High Speed Imagery

I love photography and it is something that I will do in my spare time.  Recently I have been looking at different types of photography and the different finishes you can achieve and I stumbled across high speed photography.  For those of you who are not sure what high speed photography is it is the ability to capture images with remarkably quick speed which most photographers use to catch images that otherwise wouldn’t be seen by the naked eye.  It is amazing what photographers capture and the different perspective you get from seeing a high speed photograph. read more

Happy New Year

Firstly I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year, I think 2010 is going to be a good year for DDA and design in general and to mark the turn of the new year I thought we would look at some designs that we won’t forget.  Creating a design that will stick in people’s mind is more important than ever.  So what designs caught your eye this year? read more

Guerrilla Marketing

Hi, I love guerrilla marketing I think it is an effective marketing strategy because it is usually unexpected marketing that catches your eye and almost shocks you.

Having been around since the early 1980s it has proven it self to capture and engage peoples attention and be an inventive way to promote your brand. Guerrilla marketing can be used by large organisations or small start up companies. read more

Doodle 4 Google

Hello

I have always been a huge fan of encouraging design and just generally being creative from a young age, afterall this is where the future of design lies.

With the finalists of Doodle 4 Google in Ireland picked for each age group from juniors to 6th year students now is the time to vote.   Contestants enter from different schools within Ireland and then the competition (I think moves to English entries)

You can vote for your favorite on Doodle 4 Google online with the voting ending on Monday 16th February 2009.

Here are some that caught my eye:-

Age 5th/6th year

Evan O’Sullivan Glynn, aged 16

read more

Light Graffiti

Hi, I know its been a while since my last post (sorry), after new year I took a few days off and have been really busy catching up and all the latest but I have had time to take a quick look around the internet and came across some inspirational photography.   I like to find designs that inspire me and I have always really appreciated the kind of design that incorporates both photography and design.  I recently came across some light graffiti – for those of you who are not sure what that is it is a mixture of photography enhanced by light graffiti.

Although a fairly simple concept graffiti art really works to enhance and sometime even transform images into so much more – almost bringing them to life.   This design by Eric Castro is a really good example of how simple but effective light graffiti is.

To create light graffiti you need a good camera with faster shutter speed, with the exposure setting around 10-30 seconds.  Knowing your lighting will help with the end effect of light.  I gave it a go once I do think it takes a little practice to understand how the light will work in the photograph but it is great fun.

I have found some other great light graffiti:

I think light graffiti can be used to create good design online.  I have seen WordPress themes based around this design concept recently that really work to enhance the design and bring it to life.

For more information on light graffiti visit Awesome Light Graffiti or search the web.

Amazing Interactive Design Portfolios

Hello everybody. Well we’ve all had a week now to recover from the New Year celebrations and here at DDA we are back into the swing of things with a renewed vigour. As you may have noticed we have the addition of a design resources page which will be updated on a regular basis bringing you the best in free and paid design resources from around the web.

For this weeks posts I’ve found a few unique design portfolios from talented web designers. Both of which are not only beautifully designed in each individuals style, but also highly interactive showcasing not only their artistic and creative skills but also their design usability. With the ever increasing use of widgets, and rising client expectations, designers are going to have to become much more flexible in their approach, not only having to show how it will look but also, and more importantly, how their designs work to fulfill their clients brief.

Firstly we have Miki Mottes a self taught Israli artist who works creating custom animations and illustrations.

Subscribe to Miki Mottes Picture feed on Flickr

Secondly I discovered the hilarious, if not slightly mental, portfolio of Dutch artist Coen Grift. It’s fully interactive and packed with bits of animations, sound effects and puzzles. I spent at least half and hour at home when I found it playing around and fully enjoyed every minute of it.

I hope you enjoy playing around with these sites and take away some inspiration for any redesigns you were planning for your own portfolio. And don’t forget to check out the Resources page for any updates.

Fantastic Graphic Design from D.R. Hananto

Hello Everyone,

Got another fantastic example of graphic design work for you today, these come from a MR Danny Ronald Hananto, an excellent designer from Singapore.

He has quite a distinct style which you’ll see in many of his pieces but its extremely detailed and he does some really impressive colour work alongside the stylisation.

Here are a few of my choice picks from his Gallery, you can see more at deviantart.

Sanctuaire by the Design Chamber

Mystica by the Design Chamber

Certainly something special, I even like his business card!

This is definitely one to watch to see how things should be done and gleam some inspiration for work you do in the future. Although amazing I do think the design has limitation (in an application sense) but this doesn’t stop it being beautiful.

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As a further note I got myself a new graphics tablet this week, it’s an early Christmas pressie but I couldn’t resist start to sue it right away!

