Creative Learning and Inspiration

I've been doing some online training via Lynda.com, a great digital resource for learning creative software tools. I'm focusing on Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator which are tools that I've worked with for many years. However, watching online videos of top-notch professionals is teaching me tons of new tricks. In addition, Lynda has a library of inspirational videos. I definitely recommend checking out these mini-documentaries of creative professionals. It is really inspiring to see the stories of artists, photographers, musicians and designers who've been successful in the creative industry. Note: I have a subscription to this site, but there is a ton of content available to non-members. I especially enjoyed looking "into the life and home studio of one of the entertainment industry's most sought-after motion graphics designers, Rick Morris." Also, don't forget to "take a ride in the Big Spaceship with this intimate look at the inner workings of one of the web's most innovative firms."

The Lost Art of Sketching

I've been working with computers, lo these last 20 years. I've always gravitated toward the crowd that liked pencils with their digital tools. I've been an advocate of the low-fidelity prototype since the early days. As an Internet industry worker, I recommend drawing in a journal/sketchbook at least a few times a week. Lately I've forced myself to do it every day. The results are extremely beneficial to me...I work out problems conceptually before I implement them in my professional life. Plus, it's just therapeutic to draw a dragon, skull or robot at least once a day.




Please see some of my recent sketchbook doodles by clicking on the thumbnails above. I've removed most of the text and words, but I wanted to collect these pen & pencil sketches in a digital way. I also posted them to my Flickr page. If you have a Flickr account, you can see the super hi-res versions of these.

It seems sketching is enduring a bit of a resurgence. Sketching comes back into fashion. I love it. Below are some examples of these concepts.

For ages, people in power have used simple pens and pencils to work out complex problems. Check out the great book called Presidential Doodles: Two Centuries of Scribbles, Scratches, Squiggles, and Scrawls from the Oval Office from the creators of Cabinet Magazine. See a great excerpt and samples in The Atlantic.

The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam is a fun, prescriptive book which helps you "solve any problem with a picture".

Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design by Bill Buxton is a must-read. Earlier this spring I had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Buxton speak in Las Vegas at the Microsoft MIX conference. Check out my post from that event for more links concerning lo-fi prototyping and design sketching.

Learn about mind mapping, graphic facilitation and sketchnoting in the great post, "The Joy of Sketch: explorations in hand-crafted visuals" by Kate Rutter of Adaptive Path.

LISTEN: Hear the NPR story "Bored? Try Doodling To Keep The Brain On Task" by Alix Spiegel. There are also some of President Obama's doodles on the website.

Next year, don't forget National Doodle Day.

See these helpful tips and tutorials: Drawing Tips - Top 10 Mistakes Beginners Make.

My Favorite Design Blogs

Many online resources exist for today's designers. Check out my list below for sites that review tools, showcase products, provide tutorials and link creative people to other creative people. Even if you are not a designer, these sites are just plain fun to look at.

Web Designer Wall: A wall of design ideas, web trends, and tutorials.

Creative Nerds: Tutorials, news, inspiration and freebies.

Smashing Magazine: Hacks, tips, freebies, tutorials, fonts and more.

Uselog: The product usability weblog.

WeFunction: Web design company that posts links to free themes, inspiring before and afters and tutorials.

Design Reviver: Providing web designers with valuable information such as tutorials, free downloads, sources of inspiration, and articles covering a wide range of web design related topics.

Fuel Your Creativity: Articles, links and samples for designer block.

Boxes and Arrows: Devoted to the practice, innovation, and discussion of design; including graphic design, interaction design, information architecture and the design of business.

Core 77: Articles, discussion forums, extensive event calendar, portfolio hosting, job listings, a database of design firms, schools, vendors and services.

Design with Intent: Design for sustainable behavior. How do people use products, systems and environments? How can designers influence interaction?

Doors of Perception: Starting new conversations on design and innovation.

Photoshop Star: Free Photoshop tutorials.

Outlaw Design Blog: Free resources, product reviews, tutorials and a guide to passive income.

