When talking about intelligent design, we are not talking about the creation of man. This about making smart choices.

There are some very basic things about design that one can learn that can vastly improve one’s ability to make appealing and intelligent creations. Some of those things are:

1. Lining Things Up

2. Using Variation

3. Giving Breathing Room - white space

4. Using the Grid

5. The Golden Section

6. Using similar font families thru out

7. Lining Things Up!

Things that line up look nice. Things that are all over the place don’t look nice. Of course, one must know rules to know which ones to break, so these rules are only guidelines. In general though, straight or smooth lines are appealing. Jagged and inconsistent lines are less likely to be appealing. A design with many elements lining up and a few elements that don’t can create nice contrast, yet starting with things that line up is a nice easy rule for beginners.

To support these statements, lets look at examples of man-made objects. Roads, desks, walls, buildings, orange juice containers. The forms of all these objects are straight or consistent and any deviation from this norm is considered mildly repulsive.

Lets look at desks. Obviously straight and even desks are good for writing, fit against straight walls well and look nice, at least to me. Buildings, like desks are convenient shapes for space efficiency, map drawing, road creation, furniture and room modularity. Sure, curved buildings are beautiful too, yet the curves are often very even, and more often than not, the curve is accompanied by a straight line in another dimension.

OK, orange juice - very nice to ship little square boxes. Long rectangles make a nice canvas for marketing. If the straight lines are not straight, but crumpled or dented, chances are you won’t buy that carton.

All of these are man-made objects that benefit in usability from straight or evenly curved lines. Lets take a look at nature. Trees are basically straight lines. The trunks of a redwood forest all go in one direction with remarkable consistency. (That direction is up, by the way, unless you are on the opposite side of the Earth, in which case it would be down.) Again, this is usability for the tree - a competition in height to get to the sun. Leaves - straight veins out to the tips - same idea, get some (light). Curvature of the earth - smoother than the curvature of an 8 ball. Something to do with gravity which, for existence as we know it, is quite useful.

OK, OK, but how does this apply to my intelligent ___________ (fill in the blank - web site, ad, package design, solar electric car, hair)?

For your designs, line up your stuff in straight lines. Line up images so that image edges are lined up with image edges and lines, text with text, and other elements inline with other elements. This is a fundamental design principle yet, some websites are all over the place with every image and section of text every which way.

Using Variation

Things that line up and have no variation are boring. For example, straight long roads with no turns are quite boring. The 58 zigzags across the arid Southern California desert, between mountains, with every few miles a turn. The 5 goes in one straight line for mile after mile after hour after hours. Which would you rather drive?

Likewise, with web sites, if everything lines up on the same line, the page is likely to look very boring. You can change it up with:

1. Bold Titles

2. Lists of items

3. Indented text

All these things break up the monotony of straight lines and can add rhythm to a design. Yet if there is too much breaking up of the lines, the design can become junky looking noise That is hard to read. Hey, no doubt - some people are into that.

Giving Design elements Room to Breathe

Even things that line up do not generally look good if they can’t breathe. Putting text right against the edge of another element has a claustrophobic feel. Some sites pack in so much information on one page that there are no margins or breathing space between elements. The result is in uncomfortableness and unreadability. Give your images and text margins, frames or room to breathe.

Use the Grid, Luke

To help you line things up, use graph paper, the Adobe Photoshop grid or draw a measured grid yourself. In the final design this grid is usually removed, but used in layout to ensure things line up nicely. Experienced designers often intuitively use a grid without physically having a grid in the design.

The Golden Section

There is a thing called the golden section, the golden ratio or the divine proportion. If you’re really into math, you can do a search to learn more. For those of us not so into math, the Golden Section is a little more than a third. If you take a picture, it just happens to look real nice if you show a little more than two thirds sky. The same applies to many forms of composition. This golden section has some relation to basic geometry that seems to resonate with a human’s sense of beauty.

Conclusion

When designing things, remember: Line things up, but don’t get boring. Use grids to line things up. The golden section appeals.

I cant believe they are giving this beautiful iPhone theme away. Its super simple to install, just upload it as a plug in and activate. It detects when you are on an iPhone and displays your Wordpress blog like a native iPhone app. 

Now if your a designer then you will not be happy with the basic design. No problem, just edit the image and CSS files to  make it your own. It comes with starter icons but you can add your own. 

Couple this with the iPhone admin theme and you are a mobile blogging master. 

A lot of ideas get tossed around and thats why I’m looking forward to IZEAFEST. What is IZEAFEST you ask. It’s a 3 day event to educate and connect bloggers and advertisers. 

IZEAFEST is Sept 11th - 13th at the Grand Bohemian Hotel Orlando Florida. I will be able to meet other social marketers and content creators, hear innovative and creative internet personalities and learn how to blog better.

