How magazine - Tuesday, April 29, 2008

As per usual, the paper companies are dominating the news this week with a flurry of releases, including:

• Wausau Paper launched Digital Space, a website geared toward helping designers with the technical and production aspects of papers for digital print jobs.

• Distributor Legion Paper now carries the U.K. brand Mirricard, a highly reflective paper in nine colors, with a super-smooth finish that, remarkably, is printable.

• Sappi announced the Silver and Bronze winners in its North American Printer of the Year competition. Among the whole slew of recipients in various categores are several names we recognize from HOW's own design competitions, including The Hennegan Co., Williamson Printing, The Fox Co. Lithographers, Anderson Litho, Blanchette Press, Sandy Alexander and Continental Colorcraft.

• Domtar's got a new swatchbook for its "workhorse" offset sheet, Husky. Domtar's Lynx brand is now FSC certified.

In some non-paper news:

• Auto FX Software released a limited-time bundle of products (available through August 31) that includes Corel Painter X, Auto FX Mystical Tint Tone and Color, Mystical Lighting and several training videos. The package retails for $349, a savings of more than $550.

• FunctionFox has released TimeFox Premier, which includes significant upgrades to task assignment, scheduling and calendar functions vs. the standard TimeFox edition. Learn more about this web-based product and compare the standard and premier versions.

• YouSendIt, which enables users to send huge files over the web without using FTP sites or crashing their e-mail system, launched a "virtual mailbox" that firms can post on their websites, allowing partners or customers to drag and drop files delivery.

Posted by Bryn

Industry News

4/29/2008 4:29:54 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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What When Where And Y

I hope I'm not late to the game, but I just noticed this cool nutrition drink for kids called Y Water. The bottle was designed by Yves Behar and they're not only recyclable, they're reusable. The bottles link together with biodegradable rubber connectors to form a building toy.

Posted by Megan

Designers

4/29/2008 12:53:04 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [3]

Your First Job

Carmen Pease, who writes HOW's email newsletter, is starting a new feature called "Design Question of the Week." Here's the first question: "What was the best and/or worst part of your first design job? What made it memorable?" You can share your answer and see what other designers had to say in the Forum.

Best part:
Design was a new department with the company, so we got to really make it our own and stretch our design legs while we figured out what the heck we were going to do with it.

Worst part:
Design was a new department with the company, so they had no clue what to pay us and thus decided the answer was "not very much".

Memorable:
When we came up with our "no altering photos of anyone with Photoshop installed on their computer" pact - turnabout is fair play after all.

Posted by Megan

HOW Magazine

4/29/2008 8:50:28 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Monday, April 28, 2008

Save the Dates!

OK, so you know about the big HOW Design Conference, which is coming up in less than 3 weeks (gulp!) in Boston. As if that weren't enough, here are some other design events coming up that you should have on your calendar. Registration for all three events will open in May and June; visit the websites to get more info and to sign up for the free email newsletter so you'll be among the first to know when registration opens.

• Mind Your Own Business Conference, September 25–28, Hyatt Lost Pines Resort, Austin, TX. Principals of design firms, small ad agencies, marcomm firms and PR shops are invited to join our top-notch group of business consultants for a retreat that will bolster your marketing and management skills and rejuvenate your business. This year's MYOB features a return engagement by popular speaker Blair Enns. Plus, you can plan to stay over Sunday (the conference ends Saturday night) for bonus sessions, software demos and a working day.

• Back by popular demand, the In-HOWse Designer Conference lands this year in San Francisco, October 3–5. In two years, the event has seen explosive growth and is now the business and management conference for in-house design managers. Sign up early; the past two events have sold out quickly.

and ... <drumroll please>

• HOW is proud to announce a brand-new event: The Creative Freelancer Conference, August 27–29 in Chicago. Co-sponsored by Marketing Mentor, this event is specifically geared toward designers, illustrators, writers, photographers and other creative solopreneurs.

Posted by Bryn

Events

4/28/2008 3:56:33 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Smoking Type

For a treasure trove of early 19th-century typographic inspiration, check out Rolling Paper Graphics from Gingko Press. This unique collection presents 540 different kinds of rolling paper plus seventy posters.

via Fly

Posted by Megan

Typography

4/28/2008 12:50:09 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Everything's Coming Up ... Radishes

If you're a HOW subscriber (or if you've ventured into a bookstore in the past several days), you may have seen the latest issue, with the HOW logo made out of bright green seedlings. Given both the season and the content (the issue's all about nurturing and harvesting your creative energies), the garden theme seemed ever so appropriate.

