I read through the tags and found some posts related to this, but I'm here to ask you something straight to the point that can be useful to the community (and myself, of course). It's even been a while since this topic was raised, so I'm sure there are new answers as well.

What categories do you use in you portfolio? No need to explain, but feel free to elaborate.

Thanks! 

dear designers! i am a fresh graphic designer, and i am currently making my portfolio.
i am trying to insert more advertising stuff, as i want to move in this direction.

here is my work - social ad. total idea: globalization. personally, i do not like globalization, as it removes away the cultural differences, which are so cool, and it makes us "bald" - "global".
i want to ask your opinion on this ad.
( globalization )

Oy, so I am doing some design work for a friend, yada yada. He is a chef and I am trying to just come up with a simple logo to be able to put up on the site we are putting together. I came up with a few ideas on paper, but as usual, once I tried to make them happen on the computer, no dice. Anyway, just looking for a little feedback on these ideas I have so far. 

I'm not sold on the blue/faded "chef" behind the text. I'm not completely married to these concepts either. Also, these colors are just place holders.

Thanks in advance!

glo

I'm sure that I'm missing the Obvious Answer here. I need to do the Illustrator equivalent of CorelDRAW's old "Powerclip" trick with a photo for a banner ad. Help!!

Quick explanation of "Powerclip" - at least in CorelDRAW v.11: It's part of the "Effects" pull-down menu, a means by which elements of a graphic are selected and "inserted" into a "container" graphic, be the latter an oval, rectangle or polygon of however many sides.

After some months of total inactivity in graphics and rarely working as freelance I decided to apply for a full time job in graphic design. I would like some help regarding what to put on my portfolio, not too much, not too little?
It is for a print based agency, nothing web or digital related.
I have very little work (3 or 4)that I consider good to show, will that be enough? Should I try to put things that I have done but that I consider not my best?

So I'm a senior in college majoring in graphic design and I'm finishing up in May (yay?). As a result of that I've spruced up my website, resume and have been applying to numerous places. The most common response that I've gotten is "You're resume is impressive but we'd rather choose someone else". This has been given to me from Harvard, MFA,  Disney World and a bunch of other places. Is the fact that I'm STILL in college (even if I'm graduating in May) have any effect with this?

I do realize that the places I've listed are high in competition but my background as they've said is impressive and I thought I'd have a decent chance but I'm usually placed in the under review option and wait for months on end to hear and then get rejected. Any tips on how to get past the under review stage or is it just luck?

I really don't want to waste my summer sitting at home doing nothing because I can't get a job or internship somewhere because for some reason my background/resume isn't good enough, or not what they're looking for. It's also a bit disheartening to hear especially with how much work I've put into my portfolio and website.

I guess what I'm asking is for any advice whatsoever about the job process for graphic designers. I don't mind freelancing, but its not consistent enough for me.

Thanks a bunch!

What are yours? Some of mine are Century Gothic, American Typewriter, Georgia, Baskerville, Didot... and of course Buttermilk. (Jessica Hische is kinda my hero)  There are a ton more, but these are some of my staples.

Anyway, what are your go-to's when doing graphic work? I print them out and keep my favorites above my desk on the wall because they are pretty, and I can just look at them for some ideas. But I think I need some new ones. 

Are there some you like specifically for certain characters? For example, I looooovveeee the Baskerville Italic ampersand...

Ok, go! :) 

Hello all,

Can anyone help me by giving feedback and suggestions on a package design? I'm not content with how it's going, but I'm stuck as to how to make it better.

Thank you in advance!

( JPEG and product info )

I was just wondering if it's "better" to provide a download link to your resumé on your portfolio website.  A lot of my friends who are designers provide one, but I'm not a big fan of my phone number being available to anyone with an internet connection.  Plus I personally don't see the need for it since all of my experience is pretty much listed on my site.  Of course I could be wrong, and I can always make a phone numberless resumé to put on my site if it's "better".

Any thoughts on this would be really helpful.

