusiast. Read more
Regular ticket pricing ends August 20, 2017
$375.00 Professional
$250.00 Student
These prices are for full day speaker presentation on August 26, 2017.
After August 20, 2017, pricing will almost double. Take advantage of this great deal.
Conference Venue
St. Louis Public Library 1301 Olive St, St. Louis, MO 63103
The Olympics is a place where dreams come true — including for designers, who create everything from the logos to the tickets, the mascots to medals for every Games.
To finish all of the Olympics collateral in time, the Olympic design committee outsources the different jobs to various local firms. These projects can overlap across mediums, leaving two firms to indirectly throw in together on a project. Case in point: the Rio 2016 logo was made by Brazil’s Tátil Design de Ideias (Behance profile) , while the Olympic font — and yes, there is an exclusive Olympic font — was constructed by Dalton Maag, a British typeface firm that has a satellite office in Brazil. The process offers a unique case study on collaboration, one where two firms from different cultures must work off each other to produce final products that will surely be seen by hundreds of millions of people.
To learn more please visit: How the 2016 Olympic Logo and Font Were Created – LINK
Here is an opportunity to look at the behind-the-scenes graphic design work for the movie Beauty and the Beast; a closer look at their countdown social campaign before the release. I like the choice of the font throughout this whole campaign although not used everywhere. You will notice there is a different design depending on the representation of the movie scene. Props to the work from Sean Hobman who is a freelance art director/designer working with the folks from Watson DG who are pretty known in working with various Hollywood releases.
Published on Behance, this is a project in collaboration between Sean Hobman and the mighty folks from Watson DG. They are both located in different location from London, UK to Los Angeles, California.
Most people are creatures of habit. We love doing the same thing, the same way, day in and day out. Research tells us that we’re hard-wired for predictability, and that we’re not really all that spontaneous anyway. Familiarity is a rewarding feeling that’s chalk full of satisfaction, safety and security.
But what would happen if we broke free from tradition, and tried to live without those pesky habits and patterns?
Let’s dive into the experiment below and discover the results.
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What are UX Design Patterns, Anyway?
Put simply, UX design patterns are predictable ways that designers come up with for users to interact with a website.
For a real-world example, consider the keyboard layout on your computer. It has a predictable layout and hasn’t changed in decades.
Web designers frequently ask their website visitors to take actions, that must be easy to accomplish. These tasks include signing up, logging in and out, submitting email addresses, and other important information.
If you’ve ever created a website before, you’ll know the pains of user experience issues from both the front facing and behind the scenes sides.
Since most Internet users tend to access multiple web and mobile applications on a daily basis, the fact that we have to constantly re-enter our information can become pretty tedious. This presents opportunities to implement UX design patterns to make things easier.
To learn more please visit: The Research-Backed Impact of Not Using UX Patterns – LINK
When you have a business, a thing that separates you from the competition is the story that your brand is bringing into the game. Here’s where content intervenes. It helps you craft a story that will have to convince your customers that they should buy your product over the competition. But making high-quality content is not easy at all, that’s why you need tools.
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Clicky – is a way to monitor, analyze and react to your blog or web site’s traffic in real time. Everything in Clicky is up-to-the-minute real time. Clicky lets you see every visitor and every action they take on your web site, with the option to attach custom data to visitors, such as usernames or email addresses. Analyze each visitor individually and see their full history.
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Grammarly – you can check your grammar right from your browser or Microsoft Office, so you can improve your writing in emails, documents, social media posts and more. If you’re not a native speaker, of course.
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Socialbakers – being active on social media is very important nowadays. So we have another tool for you. Socialakers it one of the most popular provider of social media analytic tools, statistics and metrics for Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and Youtube.
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Paperrater – is a free online grammar, plagiarism and spelling check program, that allows you to find mistakes in your content and correct them before you put your material out there, on the Web.
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Lingosport – offers automated content marketing for your website, automatically updating the content throughout your web properties. With flexible control of the level of automation to use on each of your pages, businesses can create thousands of dynamically refreshing topic pages.
