Brand Design Blog, News and Ideas

While there is still great content in graphic design reference books, you may never need to purchase one again after looking at some of the functionality on flickr.com

Flickr is a photo gallery website. You can upload your photos and imagery free of charge and use it as storage or as a gallery that you can show your friends.

Sound cool, sure…but so what?

Well, the real power of flickr comes from the ability to tag keywords to your images.

For instance, if you have a screen grab of your website that’s just been redesigned, you’d tag it as ‘web design’. It then places your image into your web design category.

O.K. so that makes it easy to find sure but again…so what?

Not only can you view your images, but you can view everyone’s images. You can also do over all searches for certain tags, such as ‘web design’ and you’ll not only find your image but everyone other image that has been labeled the same.

Getting the picture?

There are thousands and thousands of great examples of great work you can view for inspiration and new ideas.

You can even create a slideshow based on these searches.

Check out this slideshow for Business Card design that I came across this week.

Pretty impressive right?

So go to flickr.com and try it out for yourself. Flickr has heaps of other great functions that I’ll talk about later so stay tuned.

If you come up with something great link to it in the comments area of this blog.

Firstly, please pardon the pun.

Secondly, I was heading to a job today and spotted this hedge on the side of the road.

While the hedge itself isn’t a revelation, it got me to thinking about adding more real world photography to my design work in the future.

These days the first option for many designers is to fire up the computer and get to work. But instead, it may be worth our time to first consider if computer generated graphics are the best option.

Could you get a better result from adding some real world typography? Text stamped into tin, burnt into leather or simply written in sand can give an edge to designs that digital manipulation simply can’t match.

Another example is this opening screen from Napoleon Dynamite. Check it out and think about what you could do.

I just came across this site which has a number of great ‘shots’ of high speed photography that are definitely worth a look.

You can view the images at picsyard.com/Crayon_Assassin_Photo

We’ve all heard the term ‘Content is King’.

For internet search engine placement this may be true. But in the world of branding, business and design, the ability to differentiate yourself from your competitors will often be the deciding factor in making a sale.

There are literally millions of ready made design templates, web site templates and business plans out there. They are often the fastest and cheapest options available for starting your business or brand

…BUT,

each one is missing a key ingredient…creativity, originality, that unique element that separates you from the others in your industry.

Templates are created from something that has gone before. They have been made available because they have passed their usefulness to the creator.

Another point – if you have access to the templates, so do many other people. You need to be careful or you could end up with a similar web design, duplicate sales letter or the same business plan as your competition.

So if you use a template, for what ever situation, make sure you adjust it enough so that your template doesn’t look the same as the next person who uses it.

If you are creating some thing from scratch, ask yourself, am I borrowing from someone else? Have I seen this somewhere before?

Are deciding on a business name? What makes it unique?

Are you creating a website? Does it look the same as every other site?

Are you writing a sales pitch? What catch a customers interest?

Inspiration is a great thing. Imitation is the ultimate form of flattery. But unless you breathe life into your project by adding a touch of creativity your content will never be king.

They are calling it the ‘Fat Nano’.

In actual fact, this is one of the slimmest ipods on the market. But from the front you’d never know.

Unfortunately, Apple has made the decision to keep the click wheel on this latest rendition, rather than moving forward with the touch screen from the iphone and now itouch (which I have to admit, I’m very impressed with).

The real problem I see with this new design is the unused real estate on the left and right of the navigation wheel. While ‘white space’ is often a good thing in design, the ‘white space’ used here only exaggerates how small the screen really is. I’m sure the reason for using the click wheel rather than touch screen was a financial one, but I can’t see that this new design has done anything to advance Apples reputation for producing excellent design work.

Normally I could very well be considered an Apple fan boy. Not in this case though.

Others may see benefits that I don’t with this new ipod, but I won’t be among the chubby chasers that purchase this item.

I want to draw everyones attention to a great site that I’ve been aware of for some time, but crept back onto my radar this week.

Design Melt Down.com

It’s a gallery site for hundreds of fantastic web site designs.

Not only does it house an unending supply of inspiration for the struggling web designer but it also comes equipped with a great navigational system that allows you to search for sites by theme, style and even colour.

So if you have a spare couple of hours or even 5 minutes, I’d recommend heading over there and checking it out.

Fantastic! The new site is up and running.

I’m very happy with the results, but if anyone spots and technical issues or pages not displaying the design, please let me know.

If you have any questions about why I designed elements on this site a certain way feel free to ask. I’d also love to hear any comments you have about the new design. Criticisms are also welcome. They might not make me adjust the look I’ve created here but you may draw something to my attention that I’ve neglected.

So now that I have to website and blog updated, I’m intending on providing regular content about design issues online and in my everyday life.

I hope you’ll find this resource interesting and come back again and again to see what’s new with Crimson Fox.

I’ve been having a discussion concerning the blog name over at the Small Business Brief Forum.

I think I’ve come to a decision. The word blog is fast becoming a household name, even in the non-internet community. So to remove the word blog is going simply make finding these entries harder.

So, I’ll include blog but also add descriptive words to the button name – Brand Design Blog.

This should help visitors find the blog but also help new visitors find it through search engines.

Let’s see how it works.

Blogs are what they’ve come to be called. But what is a Blog?

Well it comes from the word web log. Which is supposed to be a log of journal style entries. ‘Journal style entries’ is what I’m intending to do here. But the word Blog doesn’t really grab my imagination.

The same is being said by the web community at large. Every day you hear of some internet community leader becoming sick of the term. I have to agree.

So…what do I call my ‘blog’ then?

It’s a tough question especially since practical branding is what my core design ideal is about. As soon as the community at large (non-internet folks) are slowing getting around to the idea of ‘what is a blog’, does it makes sense to go and change the term?

If so, it would have to change to a term that makes sense. A term that people will understand on sight.

I’ll think further about this one and if anyone has any great ideas. Please let me know.