So I've been a freelancer for a while, just doing everything on my own and taxes were pretty simple. But now I have a fulltime job and am doing freelance part time, I'm working with a trusted friend/partner on websites - he's doing the programming & some config, and I'm doing the rest. He's way better at all that than I was anyway.

Anyhow... now I'm nervous. I've never had to pay out anyone else for work. How should I do this for tax purposes? The (for me) simplest solution would be for clients to just give us 2 checks but obviously I can't do that. So.. anyone have experience on this? Is it finally time to get an accountant? Any tips here would be really appreciated.

Thanks!

I am graduating in the spring and am looking for a live/work area. Does anyone know if there are artist colonies that are geared to designers and visual artists (rather than fine/studio arts..)?

Thanks in advance.

Can someone tell me if this is ethical? My boss just hired a good friend of his to come work with us (Full time...with benefits). This person does everything I do. This is her first week-- and just so you know, I've been full-time freelance at this place until recently — they cut my hours in half (plus I never had benefits).

No worries about that for now. The issue here is, this lady is expecting me to share all my methods with her. I'm having to teach her things in Illustrator and Photoshop so She can finish up projects -- that if assigned to me, I could get done asap. I can't help shake the feeling that I'm 'training' her so that she can learn my ways, and they can let me go. Do I have to teach her these things? It feels wrong.

If I refuse to teach her or 'show some attitude' I may be told that I'm not acting "like a team player". I guess I don't have a lot of stature in this company because I'm "at-will" freelance and can be let go at any time. I would like some advice from you all about how to handle this. Thank you.

Hello All!

I'm working on a new logo for a small design studio a friend and I are starting in the small town of Brentwood, CA. We are both fresh out of college and want to reflect our fun, playful and unique design styles. Though the previously listed are important, we would ideally like to straddle the fine line of being fun, without loosing the respect of being professionals.  There are several details that still need to be worked on (line weight, kerning between the i and the o etc.) but wanted to get some outside input on the art direction before finishing this concept up!

With that being said, I'd love to hear what this community thinks. The good, the bad, and the great! =p

Have a great day, and thanks ahead of time for your time and input!


*For anyone who may be wondering: idio is a root word meaning peculiar, personal, distinct (yes its the rood word of idiot)

I checked the tags for anything on this topic, but wasn't able to find anything.

Anyway, I'm looking to apply for a part-time internship (still a student), but they mention that they want your cover letter and resumé in .doc format. My resumé, understandably, was not made in Word, so I'm wondering what approaches I should take to convert it into a Word document. I still want to make it stand out, but not really sure how I can do that. Especially since I don't want formatting to break on newer/older versions of Word.

My resumé itself isn't extensively designed or anything (see it here. Sorry for the lorem ipsum, it's in the process of being updated), but it doesn't use a "standard" font, and it also somewhat matches the design of my portfolio site. I'm mostly concerned about font choice/use of colour.

Any help/guidance on this would be really appreciated. I'm also wondering if I should try and format the cover letter to match the resumé.

So I'm developing my personal design logo for my future design business. Its been through various modifications and concepts. In my logo, I wanted it to speak to the past (read ancient artwork, symbols and patterns), but stay a bit modern. I'm focusing on print and infographics so that's why the colors are CMYK.

I probably should add that my "name" is K Glyphics and the logo is made out of "K"s flipped in different directions.

The only thing I'm worried about and some people agree with me, does it look too religious?

Any other thoughts you have on it would be great.

Here is an ad campaign that is blatantly trying to court controversy in order to get attention. There's also some discussion about the possibility that it breaches Canadian advertising standards.

( Cut for potentially triggering imagery )

What are your thoughts? Where do you personally draw the line? Would you participate in such a campaign, and why or why not?

Just thought you guys might enjoy this. Apparently Abercrombie & Fitch has paid Jersey Shore cast members NOT to wear their products. Beautiful.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/story/2011/08/17/abercrombie-fitch-jersey-shore.html

 Thank you for your responses on my last question. 

Another quick question:


I'm currently updating my resume, and I had a project fall through but I did do work for them that was paid, do I include this in my resume in my Achievements or in my "Previously Employed" section?


