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.

If you would like to try taking a high speed photograph, I really recommend giving it a go, you will need an SLR  camera, generally speaking an expensive camera can reach a much faster shutter speed and high speed photography is the game of shutter speed.

Here are some of my favorite high speed photographs:-

If you have taken some high speed photography and have some photos to share please drop a link in the post, I am going to try and take some this weekend.  I am hoping that I get some good quality images.

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?

Here are a few of my favorites which I came across on one of my favorite sites Web Design Ledger.

My first favorite is this one, it is the Anti Breakage Shampoo : Rapunzel.  I like how they have used a well known character to promote shampoo.

Not being a huge fan of heights, I am not sure that I would do very well with this and would have to take the stairs.

I also love the ones that can make you smile,

I have only chosen a few that I really liked, please visit the site to see more advertisements not to be forgotten.

Enjoy design in 2010.

]]> http://www.digitaldesignadvice.com/2010/graphic-design/happy-new-year/feed/ 0 http://www.digitaldesignadvice.com/2009/graphic-design/guerrilla-marketing/ http://www.digitaldesignadvice.com/2009/graphic-design/guerrilla-marketing/#comments Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:11:51 +0000 LucyP http://www.digitaldesignadvice.com/?p=851 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.

One of the earliest campaigns was from Adidas having struggled with promoting the brand after changes in management they needed to pull something big out of the bag and their answer was to give pairs of Adidas trainers away to rappers in New York and if you are a child of the 80s you will remember Run DMC bringing out a single called “My Adidas”.  If you don’t remember the song then see the bottom of the post.

Todays guerrilla marketing has changed from the early days and is now more inventive and sometimes challenging.

Here are some of my favorites:-

The important thing to remember about guerrilla marketing as a technique is it becomes ineffective once it has been used, marketers need to keep ahead and find new ways to grab the attention  otherwise what was a surprise marketing campaign that everyone was talking once will soon something that people have forgotten and are bored with.

Whether you like this marketing technique or not you have to agree that it does make you stop and stair – it works!

Just in case you don’t remember – you’ve got to love the 80s.

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


Nathan Cafolla aged 16

1st, 2nd and 3rd year

Sarah Peters aged 14

Nora Casey aged 12

Juniors and Infants

Louise Gilmore aged 8

Visit the Doodle 4 Google site to place votes for each age group.

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.

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.

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.

—

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!

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.

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!

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.