You! Be Inspired! #0002

We’ve had quite a lively and green weekend – we've got the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival closing out, and on the same day we had Earth Day. Well, if you're going to count the Friday before the weekend, it's more a lot more greener than we thought. Talking about the recent Coachella Festival, we have a feature interview with gig poster maker and ad man extraordinaire, JP Cuison! He's made unique poster designs featuring some of our beloved cartoon characters. Aside from an interview, we'll be talking about industrial designer, Dieter Rams' 10 Principles of Good Design and how you can use it as your graphic design inspiration. So after a short break we are back to being awesome and we've got a few interesting things for this week's edition of You! Be Inspired! A few things the team talked about the past week is food and web design. I know there's nothing much in common between them except the design/presentation side of it. But lo and behold we stumbled upon a tasty website that caters to delicious food reviews and practices Apple's design philosophy in their web design. Check out Pepper for some quirky solutions to your food cravings. What we love about creatives is their auteur tendencies. One fella we found online is Kyle Steed. His works covers typography, icon design, photography, and rebranding. His simple hand-drawn sketches provide a unique character to his different projects. If you're the sketch first, render later type of graphic designer, you should check out Kyle Steed's portfolio. We've been taking inspiration from tumblr lately, taking advantage of their interesting "Spotlight" section where they feature interesting blogs. These blogs are categorized based on interest, and the categories are wide-ranging – from typography to young adult literature. Here are some tumblrs that tickled our interest: Typostrate: typography focused tumblr with samples on how you can use type in different ways. Visual Poetry: A poetry-cum-typography tumblr. The site's owner, Anatol Knotek, features images that inspire his work and as well as his original artwork. The Impossible Cool: A tumblr that features vintage, sometimes never-before-seen, photographs of well-known artists and performers. Our team here at You The Designer are a bunch of nostalgic bunnies. We talk about the nineties and the things we did as kids, and just enjoy the memories. It's an endless conversation about time and existentialism – anyway, Dear Photograph’s one of the few sites that actually lets you feel that deep nostalgia just by looking at pictures with old photos placed in its modern backdrop. Another nostalgia-infused photo gallery is Sergey Larenkov's rephotography of images from the Second World War. (the link goes to a Russian language site) Something related to photography, here's an interesting theme on tumblr that utilizes HD photographs. The theme, aptly called Maximalist, gives photojournalists and photographers the advantage of using their HD photographs, and post them online. If you're both and a tumblr user, this theme will suit you well.  (Source) It may sound a little bit off or awkward, but artists have to dress up, too. Dear Designer is another tumblog that not only caters to design and fashion, but also provides ample advice to designers who are troubled by their trousers. Print design may sound so 20th century to some, but it won't be going anywhere. If you appreciate books and the design on its covers, Book by its Cover features quirky book cover designs and their designers.

“Wallpaper Calendar Freebie for May 2012: Sea Turtle by Geno Arguelles” plus 1 more

We’re giving our freebie calendar for May 2012 earlier than usual so you can prep up your PC, Mac, or iPad for the next month. Our in-house designer Geno Arguelles turned his summer-themed artwork SEA TURTLE into a wallpaper to warm-up your work area. You can download the wallpaper calendar in sizes from 640 x 480 up to 2560 x 1440. Share it with your friends and enjoy!