A Graphics Interchange Format image, better known as a GIF, consists of picture files compressed to decrease transfer rate. GIFs possess several pictures in one file to create an animated effect. GIFs are prevalent in modern day cyberspace because the images are quick to download and the animations are often entertaining. For marketers, animated GIFs can be incredibly useful for improving engagement online.
We’re not here to settle the GIF pronunciation debate: Does it sound like gift without the “t,” or should it be pronounced like the peanut butter brand Jif? Instead, we want to offer you a rundown of the types of GIFs available, how you can make your own, and the legal considerations involved in GIF sharing.
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Prevalence of GIFs in Social Media
Although GIFs can be used in blog posts (such as this one) and in website content, people primarily think of these animated images in the context of social media conversations. Here’s a quick breakdown of how many GIFs are posted to different social media platforms, according to the New York Times:
- Tumblr: An average of 23 million GIFs posted every day
- Facebook Messenger: Roughly 5 million GIFS sent between users every day
- Slack: More than 2 million GIFs sent between users each month
- Twitter: More than 100 million GIFs shared in 2015
To learn more please visit: Prevalence of GIFs in Social Media – LINK
No one likes dealing with problems. They force us to take a detour away from what we really want to accomplish while we stop and untangle them. But here’s the thing about problems – they’re the genesis for good ideas. They provide the opening for solutions, which in turn give you a leg up on your career. The stronger your fundamentals and core competencies are, the better position you put yourself in when you make your moves, whether it’s a play for new business or showing how your designs provide value far beyond the aesthetic layer.
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Admittedly, this is a lofty, nuanced question. And it insinuates that something is broken. Nothing is broken here, but there is always room for improvement. Like, is design too indulgent for its own good? Or maybe designers have trouble conveying their importance to clients? Or there is a lack of diversity within the industry? We gave our subjects free rein to go in whatever direction they deemed to be the most troubling, so you’ll see all of these topics and more covered in the following responses. The feedback provides a chance for self-reflection, to see if you’re guilty of any of them, while also serving as an ongoing checklist to make sure you’re doing everything you can to be at your best.
To learn more please visit: How to fix design – LINK
AIGA Medalist Sean Adams and Norwegian designer and educator Rachel Troye have both had prolific careers in the design and branding industries, running their own successful studios in very different cultures and climates (Adams lives in Los Angeles). In spite of achieving international renown, both have shelved their studios indefinitely to take up the mantle of teaching, Adams at ArtCenter College of Design, and Troye at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, putting personal success to one side in service to the next generation of young creatives.
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While united by all of the above, there are clear differences between their outlooks on education, attitudes towards their current crop of students, and more clearly the geopolitical landscape of their respective nations. What separates U.S. students from their Norwegian counterparts, how robust are the respective creative industries, and just what is the benefit of asking novice designers to make a poster that offends their whole class? Adams and Troye have those compelling answers and more.
To learn more please visit: What Students are Taught – LINK
As a creative designer, producing sensational and imaginative work is simply part of the job description. Every skilled designer naturally strives to improve their ability and to produce exceptional, unique work.
Yet while talent and creativity are important, the ability to efficiently manage your time and workflow is every bit as important to your bottom line as producing awesome work. Read more
Talented designers who fail to manage their projects and clients efficiently will find themselves consistently losing business and income to those who understand the value of a carefully thought-out workflow. The realyy efficient designers can manage their work flow well and equally know when to delegate or outsource parts of the job in hand.
To learn more please visit: 7 Tools – LINK
A new award celebrating in-house design excellence.
This award has been created to acknowledge and honour the work done by ever-growing creative teams that work as internal agencies.
We invite internal creative groups working within companies, associations, government and other organizations/institutions from around the world to enter.
