Archive for the ‘Graphic Design’ Category

One thing that I have never quite understood as a web designer is the willingness to make something far less successful visually in order to gain a minimal increase in usability. For example, removing 80 pixels of vertical whitespace in the header of a homepage design. Yes, removing the whitespace would bring the content up higher, but at what cost? Why are usability and other functional concerns of such absolute importance? Is it not possible to design something that is usable yet not as far as it could be, and have aesthetics be considered a worthwhile tradeoff? I think so, let me explain.

One of the most frustrating things for a designer to deal with is the unrealistic expectations that can be set upon them by both internal and external sources. Clients, account managers, and our peers can put a lot of pressure upon us to find the solution to the design the problem at in ever shrinking amounts of time. When faced with a time crunch or high set expectations, sometimes the only solution we can think of is searching for that mystical “spark” of inspiration. Eventually what we must come to terms with, is that the idea of inspiration most designers seek is really not a sustainable way of working and buckling down and getting something done is far more successful approach.

It has taken me almost an entire year to compile, but I have finally created a followup entry to the original “30 Essential PDF Documents Every Designer Should Download” Article. The original was the most popular article I have ever posted on this blog receiving well over 500,000 unique views – fueled by twitter referrals and stumble upon. I believe that this collection is even better than the first so please enjoy these links from some of the web’s most well respected authors.

OK not really, but they are they very solid and full of inspiring work (Note: The title is meant to be sarcastic, some readers did not get this so I just wanted to clarify). I guess I have just been seeing way too many ridiculous list titles floating around twitter lately, but have no fear Positive Space is not turning into a list blog. Speaking of the future of positive space, a new design is currently in the works so check it out.

***end rant*** So without further introduction, here are 25 great graphic design portfolios that have caught my attention over the past 6 weeks.

A couple of weeks ago I walked into the office ready to ingest my mourning dosage of caffeine only to find out that the coffee pot had been dropped. So I ran across the street to purchase some Starbucks as I was in need of some serious caffeine. I was not until I was waiting in line that I noticed the little instant packets sitting on the counter. Since I am trying to cut my coffee expenses down I figured that getting some would be more economical than getting coffee every morning until the pot was replaced.

It was not until I tried one of the little instant packets that I was hooked. These things taste pretty damn good, and I could store them anywhere the only problem was they were far more expensive than ground coffee. So when I started seeing the advertisements being made by Nescafe about their new Taster’s Choice packets being 400% less than the Starbucks packets I thought it would be worth a try.

As a freshman in college, in the Fall of 2002 I stumbled upon Speak Up. It wouldn’t be until a year later that I became a regular reader of what can now only be called an iconic design blog. Speak Up is the first design blog I ever read – maybe even the first blog I ever read &ndash and I am sad to see it go. Rather than simply retiring the link from my blogroll, I have reviewed the recently redesigned (or launched?) speak up archives and selected 25 of the articles that had the greatest impact on me.

Well it really looks like I have gotten behind on my posts here lately, normally I like to post my favorite inspirational portfolios when I stumble across 10 – 15 examples. If you want to blame something for my infrequent posting behavior over the last couple of week please blame the Personal Web Design Degree, which has been sucking up all my available free time (and getting some great feedback). However have no fear, all these excuses just mean that this post is crammed full of extra awesomeness!

After what has been a number of hours of work, the Personal Web Design Degree is now live. This initial version of the project contains the overall structure of the curriculum and book list. Both the site and the project are a work in progress that I will be adding to over time; however I feel that this is a project that can truly benefit from the input of the crowd. That being said, I am using this blog post as both and introduction to the project and a request for participation by the global design community.

Every article that I read about SxSW from this year’s South by Southwest has me wishing more and more that I had decided to go. One such article is Samantha Warren’s “SXSW 2009 Wrap Up.” Aside from her insider explanation about participating in the SxSW Web Typography panel discussion, she discusses an opinion I share; that designers should start using advanced web typography now.

Samantha says that as designers we need to push boundaries and get more creative with online typography whether they are personal, technical, or industry based. To view the slides from the discussion be sure to check out sxswtypography.com and to get some more great web typography resources.

I have stated my opinion on spec work a number of times before on Positive Space, however the footage released today from the SxSW panel demanded I do so again. After watching the video (embedded below) it is very obvious we are missing a lot of what was said, but the overall tone was in favor of spec. Also, the tweets that I witnessed during the time of the event also seemed to reinforce this opinion. But why, let’s dissect the video and look at some of the key pro-spec statements.