During our cover brainstorm session, we talked about actually growing the logo. Seeing as how I fancy myself quite the green thumb, I offered to give it a shot. Art director Bridgid McCarren and I discussed what kind of seeds might make pretty little sproutlings, and we settled on trying two kinds: grass and radishes. Me, I love the little heart-shaped radish seedlings.

We purchased soil, seeds and planting trays, cut templates of the logo that we carefully filled with seeds and set the whole works up in the sunny window in my cube. Then we waited.

Turns out, when radishes sprout, they really take off! By the time of the photo shoot, they were way too tall and leggy to "read" as the logo. They'd grown perhaps a bit too well. (The grass seed? A total dud.) So Bridgid, bless her soul, took tiny scissors and tweezers and "planted" just the tops of the baby radishes to form the logo that you see on the cover. It wasn't a Photoshop job, but it did take a bit of creative engineering to pull off.

Click on the cover below to see the lineup of creative goodness in the issue.

Posted by Bryn

HOW Magazine

4/28/2008 11:24:39 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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The 27th Letter

Launched by the Art Directors Club and Moleskine, The Undiscovered Letter was a creative competition developed to raise awareness about lettera27, a nonprofit literacy organization. The challenge was to create a 27th letter for the alphabet. My favorite entry was submitted by Rei Inamoto, global creative director for AKQA.

The letter “space” isn’t really a letter because there is nothing there. But without it, ourlanguagewouldnotfunctionanditquicklybecomesunintelligiblewhenalltheletters arestrungtogetherlikethis.

It’s a letter that’s not a letter. You can’t see it but when it’s not there, you definitely notice the lack of it.

You can see Rei's concept fully explained here.

Posted by Megan

Typography

4/28/2008 11:05:17 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [2]

Friday, April 25, 2008

They (don't really) Suck at Photoshop

Awhile back, we jumped on the bandwagon and posted about You Suck at Photoshop, the videonline phenom that seems to have reached beyond its core designer-geek audience to go mainstream. (At least, we think we posted about it ... we can't find the post, thanks to the not-so-great search function on this blog).

Anyhoo, Time yesterday revealed the IDs of the two guys behind YSAP. Turns out, they're Matt Bledsoe and Troy Hitch, two ad guys in Covington, KY, which, so you know, is just across the river from us here at HOW HQ. Who knew?

Designers

4/25/2008 1:06:20 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Thursday, April 24, 2008

Sweet Lettering

I was following links today, looking for some inspiration, when I stumbled on designer/typographer Marian Bantjes website. Clicking around her portfolio, I found an amazing project where she created the letters from sugar. It turns out it was an assignment for Stefan Sagmeister's book "Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far," which has been sitting on my shelf waiting for me to take the time to really look through it. So I let myself spend some time with a few of the chapters, which are bound seperately. Whatever you might think of Stefan and his design star status, the book is inspiring and fun to look at. It's clear that Mr. Sagmeister is very much in touch with an impish, child-like impulse to create something out of nothing.

Posted by Megan

Typography

4/24/2008 2:34:46 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Uh So

I'm drawn to this set of ambivalent coasters by Canadian illustrator Ray Fenwick.

Posted by Megan

Gifts and Goodies | Illustration

4/24/2008 11:21:39 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Special Event

Betcha didn't know that April 27 is World Graphics Day, as designated by Icograda (that's also the organization's birthday). A smattering of gallery exhibits and special design-related programs is scheduled around the globe. From Icograda:

On this occasion, designers reflect and hope that our international network can contribute to a greater understanding between people and can help to build bridges where divides and inequities exist.

The organization is also sponsoring a poster contest; the image below is by Edgar Hernández Nieto, Ciudad Valles, SLP, Mexico.

Posted by Bryn

Events

4/24/2008 8:50:46 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [1]

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Beautiful Trash

Today Umbra announced the release of Artala, a line of three trash cans decorated with the designes of Joshua Davis. The cans are available in red, kiwi and ocean and are made from biodegradable plastic.

Posted by Megan

Gifts and Goodies

4/23/2008 10:58:21 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [2]

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

A Type of Candidate

On the NYTimes.com Campaign Stops blog, design writer and critic Steven Heller asked several industry notables to weigh in on Sen. John McCain's choice of Optima for his campaign logo. (Actually, it's not like McCain himself actually chose the face.) Heller previously posted about Sen. Barack Obama's use of Gotham by Tobias Frere-Jones.

