How many times have you looked at your website and wanted to do an complete redesign? And how many times you said, ok I do it next month when I’m less busier. The truth is, that we just keep postponing the redesign and don’t do anything. But maybe just a little evolution and some small tweaking would do the job and would improve the website. How to decide if you need a complete new design or just some improvement? Here some questions to ask yourself and if you answer the majority with yes you need a complete overhaul.

Is your webdesign “trendy”?

Design is like fashion, there are trends. And the bigger trends of the last couple of years have been grunge, comics, <insert other trend here>. The beauty of the internet is, that it’s evolving fast. But just like in fashion, your site can look old fashioned in a blast. So if you don’t plan to renew the site design every year or so don’t get too trendy on your next design. And if your design is trendy now, get on to the next trend – sustainable web design.

Are you changing (or need to change) your website technology?

You are on a self hosted wordpress installation and want to switch over to a tumblr blog or get over to squarespace to not have to deal with updates and servers any more? It’s a good time for a redesign. You spend as much time to recreate your website on the new services as redoing the whole design. It can be evolutionary at large but take this opportunity.

Is your website  just in Flash?

While I’m not a Flash hater and I see many uses of Flash in the real world that make sense, I cannot see the point of having a complete site in Flash anymore. It’s not even ok for “business card” sites with no content and who don’t want to get found in the search engine except for your local pizzeria which name you know but not the telephone number. Many of this businesses want something “flashy” and don’t mind the technology. It’s easier for a designer to please them with a nice Flash animation – and often it’s also quicker to do a Flash site, but you will get in trouble when mobile gets more important and the sites won’t work correctly. So I hope that with the advent of HTML 5 we will get rid of these problems – but if you want to prepare yourself now, get rid of Flash.

Evolution is better

I just picked three questions for the revolution section because there are not many reasons to do complete redesigns. Many times small improvements can have a big impact and help your site. Big sites like Amazon and Wikipedia have gone a radical redesign if you compare them to 5 years ago, but the steps where small. One by one. Testing and seeing what works and what doesn’t. Is learning from nature – making a lot of small variations to experiment what works best costs less “energy” that redoing everything from scratch. The are some instances where your have to revolutionize – but more often than not, evolution beats revolution.

Image courtesy of StePagna

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I’ve got an email from a reader of this blog with a common problem… how to get creativity started:

I am into graphic design, working as a finalizer for the last 10 years. I’m working in an Advertising Agency, I want to become an art director. I look at the ads on Ads of the world and get inspired. I found them very easy but when I’m trying to do something my mind doesn’t open. Is there any exercise where i can learn and fullfull my dream of becoming an art director.

Being creative is one part of being an art director – and for sure the most fun part. As you can see from the blog there are other activities (organizing, planning, guidance to people) involved in real art direction. But as for creativity there are now really good resources and tools.

1) The word Creativity is a misconception

In advertising and design you mostly don’t “create” but you “combine in a new and interesting way” – Don’t get fooled by the word creativity – you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just use the wheel in a new way. To read more about this – here is an extensive lesson about “Creativity on demand”

For example: A friend of mine “stitched” his book on fabric instead of printing it on paper.

2) Use the tools the right way

So many people think that they know how to brain storm – but they don’t. There are many creativity tools like leathering, brain storming, fishing etc. – but if you don’t use them correctly you will not get results. I covered brain storming in this blog post – so read this and storm on.

3) Creativity comes from having many interests

One of the best ways to “open” your mind to creative ideas ist by having a “open” mind all the time. Don’t just be interested in graphic design. I’m interested practically in everything (except passive sports = watching someone else doing sport). I want to know how the people lived 100 years ago in Siberia. I cook, hike, bike, run, go to museums about just everything. I listen to podcasts during work about the most desperate themes and from around the world. You don’t have to remember everything but sometimes there are things that remain in your mind. And by taking this things from around the world into a new context you are really creative.

An example: It’s quite usual here to collect stickers of soccer player for kids in Europe… everyone did this – I used the same principle for a firm. They made stickers from their employees and an album. Who finished the collection has received a price. And the benefit for the firm? All employees have finished the album and in the end everyone knew anyone in every department.

4) Creativity is Teamwork

The image of the lonely creative mind is still present in the minds of everyone. But actually the best creative ideas come from teams – small teams to be exact. Only by interacting and discussing your ideas you have the possibility to expand them and to iterate on them. A modern system for creative temawork is featured in my blog post on this site here.

5) Books and Cards that help

Here is a collection of books and Cards that can help you

• Creative Advertising, New Edition
• Creativity Workout: 62 Exercises to Unlock Your Most Creative Ideas
• Visual Creativity

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The Nikon D3000 is a entry level DSLR and the kit-lenses you get with it are not the best lenses in the world – but with the new lens correction introduced in Photoshop CS5, Camera Raw 6.1 and in the forthcomming Lightroom 3 will help you get better pictures even if you are just entering in the semi-pro digital photography.

Since Adobe and no other user has yet supplied Lens Profiles for this “cheap” lenses I’ve made them on a rainy sunday. So just download them and put them in the according folders to enjoy them.

Click here to download. The zip files includes the profiles for the NIKON D3000 with Nikkor 18.0-55.0 mm f3.5-5.6, and the NIKON D3000 with the Nikkor 55.0-200.0 mm f4.0-5.6 lenses.

