All of these are featured on Brain Games series on National Geographic Channel.

What a wonderful experiment and advertising campaign by Dove. This will surely add a positive jolt to their brand.

“Women are their own worst beauty critics. Only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful. At Dove, we are committed to creating a world where beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety. So, we decided to conduct a compelling social experiment that explores how women view their own beauty in contrast to what others see.”

Watch the whole experience at: http://dove.com/realbeautysketches
Join the conversation at: #wearebeautiful

Watch The Art of Web Design on PBS. See more from Off Book.

Whether you are experienced or completely new to web design, here’s a brief video to refresh yourself with the some objective pointers.

Watch Will 3D Printing Change the World? on PBS. See more from Off Book.

I am absolutely intrigued by 3D printing. Check out this short video highlighting the capabilities on PBS’ series “Off Book.” Isn’t it crazy that in the next few decades we will be able to print replacement organs using cells?

2012/10 Maira Kalman from CreativeMornings on Vimeo.

Maira Kalman is an award-winning artist, illustrator, and product designer. She has illustrated numerous covers for The New Yorker magazine and has written and illustrated more than a dozen children’s books. Her articles and illustrations have appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Interview, and many other publications.

The event was generously hosted by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA.org) in Manhattan.

Every year, AIGA releases statistics from a salary survey conducted nationwide. The survey includes not only graphic designers, but many other related professions organized by experience level and location. I’m a graphic web designer based in Indianapolis, so I’d like to share these 2012 statistics and possibly get some input.

Design Print Salary

Design Web/Interactive Salary

Design Web/Interactive AND Print Salary

Conclusion

In my opinion, there aren’t enough respondents from the Indianapolis area, especially for combined web/interactive and print. Any definitive conclusion would be drastically changed by even one more respondent from the area. Those with interactive/web and print skills tend to be making less or are virtually non-existent in Indianapolis. This can’t be true, right?

As one of the first to post photos from Seth Casteel’s original “Underwater Dogs” photo phenomenon, it’s been a real pleasure to continue spreading the word. Today, Seth got in touch to announce his release of the Underwater Dogs book. (Purchase here)

“Hi Blake! How are you? Just wanted to say thanks again for featuring my photos of underwater dogs a few months back. My book is now officially launching (in a few hours) and wanted to know if you’d be interested in sharing the book and new photos with your audience? thanks so much for your consideration. – Seth”

If you you missed the original post you can find that here. Since the viral outbreak, which originated on Reddit, Seth’s work has grown to a great following of over 125,000 Facebook fans. His work has also been praised by National Geographic. My post Underwater Dogs | Photography By Seth Casteel was linked to by the Huffington Post, pushing a significant amount of traffic from the news article to my own site. So on that note, I thank Seth for his support and return the favor.

Go buy the book now!

Check out some Underwater Dog photos.

Have you ever wanted to create one of those pesky recent post widgets with thumbnails? It doesn’t have to be so tricky, and you can even crop the images using built in WordPress features.

Before we start the tutorial

Below is a screenshot of what we are creating. It’s a simple list of recent posts accompanied by 50×50 pixel thumbnails. For a working version, look to my sidebar on the right.

WordPress posts thumbnails example (screenshot)

Add to your theme’s functions.php

//** Adding another custom image size
add_image_size('mini-thumb', 50, 50, true);

//** Limite recent excerpt
function get_the_recent_excerpt(){
$excerpt = get_the_content();
$excerpt = strip_shortcodes($excerpt);
$excerpt = strip_tags($excerpt);
$the_str = substr($excerpt, 0, 100);
return $the_str;
}

• On line 02, you can change your thumbnail size. It’s currently at 50 pixels.
• On line 09, you can see the excerpt is truncated at 100 characters. You won’t notice any changes here unless you alter the CSS. It’s currently hiding anything that overflows.

Add to your theme’s template

Now that the truncated excerpt function and custom thumbnail size exist, we can move on to calling the function into the WordPress template. I’m using this code in sidebar.php, but you could place this in other template files.

<div class="widget">
<h2 class="no-border">Recent Articles</h2>
<ul id="recent">

<?php $postslist = get_posts('numberposts=5&order=DESC'); foreach ($postslist as $post) : setup_postdata($post); ?>
<li>
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_post_thumbnail('mini-thumb'); ?></a>

<a title="Post: <?php the_title(); ?>" href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></br>
<span><?php echo get_the_recent_excerpt(); ?></span></a>

</li>

<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>
</div><!-- End Recent Posts -->

• On line 05, you can change 5 to however many posts you want show. DESC means descending which can also be edited if you know what you are doing.

Keep in mind, the post thumbnail will be generated using the Featured Image setting in your post or media uploader.

Featured Image Setting

Some CSS code to make it pretty

Now it’s working, but it doesn’t look good. Try adding some of this CSS code to your WordPress theme’s style.css.

/* Most Recent widget*/

ul#recent { line-height:20px;
background: rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent;
/* RGBa with 0.6 opacity */
background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.025);

/* For IE 5.5 - 7*/
filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr=#06000000, endColorstr=#06000000);

/* For IE 8*/
-ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr=#06000000, endColorstr=#06000000)";
border:1px #ccc solid;
border-radius: 5px;
}

ul#recent li {height: 60px;
overflow: hidden;
margin: 10px 0;}

#recent a{font-weight:bold;font-size:12px;}

#recent a:hover {color: #f78f1e;}

#recent span{font-size:11px; font-style:italic;}

#recent img {-webkit-box-shadow: 0px 1px 5px #7f7f7f;
-moz-box-shadow: 0px 1px 5px #7f7f7f;
box-shadow: 0px 1px 5px #999;
border: 1px #CCC solid;
padding: 2px;
background: #FEFEFE;
height: auto;
margin: 3px 10px 10px 0;
float:left;
}

Possible issues you may encounter

The thumbnails aren’t cropping properly! I fell into this issue when I was installing this code, and it’s simple to fix. Any posts created after installing the code should crop OK, but this issue lies in posts created prior to installation. You will need to regenerate your thumbnails. I recommend this plugin which I use called Regenerate Thumbnails.