Vandelay Design: Provides helpful and informative posts that meet the needs of web designers or online entrepreneurs.

Noupe: News for designers and web-developers on all subjects of design, ranging from; CSS, Ajax, Javascript, web design, graphics, typography, advertising & more.

Devlounge: Design, web apps, interviews and code.

Just Creative Design: Designer Jacob Cass posts articles about graphic design, logo design, web design, advertising, branding, typography, and icons.

Jhames: Seattle designer James Elliott shares insights about techniques and about the design industry.

Spoon Graphics: Tutorials, techniques, links and inspiration.

Six Revisions: Practical, useful information for the modern, standards-compliant web designer and web developer.

Emily Chang: Award-winning web and interaction designer, technology strategist and entrepreneur.

Web Designer Help: Tutorials, interviews, competitions.

Elite by Design: A design community dedicated to providing helpful and insightful articles in the fields of web design, web development, and Photoshop.

Viral Entertainment Shows How To Squeeze Creative Juices

This is quality online entertainment. Ever wonder where creative juices come from? Just squeeze a skinny designer. Watch this hilarious video "The Harvest" (above) created for The South West Regional Development Agency, a group promoting South West England.

The video was made by Bristol-based viral video gurus Rubber Republic. In addition to making the video, they sent 2000 bottles of "creative juices" (you'll understand once you watch the video) to London creative agencies.

Check out the Creative Juices microsite.

Microsoft Silverlight Presentation by Brian Goldfarb part 1

(Install Silverlight to view this video.)

The video above is part one of a keynote speech given by Brian Goldfarb of Microsoft at the 2008 CRE8 Conference. I attended the conference in Orlando and you can review my earlier posts from the show.

A cultural change is afoot at Microsoft, where the oft-neglected designer is finally getting a long-craved-for hug from the Borg. This time it really seems like they are serious about respecting user experience and good human-computer interface design best practices. For instance, Microsoft is part of the OpenAjax Alliance and they have even launched a full-on designer community.

Check out his presentation to learn about Microsoft's new approach to the entire "ecosystem of developers" which involves "collaboration between teams of partners". Microsoft is not only trying to provide tools to do tasks, but they are also addressing the need for workflow solutions. How do teams work closely together, freely exchanging ideas, files and deliverables? With the new products, a designer can open up a project that has been coded by a developer and vice versa.

Goldfarb leads teams dedicated to building upon Microsoft's Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), their unified application framework. Among other things, it allows developers to apply basic windows functionality (like spell check) into multimedia applications.

He spoke broadly about general changes in Microsoft culture and practice. He mentioned that their server is now standards-based, and the "browser is getting better, I promise".

He shared a variety of example Silverlight sites from their Gallery, including Break.com, HSN,and the mind-bending "Deep Zoom" technology on the Hard Rock Cafe site.

At the time of this presentation, Microsoft was seeing over one million downloads a day of the Silverlight plug-in.

The new products support HD video, adaptive streaming solutions, XAML, and DRM-ready features. Read my post about a recent all-day Silverlight training event I attended at Microsoft to learn more about all this stuff.

Goldfarb stressed that they are building demand. Now they need creative people to develop the supply. To that end, they are offering 10 gigs of free hosting! The video above takes advantage of this. They are encouraging the developer network by providing a free place to get started.

Silverlight is driving plugin adoption by offering content developers a free hosting and streaming service: "Microsoft® Silverlight™ Streaming by Windows Live™ is a companion service for Silverlight that makes it easier for developers and designers to deliver and scale rich media as part of their Silverlight applications. The service offers web designers and developers a free and convenient solution for hosting and streaming cross-platform, cross-browser media experiences and rich interactive applications that run on Windows™ and Mac."

10 Free Web-based Alternatives to Photoshop

Want to edit (or warp) your images? Want to avoid spending $1,000 on Photoshop? The fun and informative LifeClever blog has a great post about free online image editors. LifeClever offers design advice, productivity tips and life hacks for designers and non-designers.