fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Visual Trends on Instagram
By: Ferenc Horváth
Tags: Instagram, Marketing, Visual Design, Motion Design, Social Media

New year, new feed?

2021 is already on the doorstep, but first we should say goodbye to the current year. Let’s review what was the cool stuff on IG in the last twelve months!

Visual Trends on Instagram 2020 / 2021

In 2020 Carousel posts got increasingly popular, even combined with videos. We could also notice a spread of structured feeds. Besides the more well-known Row by Row Layout, other setups like Vertical Lines Feed, Diagonal Grid and Rainbow Feed gained ground. However, the biggest in 2020 was the Puzzle Layout, which brought even more success to those who managed to make the single posts look cool and stylish without having to post the 3-piece lines together.

All kinds of motion picture content were big as well in 2020, probably due to their pretty high reach. Instagram Lives were in the mainstream — as half of the globe was spending most of the time at home because of the pandemic, after a while many of us got kind of bored and started creating content to entertain ourselves and our followers as well.

But what should we expect for the next year? How will we keep our audience engaged and entertained? What are the visual trends for 2021?

There’s a high chance that videos and Carousel posts will remain on top and become even more popular. If this is right, then the need for something different will arise soon, as with more and more users creating these kinds of content it will be more and more difficult to catch the audience’s attention. What do you predict to emerge from this challenge? I say animated posts are definitely an option to create difference — they might even take the place of Carousels.

Looking at a few social media marketing experts’ forecasts, motion picture content trends are everywhere, from IG Stories being in the center of influencer marketing through the rise of Reels to GIFs becoming even more popular.

Do you have any thoughts on what to expect next year? Do you think animated content will become more prominent? I’d love to see your opinion in the comments!
Create visual hierarchy in design
By: Jhane Chou
Tags: Creativity, Visual Design, Design, Visual Hierarchy, Art

Create visual hierarchy in design

Design by Jhane Chou

The visual hierarchy adds the exquisiteness of the screen, and the more important function is to allow the content to be organized effectively and make it easier for users to understand.

Stage level? Priority level?

“Stage level” refers to the richness and change of the screen, and the “Priority level” in this article means the order of priority. Level refers to the hierarchical order of the system in terms of structure or function. It is diverse and can be divided according to multiple standards such as quality, energy, movement status, spatial scale, time sequence, and degree of organization. Different levels have different properties and characteristics, not only have common laws, but also have their own special laws.

Initially, psychologists tested the user’s visual perception of the relationship between elements based on the “Gestalt principle”, and found that people tend to group elements that are close to the visual relationship as a group with relationships.

Design by Jhane Chou

Although the meaning of stage level and priority level are very close, there are still some differences between them.

Stage level

There are common laws, and each has special laws.

There are common laws, and each has special laws. Priority level

Focus on the order of priority and include the characteristics of the level.

To understand stage level, you must learn how to use priority level to improve your visual vision; when you learn to use priority level, you have the concept of stage level. The use of stage level, the easy way is to compare, and finally integrate all concepts and break the rules.
Using Graphic Design for Advocacies and Campaigns
By: Roshane Dominguez
Tags: Visual Design, Graphic Design

Advocacies and campaigns are an excellent platform for us to use when we want to help people, especially in difficult times. Especially if we’re going to inspire and spread awareness, our target should always be the people who are oppressed, marginalized, and the ones who are struggling with life. We could also remember to advocate for the environment. How will we incorporate graphic design here? Here, let us look at the different forms or types of Graphic Design and how we can use them.

POSTERS

Posters are a way to promote and spread awareness to the people. These could either be purely text, purely graphics, or both text and graphics. These are great designs to use when you want to show your project’s images and add the title to the poster.

SOCIAL MEDIA ADS

Social media is the best way to use it when advocating or campaigning. It is one of the most used platforms to share advertisements. Using social media advertisements can help boost your project, and you can also make websites to promote it further. Making digital banners can attract your target audience, especially if you can explain your project in a short, simple, and convincing way.

POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS

This does not apply to the promotion part of advocating anymore. It applies when you are already doing the project. For example, you want people to understand what you are supporting, and you chose to have a seminar. Using PowerPoint presentations can help the audience visualize what you are campaigning for and understand your goal. In this way, you could use the presentation by adding videos, photos, and text to further explain to them the benefits of speaking out and start and advocacy.

USER INTERFACE GRAPHIC DESIGNS

User interference, or short for UI, is how users interact with a device or mobile applications. Especially now that we live in a technological world, using UI would help promote your projects more. Making your web page can help bring in more volunteers or donations. This is to see that you are a legitimate organization. You can also help them interact with you by adding videos, polls, and chat boxes to your web page.