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Timeline
Call for Entries Opens: Monday, May 2, 2016
Early-Bird Deadline: Friday, June 3, 2016
Final Deadline: Friday, June 24, 2016
To learn more please visit: RGD – LINK
Pantone announced the latest addition of 112 new colors to the Pantone Graphics line. The new palette, which includes trend-spotting research by the Pantone Color Institute coupled with research from a survey of 200 designers across graphics, packaging, print and web design aims to inspire exploration and creativity in response to new design and societal shifts in the age of digital expression.
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“Color is a visual cue that draws us to establish a connection with our environment and the things we love,” said, Kathryn Shah, VP of Marketing Pantone. “Digital tools have become a prominent part of everyday life, causing a societal shift in the way we communicate. Color breaks through the noise, commanding our attention, conveying a mood or style, and enabling expression of unique identities for individuals and brands alike. That’s what this palette and our new campaign are about – exploring creative expression through endless color.”
Leveraging international trend-spotting intelligence from Pantone Color Institute, the new palette incorporates key design trends across industries, but also serves as an important signifier of new cultural and social influences on the overall movement of color. During product development, Pantone surveyed hundreds of designers across graphics, packaging, print and web design. The findings indicated a desire for more Blushes, Blues and Neutrals.
To learn more please visit: Pantone – LINK
The 2015 IIDA Student Design Competition is now open for entries. The competition celebrates original design and rewards individuals and/or teams whose projects demonstrate innovative, functional design solutions that have a positive environmental and human impact, while allowing emerging professionals the opportunity to showcase their work and fresh design ideas to professionals working in the field. Read more
First, second, and third place winners will be selected by a jury of interior design and business professionals who will judge entries based on innovation and creativity, coherence and functionality, human impact, fulfillment of program requirements, and presentation of the information. Winners will be announced in the Spring 2016 issue of QUAD, the IIDA student newsletter, and featured in DesignMatters and on the IIDA website.
The deadline for entries is February 1, 2016.
To learn more please visit: IIDA – LINK
Douglas MacLaughlin is a photographer whose work focuses on food.
Douglas brings an artist’s eye and a designers perspective when looking through the lens. He draws upon his experience as a graphic designer and illustrator to create vibrant and impactful images.
To learn more please visit: Douglas Maclaughlin Photography – LINK
Fiverr and Ad Age have launched a design competition that challenges designers and copywriters to create an NYC subway ad for C/I, a non-profit that helps underserved communities thrive in the Tech industry. The contest is open to any individual, brand or advertising agency from any country. The winning submission will run in over 300 NYC subway platforms this summer.
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Submit a creative, eye-catching design that captures the importance of C/I for underserved students. The winning design for C/I’s first-ever ad campaign will create awareness of the organization and compel people to take action. Judging will take place in early May.
The panel of judges include Rev. Jesse Jackson, Dennis Crowley (CEO, Foursquare), Kevin Brady (Creative Director, Droga5), Jim Moriarity (Brand Director, 72andSunny) and Jesse Juriga (Creative Director, Google).
The deadline for submissions is April 17, 2015.
To learn more please visit: Creative for a Cause – LINK
In Design to Grow, a Coca-Cola senior executive shares both the successes and failures of one of the world’s largest companies as it learns to use design to be both agile and big.
In this rare and unprecedented behind-the-scenes look, David Butler and senior Fast Company editor, Linda Tischler, use plain language and easy-to-understand case studies to show how this works at Coca-Cola-and how other companies can use the same approach to grow their business.
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“Big and fast, complex and focused, large scale and agile. These seem like oxymorons in the world of business innovation,” commented Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO. “Using examples from the history of Coca-Cola, David Butler and Linda Tischler show how it is possible to embrace these tensions through the use of design. Reading Design to Grow has caused me to think differently about my company. I am confident it will do the same for how you think about yours.”
Butler and Tischler use a variety of case studies both inside and outside Coke-including BlackBerry and iPhone, Kodak’s market stumbles, Lego bricks, and Healthcare.gov-to illustrate clearly why we need to change how we think about “design”. They tap into current business trends of “disruptive innovation” and the “lean startup” movement, and they elucidate why truly good design goes far beyond eye-catching packaging and colorful commercials.