Speakers, just to name a few:
Jeremy Schoemaker   blogger/author     shoemoney.com
Merlin Mann              blogger/author    43folders.com
Brian Clark                 blogger    copyblogger.com
Katia Adams              ineractive mgr.    1-800-flowers.com
John Chow                 blogger    johnchow.com

With sessions titled “Hold the Cheese: Building a Smart Blog for a Smart Audience” and “Social Networking: What does it do for you?”. I can’t wait to learn some new tricks for creating and marketing blogs for me and my clients. 

As a co-founder of SLASH 3 MEDIA, a social media marking agency, I know the value of social marketing and blogging is one of the most cost effective forms of marketing today.

I have helped many fortune 500 brands market their products through social media. However, most companies cringe and shudder at the thought of giving away control of their advertising messages to content creators. 

Why would advertisers feel this way when its been proven that “word of mouth” is the best advertising around and we bloggers do it best! We have a loyal constant flow of readers and those readers trust in us to “spread the word”. 

I am looking forward to learning more ways to help ease the process of connecting my clients to content creators and hear influential bloggers and industry people tell their insider secrets.

IZEAFEST is sure to help anyone who wants to learn tricks about becoming a more professional blogger and where else can you look Mr. John chow in the eye and ask how he really makes that mad blog cash.

See you at the pool!

The idea that good design can improve how people perceive your business has long been a part of a designer’s sales tools. They try to convince you that by improving your image, maybe creating a new logo or changing the way you communicate with your customers you can somehow improve sales and improve your bottom line. But are they right?

Over the years many companies have been sceptical about these claims because of a lack of concrete evidence. Designers struggle to back up their claims with written evidence and so this argument for good design often falls down at the first hurdle.

Companies fail to understand why they should invest time and money in improving their visual identity if there is no tangible result.

However, last year The Design Council released the results of a groundbreaking study on the link between the use of design and financial performance. The study published in March 2008 finally recognised the direct relationship between effective use of design and financial performance.

The study looked at 166 design-led UK quoted companies over a period from 1994 to 2008. A group of 63 companies were recognised as effective users of design. This was based on the fact that they consistently appeared in the listings at various design award schemes.

The study reveals these 63 companies outperformed by around 200% between 1994 and 2008.

The Design Council is a professional body which supports the work of the UK design industry. It works to demonstrate and promote the vital role of design within business and the wider UK economy.

A recent study by the Design Council, Design in Britain, based on an annual business survey of 1,500 companies of all sizes and sectors, shows companies using design to innovate and stand out are growing faster than their competitors are.

According to the in-depth research, a third of the UK’s fastest growing companies see design as integral to their business, while only 11 per cent of businesses with a decreasing turnover have this view.

The figures confirm the impact of design across sales, profits, quality, share price, market share and competitiveness.

Using design throughout your business ultimately boosts the bottom line by helping you create better products and services that compete on value rather than price.

How do you convince a client on a redesign?

I put together this little tutorial to explain Photoshops save for web and devices feature. It’s little more than resizing correctly and then choosing a few save options to best suit the type of image. 

Resize Correctly
Make sure you know the width of your blogs posts to ensure you size images correctly. Some blog templates resize images via CSS and are actually crunching a much larger photo to look smaller but the file size remains the same thus defeating the purpose of optimizing.

In wordpress you can find out your blog posts width via the style sheet. The id may be different than what I’m showing here but it will usually be 400-600 px wide. 

My id is #mainCol and the width is 435 px. So I would not want to have any post images larger than 435 px. I would choose Image => Image Size and resize my image to 72px with a width of 435 px. There is one exception to this rule and that is image galleries where you want to reader able to click to a larger photo. Use the image gallery option for these type of photos. Most blog platforms resize a thumbnail for you. This is not that tutorial

Image Modes
When working on images you get a few mode options to choose from; RBG, CMYK, INDEX, LAB. RGB is for anything shown on a screen like a computer monitor. What we want to convert our image to is INDEX mode.

Index mode allows you to limit the colors used in an image to specific palette. The indexed palette can have up to 256 unique colors. This must be done after you resize the image or distortion will happen. You are basically taking out colors that you really can’t see thus making the image size smaller.

Save For Web
This is where you will have to make choices on your own. You can save to varied options that best suit the image being optimized. If the image is like clip art you might be able to save as a gif or if its a photograph a jpg will do better.

Click File => Save for web and devices

Choose the 4 up option so you can compare different options to get the best image quality for the least amount of file size. You will be surprised by how small you can get the image size without sacrificing image quality.

Here are some examples of blog post image sizing.