MOTION GRAPHICS

You could use this when you want people to be interested and hooked to your advocacies or campaigns. Examples could be making a video like trailers, compilations of past projects, or creative documentaries. Again this is another way people can visualize your goal and feel the emotions you are trying to portray. Promotional videos and advertisements could also be included here.

WALL MURALS AND SIGNAGES

Most projects that are environmental focus on making wall murals or signages. Wall murals are eye-catching and make images pop. You can make the audience feel empathy towards the people having struggles or caring towards the environment. Signages can help promote advocacy, too, and be a guide to tell people what your organization is.
How Applying To One Job Can Get You Hired At Another
By: Tate Shepard
Tags: User Experience, Visual Design, Design, Ui Ux, Figma

So you after applying to dozens of companies, you finally score your first phone interview. Initially, you are beyond excited, especially when they forward you to the next round. However, here’s where things get tricky. You have been tasked with completing a design challenge, and you only have a couple of days to complete it. Initially, you spent way too long brainstorming, deciding on colors, and choosing a font. Now you are forced to turn in work you are not especially proud of. A day after submitting the challenge you receive a long email from the company. You think to yourself, what a long message, this must be a good sign!

It was not a good sign and you will not be moving forward in the interviewing process. Now is when most people would start to feel defeated, but there is no reason you should feel this way. What you walked away with is about just as valuable.

Most companies are aware of the investment required to complete a project of this breadth. It is because of this that they almost always follow up with critiques to the work submitted. This is where the real value lies. Not only did you just gain authentic hands-on experience designing the product, but tips explaining exactly what to change next time!

A lot of the value will depend on what you do with the final result of this experience. You are now left with a mostly finished design and tips on how to improve it. Take the time and make those changes. Also, go ahead and change any names or images directly related to the company you just applied with, posting another companies challenge doesn’t reflect professionalism. Once you have applied the improvements to the design you now know everything you need to build out a case study. The most important thing to show in your case study is the process. Employers want to see how you got from start to finish, and omitting this information repeals all value from your work. It is not frowned upon to admit you were wrong about certain design decisions. Adaptation is an equally valuable skill, and showing your progression attests to growth.

Many people complain about being unable to secure real work experience, but fail to recognize that this work is just as real, even if you arent being paid for it. So don’t let any design work go to waste, and go post a case study of your last challenge. You never know, it may even get you hired.
Indonesia Actioncam Community Logo and Visual Identity
Tags: Logo Design, Visual Design, Graphic Design, Branding, Brand Identity

bproid is an independent community that is a collection of fans of an action camera product from the brica company. This community wants to bring together hobbyists with freedom, fun, and adventure.

The logo that I made is quite simple, at the request of the client itself. just want to display the text of the community name itself and add the shape of the action camera in the logo. the letter “o” in the design is made into the camera lens itself. which contains the Indonesian flag symbol which contains various kinds of things that we can take pictures of from the Indonesian state

Software to use Adobe Photoshop CC & Adobe Illustrator CC

Art Director & Graphic Designer: Fatih Annuri

Behance & Dribbble: Fatihannuri

Instagram & Facebook Page : fatihannuridesign

Project Year: July 2015

#graphicdesign #graphicdesigner #logodesign #designer #logodesign #logo #designer #creative #branding #design #brand #coffee #logodesigner #visualidentity #brandidentitydesign #brandidentity #designcommunity #graphicdesigners #behance #freelance #marketing #project #graphics

See my other portfolio :

Hire Me on Fiverr :
Best Branding and Logo Design Examples for Inspiration 116
By: They Make Design
Tags: Startup, Visual Design, Design, Inspiration, Business

7 tips how to inspire people with logo

1. Make logo animated , but not too expressive.

Logo looks so much better when it moves, we know that, it’s a little inspiration and it’s not harmful. It catches eyes, and inspires users. People that have seen it still talk about it. Logo can’t be too expressive, because it’s not a product, and not even a human, it’s just a logo.

2. Make logo colorful but not too interesting.

Logos can’t be too colorful, because then they can be distracting and not some dull ones, like in those old times when artistic tastes were not so developed.

3. Make logo nice but not too calm.

I’ve chosen this word ‘nice’, because logos shouldn’t be so calm, like in some fresh paint, because we feel the necessity for some feeling in logo. It’s just a logo, background and sight can be calm:

4. Make logo beautiful but not too romantic.

This word ‘beautiful’ is very important, because logos can’t be too romantic, like those villains that were so popular in the middle of the 20th century. There was no «ice girl» with red lips and shiny uniform yet, and logo wasn’t that nicely done either.

