Yes, I'm a geek and I can't wait to see Hellboy II, but I was even more excited that the movie site offers a sneak peek inside director Guillermo del Toro's sketchbook. You can see the genesis of several characters and locations.

Posted by Megan

Interesting story on NYTimes.com this morning about a redesign for the familiar plastic milk jug. The new package, which is rectangular, with a handle and a not-quite spout, apparently takes some getting used to (customers say it doesn't pour well). But the benefits are impressive: The dairy that developed the package says it has cut labor by half; and the bottle is more efficient for shipping (jugs can be stacked on top of one another, instead of shipped in those ubiquitous plastic milk crates). Sam's Club, which is selling the newly packaged milk, can store 224 gallons in its coolers, instead of 80. That efficiency means that milk is 10 to 20 cents per gallon cheaper to consumers. Now, if Horizon Organic would start using the new jugs, we at HOW would be happy.

Choosing my favorite among HOW's four design conference is sort of like choosing a favorite among your four children: I love them all in different ways. But if I had HAD to pick a very favorite, I'd pick our Mind Your Own Business Conference, the business event just for design-firm principals.

Why? Partly because it's intimate and less overwhelming than the big HOW Conference. But mostly because IT WORKS. It makes a difference. Like for the firm we profiled in the magazine that saw a huge growth in profitability and a huge decline in the number of hours the principals worked—specifically after they implemented what they'd learned at MYOB.

We've just launched the site for this year's MYOB Conference, September 27-29 in one of my favorite cities: Austin. (Seriously, check out this sweet resort.) This year's program includes a bunch of new stuff, like sessions targeted for large or small firms, peer-to-peer learning sessions and an optional working day on Sunday where principals can work on their own, team up with a speaker or get hands-on training on time-management and billing tools.

Learn about what's new, and sign up early to score a discount.

The New York Times recently published a story in its technology section about designing your own fonts. It offers a couple of resources that could be helpful to both professionals and amateurs. What's interesting is that it's ranked the number 1 story in the technology section this morning.

Before the personal computer, most people were oblivious to fonts. Some may have recognized Courier and Elite on the I.B.M. Selectric typewriter ball. Then word processing programs offered a hundred or more fonts, from Arial to Wingdings. More were offered in software packages and on the Internet. Now, many people can recognize fonts by name. Indeed, a documentary about typography and one of the most familiar typefaces, “Helvetica,” played to sellout crowds at film festivals.

Posted by Megan

After the city guide on HOW's hometown went up on design*sponge this week, another d*s reader named Drew had posted his own on his designcincinnati blog. Following a rabbit trail of links from Drew's blog, I found Handmade in Ohio, which then led me to Wire & Twine. I really dig the low-tech look of the site's navigation (and also their cool T-shirt designs):



Not that I spend all my time chasing web links, mind you. No, not at all.

The website for the 3rd annual In-HOWse Designer Conference just went live. I have to admit that it made my heart skip a beat because I'll be co-hosting the event with HOW's art director Bridgid McCarren. I guess I shouldn't worry too much because the last two years have been awesome. This year's speakers include Moira Cullen, design director for Coca-Cola and management guru Peter Philips. Check out the whole line-up here.

Posted by Megan

 
My husband Ben, who is a designer, recently participated in The 48 Hour Film Project, where local creatives challenge themselves to make a short film in only 48 hours. The rules include drawing a random genre for the film and incorporating required elements like a specific character, prop and/or line of dialogue. The team Ben was on made a movie called OMG Force about millennial detectives that give their boss a headache with all their texting and web surfing. He just emailed me that the movie won a people's choice award at its recent screening and is moving on to the city-wide finals. The winner of each city final will then go on to the international finals.

Posted by Megan

Design*Sponge just posted a wonderful City Guide for Cincinnati, HOW's hometown. I'm super impressed because there are even a few places on it that I hadn't heard of. The only thing I would add is the secret used book store in Clifton. I don't know the address, but I always manage to find it.



Union Terminal is one of my fave buildings in the city. It used to be a train station but now houses Cincinnati's Museum Center.

Posted by Megan

To announce his new video blog, dekePod, Photoshop expert Deke McClelland created a hilarious, yet useful, video that includes 101 Photoshop tips set to music.

Posted by Megan

Coroflot just posted an article about how to make your business card stand out by Carl Alviani.