I have them now in "previously employed" since I worked for them, but didn't really finish anything significant. 

What would you do?

I've recently been offered a job as an hourly W2 contract employee OR a 1099 contractor. I'm not exactly sure what this means. I was told that as a 1099 contractor, you are subject to a freelance tax of ~7% that you have to pay. A salary employee however usually only pays half that, and the employer pays half. Can someone give me more information on this? I'm trying to make the standard going rate for my position but I'm not sure how to figure out what that translates to as a contractor. I'm not sure you can post numbers in this forum but I can tell you my target salary if it would help.

What are the things I should watch out for in this situation? They also offered me salary but at $17k lower than I was looking for so we fell out of that negotiation and went into contract due to all the additional costs to the employer. Now I'm not so sure I should have done that, as it seems all the expenses I'm responsible for are going to hurt me a lot in the end anyway.

Thank you--

Hey there,

I purchased a laptop not understanding the underpowered nature of the Intel Celeron CPU and am looking for a replacement. Recently I've been getting more projects that require much much more processing power to run efficiently- particularly the latest involving layout creation for an entire book. When I was mostly doing single sheet posters/ fliers/ etc. a Celeron was fine.

So what kind of set up do you have? Dual-core or quad-core CPUs? Did you build up your own computer tower or did you get it ready made?

What about laptops? If you need to take your work on the go are there laptops better suited for graphic design? Are those dual-core laptops worth it?

 I've been burned twice by clients this summer who refused to contact me to continue projects and when one finally did  she sent the project off to someone else to finish without even telling me after all the calls I left and emails I sent. I even had a deposit down for this chick and I thought deposits where supposed to prevent this!!

The other client wanted some work done during the summer after I did a web comp for him in the spring. I've called him and emailed him a dozen times with no response at all...

What can I do to prevent this from happening? I'm getting rather tired of clients not following up on communication, not telling me why they don't want to work with me anymore. 

I know I can't force anyone to do anything, but a little email or phone call back updating me couldn't hurt... 

I have a review coming up in October and I am planning on asking for a significant raise, as I have essentially taken on a lot more responsibilities. I was looking on salary.com to get an idea of what i *should* be making. Their numbers seem a little high...or everyone I know is significantly underpaid. So:

1) Does anyone have links to salary surveys that are fairly current (i live in ohio, if it changes anything)? I remember seeing info graphics and such on this topic a lot in the past, but google isn't being helpful.

2) How much (percentage wise) is too much to ask for? safe? base line (basically cost of living increase only)?

Thanks for any help!

Hey all,

I'm working on a very large project which involves creating a lot of different master pages in Adobe's InDesign CS5 for a large public health manual. The manual will easily be larger than 150 pages. I've never worked on this large a project before (and the people I'm working with know that- so it's no secret :) ) so I'm wondering how you organize your files for easy retrieval when you need them.

Would you set up a file directory for all the master pages, another for all the pages being worked on, and another for finished projects? Or would you set up a different file for each master page and then a file inside that file for each page in the process of being created?

I hope that was clear enough. I'll try my best to be clearer if necessary. Thanks!

I'm really hoping someone here can help me.

I'm looking to set up my own website to serve as a resume/CV site. I already have one set up at eclecticlibrarian.co.uk, but I'm not happy with it. I don't have the skills to make it look the way I want; I don't have my own web hosting; I can't figure out WordPress to save my life.

I'd love a site akin to this or this. I have no idea what the going rate is for webdesign - I've come across sites that will do it for £75 and others that charge £3000. I can probably afford around £200, which is probably far too little, I know.

Profoundest apologies if I missed this in the archives.

Basically, I got in touch with another designer about an overflow project and he told me that he's found another business opportunity and is looking to gradually transition all his clients to someone else. He told me if I'm interested to send him my "thoughts on how we could work together to create a win-win solution." I just wanted to talk to other people who have experience with this as I have always find my own clients and set my own rules. For example, how would we both get paid? Do I set my price, and would he add on to that before he gave it to the client? Otherwise, what would he get out of it (financially)? Does he just send his clients an email saying someone else is in charge of them now or does he get some kind of credit?
He seems like a trustworthy guy, but I just wanted to see how this generally works and what I would be entitled to before I talked to him.