5. Make logo creative but not too silly.

I think it’s good to tell a humor, but not to essentialize every word, because logo had to be serious and not hilarious, because it’s not a poster of anime series. Those people never really bought their slogan, because everyone knows what they’re selling.

6. Make logo interesting but not too strange.

Logo had to be interesting but not strange, that would be an easter egg for the web designers. There are logos that are so strange, that we can’t believe their creator has no sense of humor at all.

7. Make logo cute but not too fun.

Before they say ‘hee hee …’ watch it, because logos that are cute fall into that category. Just because it has 3D render, that doesn’t mean it’s cute or lighthearted, it can be cruel. Earlier than that, it can be referential art, because some people will understand it.
Case study: our journey of self-exploration — UnlockFM rebranding
By: An Le
Tags: Product Design, Visual Design, Podcast, Branding, Self Exploration

Let me share with you a story of how we rebranded the UnlockFM podcast. While it might look effortlessly simple on the surface, what hides behind is the immense level of deep thinking, painful decisions, and never-ending iterations that our team had endured. This story is not about the outcome. This story is about a roller coaster ride 🎢 of how we got there.

Most importantly, it’s about our team’s journey of self-exploration, optimism, and drive to build something that personally spoke to us, in the hopes that it will do the same to you.

By sharing our struggles and bumps along the journey, I hope to convince you that you can also do it (if you care enough). Even when you think you can’t.

Here is how it began:

Last year, my friend, Quyen, started the UnlockFm podcast, which sheds light on the hidden and inspiring Vietnamese talent. Each episode centers around speakers’ non-linear journeys of breaking out from traditional moulds to achieve their purpose. Listening to the podcast, I felt my urge to do something with my skills outside of the ‘9 to 5 work’ was growing stronger and stronger.

As I was scrolling social media, I stopped at the UnlockFM posts. My eyes started twitching due to the small text, inconsistent layout, and overused gradient colors. 🥴 Anybody has that, or is it just me?
Skill Chef : A UI/UX Case study. A Masterclass to unleash your inner…
Tags: UX Design, UI Design, Product Design, Visual Design, Voice User Interfaces

Project Background

Due to the pandemic many entertainment activities such as movies, concerts, and exhibitions are cancelled, home cooking functions as a great time killer.

Remember back in the early days of quarantine when we were all baking bread, cakes and trying out new and trending recipes? Learning to cook a new dish and uploading it online has become popular for people to communicate with friends and family.

For people quarantine cooking is more than just feeding themselves, it has become a way for them to overcome anxiety.

The pandemic has changed every aspect of our daily lives, and that of course includes our food habits.

As the corona virus pandemic continues, consumers have settled into routines that involves home cooking and studies suggests that these habits will continue post-pandemic.

With people gravitated towards cooking and following the trends, professional food related apps are witnessing huge surge in their user bases.
Design is dead, and we killed him.
By: Lorenzo Doremi
Tags: Visual Design, UX, Design, Technology, Web Development

2050. It’s a windy December night. Christmas is around the corner, and I feel cozy with my hot cup of coffee and my favorite Lo-Fi playlist. Everything seems perfect. Everything seems in the right place. Then, a voice. A voice whispers: “You have killed it”.

“What have I killed?” I ask perplexed.

A long silence.

“Design.” responds the voice.

I don’t understand. Design is great nowadays: websites are wonderful, apps even more. Why is this creepy voice telling me that I killed design?

I had to further investigate, so I asked the voice of her reasons.

“Usability” whispers calmly.

Well, that word made me chill. Memories started to flow in my mind while I was paralyzed in front of my computer. There was a time, many years ago, when designers used to say that term: Usability. It meant a lot in the past, and was a fundamental part of our lives. There were a lot of platforms and websites where you could learn about “usability”, like Medium or W3C.

The Usability Era.

Those times were indeed strange: designers cared about the user experience and designed websites according to it. I can even remember that people were tested on prototypes before developing platforms. Ages of darkness, in which absurd guidelines like accessible fonts, sizes, and contrast were law. Can you even imagine designing a website with all this tomfoolery?

Can you recall websites where scrolling was set on default, and no script interfered with the user? Horror. Horror to my eyes. But thanks to our two omnipotent Lords, Dribbble and Awwwards, everything changed.

The Aesthetic Era

The voice said that I (or we) killed design. Clearly, this is the speech of a heretic. Design got blessed with the Word of our Lords and, finally, peace flooded the world.

Design brought us ten commandments, and I hope you can recite them with me. You can’t? Well, don’t say that where someone can hear you. Now let me recite them backward for you.

