When people use the term “business card” we usually associate it with the boring rectangle in 2 or 3 standard sizes and forget about it. Well ok, sometimes someone uses a crazy color. But that’s not enough nowadays to catch the eye now is it? Here are 20 business card ideas that I’ve found that experiment. And surely having one of these given to you, you’d remember the company. Some are even edible!
See them after the break:
As predicted there are a few nice tablets out there with the recent announcments of Motorola Xoom and HP TouchPad joining the already successful iPad. These look and work well and will surely add to the revolution. So is it time to start rebuilding our user experiences on the web yet? Well we can start by using more and more HTML5 / jQuery options. And maybe take a different approach to content. Exciting times to be in the center of the new computing revolution. And I hope to see many great web designs for tablets soon.
Apple has always been known for superior product design. But does it also apply to it’s website? We looked back into the web archive and came up with images from nearly every year, starting in 1998. The last picture is from 2011, and there’s very little change between 2008 and today. Take a look:
Remember all the sci-fi movies in which people are talking to holographic clerks and whatnot? Well it slowly starts today, which basically means that if someone has a cool idea for a movie, sooner or later it will make it to mass production. Sure they’re pretty flat today, not really 3d, and they won’t tell you that you’re their only hope, but still it’s a change towards more machines in our daily lives. And what if they rebel ? :)
All of the images were found on flickr. Click on an image to go to it’s flickr page and if you like it let it’s author know!
It struck me a while back when I saw some designers using ONLY their tablets for all of the work. I mean even moving around the OS and launching apps. Right now desktops are basically having three input metods for designing. One is the graphic tablet, then we have the mouse which is still holding strong, and a new addition – a touchpad. Since the touchpads are pretty new and currently kinda low-res you won’t really have that much control over what you do, but soon that might change too.
I design using both the mouse and a Wacom tablet. The mouse is essential for most designs (well, for me) because simple shapes –> rectangles and ovals are easier to adjust with the mouse. I was trying to recreate the same level of precision on my tablet, and maybe it’s due to it’s relatively low-resolution but it was much harder. Still tablets are good for drawing things, for adding texture with various brushes or masking. For me the best way is to simply use both devices.
Also, the main difference between the mouse and the tablet is – if you’re using a tablet to design something for a couple hours you’ll actually feel more accomplished than if you’d just use the mouse all along. That’s probably due to the fact that using a “pen” makes it seem more like a real creation – our analogue memories kick in and bring us some positive feedback from kindergarten.
What do you prefer?
Watch this video, it’s actually a funny take on the technology wars. Something else for a change.
Whoa, this is actually pretty amazing. I mean the idea is simple enough and many apps made use of the “drawing” ideas, but not like this. Still it would be worth nothing without the ability to export the font … which it HAS! For 8 bucks it’s a steal and you can have your OWN fonts to use for logos and websites in no time! Perfect!
Take a look at the video above and you’ll see that Microsoft’s Kinect is the best thing that came out in 2010. Sure I love the iPad, but still this is far more revolutionary and due to easy hacking people use it for more than punching virtual characters in the face with their own hands.
In fact there are more and more examples on how it can bring the futuristic interfaces from some movies and tv shows to reality. And it’s gonna happen sooner than later. This is kinect controlling a 3d projection.
Whoa, that’s a pretty cool example of what web-apps are capable of. Sure this is actually pretty pointless, but proving it can be done, it opens a window for more advanced web applications of the future. Check it out here:
http://alexw.me/ipad/
Sometimes it’s cool to get off the computer and work on our creativity in a different kinda way. Like with some paper and scissors. See what people on flickr are making, and make your own maybe ?
More below.
The Picasso’ painting “Two characters” looked a little similar to me, when I saw it in a photobook recently, so I searched the web and noticed that some other sites also picked that up. It seems like the finder icon is strongly “inspired” by the painting. Sure it couldn’t be exact (aside from the obvious reasons) because it’s a bit too sad and depressing. But still, can u see it?
As I predicted earlier, the wave of tablets came from this year’s CES. There’s so many of them, both good and bad, that we surely can talk about a revolution in browsing. Some of them run flash, some don’t, some do it in a limited way. But the touch input will be the new browsing in the starting decade. And we should think about that while designing.
That might mean a small revolution in web design, towards a mixture of print and web styles, that are easier to grasp on tablets. Maybe “swipe to change page” mechanisms, more jQuery and Javascript, video and sound. And bigger, clear controls. We’ll see where it goes next, but since most of the internet is about consuming content, we might see a big transformation of the way in which the content is delivered. Exciting times!
We tend to go towards perfection of many kinds constantly in our lives. Technology gives us HD and megapixels for clearer images, higher sampling rates for better audio. Everything is better, faster, stronger. Or whatever.
But at the same time the rising popularity of the imperfections of the yesteryear (especially in visual and sound arts) are a thing that’s really hip today. Yeah, vintage is pretty hip, but it’s not really because of the hipsters, because most of them are way too young to feel nostalgic about these things. They kind of made it their style, but the world doesn’t follow just one group. And yet the world likes noise. The world likes vintage. The world likes slightly warmer colors in photographs, and grain, and smudged borders. Why?
As I said before, it cannot be nostalgia, because yeah, some of us (like me) remember the days of the 80’s point’n’shoot kodak’s but most of the internet now doesn’t. It cannot be just a trend too though. Why you ask ?
Well let me answer that.
A good example is with sound – you take a simple sine-wave and play it. It’s the most basic sound and it’s pretty boring. But when you add some whitenoise, and some crackles, hiss and vinyl distortion you get something far warmer, harmonic and what’s more important natural. Sure we see and hear the world mostly in HD, but we don’t want the reality to be exactly what we see and hear. Especially since it actually never is. Want proof ?
Go record a concert with your phone’s camera. The sound might be getting better with each year and each phone, but it’ll never beat being there. Even with the most pro equipment (like 20 microphones everywhere and preamps) it might sound clear but it still lacks something.
Another example – colors and noise in images. Take a simple square and paint it red. Then take another square, paint it red as well but add a small amount of noise to it. Which one looks “better” or “more natural” ?
In most cases it’s the noisy one, the imperfect one. Because the computer monitor is pretty perfect already, so everything that’s just one color (or even a gradient) looks kind of like plastic. And we don’t like plastic, right?
It’s not even about a regular texture on a color, it’s about making the color a little bit imperfect to make it more real. Because in real life if we look at a red square somewhere it won’t be 100% completely red, unless it’s printed on a glossy high quality paper and it’s not worn out in any way. But give it some time and it will look different.
Those imperfections are of course also present in the videos, with more and more artists adding noise, scratches and discoloration to their videos. And the results? Well we tend to like those videos more for some reason than the crisp and clear HD footage that’s well lit and almost resembles a plastic version of reality. The video below is of an iPhone app that let’s you record some vintage videos. If you watch it you’ll see that it can make even simple shots look nice, without anything going on in them. We’ll probably see a lot more of that vintage trend to come. Because vintage is (in our heads at least) closer to that warm reality we live in.
I always wondered how current web applications would be designed if we should all get back to the computers of yesteryear. You know, the ones with monochrome screens and no graphical UI.
So I made a little quick mockup of the most popular website there is ; facebook. Enjoy! All the hipsters can install that vintage version on their SNES consoles and update their statuses on a 30 year old TV ;)
Click to enlarge ;)
Antrepo Design has decided to redesign the product packaging for a couple of known brands towards a simpler, minimalistic and elegant approach. The thing is, their designs in nearly every case are spot on and should be considered by those brands if they want to stand out.
See more after the break.