We’ve got a lot to thank Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and the computing world’s other leaders for. They’re responsible for some of the greatest leaps forward in communications and business in the last 30 years-and many of the biggest innovations in design, too.
Without them, our industry wouldn’t be what it is today, and many of the world’s top designers wouldn’t have a platform for their work.
However, there is one reason to resent these giants: their choice of fonts. In releasing mega-popular suites and catering to a broad, design-illiterate audience, leading business applications such as Microsoft Word shocked us with the overused fonts that they include standard in their latest releases.
This isn’t a riff on the world’s worst fonts, but rather an invitation for amateur designers and business users to stop abusing some of the world’s best fonts.
Nothing is particularly wrong with Impact or Comic Sans as fonts per se, but there is a huge deal wrong with using them in every situation. The 10 fonts below are overused and patently annoying, and we give 10 good reasons to stop using all of them.
Every week we tweet a lot of interesting stuff highlighting great content that we find on the web that can be of interest to web designers.
The best way to keep track of our tweets is simply to follow us on Twitter, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the best tweets that we sent out this past week.
Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that we tweeted about, so don’t miss out.
To keep up to date with all the cool links, simply follow us @DesignerDepot
Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.
The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.
These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.
So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons.
Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below as well as any related stories of your own…
Back in October, talented French street artist “JR” was awarded the 2011 TED Prize.
For those unfamiliar with it, the TED Prize offers one winner $100,000 for a charity of their choice and, more importantly, “One Wish to Change the World.”
The “One Wish” is designed to leverage the TED community’s resources and talent to create projects with far-reaching impact. Previous winners have included Jamie Oliver, Dave Eggers, Bill Clinton, and Bono, among others.
JR will announce his “One Wish to Change the World” at the TED on March 2nd. Since JR’s identity remains unconfirmed, it will be interesting to see how he announces his “One Wish”.
Will he finally confirm his identity and appear in person? Considering that his anonymity lends a certain integrity to his work, it’s unlikely he’ll reveal who he really is.
There are some definite downsides to building websites with Flash (key being the lack of support for Flash on iOS), but there are still plenty of sites out there that are built on Flash, and that’s unlikely to change any time soon.
And sometimes you’re going to have clients who are dead-set on having a Flash website.
But what if you don’t know how to use Flash? Do you spend hours trying to adapt a template, learning as you go? Or is there a better way?
Wix is a great option for anyone who wants to create a Flash website without learning Flash.
Unlike a lot of website creators, it lets you customize virtually every aspect of the sites you create, whether you start from scratch or build your site from a template.
Typography is one of the most important parts of any design, whether it’s digital or in print. Good typography can take a mediocre design to new heights, while bad typography can make what would be a great design lackluster or even bad.
For web designers, typography choices have long been limited to web-safe fonts. But that’s changed in recent years, first with the advent of things like sIFR that let you replace standard web fonts with Flash for headlines or other small blocks of text, and now with @font-face and web services for embedding fonts.
Below we’ve collected thirty fantastic type foundries. The majority of these allow at least some kind of online, embedded use, either with Flash or with @font-face. But we’ve also included some other foundries with more restrictive licenses.
You can always use fonts from these in images or graphics, either online or off. Be sure to check the license for each font to determine exactly what uses are allowed.
Everyday more and more businesses around the world are creating presences on Facebook.
Some companies opt to bring users directly to the page wall or other tabs (e.g. info, photos, RSS/blog, discussions and links) and use product images or company logos instead of more elaborate landing pages.
Regardless of where a user lands when they first arrive, something needs to capture their attention.
As we’ll see in the examples of pages from the 50 Top Facebook Pages of Brand’s Worldwide represented below, some pages may come right out and ask for the “like”, some may have a variation on the call to action with a contest, gift, upload, sign-up now, or shop now type message. Some may appeal to emotions. Some will be memorable. And some, quickly forgotten.
In truth, Facebook is about more than the ongoing interaction between businesses and users via status updates. We believe it’s also about the art and design of engagement and a vital new component to the corporate brand identity—the Facebook page design.
Whether we’re on iTunes or Spotify, browsing stores (both online and off) or watching advertisements on TV or in magazines, it’s safe to say that admiring album cover art is a part of daily life for many of us.t
As long as music exists, the album design industry will thrive, regardless of how we listen to music.
In this post, we will look at over 70 examples of excellent album artwork.
The styles could be categorized as: painted, abstract/experimental, photographic, retro/vintage, minimalist and illustrated.
Scattered through this article, several mini-tutorials will teach you how to create certain effects.
Every week we tweet a lot of interesting stuff highlighting great content that we find on the web that can be of interest to web designers.
The best way to keep track of our tweets is simply to follow us on Twitter, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the best tweets that we sent out this past week.
Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that we tweeted about, so don’t miss out.
To keep up to date with all the cool links, simply follow us @DesignerDepot
Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.
The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.
These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.
So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons.
Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below as well as any related stories of your own…
Big movies are a huge business, as the recent success of films such as Avatar and The Dark Knight suggests.
Billion-dollar revenue figures aren’t all that uncommon today in cinema, placing many major movies alongside companies such as Facebook when it comes to revenue.
With so much riding on a film’s success, marketing one is a massive opportunity for creative designers.
We’ve looked at some of the most effective film marketing materials out there – the promo posters that have been used on modern releases and older movies – and established some key elements that have contributed to their success.
These aren’t just commercial successes either – everything from smaller cult movies to huge blockbusters benefits from these 7 simple movie poster design elements.
Every profession has its own set of ethical guidelines most of its members adhere to.
And while the design industry’s code of ethics might not be as crucial as, say, the medical industry, there are still some important ethical considerations every design professional should think about.
Here are some of the most prominent ethical considerations designers deal with, mostly specific to the design industry and similar creative professions.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on them, and what other ethical dilemmas you feel designers face on a regular basis in the comments!
I don't mean any disrespect, but the author is 18. A few witticisms and access to an online user group makes anybody an expert these days... In the end, there is no...