10. Always in the name of our Lords, use left-side drawers in app design.

This is important: most people are right-handed, and their thumb can’t reach the left part of the new generation screens. In fact, you don’t want the user to access the app menu, Don’t you?
How to read a chart
Tags: Business, Visual Design, Design, Visualization

Have you ever had people looked at your chart for 5 seconds, threw their hands in the air, and said it’s confusing? Have you ever misunderstood a chart because you weren’t looking closely —like the classic it’s going up right it must be good? Both have happened and are still happening to me, understandably so.

We are surrounded by charts every day demanding our proper interpretation, but we weren’t taught how to do it. We tend to naturally mistaken charts for drawings, expecting to grasp all the information at one glance. But a chart that is properly made is so rich in information that it requires work to properly read and understand them.

Before you create a chart, you need to know how people read them. Before you interpret a chart, you need to know how to read them. So whether you are a designer or a reader, here’s how to read a chart.
ROOTED CASE STUDY/ / 2020. Rooted is a subscription service that…
By: Maddy Stabinger
Tags: Case Study, Heathly Lifestyle, Visual Design, UX, Design

Group Roles:

Project Manager: Lily Tooher (Left)

Production Manager: Samantha Petty (Middle)

Presenter & Creative Lead: Madison Stabinger (Right)

Beginning Process:

2020 has definitely been a turbulent year for us all for many many reasons. So when presented with the challenge of creating a take out service while keeping our current climate in mind we wanted to focus on these three key points.

Firstly, with people stuck at home social distancing this year, the feeling of loneliness and isolation has gone up. Our goal is to give our customers a new form of entertainment that would help not only give our customers something to do together , but also allow them to hone a new skill in the process.

Secondly, food waste has always been an issue in the United States but due to the pandemic the issue has been exacerbated. In the beginning of the semester we found out that 40% of food goes to waste every year in America. A big component of this is over estimating the ingredients needed for cooking when grocery shopping. It’s hard to know exactly how much food will be enough for the week and most people would rather have too much than too little. Another issue is farmers having to throw out the excess produce they have each month because with our current situation it’s more costly to donate it than throw it away. It doesn’t help that there’s been less demand from restaurants due to many of them having to temporarily close. Since this issue only seems to be increasing we wanted to find a way to use these leftover vegetables from local farmers so that they don’t go to waste

The last problem we wanted to address was sustainability. Plastic and styrofoam containers create waste that we can’t get rid of even when ‘recycled.’ Many people have the right intentions when it comes to recycling, but in reality, only 12% of all plastic has been incinerated leaving the rest in landfills and the ocean. In order to reduce our carbon footprint, we searched to find a packaging solution that focused on reducing and reusing rather than recycling.

What is our is our product: (a brief statement)

The Veggie Kit combines cooking and gardening to create a relaxing yet entertaining at home experience. It is a customizable subscription service where the customer gets a wooden box filled with fresh ingredients and produce so that the buyer can make vegetarian meals in their own home.

The customer can choose how often they would like to receive a veggie kit whether it be weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. The buyer has 12 to 15 vegetarian meals to choose from on our website as well as 2–3 infused drink options. Each box comes with exact amounts of ingredients to make the cooking process less stressful. In addition the box comes with an optional gardening component that includes a starter kit which teaches customers how to grow their own produce.
Website Dashboard UI Examples Inspiration 80
By: They Make Design
Tags: Visual Design, Design, Inspiration, Technology, Business

Best Website Dashboard UI Examples for Design Inspiration — #80

Digital dashboard is one of the key elements of today’s digital internet environment. We use them for tracking web analytics, for working with our sales leads, for managing our client base and much more.

Digital dashboards may be laid out to track the flows inherent in the business processes that they monitor. Graphically, users may see the high-level processes and then drill down into low level data. This level of detail is often buried deep within the corporate enterprise and otherwise unavailable to the senior executives.

We decided to create a weekly series of inspirational feeds that showcase some of the best examples of web dashboards.
UI Case Study: Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide
By: Emilia Lungu
Tags: Case Study, Visual Design, Charity, UI, Rebranding

The Challenge

In the brief, I was tasked with re-designing the website for a charity of choice and give it a much needed design makeover. From the five options I had been given, I opted for Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW), a charity that ‘helps communities speak out for clean air, clean water, and a healthy planet’. I have always been passionate about the environment and after researching about the foundation, I immediately felt drawn to this charity and the meaningful work that they do.

This was an individual 4-day visual design sprint to rebrand and reskin two pages of the existing website. My responsabilities included competitor research, mood boards, brand identity, style guide, high-fidelity responsive designs across three devices.

Introducing ELAW

Since its founding in 1989, ELAW has grown from a group of 10 public interest lawyers in Oregon to a network of advocates operating in over 80 countries to challenge against environmental abuses.

