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

Web design trends for 2009

Over the past few months we have looked at a number of web site designs. But which of the developments and trends that we’ve seen will continue, which will go mainstream and become a classic approach? Here are some of the web design trends that DDA think designers are beginning to accept as standard approaches.

Single Page Layouts

We visited single page portfolio designs in a previous DDA post on showcase and showreel sites but I felt it was important enough to include as a prediction for 2009 too, as I believe we will be seeing a lot more of these types of designs – not just restricted to portfolio sites.

Pikaboo.be


Paolo Boccardi – Photographer

Modal Boxes / Lightboxes

This method of displaying media or capturing data is fast becoming the norm for web sites. Modal Boxes enable the user to input information, make selections or view images and videos without having to navigate away from the page they are viewing.

The Typographic Desk Reference

read more

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.

Logo Design

As this week we have covered inspirational and innovative web design from Chloe and graphic design from Sophie I thought we should take a look at logo design.  Logo design is an important area of graphic design that sometimes doesn’t get the care and attention it requires.  Logos should represent a company’s brand and gain immediate recognition.  We are looking forward to designing our own logo for “DDA”.  I think we each may design one and decide whose is best from that – like our own design competition.

An example of a great logo is the Apple logo which is simple in colour and design but recognised worldwide.  Establishing a recognised brand logo is the best way to get your company brand out there.

The Design Cubicle have invited designers to submit their logo design work, the top 40 have been showcased on their site. I would recommend that you take a look for yourself as there is a great range of inspirational ideas and concepts.

I have a few favorites for different reasons,

I like the Tiny Mouse Design as I like what it has achieved you get the impression that the text is big with the mouse illustration being a good contrast, it is clever and works.

I also was impressed by the quality of design of Arron Lock with his logo for Mountain View, with such warm colours and catching design with a clean concept it will work well to promote the Ozark Folk Center.

Sean Farrell also did an interesting take on a restaurant which specialises in drinks.  The simple design works well to promote the not only the name of the bar but also establishes what Exclusive Lounge are about.  This design follows the basic rules of great logo design, its rememberable, simple and represents the brand.

What do you like about logos and which out of their top 40 is your favorite?

I think we should have a best and worst logo design competition, name the best logo design and worst, I have just searched the internet for bad logo design but I think there must be some big brands that have made mistakes with logo design.

Showcase and Showreel Websites

SciFi channel mini series TinMan kicks off their promotional campaign with an amazing flash based graphic journey though Infinite OZ. You can control the speed with which you fly through this beatifully designed landscape, pause on a scene to find out more information about that place, and if you wanted to find out more about the program just got to the main TinMan website. Airing on the SciFi chanel on December 2nd at 9pm – I will be interested to see if they can translate the backdrops to the small screen.

Portfolio sites – how do you get noticed and stand out from the competition? How can you give yourself the edge in the world of new media agencies? Well single-page design could work for you if you don’t have much content, but want to showcase just your work. If you’re a designer then using a single page design can save you time and cost as it doesn’t require much coding. Below are some of the best examples of single page web design I’ve found. Hopefully, they can give you some inspiration.

Inspirational & Innovative Interactive Marketing

Hello my name’s Chloe. I’m a graphic designer who has been working in the field of web design for the past 6 years. Over the coming months I will be bringing you a selection of sites that keep my creative fire burning, please feel free to leave your comments or queries about any of the sites I post and I will endevour to respond.

SAIZEN MEDIA STUDIOS is an internationally acclaimed and award winning Design Firm that specializes in highly cinematic and detail oriented imagery.

Well known in the industry, for its meticulous approach to graphics creation and attention to detail, Saizen Media Studios consits of a team of internationally acclaimed artists, engineers, programmers and animators, and provides services in the fields of Web Design, Graphic Design, Motion Graphics, Packaging and Music Production.

As expected with such a talented team, their own company website is truely a credit to their craft with attention to detail and creative use of flash animation, no matter how many times you look at the site you are guaranteed to see something you didn’t last time.

TVM Studio is a collaboration between Trevor Van Meter (hence the name) and his partner Ferg.

Between them they have a variety of sites including VanBeater, Jamungo, Pixelperson and my personal favorite… CrappyCat. This site includes a flash game of said CrappyCat which is completely pointless and utterly brilliant and I would highly recommend a walk around CrappyCats world!

The next in my list proves that single product information brochure sites most definitely don’t have to be dull, boring and text heavy. In 1993 11 milk processors in California agreed to allocate 3 cents of each gallon of milk sold to fund efforts to promote the consumption of milk and the GotMilk? brand was born. (I’m sure you all remember the ‘milk mustaches’ campaign – with over 200 celebrities representing the brand – In 2002, the ad was named one of the ten best commercials of all time by a USA Today poll)

In 2006 the the campaign diversified and began targeting the Spanish speaking demograph. Now the brand is back with not one but two interactive websites (one in english one in spanish) and the campaign to get nations drinking milk has begun once again.

I included my next selection to illustrate that, although good navigation is critical to a well designed website, breaking away from the industry standards doesn’t necessarily mean that the site will be inoperable. After a few seconds to get my head around the pencil/zoom function of the site I found that it was, in fact, quite easy to find my way around. Mind you I would expect no less from a 73 year old brand development agency that’s been responsible for campaigns such as Tony the Tiger, Pilsbury Dough Poppin Fresh and Earth Hour, and representing companies such as Kellogs, McDonalds and Levis.

Last but not least I have included the following site on recommendation from a colleague. With all of the DIY and DIC (do it cheap!) ecommerce websites floating around on the web nowerdays, it’s nice to come across a site that takes pride in the customer journey as well as the end result in making a sale. Although the loading times are understandably longer than a run of the mill ecommerce site, the graphics and functionality more than make up for the wait. Couple the smooth navigation and clean design with the vast amount of content (including learn to ride tutorials, news and events and even it’s own community!) Burtons is one of the most comprehensive ecommerce sites on the web today – and they redesign it EVERY year!!