The redesigned BobDylan.com has a tricked out record player that's available as a pull down menu. Maybe it's no big thing, but I like it. A lot. The scratchy man from Minnesota belongs on vinyl. …
Great Concepts Demand To Be Built (It’s Like There’s A Real Seed In the Idea)
Microsoft's needed a way to showcase its Expression Studio and Silverlight products and sell them as integral to the creative process. So they came up with the PhizzPop Online Design Challenge and PhizzPop Tour. When the tour came to Minneapolis, Zeus Jones stepped up and won the local competition, a fact which led them to compete and win again in Austin at the PhizzPop nationals. Zeus Jones Phizzpop SXSW Finale from …
“No Logo” Was A Primer, Now We’re On To “No Product”
Journalist John Hockenberry, writing in Metropolis Magazine, wonders "how designers participate in an economy of no product?" Twenty-nine years after George W. S. Trow envisioned an era of no context, it is suddenly possible to discern an economic era of no product. For most of the postwar era, design and marketing have been all about creating aspirational narratives with the aim of getting people to make purchases. …
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New Looks for Public Works
Rob Walker drew my attention to the Obama administration's recent branding efforts for The Recovery. Portland's Aaron Draplin, who loves early 20th century design (appropriately enough) helped make the DOT logo. …
Carded
Henry Jones at Web Design Ledger is fascinated with great looking business cards. So much so he revently launched a new site called Card Observer. Card Observer showcases only the best business card designs. They do this for a couple of reasons: to shine the spotlight on the talented designers who create these beautiful cards, and to inspire. …
Tropicana Squeezes New Life Out Of Its Old Packaging
Tropicana redesigned its packaging, but it turns out people prefer the old Tropicana packaging (pictured below) over the new, which some say is generic-looking. Could a harsher criticism be leveled? According to The New York Times, the company is paying attention to its customers complaints and reversing its decision to change. The PepsiCo Americas Beverages division of PepsiCo is bowing to public demand and …
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Graphic Design Is Now A Commodity! ? ;-(
CrowdSpring is "crowdsourcing" graphic design. It's a business model that makes sense on the The Internet, in that it connects people with services to offer with people who want to buy those services. A writer from Forbes looks the company's progress and the "snooty" response from industry pros. CrowdSpring.com, allows buyers to run competitions for company logos, Web sites, T-shirts and the like. For buyers of …
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43, Hut Hut!
The New York Times commissioned designers from around the nation to make alternate Super Bowl 43 logos (because they could!). The selection above is from Draplin Design Co. in Portland, Oregon. [via BFG Blog] …
Denver Decluttered
Denver digital design firm, FL2, helped Greenville identity firm, Brains On Fire, relaunch its site earlier this month. Now, they've done it again, this time turning the code on themselves. The Denver Egotist notes that FL2 "continues to impress us with their simplicity, their usability, and their fresh perspective on user interaction." …
Ode To The Independent Craftsman
self-portrait by Jon Raasch I was looking at Yelp just now and I read a random review of Francis, where we're about to go for brunch. I clicked through to the reviewer's page and then on to his site, where I found this copy: Hi, my name's Jon Raasch. I'm an independent web developer in Portland, Oregon. Many freelance web designers pretend that they have studios full of assistants, developers, architects; I went …