ELAW helps challenge environmental abuses and builds a worldwide corps of skilled, committed advocates working to protect ecosystems and communities for generations to come.

Looking At The Current Website

The website looks to showcase the work of this network by guiding readers through the organisation’s success stories. Despite its informative structure, the site is difficult to navigate and struggles to emphasise the charity impact. This comes down to unintuitive content, oversized buttons and icons, inconsistent use of white space and unrelated stock imagery.

Donate page

I decided to re-design the website and reinforce the values of the charity and their personality as straight talking people by giving it a modern, bold and impactful feel.

Discover and Define

Competitive Research

Starting off with competitive research, I looked into both local organisations and larger, well known global non-profits. More specifically, I looked at Environmental Law Foundation, Plastic Oceans, Greenpeace and The National Wildlife Federation.

During this process, I’ve learned that the charity sector needs to make it as easy as possible to donate or join a cause — ideally in a few clicks — if they are to be in with a chance of obtaining valuable contributions and signups. Lenghty donation forms, re-entering data and difficulty finding key information are just some of the things that will make supporters look elsewhere.

Other key findings:

There is an emphasis on impact across the organizations’ websites

across the organizations’ websites CTAs to donate are visible in numerous places throughout the sites

throughout the sites Distractions (such as external links) are kept to a minimum on the Donation page to boost conversions

To start defining the personality of the brand, I have referenced these charities and their values:

Mind map

I then continued with a mind map exercise. This has helped me to come up with the main keywords that define ELAW.
Reducing Plastic Waste Take-Out With Banana Leaves
By: Camryn Sheasley
Tags: Case Study, Visual Design, UX, Branding, Coronavirus

Ideation/Research

We were tasked with creating and designing branding for a restaurant that thrives in our current conditions under COVID-19. This meant that our restaurant could not be a dine-in experience, rather, it should demonstrate the safety of takeout and pickup dining.

One overlooked outcome of the pandemic and Covid-19 is the increase in plastic waste. Despite the fear of climate change and pollution, one-time-use plastic came back into stores globally to aid with curbing the spread of the virus. With that in mind, we decided that we wanted to go in the direction of being able to be environmentally friendly while trying to cut back on costs. After some research and inspiration from that of Asian cuisine, we stumbled upon the marvelous concept of banana leaves.

Banana leaves are already a well-loved tool with Asian cuisine, not only for their enhancing flavor when utilized as a cooking supplement, but as well for their use of a way to package food. This practice is nothing new, as it dates back thousands of years in places like the Philippines and India substituting for paper and plastic, due to its flexibility and waterproof aspect.

Our initial statement and proposition for a banana leaf takeout restaurant is as follows:

Like any take out solution, banana leaves offer affordances and restrictions. As such, banana leaf packaging works best with food that is compacted.

Customizable wraps (Does not need to specifically be banana leaves, could be made from beeswax or silicone).

Different colors/Custom engravings

Return/Re-use your wraps for discounts (Much like how places that sell milk or water discount you for bringing back their water bottles for refill.)

Reusable at home

Collection of banana leaves for personal storage such as leftovers, cheese, covers for containers

Inexpensive

Some environmentally friendly factors can be on the pricier side but the banana leaf is much more affordable

Problems It Could Solve: Helps reduce one-time waste that has increased due to COVID.

Client: Anyone, but specifically those who are more inclined to use one-use equipment (College kids, busy families, restaurants.)

Potential Personas: Restaurants, College Students, Families
The biggest lesson from 2020…
By: José Torre
Tags: Lessons Learned, User Experience, Visual Design, UX, Design

2020 has been a challenging year, forcing most people to adapt to new realities.

It has been tough for everyone, but as an eternal optimist I always look at the silver lining, and the thing that sticks out the most for me is adaptability.

As a teenager, I fell in love with skateboarding and I decided I wanted to learn how to do it. Little did I know that when you don’t know how to balance yourself on top of a skateboard, even going straight ahead is a pretty big challenge, which is a nice way to say that, I fell a LOT. But, with time you start to pick up on your mistakes, and what previously seemed impossible, now is simply muscle memory.

The thing that most people don’t know about skateboarding is that for every trick you land, you spend literally hundreds of times trying, and with that comes a lot of falling.

So skateboarders are forced to become pretty good at that, learning how to fall in a way they won’t get hurt, so they can continue on falling until they finally land the trick.

When you learn how to fall, it’s easier to get back up and keep trying.

What’s my point? In 2020 we all fell pretty hard, now it’s up to us to either cry about it or get back up, shake the dust off and try again.