Read the whole post, which includes Seymour Chwast's curmudgeonly-in-kind-of-a-funny-way comments and Cyrus Highsmith's comparison of the campaign to his dentist. And then there's a fun bit from Matthew Carter, who goes so far as to set the names of potential VP candidates in Optima:

"The moment of typographic truth will come when Senator McCain picks a vice presidential running mate and two names have to be combined on banners and bumper stickers. By choosing Optima, a rather distinctive typeface, he may have seriously limited his options."

Carter notes that both Huckabee and Romney look a little silly in Optima, but that Rice fits the typeface quite nicely.

Posted by Bryn

Typography

4/22/2008 1:06:44 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Font Bots

Jonathon Yule, a Canadian Designer, has a series of three robot illustrations on his site that are created from sans serif fonts. I love you, helbotica.

via Boing Boing

Posted by Megan

Typography

4/22/2008 9:24:26 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [0]

Loving Vintage Design

As I noted in yesterday's post about competition judging, we're seeing lots of vintage elements and inspiration these days -- the most successful designs update that old imagery with a modern (and not ironic, thank you very much) twist. If you're looking for some retro design eye-candy, check out a couple of sites we've stumbled across recently:

The German-based web design-focused Smashing Magazine has a gallery of retro goodies. (Thanks to the HOW Forum for the link.)

And GrainEdit.com features vintage children's books and other ephemera (like these gorgeous Israeli stamps from the 1970s), plus modern works that carry that same aesthetic. The site also includes interviews with current designers, like the guys from Wink in Minneapolis, whose work echoes the past in a cool way.

Posted by Bryn

Creativity

4/22/2008 8:41:02 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Monday, April 21, 2008

Jason Santa Maria

I included designer Jason Santa Maria's business card in my story "Hey Good Lookin'" in HOW's December 2007 issue. Today, eight of his cards are arranged on Swissmiss in a way I didn't realize they could be. I loved the cards because of the humorous copywriting. I like them even more now.

Posted by Megan

Designers

4/21/2008 1:44:29 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [0]

Micro-trends

Over the past three days, the HOW magazine team pored through nearly 3,000 entries in our latest Promotion Design Competition. It gave us a micro-level look at design trends throughout the U.S. and in a few well-represented European countries (Croatian design rocks). The majority of work was solid -- nicely designed, appropriate for the message, with decent production values. But about 125 entries really stood out for conceptual excellence, stellar design and top-notch production. (Stay tuned for HOW's September/October issue for a look at those top projects, or peek at past design competition winners here.)

In the meantime, here's a list of the trends we spotted among the entries:

Hot
Wood-grain paper (like Gmund’s Savanna line)
Vintage imagery, found materials and influences (like these)
Screen printing (especially for projects other than posters)
Gritty, realistic photography
Instead of sending tchotchkes to clients, making a donation in their name and sending a thoughtful and well-designed token of that donation
Cloth shopping bags with your logo or message

On the way out
Tiny patterns (though we still love them)
Brown/blue or brown/chartreuse color palettes
Buttons
Greeting cards and wrapping paper as client gifts

Not
Customizing a Viewmaster with slides of your portfolio
Making your staff pose for a goofy holiday photo
Desktop calendars packaged in a CD case
Coasters
T-shirts with your logo or message

Posted by Bryn

HOW Magazine

4/21/2008 10:56:01 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [0]

Design and Music

The HOW staff always plays music during competition judging. Design and tunes just seem to go together. Over on Design Observer, they're conducting an informal poll about what designers like to listen to while they work. The selections are all over the map, but you may discover some good new music.

We discovered an interesting CD that was entered in the competition. The design didn't make it into the winners pile, but we did throw the disc on because we were intrigued by the title: Songs For Ice Cream Trucks. The music did indeed evoke a certain ice cream truck quality. We especially like the track "Where Do Ice Cream Trucks Go in the Winter?"

Posted by Megan

HOW Magazine | Just for Fun

4/21/2008 10:47:06 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [0]

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Most Unusual

This morning, I'm offering an unofficial award for most unusual entry. The winner is Lincoln, NE-based the minnow PROJECT for their Heat Activated Urinal Billboards for Spilker Ales. The "billboards" are stickered inside urinals. At first, it looks like there's a big black square in the middle. But add a warm stream, and a fire hydrant is revealed.

Posted by Megan

Designers | HOW Magazine

4/17/2008 8:42:09 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [5]