50 Meticulous Style Guides Every Startup Should See Before Launching All good brands have a great style guide. Creating a simple booklet that catalogues the specific colors, type, logos, imagery, patterns, taglines, etc. of a brand makes sure the brand machine runs smoothly. To prove why you shouldn’t let your style guide go by the wayside, we’re going to take a look at 50 stunning and detailed examples of style guides that are sure to encourage you to begin compiling your own. And when you’re ready to put that style guide to work, trial it the fun way, by designing a branded social media graphic in Canva (click here). 01. Foursquare
10 Most Interesting Free Podcasts Podcasts are so hot right now. From comedy to news to 20-minute segments about concrete, there are literally hundreds of podcasts to pique the interest of pretty much anyone with a pulse. That said, these 10 podcasts will not only entertain, they'll also inform, keeping you one step ahead of your peers as you learn everything you may have missed in high school. At the very least, they'll help you kill it the next time you hit the bar on trivia night. 10 Ways to Improve Typography In Your Designs Typography is more than just picking a font and a point size from some drop-down menus on your computer. It’s an art and a skill whose history goes back centuries, to the wooden and metal type used with printing presses. And while we can learn from typography’s long legacy, most of us could also use a few practical tips on how to help our type look better in everyday projects like resumes, newsletters, or business cards. Is that you? Then you’re in the right place.
Graphic Designer Digital Art Set of seven prints. Colourful pixels are distorted through pixel sorting algorithms to create a unique effect. Doodle Rebellion! Last year, I had featured Lei Melendres‘ “Crazy Comix Doodles,” and since then he has worked on new sketchbook drawings. His illustrations generally include wacky characters crammed together on a page or two, and many of them, are actually quite mouthy! Artwork © Lei Melendres 12 magically meticulous design style guides This is heading directly into geek territory. But we are self-confessed geeks, particularly when it comes to logo design, typography and pictograms. And that leads us to the meticulously regulated world of brand style manuals... A style manual, or style guide, is a set of standards for the design of documents, signage, and any other form of other brand identifier. The reason for their existence is to ensure complete uniformity in style and formatting wherever the brand is used to ensure no dilution of that brand. We love the obsessive nature of these, and so here we've gathered 12 of the best to inspire you when you create your own brand style guides...
Spectacular Moleskine Doodles Explode with Energy - My Modern Met Philippines-based illustrator Kerby Rosanes proves that doodling can be so much more than scratching unintelligible scribbles on paper. Through his Sketchy Stories blog, Rosanes shares his wonderful world of doodling in a simple Moleskine sketchbook. Equipped with an ordinary Moleskine, a few Uni Pin drawing pens, and his innate gift for drawing, the artist is able to transport viewers to a world where tiny, cartoonish creatures explode with gusto to make up larger entities. Each of the illustrator's complex and crowded sketches are filled with minute details that allow the eye to wander and discover new characters and designs at every turn.
Adobe CS for Nintendo - Michael Kempen It seems like only yesterday when I'd spend my summer vacations camped out in the basement of my childhood home, munching on frozen pizzas and busting vectors on my NES. While I don't miss having to blow in to the cartridge to get it to work and the utter lack of shortcuts allowed by a five button controller, there's something to be said for the way a couple hours staring at those 8-bit graphics could just about make your eyes bleed. I'll always have fond memories (or delusions?) of Adobe Creative Suit for Nintendo. Alive Without Breath: Three Dimensional Animals Painted in Layers of Resin by Keng Lye Singapore-based artist Keng Lye creates near life-like sculptures of animals relying on little but paint, resin and a phenomenal sense of perspective. Lye slowly fills bowls, buckets, and boxes with alternating layers of acrylic paint and resin, creating aquatic animal life that looks so real it could almost pass for a photograph. The artist is using a technique very similar to Japanese painter Riusuke Fukahori who was featured on this blog a little over a year ago, though Lye seems to take things a step further by making his paint creations protrude from the surface, adding another level of dimension to a remarkable medium. See much more of this series titled Alive Without Breath over on deviantART. (via ian brooks) Update: I have some additional details from the artist that I’d like to add here, as this post seems to be getting a lot of attention.
The new Adobe CS6 branding CS6 has just shipped & just like we did in 2010 we'll take a closer look at the design goals of this Creative Suite release. An inside look at how it is to do design work for a big company like Adobe. Each Creative Suite release starts with a list of technical requirements and design goals. Our host is Shawn Cheris, he will guide us through the process just as he did with the CS5 branding. Goals & Requirements Below you'll find what Adobe wanted to accomplish from an experience standpoint: How To Lead A Creative Life [Infographic] [Close Window] By Jason Feifer Our complete guide to making your inner genius your greatest on-the-job asset. Back to article >> Infographic by Pop Chart Lab
33 Smart and Creative Signage Design Projects As Wikipedia defines it, signage refers to the design or use of signs and symbols to communicate a message to a specific group, usually for the purpose of marketing or a kind of advocacy. Signage means any kind of graphic that is used to deliver information to a large group of people. It can show information, direction, identification or safety regulations. Labeling is not the same with signage, because labels are applied to particular products. Also, there are many frequently used signage conventions, such as pictograms or sign shapes. In case you have a signage design project and you need some inspiration, take a look at these 33 smart and creative signage design projects.
Crazy Awesome Paintings by Vladimir Kush Here is a collection of the incredible paintings of Vladimir Kush. Vladimir has been creating these surrealistic paintings since the late 80’s. I’m extremely impressed by his work, and you should be as well! Related