Designers (and people in general) need to be prepared for change because change is inevitable. Every once in a while comes a year, like 2020, that forces change on you, and at that point, you either adapt or you break.

What keeps me optimistic is seeing that people can not only adapt, but thrive in a changing world. Just look how much progress we had in the span of less than a year on tools that enable remote collaboration, it’s truly amazing!

If a year ago someone told me that a company like Shopify could have their entire workforce working remotely I would laugh. Seriously.

Looking to 2021 and beyond that’s the lesson I take. I want to be more nimble and ready to embrace change with my skateboarder mindset, even if that means that I will have to fall on my face a few times. As long as I’m learning something new with each fall, eventually, I’ll land the trick, and at that moment all is worth it.

Plus, the world won’t stop changing and evolving, in 2021 things may get easier or things may get harder. The moment you refuse to change is the moment you start to lag behind.

As a way to conclude this, I want to challenge you to look for opportunities that come with change, not just the challenges. Because when you take a positive approach it’s easier to persevere.
Do, then think
By: Julio Martínez
Tags: Creativity, Design Process, Doing, Visual Design, Inspiration

Do, then think

A few years back, we were at a fact-gathering meeting with a client and some collaborators. The design problem ahead of us was complex, and it involved many audiences and stakeholders. We were not sure if we knew what we would design, exactly. The room was full of articulate, engaging people. We were soaking in the information, listening to various points of view, asking questions and trying to digest the content and the possibilities.

Toward the last portion of the meeting, when it seemed like we would need to figure out the next steps, a second round of debate emerged, with several what-ifs and further hypotheticals being brought up. The bubbling conversation spilled into various conjectured solutions—we could pursue so and so, or we could build this other thing, or perhaps we can analyze the potential merits of this separate path altogether. I felt an anxious cringe of impatience and looked over at my partner — we were the only designers in the room — and we knew we needed to wrap things up. The time had come to start figuring out how to make concrete sense of the discussion and chart a path forward.

As intriguing as the conversation was, it seemed circuitous to debate further without a concrete model in front of us, without at least a sketch. The meeting had served its purpose — we had obtained information — but the group was starting to attempt to solve a design problem without actually designing, a common issue in our field. We sensed the meeting would go on forever without us intervening, so we started packing our things and politely started to talk about the next meeting, careful not to have a meeting where the only actionable item is “have more meetings.”

Most of these early meetings end with us saying something like we will “go away, think about it, do some studies, and bring back something for us all to react to…” It’s our way of ensuring that we stay focused in the broader goals of the project. As critical as it is to gather research, at some point, things must be attempted, drawn up, prototyped — in other words, designed.

This need to think things thoroughly before doing them is understandable and absolutely critical in many other fields. You certainly would not want your surgical team to “wing it” and get back to you once they are done looking around your insides. But creativity and design are different matters altogether, and they often require the action to come first. To act without a plan is reckless in many walks of life, but it is often an important first step in creativity.
9 Ideas of Creative Visual DesignYou Must Know
By: Mike Schoultz
Tags: Visual Design, Creativity, Design

Mike Schoultz writes about improving the performance of business. Bookmark his blog for stories and articles. www.digitalsparkmarketing.com
Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Business Signage | ALTIUS Graphics
Tags: Design Process, Marketing, Visual Design, Business Strategy, Signs

What makes a good business sign?

There are many factors that go into designing signage to attract potential customers to your business. One key element is how effective your logo is. Making sure you have a simple yet unique logo that visually demonstrates the type of business you are, helps people better understand your purpose.

Elements of your Logo

Color: Having a color scheme that you use across all graphics and logos will help make your business easily identifiable. For example: When you see the colors yellow and red, what instantly comes to mind? Most people would answer McDonald’s, which is well known for its eye-catching, bright yellow “M” when driving on highways.

Font: When thinking about the font, you want to make sure you’re using types that are accessible and easy to read. Fonts that are generally more script and artsy are harder for passers-by to read. But also making sure that your types are just unique enough in itself to be a statement on its own.

Images and Graphics: Adding your logo or any image that correlates to your business will surely bring more attention to the signs that you put up. Adding a border to your signages will help people pay attention to the text that is put in the center of your sign.

Types of signs

Another thing to consider when choosing signs for your business is the materials used. The type of material you use depends on how long you plan on keeping the signup. Getting durable and long-lasting materials such as vinyl, metal, and wood-based materials. 3D logos for your indoor area are a great example of this.

If you are looking for outside placement, a good investment would be monument signage. These free-standing signs are usually made from concrete, marble, brick, or stone; these are durable materials for inclement weather.