Business cards are a sort of great equalizer in the professional world. Everyone has them, everyone exchanges them, and generally speaking, the less important you are, the more say you have in how yours looks. For creative professionals, especially the legions of us who work for ourselves or in a tiny little studio or consultancy, this makes them exciting -- what our personal or small-business brand lacks in name recognition can be made up in creative expression, at least that's the theory.

If you want more business card inspiration, check out the card roundup from HOW's last business annual.

Posted by Megan

The Wolfsonian–Florida International University announces Thoughts on Democracy, an exhibition of posters created by sixty leading contemporary artists and designers invited by The Wolfsonian to create a new graphic design inspired by American illustrator Norman Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms” posters of 1943, which were recently gifted to the museum by Leonard A. Lauder.

Here is one of a series of four posters designed by Chip Kidd.

Posted by Megan

This typtopus t-shirt from Inkyfinger's Matt Sutter rules.

An octopus made entirely on the typeface Avenir will float atop the green waters of your chest with glee for all to see.

Posted by Megan

We're feeling warm & fuzzy this morning, thanks to some kind feedback on recent HOW efforts. First, over in the Forum, designers are posting some nice comments about our brand-new July/August issue, which is hitting newsstands and mailboxes as we speak.

And Jeni Herberger, who's presenting the current HOW webinar series on professional growth for designers, shared a neat email she received from a designer who participated in last Thursday's session:

I signed up for this webinar at the last minute, and mainly because I got an email for $20 off...and to be honest, I am SO glad I did. It was inspiring. It made me really want to sit down and create my career brief...and not be so caught up in what I think others want from me, but rather staying true to myself and what I really want to do. So thank you!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the webinar session. If you missed it, you can still sign up to access the archived version, and you can plan to attend the next two sessions: July 24 (Designing Your Reality) and August 21 (Making Yourself Priceless in a Crowded Market).

Before the HOW staff heads out for a creative offsite this afternoon, here's a roundup of recent industry news:

• Veer Ideas is the stock photo/illustration/type company's new social networking site; designers can connect, post portfolios, create new artwork and more in what Veer calls "an online creative playground."

• If you're a large firm or in-house group with tons of fonts to manage and many, many workstations, know that Extensis is now shipping Universal Type Server, a font-management solution for Mac and PC. The system tracks metadata including licenses, permissions and keywords and allows users to create font sets and families.

• Duffy & Partners, Minneapolis, created a new identity system for HandsOn Network, the nation's largest community volunteer organization, which manages millions of volunteers and 50,000 community impact projects. In addition to the logo, Duffy developed visual collateral, T-shirts, buttons and a tradeshow booth.

• PhotoShelter announced two initiatives: Shoot! The Day pairs the company with Nikon and Apple for a one-day photography event where professionals shoot images of subjects that stock buyers recently identified as needing new material. And School of Stock is a website that offers pros and amateurs tips on shooting and selling their work.

• Shutterstock launched an online stock-footage collection of "royalty-free forever" video clips that's available on a per-image or subscription basis. The library includes work from 100,000+ photographers and videographers worldwide.

• Neenah Paper released three new swatchbooks: Esse "To Be" features textures and colors created by Italian designer and colorist Beatrice Santiccioli. Minneapolist firm Design Guys created the promo. For Oxford writing, text and cover papers, designer Holly Hunt developed four color palettes that reflect the line's luxurious appeal. For UV/Ultra II and Clearfold, Design Guys again developed a piece that demos Neenah's translucent paper lines and shows its on-press performance.

• Design/branding firm laga (formerly Lipson Alport Glass) and global agency Desgrippes Gobé, have joined together. The new firm, Brandimage—Desgrippes & Laga, provides branding, strategy, architecture and design services in various disciplines. The new venture creates one of the largest design firms worldwide, with $60 million annual billings and 300 employees globally.

Minneapolis-based Catalyst Studios, has received Target's "Best of the Bullseye" award for their work and partnership on the “Art for All” campaign. The award is based on excellence in strategic thinking and creative work. Also, one of the spots has been selected for inclusion in the Museum of Modern Art's permanent archives. You can view all the pieces of the campaign in the portfolio section of Catalyst's website.

Posted by Megan

On the heels of Megan's post about the letter-shaped icecube trays, I just had to borrow this link from core77 and share this awesome Uppercase Scarf from Little Factory.