Dissatisfied with other typography tutorials out there, Ben Barrett-Forrest created his own take on the history of typography through a stop-motion animation, telling the beginning of type tracing back from Johannes Gutenburg, the grandfather of printed type until the creation of modern typefaces today. Aside from the mouthful of information you get in five minutes, Ben’s awesome animation of cut-out letters makes it not just your ordinary video tutorial.

YTD got the chance to talk to Ben about his work and the creative process behind this amazing project. Check out the short interview below:

YTD: Hi Ben! Give us a little background about your work as a graphic designer.

BEN: I was born and raised in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, a small town in northern Canada. I started drawing my own typefaces when I was a very young boy, and more recently got into the fields of graphic design and animation. I am 21 years old and currently attending McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, in southern Canada. I am in the third year of my Multimedia degree. I am currently working at a Design and Marketing firm in Whitehorse called Aasman Brand Communications.

YTD: Your recent animation short project called “The History of Typography” was pretty awesome! Tell us what made you decide to create such informative production.

BEN: About a year ago I fell in love with typography and became a complete type nerd. While there are many excellent resources online to satisfy one’s cravings for information on typography, there was nothing that was as entertaining and comprehensive as I would have liked. I decided to fill this void and create one myself.

YTD: Can you share us your creative process? From where did you start?

BEN: First, I did several weeks worth of research to find all the proper information for the piece. Then I wrote the initial script, which ended up being way too long to fit into 5 minutes. So I revised the script down to about 350 words. Then I cut out all of the necessary letters, set up my animation studio in my bedroom, and got animating. 140 hours later, I was done, and ready to start on post-production. The whole process took a bit over 2 months.

YTD: What are your tools?

BEN: My tools are quite simple. I have black, white, and red paper and a scalpel for cutting out the letters. Then I had my Nikon d5100 mounted on a tripod with two 500-watt lightbulbs shining on my workspace. I recorded the sounds using a zoom h4n, and then compiled the photographs in Final Cut Pro X.

YTD: What are your guiding principles behind this project?

BEN: My guiding principles are: Simplicity and creativity. It is a potentially very complicated topic that I was addressing in the animation, so I strove to make it as simple and creative as possible. I knew that in order to capture people’s attention, it would need to be in a visually appealing style, with condensed, relevant information.

YTD: What is the most challenging part of it?

BEN: The most challenging part of the process was actually the cutting out of all those tiny letters. I was cutting for about 80 hours in total, and my hand got very tired. It was also difficult to make the motion of the letters look real, when they are actually moving in tiny increments.

YTD: The animation video is around 5 minutes. We are curious about how long was the actual video production.

BEN: The actual cutting out and animating of the letters took about 140 hours, over a period of 2 months. The research and post-production took several dozen more. It was fairly tedious cutting out almost 300 paper letters (especially the serif typefaces with their tiny spikes), but it soon became almost meditative. And I feel that I have a much closer connection with each of the typefaces that I addressed, now that I have laboured to create each one.

YTD: The project was well received by the design community especially type lovers. Anyone you would like to be thankful for?

BEN: I am very thankful to Ellen Lupton and Simon Garfield, who wrote the books that I got most of my information from. I would also like to thank my friends and housemates, who put up with my craziness for several months, and my parents, who gave me so much support.

Share us your thoughts and suggestions by leaving a message below. Find You The Designer on Facebook, Twitter,Pinterest and Google Plus for more updates. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our blog for the latest design inspirations, stories and freebies. Speaking of freebies, check out our free print templates page for your print design needs. Stay awesome everyone!

Read more posts by Kerby Rosanes

As more people tend to respond and read emails over mobile devices, there is a high time marketers should create responsive mobile emails to increase the opens, clickthroughs and responses.

The one size fits all approach isn’t prevalent any more in the industry. I chanced upon yet another infographic from Email Monks that bring to you the vital mobile email stats, you might have long craved for. Infographic gathers unique stats from many sources and covers the recent vogue of mobile. Some of the staggering stats include:

- 43% of Emails are read over the phones and this is expected to rise to more than 50% by the end of 2013!

- Mobile or Smart-phone usage is more prevalent in the morning and evening hours.

It was amazing to know that iPhone leads the market share amongst all major email clients. Infographic provides us a brief on the market share of various email clients Calculated from 205 million opens tracked by Litmus Email Analytics in April 2013.

Many of the companies have yet not recognized the importance of responsive mobile email because they don’t know what exactly is the talk of the town?

This infographic from Email Monks also defines responsive mobile email in easy yet effective way. According to the infographic, Responsive email design uses CSS3 media queries to display different layouts of an email depending on the size of the viewing screen. You can display or hide elements for a true mobile experience.

About the Author I am Mathews Johnson and I work as a creative consultant with Email Monks. Email Monks is a superfast yet cost effective mobile friendly email design and coding services provider. Email Monks also converts design to Email HTML in as less as 8 hours.

Read more posts by Cadence Wu

Photographers and photo enthusiasts rejoice! As Yahoo! finally unveiled the new “awesome” look for Flickr, the once struggling photo sharing website now also offers 1 terabyte of free storage and provides a brand new experience for both of their desktop and android users. With a bigger storage, each user can upload as much as 500, 000 photos in full resolution.

