Archive for October, 2008

When I wrote my article about the AIGA and web designers I stumbled upon the refresh group. For some reason, in all my time as a designer, I had never heard of the group. Naturally my first thought was “I hope there is a Chicago chapter.” But for some reason we are without one. So here we are a couple of weeks later, and the idea is still sitting in the back of my head chewing away at me.

Today I decided that I would do some quick research. a couple of Google searches later and I have a couple of bits of information:

I am happy to share with you all the insanely creative portfolios that I have been frequenting lately. This is another great grouping of work that continues to impress me.

Those of you who have followed Positive Space for some time now may be aware that I am the lead Art Director for a design firm called AssociaDirect. Over the past year AssociaDirect has grown from a niche offering of its parent firm LEVEL2 Marketing Group to become an agency of its own. This growth was so profound that it affected the culture and approach of the firm. As a result, the redesign of AssociaDirect.com was not only necessary, but also an opportunity to showcase the unique experiences we have gained within the association world.

Joining the AIGA has been a goal of mine for some time now. One that procrastination has surely got in the way of. As a cross discipline designer I do find a number of the AIGA’s current programs interesting, unfortunately it is the things that they are not doing that have led to my procrastination. It appears however that I am not the only designer who feels this way.

If you are a web designer, then you know exactly what I am talking about. When showing concepts to clients do you show type in aliased or anti-aliased form? Theoretically it shouldn’t really matter, but we know that it’s a problem. Many clients just don’t understand why the final website looks slightly different than the original concept you showed them. Just a few years ago this wasn’t much of a problem, if they were on a windows machine the likelihood that clear type tuning was turn on was slim to none, and the chances that the client was on a mac was even slimmer still. But things have changed, and I am torn for an answer.

Earlier this week I stumbled upon the article “Design for Now” on the Blue Flavor Blog. The article describes a common situation within the web design profession, the need for sites that are “designed flexible for the future.” Tom explains how reading this is creative briefs, requirements documents, or project explanations is his least favorite thing, and I agree. This has to be one of the most frustrating things that a designer can deal with when trying to work on a website. Once discussions have headed down this route the potential for lackluster work arises.

The economy and the stock market have taken a toll for the worse, this is very apparent. If you are like me you keep hearing that things are bad, but you have no real clue how it really is going to affect you. Either way, you would probably like to be prepared especially when the other option is potentially being out of a job. I just recently felt the first effects of the economic situation when a client we thought was going to sign a contract right away resisted at first because of the current economic situation. While the impact to their business may not have been felt yet, people are afraid that it might any time soon, so the natural reaction is to scale back spending.

As a business owners, freelancers, or even employees this can be potentially devastating if we don’t make adjustments to show our value and remain competitive in times of economic despair. While I may not be an economist I do know two things that will help you stay afloat during these troubling times.

Over the past 9 months I have been blogging on Positive Space, and over that time I have expanded my skills as both a print designer and a web designer by amounts I never thought possible. Over this time, I have not only learned new skills, but through blogging I have also developed some insights that I thought would be worth sharing. For the readers who may be new to Positive Space, this article should hopefully give you a better understanding of who Anthony Zinni is and set the tone for my previous articles.

September has come and gone, which means another entry into the amazing websites series. This month was interesting, as I distinctly saw a number of micro trends emerging. Multicolor light sources, 50s/60s retro, and sketchy illustrations were extremely popular this month, with what appears to be a slight decrease in the number of grungy sites as well. Regardless of the trends, September was full of a number of amazingly creative websites that deserve to be shared.