Design - Quote of the Day

People ignore design that ignores people.

— Frank Chimero

Free Fonts!

Carefully, now....

NO!  Just... no. Law firms are serious business.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. When it's knowledge of how to download and use fun fonts, the potential for abuse (choosing a font just because "you like it", without regard to how well it fits the project) is always there for new designers.

Still no. Traditional blah fonts don't fit Jimi.

So, to make me feel better about directing you to sites where you may download free fonts at will, I first present you with some advice. Always put thought and care into choosing fonts for your project. Fonts communicate a lot just on their own - apart from the actual letters and words they form.

The following sites contain good advice for choosing the perfect fonts for a project.

• “What Font Should I Use?”: Five Principles for Choosing and Using Typefaces (smashingmagazine.com)
• Font Design - How designers choose which fonts to use (canva.com)
• On Choosing Type (ilovetypography.com)
• Choosing the Right Font: A Practical Guide to Typography on the Web (tutsplus.com)

NOW go get 'em!

Here's a nice collection of free fonts I ran across recently:

101 best free fonts, fall 2015 (Webdesignerdepot.com)

Mrs. Lofquist found another compilation here:

100 Greatest Free Fonts Collection for 2015 (awwwards.com)

 

Choose fonts wisely you must.

Make the content come alive!

The role of the musician is to go from concept to full execution. Put another way, it’s to go from understanding the content of something to really learning how to communicate it and make sure it’s well-received and lives in somebody else.


-- Yo-Yo Ma

(UX Design, anyone?)

Don't be BLAH, use CARP!

Stuck in the blahs? 

Can't quite figure out what's missing to make your web page, poster, title screen, animation, history presentation, blog post, anything-you-make, look really great?

Chances are good you can fix it easily with a little attention to CARP!

Check out a quick refresher on our e-Comm student demonstration blog:

http://studentblogdemo.blogspot.com/2015/02/what-is-carp.html

The Evolution of the Art of Web Design

This video gives a good overview of the big picture evolution of Web Design over the years.

 

Good Design

Good design is a lot like clear thinking made visual.

- Edward Tufte

Art or Design?

“What separates design from art is that design is meant to be... functional.” ― Cameron Moll

Choosing The "Right" Font

This is a really useful guide with 5 principles for choosing fonts for your projects.  It also has a simplified breakdown of font groups with really good descriptions and examples of each.  Getting more familiar with this might save you (and me) some time scrolling through those font lists...

“What Font Should I Use?”: Five Principles for Choosing and Using Typefaces 
By Dan Mayer

 

KC Logo Ideas

The New Kansas City Logo

In an earlier post, we saw that the city of Kansas City, MO recently adapted a new logo.  Public response to it has been mixed, so the Star decided to have a fun "contest" for readers to submit their own designs that they would like better.

Today the Star published its top 20 picks from those reader submissions.  It's interesting to see the things people came up with - and the ideas or symbolism behind them.

Summary:
Like These better?

Gallery of top 20:
Our 20 favorites







What do you think?  Of these 21, which would you rather have?

"Choose colors wisely, you will." --Yoda

The psychology of color is interesting stuff!  Colors can evoke emotions or behaviors, and also have some strong cultural or traditional associations.  Some of these may be universal, but others vary from culture to culture.  For example, black is a color of mourning for us, but in some societies the mourning color is white.

For these reasons, designers of products, logos, and living or work spaces pay extra attention to their color choices!

Check out these links to learn the specifics for each color - and so see how they apply to products and logos.  These also could come in handy next time you need to paint a room in your house.

Color Psychology at Infoplease - cultural and psychological color associations

Colour Selects - similar to above, but organized by positive and negative for each color

Helpscout - psychology of color applied to logos -  neat infographic

Kissmetrics - how do colors affect purchases? infographic

Visual.ly - another infographic about color and buying choices

Visual.ly - color psych in logo design - another good infographic

Painters of Louisville - neat infographic about color choices for painting various rooms in your house

Can you do better?

Well - the city of Kansas City has a new logo (below).  Feedback has been mixed. The Kansas City Star wants to see if you can design a better one!  They will publish the winners in the FYI section of the paper, and on kansascity.com.  Entries are due by the 28th, so... Go!

See the KC Star article here, for details.

And if you think you've seen this logo before,
you may not be imagining things... (check out the images)

Web Juniors and Seniors: Blog about this new logo.  Why did Kansas City change logos?  Why do you think they picked this one?  Why these colors?  Why this typeface?  What do you like or not like about it? 
Here is more info. 

Comic Sans haters - chill and check this out

Poor Comic Sans MS... why do the designers hate it so?

Well, it turns out that it is true that Comic Sans really is not the best-designed typeface in the world, but -- it is just a typeface.  The issue for most Comic Sans haters has more to do with its overuse and its inappropriate use.  Just as you wouldn't use Times New Roman for a kid's birthday invitation, you shouldn't use Comic Sans in an ad for a financial planning firm.

Here's a video I found today on the bancomicsans.com website.  Besides getting a better perspective on the Comic Sans issue, I also learned 2 or 3 new things about typography in general! Check it out:




Have a nice day!

Ya learn somethin’ new every day!

Today at school I managed to learn two things from my students before the morning was even half over.

A freshman taught me a great (and OBVIOUS once you know it) mnemonic for remembering the order of the colors in hexadecimal color codes. The order is Red, Green, Blue – and you can use Roy G. Biv – the same mnemonic used to remember the colors of the rainbow.  Can’t believe I never thought of that before.  Way better than Really Gross Bug.

Then one of my sophomores cleared up the mystery of “grey vs. gray” for me.  Here’s a site that covers it: http://www.greyorgray.com/