Install

To install them place them in one of the following folders.

a. For Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\(User Name)\Application Data\Adobe\CameraRaw\LensProfiles\1.0
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\CameraRaw\LensProfiles\1.0

b. For Windows Vista or Windows 7:
C:\Users\(User Name)\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\LensProfiles\1.0
C:\ProgramData\Adobe\CameraRaw\LensProfiles\1.0

c. For Mac:
/Users/(User Name)/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/LensProfiles/1.0

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The world is full of prejudices. All designers use Apple Macs is one of them. This was surely true 10 or 15 years ago, but todays designer are well distributed across all platforms. There have been several reasons why Apple Computer where so dominant at that time, but all of the reasons have become obsolete and you can choose yourself if where you want to put your money – into looks or content.

Software

The operating system wars are over – no really – OSX and Windows 7 are equal in functionality and ease of use. They are actually so similar, that one often gets confused where to find specific things when switching from one to another.

Availability of professional and free software for designers on the other hand are actually not the same. Unlike in the early ages Adobe and other developers have switched to PC and Windows as their main platform. Many features (GPU acceleration) and even whole Suites of Programs are PC only.

And if you are a Linux fan, even then you have plenty of open source software your can use and work pretty well.

One of the biggest game changer in this sector is the internet. If you design websites you are used to use “development” tools. And more often than not this tools are easier to find for other platforms than Mac. It’s the “App”-Numbers Game you see on Iphone vs. Android/Symbian/WebOS/Blackberry – but inverted. Hundreds of applications for Mac, thousands for Windows and Linux.

Another big game changer was actually PDF. The designer doesn’t have to use the same Programs and computer platform as the printshop, since PDF has become the standard for sending printable files. It’s a typical example of how a “locked in” environment has been broken by the use of open standards.

Hardware

Apple hardware looks good. I’m not going to deny that. Until last year the apple fans could also claim, that the hardware inside the boxes was always top notch and not more expensive than PCs if you take the same components. I made the calculations myself a few times and it was true. Mac Pro’s used processors and chipsets which you find in serious workstations. Picewise obviously if you compare a Mac Pro with a standard Dell Office PC, the Dell wins – but the performance is not the same.

But here is the news – you don’t need the power of a Mac Pro. Actually most designer (if they are on a Mac) use the Macbooks or iMacs. And even the Dell Computer intended for the use in the office runs Indesign and Photoshop smoothly. The recent office PCs have more performance than a workstation 3 years ago. The possibilities that your computer is waiting for input 90% of the time is high if you are not encoding HD-Video all the time.

So there is for the average designer no need to buy an expensive Mac Workstation to do the work. And if you really need the horsepower? Well than you have another reason to not choose an Apple.

Apple is not upgrading it’s Macintoshes

Normally we have seen that Apple is a Computer and Hardware Manufacturer who does extra stuff to sell more hardware. This is changing and we can see it every day. Apple is focusing on “consumer stuff” and content related stuff.

It’s more about iTunes, iPad and iPhones this days than OS X and Mac Pros. In the past Apple was the first to implement faster processors – now they don’t care. They prefer to release a new tablet instead. Today if you want a serious workstation you get an HP or even a Dell. The lack of new announcements for Macbooks etc. show in my opinion that they stop to offer hardware which runs an relatively open operating system altogether. And sincerely – as professional I will not invest in software and hardware for a platform which future is not certain.

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This is not a rumor, but an idea. With the launch of the iPad and the other e-book readers launched on the market there is a new opportunity for content creators and advertisers to force the reader to view advertising.

Advertising in printed magazine

We all learned that advertising in print magazine has to be eye catching because we have 2 seconds of eye contact on average. If you cannot catch the eye of the reader you have lost the opportunity to deliver the message. The reader has also learned (just like on websites) to recognize advertising and ignore them.

The e-book magazine

There are several ways to deliver a magazine on the new e-book readers and iPads. You can have a PDF, a e-pub version and the most common way will be an App. Since the App comes from the publisher they can force you to view advertising in various ways:

• Embed the advertising in the layout
  Just like print magazines – not so effective
• Show advertising every time you start read in the App
  Like most video advertising for video content on the internet
• Interrupt your reading experience with commercial breaks
  Like on TV, every 20 Minutes you are interrupted and you have to watch an ad for a certain amount of time

This advertising possibilities are an revenue channel for the publishers and even when they will not start right away with them you will see them further down the road. I can immagine that it will go the same evolution as cable companies went through.

So what do you think, will the advertising have a bad impact on your reading experience?

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Next up in the series of font alternatives for popular fonts is Thesis – or better known as TheSans, TheSerif, TheMix, TheSans Mono. I’ve found 7 interesting alternatives – from huge and expensive to very big and resonable priced.Thesis is maybe one of the most used font systems in the world. Most non graphic designers don’t recognize it, but be assured it is used a lot. I’m speaking about a font system because the variety Thesis offers is almost uncompared. I like to use it especially in corporate design for corporations with many different departments as I can use different speciments for different resorts.

But if you are sick of using Thesis I have here quite a few alternatives for you.

Top Alternatives

• Compatil (www.linotype.com)
  
• Fedra from (www.typotheque.com)
  

Runners up

• Leitura (www.dstype.com)
  
• Absara (www.fontshop.de)
  
• Generis (www.linotype.com)
  
• Nexus (www.fontshop.de)
  
• United (find it at www.houseind.com)
  

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