10 Things the World Cup Taught Me About Design
For the last month, most of the world has been enthralled by the World Cup, which concluded Sunday in Brazil. (Germany won the title, 1-0, if you missed it.) The world’s largest sporting event made me think about the lessons football (or soccer for those of us in the USA) can teach us about design.
Sport is a lot like design. It’s competitive. It’s timed with deadlines. It leaves a lasting impression. The similarities are quite fantastic and here are 10 lessons I learned while watching the World Cup this month. (As a bonus, you’ll find World Cup design goodies featured with this article.)
July 14th, 2014 Posted in Inspiration
This Week in Design: July 11, 2014
One of my favorite design gurus relaunched his site this week and it’s got me thinking about good design practices. This week, we’ll look at that site “reboot” and other things that make good design.
Every week, we plan to a look at major product releases and upgrades, tools and tricks and even some of the most popular things you are talking about on social media. And we’d love to hear what’s going on in your world as well. Have we missed anything? Drop me a line at carrie@designshack.net.
July 11th, 2014 Posted in This Week in Design
How to Create an Emotional Connection With Design
Every project you complete connects with users in some way. The design communicates a message and a tone. The emotional tone is what we are going to take a deeper look at and try to better understand.
Emotional connections fall into four basic category pairs – joy and sadness, trust and disgust, fear and anger, and surprise and anticipation. Understanding this range of emotion and how it relates to a visual message is important so that your design projects are received as they are intended. As you read through this post, take a look at the featured websites and think about how each one makes you feel and what parts of the visual aesthetic contributes to that emotion.
July 9th, 2014 Posted in Graphics
Giveaway: $700 of PSD to HTML Services Up for Grabs
We’re excited to bring you another great competition today, from Markup-Service.com, who are giving away $700 worth of their services. It’s a great chance to save your time and energy on coding and get clean, valid and fast-loading markup developed.
Read on to find out a little more about how to enter — it just takes a couple of seconds!
July 8th, 2014 Posted in Competitions
Using Lines and Curves in Design Projects
Some of the most subtle parts of a design can be the most important. Think about some of the details in design projects such as lines and curves. These simple shapes can be used in the foreground, background lettering or as a dominant art element.
Not every line is created the same. From thickness to orientation to amount of curvature, these simple shapes can have quite a bit of meaning. So before you draw that first line, here’s a primer and tips for using lines and curves in design projects.
July 7th, 2014 Posted in Graphics
This Week in Design: July 4, 2014
Beauty, browsers and design clichés. We’re talking about all three this week. And, of course, the World Cup. (We’ve got a little design goodie for that too.) The underlying theme that connects these elements this week is web and digital design. It’s an increasingly important part of the life of every designer, with very few people just working on print anymore.
Every week, we plan to a look at major product releases and upgrades, tools and tricks and even some of the most popular things you are talking about on social media. And we’d love to hear what’s going on in your world as well. Have we missed anything? Drop me a line at carrie@designshack.net.
July 4th, 2014 Posted in This Week in Design
Giveaway: Win Any Template From TemplateMonster
It has been a year since we hosted a giveaway together with TemplateMonster. We noticed that you like getting premium WordPress themes for free, so today we’re back with another giveaway!
Moreover, the new giveaway is even more attractive than the previous one because there will be more winners and this time you can win any template from TemplateMonster! Read on to find out more.
July 2nd, 2014 Posted in Competitions
The Science Behind Color and Emotion
Color resonates with people in different ways. We all have a favorite color or color that we use more during specific periods of life. But the color you use in a design project can say a lot about the work itself. That’s a scientific fact.
The science behind our emotional connections to color is a complicated one. But it is becoming more clear through anecdotal knowledge and scientific experimentation. Here are five hypotheses and a fifth-grade level experiment you can try to help us better design with color and understand its emotional impact.
June 30th, 2014 Posted in Graphics, Inspiration
This Week in Design: June 27, 2014
This week in design an unofficial theme came together by chance – illustration. From hand lettering to an illustration design winner to drawing versus taking photos, creating something with your hands is an important part of the design process. At some point almost every one of us draws something by hand. (Although if you are like me, many of those sketches never leave the safe-haven of your notebook.)
Every week, we plan to a look at major product releases and upgrades, tools and tricks and even some of the most popular things you are talking about on social media. And we’d love to hear what’s going on in your world as well. Have we missed anything? Drop me a line at carrie@designshack.net.
June 27th, 2014 Posted in This Week in Design
Design Dilemma: Screwed by Art School
Oh, my! Another complaint that an art school didn’t truly prepare a student to succeed in the outside world. For the serious student, too young and inexperienced to know what courses will strengthen their career chances and choices, a bad art school is a huge mistake. Today’s dilemma involves one of those people. What can you do when you wake up years after graduating and realize your degree isn’t offering the value you hoped it would?
Join us as we delve into another graduation party Design Dilemma, helping to answer your questions, queries and concerns about the murky world of design.
June 25th, 2014 Posted in Design Dilemma