To learn more please visit: Design to Grow – LINK
Pantone has announced Marsala, a naturally robust and earthy wine red, as the Color of the Year for 2015.
“While PANTONE 18-3224 Radiant Orchid, the captivating 2014 color of the year, encouraged creativity and innovation, Marsala enriches our mind, body and soul, exuding confidence and stability,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. “Much like the fortified wine that gives Marsala its name, this tasteful hue embodies the satisfying richness of a fulfilling meal, while its grounding red-brown roots emanate a sophisticated, natural earthiness. This hearty, yet stylish tone is universally appealing and translates easily to fashion, beauty, industrial design, home furnishings and interiors.”
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Marsala for Fashion
Marsala was a hit on the Spring 2015 runways with fashion designers featured in the PANTONE Fashion Color Report Spring 2015; Daniel Silverstain, Hervé Léger by Max Azria and Dennis Basso incorporated the hue into their collections. The impactful, full-bodied qualities of Marsala make for an elegant statement color when the color is used on its own or as a compelling accent when paired with many other colors.
To learn more please visit: PANTONE – LINK
CAMP Festival is a 2-day conference about creativity, art, design and technology happening on September 8-9 in Calgary, Canada. With many top-notch storytellers like Stefan Sagmeister, GMUNK and our beloved James White, this festival on its first edition, looks quite promising and inspiring for your creative flux. Time to explore the Digital Wilderness!
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With 14 expert-lead presentations and panels, 300+ attendees, endless networking opportunities and a special evening event to boot, CAMP will educate you on the advancements in digital media, push your creativity, and leave you an inspired happy camper.
CAMP is working in partnership with global event producer FITC to bring this awesomeness to town!
To learn more please visit: CAMP Festival – LINK
CreativeLive will host a free, interactive, multi-day class on negotiation and workplace communication for creative of all stripes – designers, photographers, musicians, actors, etc. Beginning June 23, author, design powerhouse, and entrepreneur Ted Leonhardt will share his expertise over three days of live education designed to help creatives negotiate the salaries they deserve.
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Leonhardt will help explore negotiating as a collaboration in which creatives guide those they are negotiating with. Students will learn how to use time and context to define opportunities, create contracts instead of proposals, and align people with their vision. “Creatives are vastly underpaid, vastly undervalued for what they contribute,” explains Leonhardt, “what I’ve learned is that knowing the value of your expertise and how to leverage it is the most powerful foundation for negotiating a great deal with anybody.”
To learn more please visit: Series on Negotiation – LINK
Art directors are becoming animators. Print designers are becoming web designers. Illustrators are now photographers who also edit and shoot film. Adobe has launched a new campaign, I Am The New Creative, that highlights the work of these new creatives: profiling one creative each day and using their amazing imagery to “take over” every social media channel that touches Adobe’s creative tools and technologies.
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With the Creative Cloud our product teams have removed the barriers to creative expression: Designers can build parallax HTML5 experiences. Illustrators are making EPUBs. Photographers are using their cameras and Adobe technology to become filmmakers. And coders have the tools to make beautiful design.
It’s an amazing and interesting time in our industry; people have the ability to self-express, in any discipline, without boundaries. I Am The New Creative promotes the amazing work our community is producing and marks this moment in time as a movement and a celebration of creativity.
One of the most incredible aspects of this program has been watching creative professionals merge their mediums and their portraits to produce “New Creatives” versions of themselves.
There’s something magical about the compositions. As a designer there’s always a part of me in my work, but to personalize my work in this way, to make my work more representative of me, presents an alternative perspective. All of the artists we’re working with are enjoying this experience and are appreciative of our desire to promote their amazing creative output.
To learn more please visit: I Am The New Creative – LINK
The Society for Experiential Graphic Design will host a webinar featuring EGD research insights for healthcare campus and facility design. Metrics for Healthcare Environments will cover master planning, nomenclature, information design, and patient/user experience from leading design professionals.
