Designers Who Blog: Design, Illustration, Photography, Web, Advertising, Branding …

Essential Books for Industrial Designers

Now there’s someone who’s done his homework! Several months back a designer emailed me about this very same subject.

Said he was interested in being an Industrial Designer. Said he couldn’t find very much information about Industrial Designers.

Well, now he can.

Thanks DT!

Nate Williams

IllustrationMundo.com

Nate writes a beaut of a blog at IllustrationMundo.com.

If you are in the business of illustration, then I’ll bet IM already feeds direct to your door.

And if you are in the market for illustrations, Nate’s Illustrators section is prime a hunting grounds for new talent.

Glancing through the stable of Illustrators, a few of my top choices are:

• Brian Despain Art
• Ray Jones illustration
• Arnold Roth
• Mundo Mágico

And with hundreds upon hundreds of Illustrators listed, I could browse all day!

I’m fond of blogging for many reasons. Meeting interesting, creative people is one of them. Interesting people like the lovely Jack Yan of Jack Yan & Associates, The Medinge Group, Lucire, and now Jack Yan on Vox.

Today, after being tardy with most addictions internet related (checking stats, chirping on twitter, checking stats), I logged in to a sweet surprise. Yes, I’ve been gifted the Arte y pico award by dear Jack. Thanks Jack!

If you don’t know about the Arte y pico award, here are the rules:

1. Pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog.
3. Each award winner (upon acceptance) should show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award.
4. Link to the Arte y pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5. Show these rules.

Hmmm, there are so many great blogs out there … decisions … decisions … and I can only choose five … hmmm … difficult …

• Joanna Young at Confident Writing (and Powerful Web Content)
• Kyle Meyer at Typesites (and Astheria)
• David Airey at Logo Design Love (and David Airey)
• Emily Chang at Emily Chang Strategic Designer (and eHub)
• Roy Peter Clark at Poynter Online - Writing Tools

All are worthy of the Arte y pico. All are worthy of a visit and more.

Please enjoy (I know I do).

Limited edition posters brought to you by Harmonie Intérieure.

• Imagination is more important than knowledge.
• Designers are meant to be loved. Not to be understood.
• The best designers are the ones who find the good clients.
• Design must seduce, shape, and most importantly, evoke an emotional response.

I want.

And yes, do they have a design blog: Graphic-ExchanGE - a selection of graphic projects

Discovered via: 2Modern Design Talk

Jonathan Sandridge

When Jonathan sent over two photos to create a banner for Standing Thought, it was like, wow. Nothing like dropping right into DWB’s template, yes?

To make my job easier, he also sent over extra (needed) information.

• I grew up in Baltimore, MD.
• Attended Art school in Washington, DC from 2001 - 2005.
• Currently working as a designer at JDK design in Burlington, VT.
• Started design blogging on standingthought.com May 15th 2007.
• My biggest inspirations are sunshine and kittens.

And if you rush over there right now, you’ll be able to see the beautiful work of Alex Trochut and Hedi Slimane.

Jonathan’s personal work can be found at www.jonathansandridge.com.

Nice, right?

Steve Augarde

I’m going to ask you to ignore something. I’m going to ask you to ignore Steve’s blogger theme and go straight to his copy. Trust me on this. His copy is totally great. You can read and read and read and keep on reading. And keep on being entertained.

I’m a children’s author/illustrator/paper engineer. Also a musician. Nowadays I concentrate more on writing than design work, but I still illustrate my own books - when they let me.

I blog about stupid things - things that interest me, things that make me laugh. Amuse yourself and you might amuse others, I say.

So let’s scroll >> scroll >> scroll until we get to his archives. Steve’s very first post was Monday, September 18, 2006. A coincidence, mine was September 19th, 2005. Only, his first post (Little People), is much better written. Much better everything. Where mine sticks to the facts, he’d treading on babies. Now, who could beat that?

One-in-ten: Most of the time - maybe nine times out of ten - I get things wrong. I try and write something and it’s wrong, try and draw something and it’s wrong, try and figure out some idea for a pop-up book and it’s wrong.

Not only am I used to being wrong most of the time, I accept that it’s an inescapable part of the process of finding what’s right. Very often I can see it for myself. An idea will come up and I’ll soon realise that it’s no good. Other times I need an editor to tell me why it’s no good - or at least why it’s no good for them.

