PANTONE 15-5519 Turquoise!!!

Pantone LLC, the global authority on color and provider of professional color standards for the design industries, today announced PANTONE® 15-5519 Turquoise, an inviting, luminous hue, as the color of the year for 2010.

Pantone goes on to explain Turquiose as envoking images of tranquil oceans, lush beaches, tropical paradises and healing during stressful times. Its also a popular color in fashion.

Depending on your point of view, Pantone may have missed the mark with last year's pick, Mimosa, which "embodies hopefulness and reassurance in a climate of change." Mimosa may have been wrong with "hopefulness and reassurance" but definitely lived up to the "climate of change" part.

Here's hoping 15-5519 Turquoise lives up to the predictions in 2010. Now I'm off to buy a turquoise t-shirt.

Another type experiment, this time using Gill Sans. The poem is She Walks in Beauty by George Gordon, Lord Byron. The piece was made in poster size (18×24), but I also have a convenient iPhone wallpaper size for download.

Get the iPhone wallpaper.

New typography experiment featuring Robert Frost's poem In a Disused Graveyard. In the same vein as my last piece, Walt Whitman Wears Shades, which is basically just me experimenting with new techniques and typography. The typeface used is Lucida Fax. Purposely made the original poster size — 18 × 24 — so maybe one day I'll get some printed up. Enjoy.

Download the iPhone wallpaper.

Q) Could you describe your specific day to day duties and responsibilities?
A) Since the company I work in is smaller (about 13 people w/ 4 designers) I work on almost every creative project that comes through the door at some point. I mostly split my time between web design mockups for miscellaneous client websites and doing UI work for NFi's main product, MemberFuse. My time on Memberfuse is split pretty evenly between front-end coding and actual design/UI mockups. Meetings, emails, feature planning and giving the others direction and support also take up decent size parts of my day.

Q) What are the most challenging and the most rewarding aspects of your job?
A) Most challenging parts are putting out half-finished concepts due to time constraints. When done that will only end up costing more time and energy later to go back and fix. Design comes naturally, dealing with the business side of things doesn't.

Q) How did you prepare yourself for the work you do, in relation to education and work experience?
A) I tried to learn as much as I could from books and classes but real world experience is the best teacher. I've had internships before and those were priceless (even if unpaid and I didn't need college credit).

Q) What preparation would you suggest for someone who is entering the field today and what type of degree do you feel in mandatory?
A) Take a few classes, a good sampling, see what you like first. Then get an internship as soon as possible. Don't be afraid to try new things, it might just change your focus. A degree really isn't mandatory, the right attitude and willingness to learn is, but a degree can help, especially when looking for your first job.

Q) In your opinion, how good are the future career opportunities in this field?
A) People will always need stuff to look pretty. Right now might not be the best time to start looking for a job but things will always turn around.

Q) Do you feel that there is an over or under supply of qualified people entering this field?
A) Probably just enough to make it competitive. If you're coming out of school, you better be the best and have the portfolio to back it up.

Q) What professional organizations within this field do you think I should join or learn more about in order to help me progress in this industry?
A) Any tech networking events, meetups, or local conferences. BarCamp is great and its next Saturday (and free as most events are). Ingite Orlando, Florida Creatives are great too and free. There is something every week. Doterati (the new Central Florida tech assoc.) also throws great events and happy hours. All these events are a little light on the design side (a lot of dev and marketing/social media peeps) but not networking is the biggest mistake people make. Most jobs are gotten through a friend or colleague.

Q) What do you feel is the average salary range for an entry level person in this field?
A) I'd guess for this area $27k for graphic design and around $30k for web design. Also see the List Apart web survey.

Q) In your experience, what do you feel are the advantages and disadvantages to working in a small firm vs a large firm?
A) In a small company you most likely have more creative freedom, but have to play many more roles that you may not have to at a larger place (I'm a designer and front-end guy). Ive only worked for small companies so I can't compare too much.