Thanks so much!

•••Question 1•••
I'm working on a 50-something page directory made up of businesses formatted like this-

Legend travel
Tel: 06-6281-8600

Nikka Air Service
Tel: 078-222-2337

No.1 Travel
Osaka Tel: 06-6345-4700
www.no1-travel.com

In 2 columns per page. Some of the listings have 1 line of information, others have up to 10. There are two hard returns separating each listing.

I don't want to listings to break between columns. If the website or phone number is going to be end up in the next column, I want it to automatically bump the entire listing to the next column instead. Is there a way to do this? I feel like there is and I've just forgotten it...

EDIT: Solved. :) If you're curious: It's in the paragraph style options, under "Keep options." I changed the business name's style to "Keep with next 3 lines." That took care of most of the problem listings, and I manually bumped the rest of them to the next column with a soft return or two.

•••Question 2•••
I used to be a member of AIGA, but I live in Japan now. I'd like to join some kind of design organization, but the Japanese equivalent (JAGDA) is all in Japanese... and while I can speak/read enough to fill out a membership form, it would be difficult for me to get much out of it. I'd rather join something that is primarily in English or at least multi-lingual. Are any of you guys members of international design organizations, or would you recommend one over the other? Thanks!

Hi all,
I'm a recent graduate and got hired a couple months ago into a full time position for a large corporation. That being said it's not very stimulating creatively and was wondering if there were any sites such as www.buildhappy.net (which is sadly kinda dead now) that post "assignments" or exercises.

(I think this kind of question is allowed, my apologies if it isn't)

Thanks in advance!

Hey All,

I'm Selena. I am reaching out to you fine designers/art directors out there for a critique of some current portfolio pieces. I currently have my portfolio on Behance as I've taken up learning Maya instead of web dev so coding a site myself is a no go at the momento.

If you have a moment and wouldn't mind giving me honest and helpful feedback - that would rock.

Please take a look and give me some critical feedback. I'm looking for suggestions on pieces I should remove, highlight, types of pieces to add that i may be lacking, Suggestions for growth, etc...

http://be.net/SelenaCarter/frame

Thank you all so much in advance!

Selena :)

I picked up Seth Godin's book "Linchpin", because I like the way he thinks. I had no idea that he would speak so much about art in his book, and about how the artist interacts with corporate environments.

If you're frustrated with those that don't understand who you are and what you do, this book might be for you.

I just moved to a new city - really I'm half-way moved, a LOT of stuff is back at the old digs.

DOH! I left my contract book (AGA) and I've got a marketing client.

Any sources out there I could dig up? Basically it's a flyer campaign, making the collateral and branding, and negotiating the contracts with the distributors etc...

It's for a very small amount of money but I would like to do a contract with the lady. Anyone have a good source, online, that is trusted?

Thank you friends!

I've got my first proper job interview coming up this week, and I've been going through the tags and found some great advice, but I was wondering if anyone had any tips or advice on actually talking through your portfolio. (I haven't seen anything specifically discussing this part of the interview, if I've missed something, I apologize, please let me know!)

I've flipped through Flaunt, a book on portfolios, which mentioned that about half of the designers they spoke to preferred to take the lead when looking through a portfolio, while the rest expected the interviewee to walk them through it. I'd like to be prepared for both options obviously, but I'm clueless about how exactly I'd go about talking through it.

Is it appropriate to ask how they prefer to go through it? And more importantly, if I am walking them through it, do I just place the portfolio in front of them, watch upside down, and do all the page turning myself? It just seems horribly awkward any way I imagine it really.

I've included sketches and other visual bits of process before each final piece, so I know I'll be discussing that, but is there anything in particular I should make sure I address? And how long is too long for each project? I don't want to gloss over everything, but I'm terrified of taking up too much time.

