desidioms

green design

we pick paper. we pick the best (or at least advise the best) number of pages, where to print, inks, varnishes, and sometimes say - "hey, you know, you should just do this online."

and considering that we have that much control over even just one little brochure - some say, designers have more influence in environmental impact than your average politician.

if you're one of those that doesn't believe it (still fuming over the whole bush vs kerry, bush vs gore, bush vs common sense debaucle?)
design can change will not only give you a better outlook or some environmental optimism - it will give you plenty of clues as how to use your design powers for the good of the earth.

you can sign the pledge, find resources and refer your clients to this site if they want green design that you just can't give to them. it might not be instant change, but it's a very well kerned step in the green direction.

test your type

in no way is this new - but in most ways, it's super cool.

typetester is a site where you can play with font, leading, tracking, color, word spacing and decoration (and more), click on "get code" and get the css code for your website.

it's like a typographer's web dream.

not just vickey's secret

another cool site i found this morning is the postsecret blog. post secret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard. the collector of secrets, frank warren, also has a new book out called a lifetime of secrets which reveals the hidden thoughts and fears of our fellow humanity between its hard bound covers.

this is better than confession — except i'd trade 3 hail mary's for the off chance my sister finds the site and finds out her favorite shirt's been hanging in my closet for the last 5 years.

join the club

low and behold, john sent me a link this morning to a site he said i'd love: designers-who-blog - a site that features blogs about design by designers, about life by designers, about blogs by designers, and, of course, designers who blog. it's probably one of my most favorite sites to come across, as it has led me to many many more sites that have been added to my bookmarks bar - like joshuaink (pictured left, which i bookmarked bc it is a greatly illustrative yet simply designed blog that i read very quickly but was amazed bc of how pretty it is - so yes, i basically just "looked at the pictures").

i'm not only jealous of the sites they feature bc some of them are extremely gorgeous and are evidence that these designers know way more about designing blogs than i do, but bc my other form of green-ness is they're featured on the designers-who-blog site.

my jealousy is miniscule to the tremendous amount of jubilation i have to finding a great resource and community of like-minded bloggers. it's like discovering mecca.

Day 26

i'm looking through my messy bookmarks page folder and find day 26 - a great photographic journal of Erick and Lisa - a married couple documenting their lives online.

i know i didnt bookmark it so i could see them everyday (though you can sign up for their newsletter if you start to feel particularly attached) - i bookmarked the site bc of the great design of their site as a whole and i like how the navigation matches the friendliness of their big idea.
and it's great to satiate your voyeuristic tendencies once in a while.

knock knock

who's there? knock knock - a "semi-spanking new design company with aspirations to greatness" (so says their homepage banner).
knock knock is not a "store" but they do sell a bunch of cool items from to-do pads, library kits, to party banners that say, "mad props" and personal library kits for the books, movies, and music you might lend out. all the goods are fun and nicely designed - clean - sharp - funny - same stuff you can find at urban outfitters, without the jacked-up price.

I wish I was Graham Roumieu

my co-worker sent me the site for GRAHAM ROUMIEU, an illustrator who's done work for Harper's, Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Penguin Books (and much much more).
i like his site - i am a big fan of hand drawn type. beats verdana's butt any day. plus, make sure to check out the "special" section. there's a lot of fun work in there. heck - the whole site has great work all over it.

the elements of web-type

so, it's been almost five years since i graduated from university - graduated the communication design program - and yet, the book, "the elements of typographic style" is again infiltrating my desktop. but instead of the wooden desktop i used to work on - the one full of scratches, sticky with spray mount and decorated with the out-of-the-line markings of prisma colors - it's my 2-d computer desktop, with the rotating pictures of my nephew and my cat.
this time, it's the the elements of typographic style applied to the web. finally, something to reference when our programmers tell us we have to live with their inability (or lack of professional accountability) to make our body copy look halfway decent.

kinky

i've always liked design is kinky. each month, three designers write about chosen topics. there's also news, an area profiling up-and-coming designers, links to other cool sites, job listings, event postings, etc. it's definitely a nominee for the homepage, like newstoday, so you can be instantly distracted from the massive amount of work you have to do, once you turn on your browser.

it atleast deserves a roll in the bookmarks bar.

spreadshirts

want a custom t-shirt? maybe an apron with your mom's face on it? maybe some buttons that say, "design p.i.m.p."?

added to the likes of other design-your-own-t-shirt-and-stuff websites like cafepress and neighborhoodies is spreadshirt. they have t-shirts, buttons, bags, etc, that you can choose and customize like hoodies and cafepress. spreadshirt is like a cross between hoodies and cafepress, however. with cafepress, you have to set up shop - and with the free account, can customize one per item, and sell or buy your own creations. the benefit of cafepress is the ability to upload your own images and designs. whereas in neighborhoodies, although it's less-commital - a "design it, buy it, and please come again" - it's also less of your own thing - except for word choice and placement. the fonts you pick from are cool though, and they have nice little icons you can sprinkle about your design. whatever you come up with will no doubt look like it came from neighborhoodies or urban outfitters.

regardless, neighborhoodies is still my fave - especially with the neighborhoodies music part including radio hoodies - part of the site where you get a free mp3 a day. and that's not the only place that neighborhoodies rocks - their web site design is still number one as well.

but it's great that there are all of these places online for designers and non-designers to explore their creativity. and with more of these sites proliferating, the prices seem to be growing more reasonable, as well.

back to the future

something neat I found: every page of the the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893" is online. you can browse through the pages of the book of the fair and see great old illustrations of art and architecture (my interests), fishing, machinery, etc. it's a nice reference to have if you like the illustration styles of yesteryear (available at 1500 x 1000 pixels) - and quite interesting to see what was presented at the fair, and is presently in use today.

everything he knows

i found everything i know in the sidebar of we make money not art today. it's a site about "interaction design and design in general," and rory hamilton's "effort to get years of experience out of my head and into the world."
to quote kurt vonnegut, i think it's "nice, nice, very nice" - for a world of designers to get the equivalent of a mentor's input from the same (online) device.

cockrockdisco

yes. cock rock disco.
cock rock disco is a cool little site. but whether you like the name or not - you will most likely think the war photographer video is awesome.
it will rock whatever it is that you rock with.
the other videos and mp3s on there are pretty kickin as well (yeah, i said kickin).

mosaique and ourcommon

i found the mosaique link in the public news section of stylegala this morning. it was my first time at stylegala - a publication about web design and standards - and my opinion so far is formulated by my impression of the first sites i've come to by way of their news sections. that opinion being - stylegala has great taste.
my first discovery off their site was mosaique - a design firm consultancy in the uk. it's built in flash - so if my search engine friends are right - it won't make a huge splash on google. however, the design of it is excellent - its beautiful, and gives a very amiable impression. plus i like the subtle details of it - how the portfolio interacts and is laid out.
i also found ourcommon, the design portfolio of peter reid out of california. this is a really gorgeous site, too. and i don't use gorgeous sparingly. this site has a lot of personality behind it. i love the look and feel of it, the attention to detail, and the craftsmanship present in its design.
these two sites were at the top of stylegala. i plan to bookmark both, in case later on in the day when i'm surfing for inspiration, i can stare lovingly into my screen, hoping one day, our web programmer here will stop lying to us and actually spend the time to translate our starry-eyed interfaces into websites that work even half as well. but of course, stylegala will be in the bookmarks bar, too. bc those guys have great taste and provide a great portal to even greater work.