Elephant Fayre: We were supposed to be accompanying the floor show, providing the background music to a performance that never made the slightest sense to us. You know the type of thing - three girls in leotards being the sea, whilst somebody else stands on one leg and chants the word ‘turpentine’ over and over. We took a sceptical view, unfairly perhaps, of conceptual art. Emperors’ clothes and all that.

In loco parentis: Giving a child a book that you’ve never read yourself means taking quite a lot on trust. What might lie between those covers? Sure, the book will have gone through an editorial process, and so as a parent you can reasonably expect the content to be ’suitable’ - whatever that may mean. Nevertheless a child with a book is effectively a child in the company of a stranger, and an adult stranger at that.

Things Once Common, Now Extinct. No.1. Knitting: Working on the munitions production lines had given Mum a taste for the mechanical, and it wasn’t long before she got herself a professional knitting machine. There was no stopping her then. The sound of the Passap whizzing back and forth was part of the background noise in our house, and not a week went by when we children didn’t sally forth into the streets wearing some creation calculated to stagger humanity. Jumpers, mittens, hats, skirts…I think I even had a pair of woollen swimming trunks at one point. Although I’ve been trying to block that particular memory out, and now I’ve gone and thought about it again. Damn.

Illustrator and songwriter of Bump

Found at Steve’s:
Toonhound - cartoons, animation, comic strips and puppets in the uk

An Interview with Steve Augarde by Dolores D’Annolfo

Some artists defy categorization and do not fit neatly into a genre. Steve Augarde is such an individual. His book jacket highlights that fact—he’s written and illustrated over seventy picture books for children, is a paper engineer of pop-up books, and has provided artwork and music for two BBC series. He tops that off by winning a “Smarties” medal for his book The Various.

This is too exciting. I have to go away and think about it for a bit. (wink)

Michael Wandelmaier

Michael Wandelmaier is a special treat for all those illustrator lovers out there. Like me.

Illustration and Design

He’s also a perfect treat for one who is under the weather on a day when even the weather is under the weather. Luckily, I love rain and thunder and nature putting on a show.

And I hope you do too.

Dickson Fong

Dickson Fong

I’m not skivving off because it’s a wicked Friday the 13th.

I’m telling the truth here.

Dickson Fong is a site to be experienced.

By you.

So go. Drool even.

Change those wicked ways.

David Airey

WHAT? you say? A feature of David Airey, you say? Again?

Actually, no. And I’m just as surprised as you are.

Yes. I’ve featured his new blog, Logo Design Love with I LOVE Logo Design Love. But I’ve never written a true feature of David Airey, the blog. I swear!

And if you are unfamiliar with David Airey’s blog, you might just be glad I waited. Why? Well, for starters, because it’s grown into one of the top design blogs focused on running a business. Way ripe for a feature.

And if you are a designer looking to run your business out of a blog, then you can’t go wrong by checking out David Airey’s style.

But before you go running off to copy his methods bit by bit, one suggestion. Come up with your own ideas, your own twist to running a design blog wrapped around a business. Trust me on this. You’ll be glad you did (yeah, David Airey clones are getting easy to spot).

Ok, I’m running late getting this out so let’s take a quick dip into David’s top nav.

Hire Me >> Portfolio >> Testimonials >> Articles >> Contact

HOME is obviously where the guts of the blog sits. David generally blogs on subjects important to his readers as well as clients (handy, some readers are also clients). In the blog posts you’ll find information on graphic and logo design as well as his latest project announcements.

HIRE ME is simplicity at its best. After a brief blurb, it goes straight into an easy online questionnaire. And if the potential client needs more, there’s also the option of a downloadable pdf questionnaire, as well as the ability to copy the questionnaire text direct.

PORTFOLIO shows his latest projects (most I’m familiar with). Just enough to give the picture. Not enough to overwhelm.

TESTIMONIALS are again brief. They also give the clients added publicity. Not too shabby.

ARTICLES compiles the meat of the site into an easy browse. And as this site aims to get clients, logically David has Dealing with designers right at the top. A smart move.

CONTACT is again brief, listing all the ways to get in contact with David. Skype. Email. Online form. LinkedIn. Facebook. Twitter. del.icio.us. No excuses.

I chat with David quite a bit so I do know a little about him (although I didn’t know his first word was logo). So what I wanted to do was see if I could find out anything new. And what’s the best way to do this? Online interviews.

Interviews with David Airey from around the Internet …

Freelance Folder: Interview With David Airey - Graphic Designer And Blogger

Freelance Folder: I know you’ve been blogging for almost a year and a half now, how is blogging helping your business? Do you find it’s a useful tool and do you find clients through your blog?

