Bodysurf.com.au – niche photo exhibition

These photos submitted by visitors to bodysurf.com.au capture the excitement, beauty and simple pleasure of going for a bash in the waves.

Love it. @iclazie

Kleinmania. Now slightly more popular than ever.

The man who puts the Klein in Kleinmania (one of our senior designers at Amnesia Razorfish here) was interviewed by The Publics.

“Kerning is an interesting process because it can be very time consuming and it’s usually invisible, as in you only notice it when it’s bad … To my knowledge nobody has ever died from poor kerning.”

Read the interview: http://pblks.com/2009/07/the-worlds-smallest-mania/

Kleinmania on Tumblr: http://kleinmania.tumblr.com/ 

@iclazie

That tourist snap you don’t need to take

Have you ever stood in the exact spot that millions have stood before taking the exact photo of the exact view that millions have taken before I wondered “why am I doing this?”

I have taken this shot of the Sydney Harbour Bridge…

…and this shot of the Taj Mahal…

…but last year I specifically did not take this shot of Hong Kong from the Peak because I realised I could just Google it later.

Does this make me lazy or just practical? :-)

These images were grabbed from Flickr and quickly layered in Photoshop using different blend modes – wanted to see what it would look like).

Great view of Sydney Harbour from Mosman

Shot this panorama on the weekend from the Gunner’s Barracks in Mosman. Looks south east across to Rose Bay. Downtown Sydney can be seen on the right. A very enjoyable part of the world to sail in, I must say. :-)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22187126@N02/3603429714/sizes/l/

Taken from here:

http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=&ie=UTF8&ll=-33.843901,151.266632&spn=0.049188,0.076904&z=14

Agency website lives in YouTube

BooneOakley has created something truly special with animation and interactive video: their entire website lives in YouTube.

I like it.

5 tips for creating your first digital design portfolio

At our 2009 Open Studio event I gave a short seminar about first time online portfolios. Here’s a recap of the points made:

1. Don’t reinvent the wheel (unless you’re looking for work
reinventing wheels)

A lot of effort is spent building portfolio sites from the ground up. Unless you’re specifically aiming to show off your ability to design and build a portfolio site (and are confident you can do this in a way that competes with the free industry standard options available) you might consider using some easier options to save time and assure a usable, professional presentation.

Here’s just one example of an off the shelf solution to the portfolio problem: Create your own free portfolio with bells and whistles at Krop’s Creative Database: www.krop.com/creativedatabase

Another simple option is to take advantage of the browser scroll bar. As long as the work is clearly displayed there’s nothing really wrong with a long scrolling page for displaying content. Works for blog posts all the time. Here’s an example: http://samegoes.com/ 

2. It’s about the content

What do these two objects have in common?

Aside from the fact that both of them are contexts for the presentation of visual communication, they’re both relatively minimal. Again, unless it’s really important that you demonstrate an ability to redefine the packaging your work sits in, remember the advice of erring on the side of minimal so the content jumps out.

(One exception to this that comes to mind which works well is the portfolio of a digital senior creative we’ve worked with where you have to play pong and then choose the correct holy grail from the fakes to enter the portfolio. :-) It works because the nature of the intended role is one of redefining the rules. And it was well executed. Risky but good.) 

3. Edit and organise

There’s a natural tendency to want to include everything you’ve ever done. Sometimes a review can be going well and then one piece triggers a feeling of ‘wow, how did that wind up in here? It was going so well.’ Edit your main portfolio down to your strongest work, even if it’s not that many pieces. It’s always acceptable to have additional categories off the main area (additional albums, essentially) for displaying backup examples if the reviewer wants to drill down.

Consider leading with your strongest work and wrapping up with your second strongest to start and end with best impressions.

4. Know your objective

Know what type of work you’re going for ahead of creating your portfolio so you don’t wind up with something lacking focus. It shows.

Knowing your objective will also help you identify your intended audience which will help you make decisions when you edit your work, and when you choose your presentation platform.  

Think of your portfolio as a stage. The moment before it’s reviewed is like the moment before the curtain opens. Your audience really doesn’t know what to expect.

In this context, here are three example objective and material pairs to consider:

• Objective work: interactive design = work to display: screen mockups
• Objective work: ideas and art direction = work to display: sketches and rationale through to finish output
• Objective work: illustration = work to display: illustration in full and detail views, both in and out of context

5. Get the metadata right: what was the brief and what was your role?

It’s important for reviewers to know A) what the problem your work is addressing is for any given piece, and B) what exactly your role on a particular project was.

It’s best when this information is clear, concise, consistently structured and easy to scan.

——

Feel free to comment if you’ve got any questions or ideas on these tips.

Here’s a related blog post from ANidea: 10 Tips for Landing an Interactive Design Job

The Beautiful Word: stunning Scrabble videos

Pretty amazing creative from Ogilvy & Mather, France, using animation from Wizz. Nice work and pretty eye opening when attached to, of all things… Scrabble.

Makes www.scrabble.com look pretty ordinary.

More videos and full credits here on Motionographer.

Web design is 95% typography

Interesting article for designers from Information Architects Japan on the topic of information design and typography. Helpful for designers who struggle with getting past the visual aspect and into the information being communicated.

http://informationarchitects.jp/the-web-is-all-about-typography-period/ 

Incidentally, IA’s 4th web trends map is in beta. Amazing visualisation effort which makes a fascinating poster.

Can creativity be crowdsourced?

Razorfish Group VP of Experience Planning, Garrick Schmitt, posts on this topic to AdAge here: http://adage.com/digitalnext/article?article_id=136019

Noteworthy among the services mentioned is FFFFound! which Garrick refers to in this context as “crowdsourced inspiration”.

Interesting read.

8 simple ways to improve typography for designers

More on basic fundamentals of design (Open Studio last week means guides for young designers are a hot topic here at the moment).

The big 8 are…

1. Measure
2. Leading
3. Quotes
4. Rhythm
5. Widows
6. Emphasis
7. Scale
8. Rags

http://www.preik.no/09/04/06/8-simple-ways-to-improve-typography-in%C2%A0your-designs-48097