Location

Not only should you worry about the materials being used for your signs, but the location in which these signs will go should also be one of your top priorities! Being in the busy Metropolitan city that is Houston, you have plenty of places to choose from. One example would be any major highways/freeways. Getting in touch with the traffic department will give you great insight into what roads and highways are the busiest.

If you’re looking for signage design and installation to give your business the advertising it deserves, make sure to reach out to ALTIUS Graphics. We have the experience and knowledge to bring you high-quality signs and graphics. Give us a call at (832) 500–5160 and check out our website altiusgraphics.com to get more info on our services and products!
Best Web Design Inspiration Marketing Websites 81
By: They Make Design
Tags: Marketing, Visual Design, Design, Inspiration, Technology

5 tips to create original marketing website

1. Avoid the typical

Most designers who work in — or with — Marketing Websites will have designed a Website that looks like others in the industry.

This is an inevitable side effect of education, experience and creative ideas rubbing off on each other.

The template approach that many Marketing Websites follow usually means that it is instantly recognisable.

Most Marketing Websites are relatively standard and all of them are around a certain width.

If you want to have a creative Marketing Website, you have to be different.

By ensuring that your Marketing Website is different, you will stand out from the crowd.

2. Become an expert

A good Marketing Website should be authoritative.

If you can write a piece that shows yourself as an expert, and relevant to your audience, you will stand out.

This is easy to do in the subject areas that you are used to, but harder in areas that are unusual.

Outside your immediate area, it is relatively easy to find experts who are happy to share their expertise. It is the most effective way to get an authoritative Marketing Website page.

3. Test your idea risk free

It’s important that your Marketing Website has a clear direction in terms of what you want to say.

4. Not all brands are alike

Understanding more about your product is key to being able to provide an effective Marketing Website.

5. Don’t be a typical

Don’t be a typical, be different.

CREATIVE TIP:

If there is a line of text in the template that you added, you can copy and paste it — and add a shiny new heading onto the top of it.

You can now give this heading a fancy font mark-up, or apply a tag, color, shape, etc. If the tag looks bold, prominent or special, it will grab the attention of your potential readers and will make your Marketing Website front-page material.

Final thoughts

As a final tip — every Marketing Website should have a tagline that describes what your Marketing Website’s purpose is. This is an effective way to summarise what your Marketing Website is all about.
Design Trends 2020: Visual Design
By: Gabrielle Barcos Galli
Tags: Visual Design, Trends, Design Trends, Graphic Design, UI

The year is coming to an end…

2020 was probably the most challenging year most of us have ever lived. The pandemic changed our everyday lives and brought a whole new vision to the world.

Although the year was marked by chaos, we could observe some incredible design trends growing. Once again, we’ve seen how design plays a huge role in the modern world, responding to changes.

So… it’s time for a retrospective! In this series of articles, we’ll go through the most important Design Trends of the year, talking about digital and graphic design.

In this first part, we’ll explore the Visual Design styles that stood out the most. Let’s go?
Design Trends 2020: Visual Design
By: Gabrielle Barcos Galli
Tags: Visual Design, Trends, UX, UI, Tide

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Hackathons 101: Jumpstart Your Career Into Tech
By: Tate Shepard
Tags: Ui Ux Design, Visual Design, UX, Hackathons, Tech

Photo by Alex Kotliarskyi on Unsplash

A ‘Hackathon’ is an event in which many tech-focused career individuals get together to solve a problem. This problem is presented as a contest with cash prizes as an incentive. However, there are other reasons people take part in these competitions. Networking, learning new skills, and exposure to employers (or anyone else that may help you come closer to landing that next job) are all reasons for participation. These events are popular amongst designers and software engineers who are looking to gain some hands-on experience. Some are only geared to one field, but many of the events have teams composed of software engineers and designers working together to create a product.

When competing in one of these challenges your team plays a big role. You will be spending a lot of time with them and it’s a great opportunity for quality networking. In some instances, you will be assigned randomly to a team, while there are also opportunities to create a team of your own. You will want your team to be composed of individuals with varying skills. Usually, everyone comes from a different background and possesses unique skills to apply to the project.

The hackathon is centered around one challenge or a list of challenges. Each team is usually presented with these challenges either the morning of the event or the evening before. It is especially helpful to receive the challenge the night before so that you have plenty of time to coordinate with your team. Challenges can be as straightforward as solving the problem, or they can have sponsors asking you to solve the problem only using their software, or to make it relevant to their brand.

The event usually starts early in the morning on a weekend and can extend through the night, or even to the following day. In order to build out a complete product in less than a day, your team needs to be extremely organized. A timeline is essential, and it is important to divide up the work realistically. After hours of working your group will be asked to present your work in a short video. Every team submits their video for review no later than the deadline set. After completing all deliverables and turning in your work, the only thing left to do is wait on the results.