David: The vast majority of my clients arrive through my blog.

Web Designer Interviews: DAVID AIREY: “The logo is… an identifier”

Web Designer Interviews: What advice would you give to designers who are planning on specializing in logo design?

David: Read as much as possible on the subject, and pay particular attention to typography. Regardless of whether print products are on the decline, and if the ‘paperless office’ will ever arrive, logo design will always be needed, so go for it.

The Beta News: Show Me Your Desktop, David Airey

The Beta News: Do you have any tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your computer or blog?

David: Be sure to dust your computer from time to time. Especially if you have an allergy.

Inspiration Bit: The Naked Truth About David Airey

Inspiration Bit: How and why did you decide to get into blogging?

David: I didn’t really know the value of blogging, but heard great things about WordPress, and was curious. I wanted to develop my 5 page static portfolio site into something bigger, more useful, so headed to WordPress.com , and set-up one of their WP-hosted blogs.

Vandelay Website Design: Web/Graphic Designer Group Interview

Vandelay Website Design: How do you typically start a new project?

David: By asking as many client questions as possible. No-one knows their business like them, so I never presume to create an effective design unless the client has a large input in the process.

So, did you learn anything new about David Airey?

What a strange week it’s been. What with walls blowing up, and, well, walls blowing up (?)

Anyway, I thought I’d end the week on a fine note by joining David Airey with his 33 logos in 33 minutes, inspired by Jane’s fun with brands meme.

(DWB’s regular schedule will resume on Monday with … the real David Airey.)

If you survive on take-away out here, you don’t consume a lot of products with labels slapped on. That’s because you’ll generally eat out of clear baggies.

(A branding opportunity?)

Eating off the street is a must do experience. It’s not so much the stomach problems that are the worry (those were cleaned up years back). It’s getting those blasted rubber bands off the baggies.

(I even hear tell the Thai government has made acquiring this talent a gotta for expats submitting retirement visas. Time to practice?)

But no matter. Thanks to Jo and Jay at Learn Thai Podcast I have just the trick.

(I’ve been waiting to plug their Thai language blog and seems this is the perfect opportunity. Yes?)

Either click on the screen shot below, or check out their podcast at Thailand Survival Skills: Dealing with Rubber Bands.

(Go ahead and tell them cat sent you.)

Those FriCking Rubber Bands!

Coming up is a range of photos taken around Thailand. Some will have their English equivalents. Some not (can you guess who they are?)

Some items were purchased last night for this meme. And except for two, all run down hill.

Meet you at the bottom …

There is a reason I finished with the Oolong Tea. Last night, after struggling back home with cans and cans of BEER and COFFEE and bottles of WHISKY and such, I googled Oolong Tea Hill Country Thailand. What I found was interesting.

For instance, did you know that …

• The tea plant is native to northern Thailand, but the Thais are not avid tea drinkers.
• The same climatic conditions optimum for opium poppies also produces tea.
• Chiang-kei Shek’s Nationalist Army (hiding in Thailand) switched from gem and drug smuggling, black marketing, etc, to raising Oolong Tea in the Hill Country of Thailand.
• The Royal Project and the United Nations International Drug Control Program is responsible for switching poppy cultivation to tea cultivation.

Pretty hot stuff, yes?

So. Did you guess which was which?

(Hmm, since the photo shoot is over, I imagine it’s ok to consume that what runs down hill. Yes? Can you guess which ones I’m going for? Hmmm?)

Blogs involved in the Branding / Timeline meme:

• Logo Design Love | 33 logos in 33 minutes
• Dear Jane Sample | fun with brands
• SEGD | 14 logos in 14 minutes
• The Toad Stool | brand day: morning edition
• a binary life | day in brands
• Afs world! | 12 logos in 12 minutes
• Binky the doormat | day in brands
• Fox’s Den | brand name day
• Creative Beef | Friday in brands
• thehappycorp.com | what time is your brand?
• ADCD Graffiti | brands you encounter
• Manhattan Offender | brand timeline
• philsblogging.com | where we encounter brands
• E.K.’s Hideaway | brand new day
• The Marketing Student | day in the life of gen Y
• Mike Vogel | brand timeline portrait
• dehog. this is me. | day in brands and logos
• Beyond Rivalry | brand timeline portrait

Now that’s a LOT of new blogs to visit. Yes?