And lastly, it seems like good practice to at least leave behind your resume, or, according to that book Flaunt, start by handing them your resume, but if I've already sent it to them, wouldn't they already have it? Is there a smooth way of leaving that sort of thing?

Any advice or experiences related to this would be much appreciated!

I didn't see this in the archives (I'm sorry if I missed it!), so I thought I'd give this question a whirl...

As a student designer, I have taken the advice of many other designers and I am trying to create an online presence (until I'm out in 'the real world) using my real name rather than a third-person/company name.

For fellow graphic designers who use their real name or developed logos for other people using their real name, how did you approach creating a logo? Perhaps the answer is obvious, that it's supposed to be approached like any other job, but I was wondering what your creative process was like? Not all names can be used in a creative way to connect to graphic design...Did you just use your initials or the whole name?

I'd like to do a logo in this lettering style. I've seen it before, I know it's based on an old-fashioned style but don't know anything else about it really. Is this hand-lettered (I assume, atleast heavily manipulated if not)? Any recommendations on fonts like this? Also, what is this style *called* ? I've been seeing a lot of it the past few years, also with the intricate art noveau-style borders .. Does anyone know of any other good examples of this lettering style being used? I'd love some more inspiration for this!

Thanks!

Jamie

Hi!

The question is rather meant for those who create print work (AND use/have used Pantone colors for it).

If you don't, how do you manage choosing Pantone colors?

I've been hesitant to buy one as it's pricey, and it's also not that often that the project/client requires using Pantone. And till now there hasn't been that huge a need for precision in the projects I've worked on. Most of the time I just judge by what I see on the screen. However, this time the client wants the color scheme to be very vibrant (the product is a plastic bread bag), and the only way I can think of how to ensure it is leaving a note for the printer and leaving choosing some vibrant greens up to them (and perhaps giving them the PMS numbers *I think* could be close, for approx. guidance?). Sounds terribly unprofessional now that I've written it, I know. :o

I've been doing some research about this lately, and reading about the TN Visa for NAFTA Professionals. I've found some US government sites (like this page) that have details about how to get the visa and what the supporting documents are.

Some of the language is a little unclear though. This part is confusing me: "Canadian citizens usually do not need a visa as a NAFTA Professional, although a visa can be issued to qualified TN visa applicants upon request."

This page only adds to my confusion, because it doesn't mention needing a Visa to work in the US.

From what I can tell, self-employment for US clients while in the US is not allowed. But I'm okay to freelance with clients outside the US. I've done this on vacation and specifically mentioned to US Customs that I'd be working for Canadian clients, which they seemed okay with.


If there are any members in this group who might have had experience working as a Canadian in the US as a NAFTA professional (with or without a Visa), I'd appreciate some insight. Or if anyone has suggestions on anywhere else I can find more details, that would be great too.


On to my questions:
If I get a job offer from a US company to work on-site, do I need to get a TN Visa before starting work, or would I be allowed to enter the US to work without one? I can't find anything about length of time, so I'm mostly concerned that I could be denied entry if I were offered a long-term position and tried to enter the US without a return ticket and without a TN Visa. I'm guessing the safest thing to do would be to apply for the Visa, but it would be nice to know all my options.

I might contact OHIP regarding my provincial health insurance if I did get a long term offer, because otherwise my OHIP coverage would lapse. If I get an extension on that, would it help serve as proof that I only intend to stay temporarily? I'm not looking to change my non-immigrant status yet.


Any help is appreciated, as always. Thanks!

EDIT: after more research, it looks like as a Canadian citizen, I only need to get TN status at the border, not a visa. Seems like a fairly straightforward process too. The visa version seems only to be necessary for Canadians who aren't citizens. Not sure about anyone from Mexico, because I was focusing only on what was relevant to my situation. I'm including this note in case it's useful to anyone else in future, though I suspect it's not very common to need this for graphic design.

So whassup community, I have a question I'm hoping one of y'all can help me with.