The evening following the event is when winners are declared. Most of these competitions also include second and third-place prizes to be given out to close competitors. When the judges have made their decisions the closing ceremony commences. From here, each winning team’s video is played for everyone to see. It is a great opportunity to see what you were up against and to decide how you can improve in the future. Whether declared a winner or not, these are great events that can be valuable additions to your portfolio. At the very least you will walk away having made some quality connections and plenty of new LinkedIn contacts.
Git Gud: A UX Case Study for the Esport Online Coaching Industry
By: Joyce Huo
Tags: Case Study, Visual Design, UX, Branding, Gaming

Research

For gamers without a coach, the only way to improve their skill is by playing the game or watching YouTube clips. The problem is sometimes these techniques aren’t enough to help you become a better player.

If people have weekly lessons for an instrument or a fitness coach, why don’t more people have an Esports coach? Today, many people play competitive video games, and it has a hefty fan base. We’re seeing a market around Esports on the rise. Many businesses’ are seeing the opportunity Esports provides and several colleges have already taken the steps towards developing a varsity Esports team.

The competitive play of various digital games (esports) has gained considerable popularity. While in 2015 the Esports audience was estimated at 235 million, in 2018 it already reached 395 million. In the next few years, continued growth in popularity is expected. Esports is receiving increasingly more recognition in sports. In China, Esport has been already considered a sport since 2003. Esports was an item in Asian indoor martial arts games in 2017 and will be an official competitive sports item in the 19th Asian games in Hangzhou 2022. In the USA, Esports players have been considered professional athletes since 2013.

Solution

Advanced players can use their game skills to become professional coaches, and players who want to improve their skills can also use the application to find targeted coaches and to help them. Having someone with an in-depth knowledge of the game can be very beneficial.

User Personas

Jessica is 23 years old and is a software engineer from New York City. She started to join the Esport club when she was in college, and she likes to participate in Esport competitions organized by the community. But after graduation, I lost a lot of time to practice playing games. She will watch many games and competitions on youtube. But she hopes that a professional coach can point out her problems and effectively improve her gaming level. So that she can participate in some professional competitions in the city. Now Jessica found Git Gud. She can watch live coaching and chat with the coach at any time, or she will recommend suitable courses to her based on the feedback from her coach through Git Gud.

User Journey

After understanding my customer group, I began to associate and displayed the user journey. Jessica wants to improve her gaming skills, she could only watch Esport gaming videos on Youtube. But after a long time, she realized that only watching YouTube improve slowly. She wants to find a game coach to guide her in a targeted manner.
tend: self-care for those who care for others
By: Heather Marshall
Tags: Case Study, Visual Design, UX, Mental Health, UI

a user adds a journal entry after a shift

tend is a self-care app that reminds caretakers, volunteers, and organizers to take breaks and nourish their body while they tend to people in their community. Caretakers spend so much time helping others that sometimes they forget to check in on themselves. Wellness is incredibly important to keep energy and moods up so that the caretaker be at their best and help people enthusiastically. A sleepy volunteer or a hangry community organizer is never good.

volunteers pack groceries to distribute to their community

The Problem

This summer I volunteered at the James Talib Dean encampment on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway known as “Camp JTD” for short (named after a resident who passed away from an overdose during the first week) nearly every day. The experience was incredibly life-changing and rewarding, but I realized that other volunteers and I would push ourselves past the physical limits of our bodies and work long hours in the heat with little breaks or days off. The stress and exhaustion would build-up, and disagreements could get heated fast.

Similarly, I found myself in positions where I was organizing events with clubs and other groups and found myself forgetting to take days off. With all the stress of classes once school started again and other factors, I began to realize how much my body suffered when I did not take care of it. Other friends who were also organizers also got burnt out from overworking themselves and it was hard to see.

After examining all the issues surrounding volunteering and community organizing I decided that focusing on self-care was a good place to start. I realized that caretakers like parents of kids with autoimmune disorders, or spouses of people who had degenerative brain diseases would benefit from a solution to these problems as well.

I decided to design a hypothetical app that would remind users to take breaks for water, snacks, mental health checks, and days off.

Research

I spent many weeks researching competitor apps and users to determine the function of the app itself.

For qualitative research, I began to compile information from different sources. First, I began to notate what I personally had experienced myself and the pain points I felt while volunteering and organizing. I next started to jot down general observations from volunteering at the camp and then started writing down specific examples of my fellow volunteers and the frequency in which they took breaks for water, food, mood swings, or days off. I found that very few people took days off or breaks, and their mental and physical health suffered, especially in the summer heat.