Q) As I am just beginning my studies in Graphic Design, could you give me some advice in relation to what is important for me to do over the next few years in order to ensure I am best placed to get a job at the end of my studies?
A) Get an internship as soon as possible — you'll get the best experience even if you're getting coffee the first month and you'll meet people who are working in the industry. Also go to meetups and events. Networking is important. Start working on real projects as soon as possible even if they aren't for class. Do a small site or poster for a local band or business you admire but always go to them and offer; turn down all requests for free work. In the end it devalues the whole industry if people think they can get any design work for free.

New illustration with a focus on typography for a change. Iphone wallpaper. Poem. Walt Whitman. Yeah.

The official title is "Walt Whitman Wears Shades" as you'll see why if you look at the image. The featured poem, called A Clear Midnight, was part of the compilation Leaves of Grass from 1900.

I wanted to do an exercise with typography and this is what happened. Just maybe I'll get a poster printed of this sometime. Oh, and the typeface is Lucida Std if any typophiles out there are interested. Enjoy.

So its almost years end (what happened!?) and I finally got a few minutes to polish off an illustration I've been working on for a couple months. So, here it is, available in 3 convenient sizes for your desktop viewing pleasure.

1280x1024, 1440x900, 1600x1200

Its a secret no more. Swirls are dead and New Retro is stepping up to take its place on the throne. Swirls, filigree, vines, twirls, swishes - all are on the way out. Don't be sad, its a natural process that all design trends, heck, all industry trends go through. Fashion, film, the economy and more are all affected by trends. It just so happens that design is now on the verge of its own "changing of the guard" as it were.

Although a few artists like Scott Hanson (ISO50) have been working with this style for awhile, it is now starting to overshadow everything else as the new dominate trend. The design blogs are headlining the change as tutorials and illustrations are now reflecting the new retro trend. The Behance Network is overflowing with new work from artists embracing new retro, like James White. PSDTUTS also recently published one of the first new retro tutorials.

What's different about New Retro from past trends is that its is very heavily influenced by the 1980s and early 90s. It makes perfect sense. This new generation of designers is finding their voice, the 20-somethings who grew up in the 80s. Along with Ninja Turtles and He-Man, the 80s were defined by bright neons, clunky typography and random geometric shapes. Design is influenced by our surroundings, so it only makes sense that designers are pulling from their past, bringing back the best things from the 80s. All good things come come back around.

Swirls had a good run. I look back with fond memories but for now, all hail New Retro!

I'm a reader of the online blog Neu Black, so when they featured In The Mod, an application that helps to create brand new color palettes with the drag and drop of an image, I took notice. The application is based in Adobe Air and also needs Adobe Switchboard to work but once its up and running, its a great, minimalistic app that is extremely useful for designers.

Ever have an image that has great colors that you'd like to create a color palette from for your next project? The old way to make a palette would be to take it into Photoshop and manually sample colors. In The Mod makes this simple. Just drag the pic you would like to sample into the window, set the number of colors you'd like to pull from it and thats it. And by pressing a button you can export the full palette into Photoshop or Illustrator. I'm really excited to play with this more for upcoming projects. The app has a few different editions but the one I'm currently using is the Your Images Edition.

Note: Thanks to Meagan Fisher for the sweet ampersand desktop.

New illustration. Red theme. Available in 2 convenient desktop sizes. Let me know what you think in the comments!

1280x1024, 1024x768

About a week ago I excitedly put this movie on my Netflix queue. Yes I know its about a typeface.Yes its a documentary. And no, it wasn't boring. It was awesome. Emphasis on awesome. It may sound boring, but for a designer it is far from it. After a few days of sitting by my TV I finally popped it in and was extremely satisfied. A great film. Great. Maybe a little long, but great.

The film is mostly filled with famous designers giving their opinions about the typeface with the history of its inception detailed too. Designers such as Stefan Sagmeister, Paula Scher, Hermann Zapf and David Carson, literal hereos of design gave there opiions on the typeface. And no its not a boring movie about people talking about how awesome Helvetica is. Some designers praised it but an equal number hated and shunned it. They commented on how it represented war, calmness, hate, fluidness, big business and the human form all at the same time. Its the font that can be used in every situation yet should never be used again. The film showcased the polarizing aspects of the iconic font and its effect on the world of design.

If you area designer, pick this film up now. If you are an extreme film geek, pick it up also. But don't move it to the front of your Netflix queue. 20 is good.