I just started working at a screen printing shop, I've been there 2 weeks, and the designer who was supposed to train me quit this week. (on the bright side, I'm getting a raise.) I have managed to learn pretty quickly, but I'm stuck on this one thing...

Keep in mind, I've been only working with CMYK printing since 2005, this is my first time in screen printing. In addition to designing I also have to physically separate the colors and print the films used to burn the screens for printing. Vector art, no problem. Raster art has proven to be trickier (I finally figured out how to make a halftone, yay!) But my main question: is there any way to take a scanned photo or a digital drawing and convert it into spot color channels? As it is I cannot seem to Google my way into a solution, maybe I'm not searching for the right phrases.

Thanks in advance!

Like many others, I am saddened by the demise of the illustration community here on LJ. I decided it was time to fill that gap to some degree, with a new community focused on visual communications.

vis_comm is a community for sharing, critique and discussion of professional visual communications work, including iconography, logos, illustration, design, advertising and information graphics.



Please note, it is not an "art" community. The work shared and discussed should be communications-related.

I hope you'll join up and share it with others - it would be great to see the community grow into something really valuable!

I've just graduated college and need to get my portfolio finished up, but I'm having a tough time deciding on a particular format. I've been reading a ton of old posts here on portfolios, but I'd love to get some opinions on the advantages and disadvantages of these options, as I have no experience with any of them.

I like the idea of being able to easily change or reorder my work, so I was kind of leaning towards a screwpost book (like this), but I'm not sure about where I could get things printed. I live in a small town, and I'm doubtful about whether or not something like Staples prints at an appropriate quality. I've also never seen 11x14 paper, but 11x17 seems like it's branching into an awkward size to show. Are there any quality printers that print individual pages and take online orders?

I was also considering just printing a book from blurb.com. My problem with that is it means I can't go in and change anything once it's done. That makes me nervous. I'm afraid of designing something that won't last me long at all, and I'm not sure if the simplicity is worth it.

If anyone's had a book printed from blurb, would it be difficult to show during an interview, because of the binding? They look like they might not want to lay flat.

And one last quick question, as far as paper goes, would it best to go with a matte finish to reduce glare, or will that make for less visually appealing images?

So I decided to take out the ugly black text... and changed the dG to GS... My reasoning for the dG was that my site is design glo and my business is gloria stovall design. So I came to terms with it all and came up with this. I don't think I need any clarifying text but we'll see. Anyway, thanks for hte feedback guys! <3 (still haven't chosen colors or anything, but I'm thinking something pretty simple and not too obnoxious like this or the grey from the last iteration) 

 

Hey there, just kinda playing around because I have really been putting off creating a logo for myself. Anyway, I figured I would put something together that was simple and see if it would help me get some ideas going. Well... its not :-P So I was hoping I could get some feedback from some other eyes.Thanks!

Hello everyone! I recently checked the 'beginners' tag and did some reading but I don't think it would hurt to have another more recent post. Mods, feel free to delete if need be.

I'm currently about to graduate from art school with a BFA in Illustration. I've had two internships at two big-name magazines and a smaller one at an online publication, so I guess it's safe to say I have publication design experience (barely). My dream job would either be working at a magazine or doing signage/invitations/marketing graphics for a design/fashion/beauty brand but I have no idea where to start. All the job postings I see require a couple years experience and even if I landed those internships with my illustration portfolio, I don't think anyone would even look at it for a full-time design job.

Can anyone point me in the right direction with what I need to do? I guess giving myself mini-projects would be good. I'm well versed in InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator but I guess I have no idea about visual hierarchies, typography, etc.

