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Be inspired! (By everything) 042

Craig Baldwin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 10:00:15 +0000

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Be inspired! (By everything) 041

Craig Baldwin — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 10:00:50 +0000

Resizable 4 Logo

Just in case you’re wondering this is all done with CSS, that’s why it’s impressive.

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Unusual Tumblr Blogs

Craig Baldwin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 10:00:55 +0000

Tumblr is a weird and wonderful place; it's just so easy that anyone can make a Blog about just about anything with ease. This is something to celebrate I feel, so here are some I found. Some are nice, some are peculiar and some you might not really want to visit but it's an anything goes collection.

Daily drop cap

This one isn’t exactly weird, but it certainly is wonderful, each day the author publishes a beautifully drawn drop cap that you can use on your own Blog, just make sure you follow the instructions.

House of buttons

As you may have guessed it, this is a Blog dedicated to beautiful UI buttons found out in the ‘wild’ of the Internet, great for inspiration if you have a UI to make.

Picture quotes

You get a photo and a quote, what more could you want? Great selection of quotes to make you think and to give you the inspiring boost you need.

I’m sure plenty of you have heard about Clients From Hell, they’ve got a Twitter account as well (@clientsfh), if you haven’t they post anonymous stories about their clients from hell and I have to say reading some of these does make me lose faith in the career I’m about to go into.

Birds are jerks!

Bloody Birds, what did they ever do for you? Probably try to attack you and get your food or fly so low they make you duck out of instinct. Anyway this Tumblr is dedicated to photos and videos of birds being jerks. This one is my favourite though, leave mah dog alone!

Garfield minus garfield

This one has had a published book and everthing! Garfield minus garfield features no Garfield, he’s been removed from each one to “reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle”. Approved by Jim Davis and all, can’t get much better than that.

For the love of bokeh!

If you love Bokeh, you know the strange shapes that lights make when they’re out of focus through a camera lens, then this Tumblr is for you! Because that’s all you’ll find on this blog.

Pizza forever

Um, well they post pictures of Pizza? That enough information for you? Cool.

Fuck yeah condiments

Well this is sort of the same, just condiments instead of Pizza.

Shit my kids ruined

If you ever want to discourage somebody from becoming a parent, this should do the trick.

Startup quote

Back to something easier on the eyes, this lovely little Tumblr puts a startup’s quote in a little speech bubble above the person who said. Brilliantly simple and visually engaging to boot.

Unsuck it

No longer will you have to suffer in silence when you don’t understand what someone is talking about when they drop their business lingo on you. Truly a terrible fate to ever suffer. It’s simple and to the point and it’s pretty amusing to see what rubbish they come up with nowadays.

Haiku pickup lines

Charming little haikus, beautifully presented.

Be inspired! (By everything) 040

Craig Baldwin — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:04:25 +0000

Lego Hello World

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The week in links 31/05/10

Craig Baldwin — Mon, 31 May 2010 10:00:27 +0000

You suck at design (here's why)

An introduction to the Dunning-Kruger effect and how it changes how you perceive your work in relation to the presumed level of skill of your peers. Really interesting and goes a long way to explain why I might always be critical of myself and how comparison easily kills your mojo.

Responsive web design

And excellent article looking at how you can overcome the inherent problems faced by the web designer of today, more and more combinations of browsers, input devices and viewports present themselves and we’ve got to find a way to deal with them.

Support our sites

I’ve put this link to have a bit of good fun, clearly Apple doesn’t see it that way as since the last time I’ve visited they’ve had to blank over Steve Jobs’ face. I’m not really a fan of Flash but whatever.

WIRED on iPad: Just like a paper tiger...

As ever iA comes up with another excellent article observing the design of the recently released WIRED iPad app. It will be interesting to see iA put their money where their mouth is when they release their own iPad apps after lambasting most previous attempts. I’ve yet to go to my local Apple store and give the iPad a poke (I’m in the UK) so I can’t really judge but the WIRED app did look good from press releases.

In the post: U:D/R and Process Journal

Craig Baldwin — Fri, 28 May 2010 11:00:51 +0000

In the post features quick reviews of printed publications that I have recently purchased, I buy things on a regular basis so I thought I’d share my opinions on what I’ve received recently. With the hot Summer days making it uncomfortable to work on my PC I’ve been catching up on my recent purchases.

This week I take a look at the two papers released to date by Unit Editions and at the first edition of the new Process Journal. It’s only been a few days since the last one but the hot Summer days has given me a chance to catch up on the reading I’ve gotten behind on.

U:D/R 01 and 02

Unit Edition’s Unit:Design/Research papers aim to bring to light forgotten classics of the design world and give them more context than a Blog would provide.