The full size: 503kb jpg - Click the photo and you will see the real size. Image scaled through CSS. This is a great option to have as a fail safe when uploading images but should not be relied on.

The resized image: 232 kb jpg - This has been scaled to fit the blog post width of 435 px cutting file size in half. not bad but can we do better?

Resized and optimized: 60kb jpg - I chose the jpg as this is a photograph and put the quality slider at 75%. Adjust this setting to fine tune your image. 

Compare this image with the one above. Can you see a difference?  503 kb, 232 kb or 60 kb? Instead of one photo in a post you could have 8 for the same bandwidth. This really helps when you do those top 100 images type postings. 

I hope this helps you optimize your blog post images for mobile viewers. To get really technical you should optimize every last graphic on your site or have a completely different style sheet for mobile viewers. 

If anyone has more suggestions please comment below

During the 80’s, the advent of desktop publishing and of design software such as Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Fireworks, put the power and versatility of the computer at graphic designers’ fingertips. Designers for the first time were easily able to manipulate images and create 3D images using the computer. Computers are now considered to be an indispensable tool in the graphic design industry, though some traditional graphic designers may still prefer to use manual and traditional tools for their creative endeavors.

With modern graphic design concepts and methodologies always changing, graphic designers need to continually advance their knowledge of different graphic design techniques, innovations and graphic design software packages. At present, the basic instructions in graphic designing cannot guarantee for a competitive product anymore without the use of high technology, so that the demand for highly skilled graphic designers is higher than ever.

To become a computer graphic designer, the basic requirements include good creative abilities, good computers skills, and good communication skills.

Computer aided graphic design helps graphic designers complete their tasks faster and easier. They can effortlessly translate ideas into visual imagery, save it onto their computers and edit it whenever alterations are necessary.

There are great many benefits if you undergo computer aided graphic design training geared towards arming you with a wider range of cutting edge graphic design skills. Having computer design training also means a greater choice of employment. Computer graphic design skills are in great demand in such sectors as:

1. Advertising agencies - You can use your newly acquired graphic design skills to design appealing and eye-catching advertisements for different media.

2. Web design companies - Help design appealing web pages.

3. Design studios - Apply your design skills to photo editing such as editing the contrast and the brightness of colors on the photos.

4. Publishing houses - Perform layout design and editing tasks. Publications usually follow a distribution schedule; so make sure you are able to meet deadlines.

5. Corporate advertising departments - Design professional corporate ads.

6. TV and film companies - out of all the other jobs, this is where a graphic designer is most suited as it requires a comprehensive application of the designer’s skill and ability, especially if working on animation films.

Computer graphic design training will open new doors for you into a world of greater opportunities but there still is something to be said about hand made design.

The future of social networking is here. I’m in like with you is a flash based zinger that could have been spawned in Tokyo yet it was created by former NYC child stars Charles and EJ. The site is not your average myspace. It has games, video, drawing and mobile messaging. The entertainment value is pricless and the design is so cute it makes Pokemon look dated. check it out you might get addiction to the sugar high!

I couldn’t agree more with this quote.

Paul Budnitz created Kidrobot in 2002 funded from money he made from selling minidisco.com a $7 million business run on software Budnitz had written himself. Bundnitz and friend Eaton, an illustrator who had work previously on a short film of Bundnitz, created Dunny and Munny, two of Kidrobot’s best selling characters.

With a philosophy of collaboration, Budnitz brought in dozens of other fine artists, graffiti artists, and illustrators to work on toy projects with him.Budnitz has designed or art directed virtually every product created by Kidrobot since the company’s inception include Dunny & Munny, Zoomies, MoochyPooty, and many others.

Budnitz has worked with many of the world’s top artists, designers, and fashion brands. A short list includes artists & illustrators Frank Kozik, Dalek, Doze Green, Tara McPherson, Gary Baseman, Huck Gee, Tristan Eaton, David Horvath, Shepard Fairy, Eboy, Tilt, Mist, Joe Ledbetter, and Paul Pope; Designers including Heatherette, Lemar & Dauley, Jil Sander, Dries Van Noten, Marc Jacobs, Visionaire, and Paul Smith; Musicians including Swizz Beatz, Paul Durham and Black Lab, DJ QBert, and Gorillaz; and brands like Nike, Barney’s NYC, LaCoste, Burton Snowboards, The Standard Hotels, Siemens, and Volkswagon; and many others.

Many Kidrobot toys are extremely rare and collectible and cannot be found anywhere else in the world. Toy artists often choose to create a series of only a few hundred or a few thousand pieces, so once a toy is sold out, it’s sold out forever. Kidrobot toys retail from $6 to $20,000, and may appreciate in value over time.

www.kidrobot.com