“Flickr was once awesome, and it languished… now we want it to be awesome again,”  Yahoo! CEO Marissa Meyer said in a press event at New York City today.

Earlier today, Yahoo! has also announced its acquisition of social blogging platform Tumblr for $1.1 billion, all of it in cash.

Portfolio Night

 
Hosted in more than 20 cities around the world on May 22, the Portfolio Night events are designed to connect aspiring young creatives with renowned advertising creative directors in the hopes of receiving feedback on their work and ultimately, secure career opportunities.

Sponsored by iStockphoto and PANTONE, Portfolio Night brings together thousands of young creatives, hundreds of creative directors, dozens of host agencies in cities around the world, and a select few global partners, all in a “one night only” event across the planet. Now on it’s eleventh year, Portfolio Night has grown to a global event, reaching creative hubs in every continent in an evening where the best of the present meets the best of the years to come.

Check out their official website to know what’s the nearest Portfolio Night event you can take part of.

Who among you guys are going to the nearest Portfolio Night event? What do you think of Flickr’s major makeover? Share us your thoughts by leaving your message in the comment box below. Find You The Designer on Facebook, Twitter,Pinterest and Google Plus for more updates. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our blog for the latest design inspirations, stories and freebies. Speaking of freebies, check out our free print templates page for your print design needs. Stay awesome everyone!

Read more posts by Cadence Wu

Shutterstock made these amazing adaptations of HBO’s hit show Game of Thrones from it’s medieval setting to a more a contemporary setting. Using their  assets they have recreated the different houses into big corporations and unlike in the series where the houses contested their claims or at least help other houses  to claim the throne. The different houses are contesting and flexing their marketing prowess to win costumers with their savvy marketing materials.

Basing on the different attributes of the various houses such as massive wealth and weather endurance, Shutterstock used these attributes to design and brand the different houses according their what their company offers.

SEE ALSO:  Game of Thrones Playing Cards by Jim Tuckwell

What do you guys think? Which brand design for the different houses is your most favorite?

Share us your thoughts and suggestions by leaving a message below. Find You The Designer on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google Plus for more updates. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our blog for the latest design inspirations, stories and freebies. If you guys are looking for print templates, just do check out our free print templates page for your print design needs.

Read more posts by Patrick Jude Ilagan

Making data visually enticing but also very informative is one thing that designers should bear in mind when designing an infograph. For today we are giving you guys a high quality collection of infographic elements that you can use for your projects. The elements are editable to your specific needs.

SEE ALSO: Infographic: Email Design Best Practices

 
Download this amazing set of vector badges by tweeting or sharing it to your friends over Facebook. Just click the button below and follow the instructions in the pop up window. (Email subscribers, please visit the actual post page to download.)
 

Read more posts by Patrick Jude Ilagan

Malaysia-based graphic designer, Tang Yau Hoong utilize the idea of creating posters out of our favorite quotes. His project called “The Quote Illustration Project” showcases a series of posters featuring some popular quotes interpreted through simple but meaningful illustrations accompanied by good choice of typography.

We got the chance to talk to Tang and ask him few questions about this particular project and his creative process. Check out the short interview below:

YTD: Hi Tang! How are you and how’s Malaysia?

TANG: Hi! I’m fine. Thank you. It is hot here.

YTD: Give us a little background about your work in graphic design.

TANG: I am a 28 years old visual artist/ illustrator/ graphic designer from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I hope to make graphics that spark the viewer. As a graphic designer I try to convey messages visually. I like simplistic works and will always try to make my illustrations as simple as possible. Having said that, I do not limit myself to certain style or medium and I always try to create something fresh and express my idea in a creative way.

YTD: One of the many interesting projects you’ve done that amazes us is “The Quote Illustration Project”. How did you come up with the idea of combining famous quotes with your illustrations?

TANG: Most of them are old illustrations that I redrew to match the style I was looking for and the meaning of the corresponding quote. One day, I was browsing these old designs again and thought of giving them new lifes so here is the result. The only unpublished illustration is Steve Jobs which triggered the project.

YTD: Can you share us your creative process? From where did you start?

TANG: There is nothing secret. Basically I do a lot of thinking, sketching and brainstorming to get new ideas. To me, a good idea is the result of evolution.

YTD: What are the tools you used?

TANG: I use graphic tablet for final artwork. Before that I do a lot of sketching and doodling in my sketchbook for brainstorming.

YTD: Which of them is your most favorite?

TANG: At the moment my personal favorite is “Light painter”.

YTD: Is there any other famous quote in your mind you hope to illustrate in the future?

TANG: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”
But I’m not sure if I am going to illustrate this one.

YTD: Are there prints, merchandise and other products from those illustrations? Where can we get some?

TANG: Some of my work including the quote project are available as art prints on my shop.

YTD: Any future plans for the project?

TANG: I might continue to make more quote illustrations and see how it goes. There is no planning at the moment yet.

Check out Tang’s website for more information or his Behance portfolio to see more of his cool projects.

Share us your thoughts and suggestions by leaving a message below. Find You The Designer on Facebook, Twitter,Pinterest and Google Plus for more updates. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our blog for the latest design inspirations, stories and freebies. Speaking of freebies, check out our free print templates page for your print design needs. Stay awesome everyone!

Read more posts by Kerby Rosanes