Specifically it’s a Wacom Intuos3 and is an excellent piece of tech, the marketing blurb says it has 1,024 levels of pen and eraser sensitivity and has advanced tilt sensitivity.

Contrast to my old tablet it has some really useful ExpressKey buttons, a great feature that I don’t know how I lived without!

The tablet itself is solid and stable and not too chunky or in the way, it’s attractive and an odd graphite/silver colour. The pen is also really nice, it has a soft texture and is a decent size and weight.

It also comes with a fairly nice optical mouse but its no where near as sharp as my Razer mouse.

Definitely a recommended product.

What pen tablets do you guys recommend and what do you think of our featured designer today? Let us know with a comment!

Hello Sour Sally!

Only a short post this week. I’ve regressed back to my childhood a little with the discovery of a web site from a small frozen yoghurt shop in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia called Sour Sally.

The main reason that I fell in love with this flash based web site is the effort that was put in to make it an interactive design. You control Sour Sally and use either the nav keys to bounce around the environment or the mouse to float Sally, who is attached to a balloon, around the levels finding out about the product and shop as you go. Or for the less adventurous of you they have put a ‘normal’ navigation panel at the side.

The hidden features were also a big plus for me, on the ‘where is Sour Sally’ the avatar pops out from behind trees and when you click on her, polaroids of the shops interior pop up for you to view.

This site is a prime example of using interactive graphic design to draw the site visitor into the environment and encourage them to find out more.

I for one will be seeking out Sour Sally should I ever venture to Indonesia and I will certainly be paying them a visit – all from stumbling across their web site – in an increasingly online world the power of interactive marketing in today’s society cannot be ignored and this little frozen yoghurt company has truly embraced the phenomenon.

Visit the site and see for yourself.

Interactive Designs 08

With 2008 nearly over I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the exceptional designs we have seen this year.

The first is a showcase of photographs FlashLife.se, but the designer has created an interactive experience.  Allowing you to alter the way you interact with the photographs and images by easily altering the way in which they are displayed.  As the creator suggests it is like a “digital playground”.   I really like the way the site is designed to not only impress you with the exceptional photographs but also the creative way they are showcased.  With so many portfolio websites out there it is always good to see someone that has broke free of the norm.

One of my favorite sites for this year would have to be BrandBud, the site is fresh, bright and easy to use.  It demonstrates their high level of talent and creativity which is often lost in todays designs.  Not only is the homepage impressive but delving deeper into the site you realise how much work has gone into creating this design masterpiece.  The philosophy garden is probably my favorite page, as although being slightly different in design to the rest of the site it still completes the sites design.  They offer mainly print and corporate design work such as letterhead, business cards.

I think next year we will see more interactive flash design work like this, creating a more interactive feel and a great user experience.

One last thing, Sophie, Chloe and I would like to wish you a merry Christmas and if you haven’t started your Christmas shopping yet and want ideas on what to buy read Sophie’s post later in the week – she loves her new toy!

Adobe CS4 for Design

With so many designers using Adobe for their designs it is no surprise that the new version, Adobe Creative Suite 4  available in four package bands from Design Premium to Master Collection is being released. Is it worth the upgrade and is it still the preferred favorite?  With these packages you receive Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash and more.

Photoshop is still the preferred choice for me, I like the functionality and the colour correction capabilities this version has to offer making it better than ever before.  The interface has been slightly updated but nothing that really confused me, one of the big changes that I can really appreciate is the new workspace switcher which has a range of preset workspaces which is really handy for selecting window layouts.  A few of the other benefits that I think are a vast improvement include Bridge CS4 which is for asset management which has been significantly improved and is great – I really recommend having a look.  It is useful for me because I enjoy the better functionality you can achieve with altering photos with the powerful colour correction tools from Camera Raw 5.  For me the added benefits from Photoshop alone make this a worthwhile package.

Dreamweaver again is the industry recognised html editor of choice.  With this version they have continued to make working with related files easier and instantly accessible through the related files toolbar.  The new live view command makes layout view a full on browser, even more useful is the feature that allows you to see the code the browser is rendering as you interact with page.  Dreamweaver never ceases to impress me and has continued to make itself accessible for all levels of designers with its simple interface and design.  Dreamweaver has delivered again being miles ahead of its competitor.

Although I use Flash I don’t use it to its full capabilities, having only a little knowledge of ActionScript I can only really comment on the basic interface which only gets better having moved the properties panel to appear vertically this opens up much needed space for the handy timeline panel at the bottom which I always felt was cluttered and lost, they have also tried to encourage simple animation which I think can only benefit new Flash users.

All in all I think CS4 is great and well worth the investment it is not only new and improved, it opens doors for better integrated design for all levels.