(I can upload PDFs of some of the design work I did if anyone wants to take a gander. And if anyone wants to critique my illo. work, I'd appreciate it! http://brittanyhollowaybrown.com)

edited to add::
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B0Wh79ozyn0JY2RmN2ZmZTYtMzQwMS00YWFiLWI5Y2UtMWE5ODMxZThhMjdi&hl=en&authkey=CNuPpMcP

this is a link to some of my ~*~*design work. the first two slides are personal practice mag spreads. the third, fourth and fifth are design work i did at my internships (seventeen mag (which had to go with the aesthetic of the mag) and ladies' home journal) and the last couple are from a book i designed my junior year. i'm definitely going to re-shoot it, my nails are awful u___u

So a bit of jiggling, a bit of asking others and this is the state of play...
( scissor-destiny )

1)
How many of you have jobs where you must track your time? To what extent do you have to track it (to the minute including breaks/lunch, general estimates of time spent on client work, etc)? Do you have a minimum number of hours you need to track a day? Do you have monetary penalties if you do not track your time for a day?

2)
I graduated in 2007 and started at my current job late that summer. I am considering taking the early preparations of getting my portfolio back together to consider other options with in the next year or two. I feel really out of the game job application wise. What is an appropriate way to display my portfolio (more in a meeting situation—obviously a website is a must)? When I graduated I had that standard screw post 11x17 book, but I'm not sure that is the standard for someone with nearly 5 years of experience.

Thanks for any and all insight and guidance.

Stock photos have emerged as a source of some controversy during the Canadian election campaigns that are currently running. The issue? The same photos being used by various opposing campaigns. hehe

This photogenic family has appeared in Conservative, NDP and Liberal campaign materials



source

And this woman (who supports neither of the parties) has appeared in materials for the Bloc and for the Cons.



source

Since the campaigns are only a few weeks long I can understand their decision to use stock, but it's pretty comical to watch the "layman" react to the use of stock. Some people are saying it's deceptive, that they expect that the photos used should be of actual supporters.

What do you think? Should political campaigns avoid the use of stock photos when including images of people in their materials? How would you respond differently to campaign materials that used photos of actual supporters, even if the quality was a bit lower than the glossy stock ones other campaigns were using? Do you feel campaigns have a responsibility to represent reality in their materials?

What are your thoughts on different sized business cards?

At my school, they tell us to never be standard. Most of my professors had different sized cards and they're AAA top of the field.

I've heard the argument that they won't fit in a standard rolodex or something. To which I say: It's 2011. I keep cards I like on my bulletin board and just put all contact info into my phone anyway.

I ask, because my favorite identity system--for me--has a huge card. I'm trying to decide whether to go forward with that one or do a new one from scratch.

I'll share pictures tomorrow, I need to find my box of cards.

Hello all. I'm Portuguese, as are most of my clients. Portuguese language has lots of accented characters (ã, é, ô, etc). Most text fonts include those glyphs, so it's usually not a problem, but sometimes I get other fonts for titles and feel the need to ad the accent by myself. I usually tend to add a little line over the character or something, but I'm clueless about proper typography rules when dealing with this and I hope you can help me.

So basically, do you know of any resource that will help me understand the proper way to add an accent (or other special glyphs since we're at it) to a font that already exists?

Thanks!

Earlier I posted about Wordpress, seeking both criticisims (a bit strongly) and praise..

Recently found: Check it HERE.
Just found it fascinating...
If you are interested in security issues etc, you can see why I sort of bristle when I see wordpress... as a sort of easy-out for a lot of designers.
Just wanted to follow up...
k

hey fellow designers! my name is natalie and i'm from minneapolis, minnesota. i just wanted to give you guys the lowdown on my new creative arts & culture zine issue, the flood #3. it's a project i've been working on for about 3 years now and it started very small with a catalogue of mainly just my friends' artwork, but now i've gotten to the point where i get artwork submissions from all over the world - SO EXCITING.

i wanted to extend an invitation to all those designers who may want to be featured in the next issue which comes out this july! i am also looking for people who may want to contribute regular articles on art, design, fashion, photography, books, music, or even just anything that's inspiring you at the moment. if you're interested in getting involved in any way, you can get in contact with me through any of the following links:

E-MAIL: thefloodzine@gmail.com
WEBSITE/DAILY INSPIRATION POSTS: http://www.thefloodzine.com
OUR MAGAZINE SHOP: http://www.thefloodshop.etsy.com

thanks!
N