Thumbnails aren’t showing up. The thumbnails are created using the Featured Image option in the media uploader. Be sure you’ve set an image to be featured. You can use Auto Post Thumbnail plugin if you want it done automatically.

Conclusion

And now you have a hard-coded, working recent posts with thumbnails in your WordPress theme. And you didn’t even have to use TimThumb. In the future, I’ll be coding this into a simple plugin which will come packaged with FreelanceFolio on release.

Let me know if there are any issues with the code. I’ll be sure to fix it.

Continuous Learning Services (CLS) is a start-up company which a focus on constant learning in the medical field. The original job inquiry entailed a web design, but after some discussion the company decided to contract a less intensive logo design. By less intensive, I mean the lowest budget allowed for a logo design.

Low-budget logo design?

A low-budget logo design does not have to be a low quality logo design. It’s only when the budget is lower than the fair amount of pay/time will I turn down a logo design project based on budget.

Planning out the concept

Before I start with sketching designs, I always think out my goals and what the company is asking for. In this case, CLS has given me little guidelines and almost full control over the chosen design.

Here are a few notes I gathered from the conversation:

• Convey continuity and learning.
• Keep is very simple.
• Must use CLS as mark.

Starting with pencil sketches

I always start out sketching my ideas, and I encourage any designers reading this to do this also. A pen/pencil will always allow you to jot down your ideas without restrictions. Working directly on the computer during the thought process will cause you to forget many of your ideas, and force yourself into a habit of monotonous use of the same ideas.

Narrow down some logo concepts

Below are some of the chosen ideas to review.

Create the design with Adobe Illustrator

I chose to work with the idea of connecting the letters for continuity. It also vaguely reminds the audience of a heartbeat monitor. The circle with enclose the letters to give and it a stamp-like mark. Combining the circle with the continuous lines of heartbeat text may also give an abstract stethoscope similarity.

Choosing color and sewing up the web template

The client had decided on a pre-made template to customize. I ended up utilizing one of the widely used colors they wanted in the scheme.

Website header preview with the logo incorporated.

In the conclusion, we ended up with a low cost logo design that could be incorporated into a companies pre-made HTML template and packaged brand scheme.

Did you enjoy this logo design process? Read more here.

Designing a personal logo design is no easy task. Honestly, I would say it’s the hardest job I’ve taken thus far. I’ve finally committed to my new brand mark and will share my design process.

Contemplation

The idea of redesigning my logo and brand identity has been bouncing around my head for about a year now. I knew I wanted to strengthen my image, but wasn’t sure how to do it.

Do I change my business name? For years, I’ve been operating as Blake McCreary Design. I personally think this business name has two negative marks.

• Blake McCreary isn’t easy to remember or spell.
• The name doesn’t help keyword strength at all.

What type of logo should I design? Create a type-based logo design or shoot for a symbol/monogram that can stand on its own.

Business card with monogram logo on back side.

Planning my concept goal

My business goal is to target mainly two skills which are brand identity and web design. My audience should perceive my blog as a place of not only sharing work, leadership, and learning. As a business, I want to convey myself as a go-to design expert who is approachable and highly professional.  I’m going to strive for a monogram or symbol that can represent my graphic design business. In the long form, it will be accompanied by a typeface.

Why choose a monogram? Most of my logo design inquiries come from customers who think of logos as a symbol or mark. Right off the cuff, I want them to see what I can do with my own brand identity and relate it to what they want. Of course, this does not apply to the broad spectrum, but I’m targeting a niche primarily.

My sketch logo sketches and ideas

Below are some key page samples from my sketchbook.

More logo ideas..

and more logo ideas…

I ended up dropping my last name to simplify. After some hard brainstorming of name combinations and shameless domain checking, BrandByBlake.com was available. It’s easy to remember, spell, and rolls of the tongue nicely.

Taking the sketch to the computer

In the illustrations below you can see how the type and symbol progress into many iterations. Some of the original designs were too rigid and lacked character.

I ditched the circle design because tons of designers use it as a fallback. Instead, I went for a rounded square tilted at the angle of my typography. As you can see, I’ll stick to my prior color palette in the interest of my long standing brand scheme.

Making the commitment

For me, a personal logo will never feel 100% satisfactory. A designer may be his/her worst critic. After analyzing the elements of each digital concept, I chose to go with the following design. Below I’ll share the reasoning points and minor edits.

I chose this logo out of the mess above for several aesthetic reasons. The font choice (Impact) matches the strength I’m looking for in the brand identity. The boldness stands out, and the angled type gives a feeling of swiftness. It also looks to be in motion and/or moving forward (almost superhero-ish). In this version, I modeled the monogram “B” out of the Impact font to match the typography. This will help strengthen the typography relationship.

A few minor edits. I showed this to a few friends and they had mentioned confusion in the way the text read when pushed together. To battle the issue, I put spaces back into the name. On some of the previous versions the angles weren’t parallel and the shape didn’t reflect well enough to give an initial feeling of symmetry.

No die-cut business card mock design.

Envisioning the brand identity expansion

Completing my personal logo design is a big step in the right direction for my design business. I’m already expanding on my personal brand identity with business cards and eventually will push out a more thematic web design.

I wish all of you other designers out there the best of luck on creating your own logo design!