What Do You Mean by “Best”?

A client commented to me the other day, “I think I get some of your best work from you,” right after he’d commented that my “best” work was at the back of my portfolio. I was a bit taken aback; a design professional tends not to think in those terms. It got me thinking. What […]

To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade? That is the Question.

I had a fascinating conversation recently with the renowned Danish photographer Thorsten Overgaard. Thorsten shoots almost exclusively with a Leica, the camera that arguably has more claim to the word “classic” than any other, and is one of the most brilliant documentary photographers in the world. Like many in the profession, he uses Adobe Photoshop […]

Making An Ad With What You Have

Working with entertainment clients, you sometimes get a project that has to be turned out very quickly with limited resources. The show WILL go on, and a full-page ad that’s due on press tomorrow must have enough impact to make people notice the show and want to attend. On this occasion, we had about three […]

The Cute Designer Video That Started It All

I make no secret of my admiration for Gridiron Flow, which in my not-so-humble opinion is the best thing to happen to designers since desktop publishing. Here is the very original YouTube video that enticed me into the private beta test program for the product, more than a year ago:

Flow has its own teaser trailer

You have to love a software company that can put out a seriously cool movie-style trailer for their latest product. I’ve written about Flow, the application that transforms the way we work with creative software. It was a blast testing, suggesting improvements, and watching the program evolve from its original concept to the mature product […]

Transforming the way you work with creative projects

I’ve mentioned Gridiron Software’s new application, Flow, in a previous post. I’ve been beta testing Flow since the latter part of 2008, and it’s been quite an evolution. Big news is that the first (possibly the only) Release Candidate has just been made available for download at www.gridironsoftware.com. Every once in a long while, a […]

Design Always Has a Message

A couple of recent articles on John McWade’s Before&After blog really point up the importance of keeping the audience in mind, as opposed to the designer or the client, and designing for that audience. A week or so ago, John posted two Craig’s List ads for the same classic Jeep. He asked for comments as […]

Why We Design

John McWade is a designer’s designer, someone who not only does superb work himself, but has been a teacher and inspiration to many, many others in the years since he became the very first user of the very first desktop publishing software: Pagemaker. I frequently recommend his books, “Before and After: Graphics for Business” and […]

Pepsi’s New Logo

Pepsico recently revamped their brand identity for the range of Pepsi soft drinks, provoking a minor storm in the design community. The new look has few supporters, some who are indifferent, and a great many detractors.

Down to a Tee

I came across an odd but fun website that does nothing but sell t-shirts. It’s not the only such site out there, by a long way, but the designs have a quirky sense of humor that’s refreshingly geeky and stays on the right side of good sensibility (for the most part, anyway). I have to […]