Dieter Rams’ 10 Principles of Good Design and How to Apply Them in Graphic Design After discussing the Vignelli Canon, we're going to delve more into design principles applied in the different fields of design today. One designer that I’ve always admired is the industrial designer, Dieter Rams. His works within different industries have become classic standards of simple, elegant, and lasting design. Yet though his principles of design have spread throughout the world, there are still far more thoughtlessly-designed products out in the market. Industrial Design for Graphic Design Industrial design is the process of creating a product that combines the best of aesthetics, ergonomics, and usability. These three can be compared to typographic design’s form, legibility, and readability. Design in general can be treated as a form of communication; it informs and allows people to easily identify a product or concept based on its associated color and form. (Source) As Vignelli would say, design is a language. Designers may have different specializations, but all of them use design as a form of communication. Almost every principle made for a specific design discipline can be used in another, and vice versa. Or we can just say, all these principles are taken from one root – human experience and its improvement. Combining all the design principles we have today is an impossible task, but what we can do is apply these principles into our chosen field of design. A great example of a set of design principles that can be easily transferred and used in various fields of design is Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles of Good Design. The Ten Principles of Good Design Dieter Ram’s principles can be compared to Massimo Vignelli’s canon. The only difference between them is that the latter’s principles were made particularly for typography. On the other hand, Dieter Rams’ ten principles are about creating good product design, but can be applied to any design field. Now, if we were to skilfully apply Dieter Ram’s principles to graphic design (and maybe even infuse it with the spirit of Vignelli’s canon), we would have an ideal design that not only caters to the human need, but also helps improve human life along the way. Below I’ve condensed Dieter Rams’ ten principles to eight. I’ve decided to combine some principles that I think either need to work with one another (i.e., honest design, product understandability, and usefulness) or will be understood better when paired together (i.e., unobtrusive and thorough design). Here’s how I think you can apply these principles in graphic design: Graphic Design… Is Innovative As Austin Kleon would put it, steal like an artist. How do we innovate in graphic design? We steal or borrow ideas, improve on it AND make it our own. Many, if not most, artists are inspired by other artists. If people from the 14th to the 17th century didn’t think of a Renaissance, we’d never see the world as we see it today. (Source) Is Aesthetic Graphic design is more than a visualized idea. It must tap into the senses of the people and act as catalyst for further interaction. Much like in advertising, it must tap into a customer’s experience and emulate it, then provoke a longing for that experience. The smart execution of design based on aesthetics can also be seen in classic magazine covers like Esquire, National Lampoon, etc., as they portray a culture’s current affairs and invite people to take part in it by at least being updated and informed. (Source) Is Unobtrusive and Thoroughly-Designed A graphic design’s function is to disseminate information or an idea. It must not, by any means, annoy or be visual pollution. The design must be well-thought of and appropriate. Elements and details of the design must also be considered; these may become restraining and obtrusive if overused or left unconsidered. (Source) Is Honest As a form of communication, graphic design must be presented directly – no flash, no tricks, no obstructions. It must be highlighted or be given emphasis for the audience. This is especially important in advertising; honesty and the capability to deliver is what drives an active and loyal market. (Source) Is long-lasting Graphic design as a form of visual communication must be able to create a lasting message that is either relevant or needed during his time. It is also upon the designer to be conscious of his surroundings and ask we questions such as "Do we need this?", "Is this relevant today?", or "Will this change someone’s life?" (Source) Is as Little Design as Possible As an element in advertising, graphic design must be straightforward and concise. It must focus on information that is relevant to the market or audience. Graphic design streamlines information and makes it easier for people to understand, and it must do it in a functional yet aesthetic method. (Source) Good design is not a mere standard in creating a product or an advertisement. It’s a way of life, a belief that better things can be provided to the public. It’s one way of saying that design has a lot to do with life and they way we live it. Each designer has his own standard and principle when working on projects. As mentioned earlier, people have different mileages regarding a lot of things. I cooked this up for beginners and experienced designers who wish to find inspiration from other professionals. Please let me know your thoughts about Dieter Rams’ principles of good design and my presentation of them in this post, as well as how you think these can be applied to graphic design or to any discipline!

10 Absolutely Beautiful Landscape Wallpapers for Your Desktop

Golden Dream Wallpaper

Desktop wallpapers are always the first thing that inspires us when we switch on the computer. The more inspirational, beautiful and elegant they are, the better they can challenge our imagination. Wallpapers never fail to provide a fresh perspective of our imagination and it does so in a monotonous work flow.

Please share your thoughts and views about these landscape wallpapers in the comments section below. Enjoy!

Neverland

Ride The Moonlight Swing

Photography Lovers

Phantom Band

Field Shooting

Gran Plateau

Run In Fields

The Untitled Scenes

Wallpaper

15 Awesome Dark Portfolio Website Designs

Indubitablee

Portfolio is a collection of works on different areas; either you’re designer, developer, photographer, or an artist, everyone who got talent need a portfolio to showcase their work on it.

Portfolio Websites should be well designed because an online portfolio is the symbol of your business or service. In this post I am going to showcase some really well designed dark portfolio website designs for the inspiration of web designers, that will help you to have an idea about dark portfolios, if you’re starting recently on designing websites.

 

Baker

I Love Dust

Deziner Folio

Josh Fabian

Valentijn Bruning

Heady Design

5am Media

Singapore Graphic Designers

Vision Studios Design

The Devil’s Garage

Tocquigny

Steven Gaffin

Deth Design

Timothy Clark