Brand Design Blog, News and Ideas

Here’s a list of name that you might want to try and remember.

All these young entrepreneurs are under 30 and have all created little online empires for themselves.

One thing to keep in mind though…All this net worth is on paper. They would need to sell their business and assets to great this amount of capital.

Still…I wouldn’t mind being in some of their shoes.

Check it out at: Top 20 Websites run by People under 30

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.

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.