The session will start out with an overview of the current state of the healthcare industry with a focus on how regulatory measurements have shifted to align healthcare design practice with the measurable effectiveness of facility performance and overall patient/user satisfaction. We will then discuss the design methodologies employed when planning comprehensive patient experiences in complex healthcare facilities and campuses. We will then shift to the scale of the user and look at the mechanisms that designers are using to create effective and holistic communication and interactive platforms for administrators, visitors, and users alike.
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Topics discussed will include:
- State of healthcare transformation in the US
- Impact of policy facility and patient experiences
- Overview of existing facility campus analysis and auditing
- Strategies for engaging clients and users in developing design strategies
- Applying insights into realizable user experiences
- Developing effective interactive experiences
Featured panelists:
- Ellen Taylor, do;it (Pennsylvania)
- Greg Nelson, Gensler (Los Angeles)
- Leslie Wolke, Leslie Wolke Consulting (Austin)
To learn more please visit: Metrics for Healthcare Environments – LINK
Signage plays a critical and ubiquitous role in how we orient ourselves within our built environment. Adopting an active and creative role, these supporting graphic markers elicit a deeper exploration of the interiority of a place. These compact icons also double as a strategic branding mechanism, introducing an engaging and memorable component between points A and B.
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Effective and compelling signage achieves a challenging balance between standing out and blending in. Separated into two sections, You Are Here traces some of the world’s most inventive interpretations and applications of wayfinding models today.
To learn more please visit: You Are Here – LINK
Communication Arts magazine has revealed the winners of its 20th annual Interactive competition. Thirty-eight projects were selected by a jury of creative professionals, out of 1,333 entries were submitted to the competition.
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The selected projects will be reproduced in the March/April 2014 issue of Communication Arts, both in print and on the iPad, with more than 45,000 copies distributed worldwide.
To learn more please visit: Communication Arts – LINK
Fritz Kahn was a German doctor, educator, popular science writer, and information graphics pioneer whose brilliant work has all but fallen into oblivion. Chased out of Germany by the Nazis, who banned and burned his books, Kahn emigrated to Palestine, then France, and finally the United States to continue his life’s work.
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Though his achievements were numerous, the most notable was the development of creative visualizations to explain complex scientific ideas. Published on the 125th anniversary of Kahn’s birth and destined to bring his work back into the spotlight, this monograph features more than 350 illustrations with extensive captions, three original texts by Fritz Kahn, a foreword by Steven Heller, and an essay about Kahn’s life and oeuvre.
To learn more please visit: Fritz Kahn – LINK
Wacom has unveiled a pressure-sensitive digital pen for sketching, drawing and painting on an iPad. The Intuos Creative Stylus works seamlessly with the iPad and a series of creative apps, providing an authentic experience for whenever inspiration strikes.
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Designed for the iPad 3, 4 and Mini, the Intuos Creative Stylus is compatible with popular creative apps such as Autodesk SketchBook Pro for iPad, ArtRage, Bamboo Paper, ProCreate and Psykopaint. The Intuos Creative Stylus’s advanced technology comes in form of a best-in-class pen experience and pressure sensitivity of 2048 pressure levels. This means that it can reproduce the feel and artistic control of traditional brushes and markers, so it’s ideal for sketching, illustrating and image editing.
To learn more please visit: Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus – LINK
RC Cars of Boston just moved into a new retail store conveniently located at 471 Eastern Avenue Malden, MA 02180. I was provided the unique task of developing and designing their identity including logo, stationery, advertising, outdoor signage, etc. All the deliverables included creative direction, copywriting, art direction and design.
They are a local hobby shop offering a full line of RC Cars, Parts and Accessories including: Traxxas, H.P.I, Arrma, LOSI, and Team Associated vehicles, aluminum parts, RPM parts, nitro fuel and all accessories. Stop by and take advantage of the TRAXXAS Power Up programs — and check out our Traxxas test drive facility, where you can test drive a Traxxas vehicle before you buy it.