I seem to have a love hate relationship with newsprint. I love the way it feels and how image looks on it, however it’s not exactly the easiest thing to handle, though staples go some way to fix this. I’m guessing U:D/R isn’t printed with the sort of ink that doesn’t rub off because my fingers are filthy after reading it.

As for the content well I’m not so sure, I guess this isn’t the sort of topics that are ideal for me, personally I’m not that interested by the work of Ronald Clyne and Form magazine. But oh well, it’s all very nicely laid out and the it’s beautiful to look at.

Process Journal: Edition One

Process Journal collects and displays the very best Australian and International design. The very first issue brings together work from Tim George, Spin and many others and I have to say I really love the layout and work featured. The interviews are equally excellent and take a more freeform approach than the set in stone style of Eight:48 going into the process of how they made the work featured, which I always enjoy reading about.

I particularly enjoyed the interviews with Kim Holtermand, Tim George and Heydays. Process Journal is released quarterly and I’m certainly looking forward to the next issue which I’m hoping will be coming out soon.

Be inspired! (By everything) 039

Craig Baldwin — Wed, 26 May 2010 10:00:32 +0000

Apollo 11 Saturn V launch

The Design Cubicle (redesign)

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The week in links 24/05/10

Craig Baldwin — Mon, 24 May 2010 10:00:49 +0000

HTML5 and Flash: Why it's not a war, and why Flash won't die

smashingmagazine.com

An interesting look into where Flash may be in a few years time. Instead of trying to create websites with it perhaps Flash should be used for the interactive Intranet applications it can pull off with ease while letting HTML5 take care of the website creation.

Web design trends for 2010

webdesignerdepot.com

A comprehensive look at current web design trends you will see in most places. I always find trend posts a bit odd really because they just seem to find a popular website, call it a trend and then find others like it…though I guess that’s what a trend is really.

IS Parade

isparade.jp

While a bit slow at loading it’s quite nice to see a parade of little people matching along with their tweets. Basically you use a trending topic and it displays the users tweeting about it as members of a parade.

Are magazines really dying out?

guardian.co.uk

Can the magazine concept ever really die out? Surely not but an intriguing article that looks at the future of magazines and how people are being perhaps a bit sensationalist.

The history of web design blogs

pelfusion.com

Ah, how far blogs have come in just a few short years. A lot of work must have gone into creating this post so it’s well worth a look at the history of your favourite blogs, if they were around a few years ago that is.

In the post: Eight:48 and Feltron Annual 2009

Craig Baldwin — Fri, 21 May 2010 11:00:52 +0000

In the post features quick reviews of printed publications that I have recently purchased, I buy things on a regular basis so I thought I'd share my opinions on what I've received recently.

This week I’m going to be looking at Eight:48 and the Feltron Annual, I love print so I’m never really going to put something down that much. I’ll admit I don’t normally read the content that much, more of a flick through and read what looks interesting really but I have actually gone and read these publications.

Eight:48 Issue #01 Print is dead?

This new newsprint-based publication from Counter-Print sets out to be ‘a new paper for the creative community’ featuring interviews and articles from designers, illustrators and photographers. The first issue looks at the prevalent issue of print’s mortality in the face of the Internet and iPad.

It features articles from Steven Heller, James Pallister and Dan Rolfe Johnson, all very excellent and insightful. I found the layout and design to make excellent use of the format and it’s a joy to hold and read, though saying that I’m still not sure how you’re supposed to hold a newspaper to stop it falling to pieces.

I initially thought the interviews were a little out of place (sure Julien Vallee is an obvious choice but not sure about some others) but it does feature questions about print and tactile work but it just seem an excuse to fill the pages with (admittedly gorgeous) work.

Feltron Annual Report 2009

I have been waiting months for this to arrive and when it finally did it was like unwrapping a Christmas present from its cardboard envelope. It’s probably the most beautiful piece of print I’ve ever owned. It’s all lovingly letterpressed and the best possible example of what you can do when you take the time.

There really isn’t much I can say about it, the content is interesting but I preferred the 2008 report that was more based on statistics but that’s just me.

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Be inspired! (By everything) 042

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Be inspired! (By everything) 041

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Unusual Tumblr Blogs

Be inspired! (By everything) 040

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The week in links 31/05/10

In the post: U:D/R and Process Journal

Be inspired! (By everything) 039

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The week in links 24/05/10

In the post: Eight:48 and Feltron Annual 2009

In the post features quick reviews of printed publications that I have recently purchased, I buy things on a regular basis so I thought I'd share my opinions on what I've received recently.

Be inspired! (By everything) 038

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