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RC Cars of Boston – 471 Eastern Ave , Malden MA 02148 | 781.324.1999
To learn more please visit: RC Cars of Boston – LINK
This past week I finished a photo shoot in Missouri with a great photographer named Topher Cox. Topher grew up in New York City where he learned his photography skills from the world around him. His father was a photographer and his mother was an art director. As a child his life was on sets, where he absorbed the workings of a photo shoot at the same time he was learning to walk and talk.
Topher continued his photo education by assisting some of New York’s top photographers. Again, he learned by watching and doing. Although he is working as a photographer on his own now he still feels that you never stop learning.
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Topher works out of his studio in Newton, MA and on location. He continues to return to New York for work and play.
To learn more please visit: Topher Cox Photography – LINK
The 2013 Social Good Design Awards is calling for submissions of graphic design projects with the power to incite meaningful change in the way we live our lives.
Last year, the Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD) received over 200 submissions from around the world. This year’s So Good design concept came from Entro | G+A.
Judges include Dmitri Siegel, VP, E-commerce & Executive Creative Director, Patagonia, David Berman RGD, author of Do Good Design: How Design Can Change our World.
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Winning entries will be featured on the RGD website, in a printed catalogue (5,000 copies) and a free iPad app, as well as recognized at the 2013 DesignThinkers Conference.
The deadline for entries is no later than 5:00pm on Monday July 15, 2013.
To learn more please visit: RGD – LINK
Corbis CRAVE is a new digital boutique that features expertly curated imagery from industry-leading commercial and editorial photographers.
“Corbis CRAVE provides creative directors and art buyers a search and ideation experience tailored to their unique and specific needs whether they’re accessing the collection on their iPad or through the website,” explained Edie Tobias, senior vice president of commercial products at Corbis.
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For creative momentum on the go, the Corbis CRAVE app puts the finest images front and center and gives creatives powerful search and lightbox functionality to advance their creative visions whether face-to-face with a client or waiting to catch a flight.
Corbis CRAVE is also a venue for creative professionals to explore and be inspired by the work of some of the most sought-after commercial photographers in the world via featured portfolios – while providing a seamless user experience as they develop their own projects from storyboard to execution.
To learn more please visit: Corbis CRAVE – LINK
Adobe has unveiled the Adobe Photoshop CC at MAX 2013 as part of a major update to Adobe Creative Cloud. The new version pushes the boundaries of possibility, offering a powerful new creative process, legendary imaging magic, and greater creative freedom with new tools and workflows.
Adobe’s desktop apps, including Photoshop, were previously known as Creative Suite (CS), and will now be branded CC to reflect that they are an integral part of Creative Cloud. Photoshop CC includes a wide range of innovative enhancements, including new image deblurring and sharpening features to improve design workflows, and new Camera Raw capabilities. This update combines Photoshop standard and Photoshop Extended features.
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“With the ability to quickly deliver new innovations, we’re empowering photographers and creatives to push the boundaries in digital imaging and design,” commented Winston Hendrickson, vice president of products, Creative Media Solutions, Adobe.
“Our customers will no longer have to wait 18 to 24 months to access new Photoshop innovation. When a new Photoshop feature is ready – whether it’s the next Healing Brush or something as mind-blowing as Content Aware Fill – we’ll deliver it via Creative Cloud.”
All-new CC apps are scheduled to be released in June 2013.
To learn more please visit: Adobe Unveils Photoshop CC at MAX – LINK
To observe its 50th anniversary of publishing, GDUSA is presenting selected results all year of a massive poll about who you respect and what you admire.
Last time around, the magazine listed it’s “readers choice” of the most influential graphic designers and firms of the past 50 years.
This time around, GDUSA looks at a selection of the greatest logos of the past half century. Highlights include the CBS eye, the Woolmark and The Rolling Stones logo.
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