Thursday night Pantone® unveiled the recent addition to their color management arsenal at the Art Director’s Club in New York, PantoneLIVE™, “a cloud-based color service that provides instant access to essential brand color standards.” Held by the Advertising Production Club of New York in conjunction with the Art Director’s Club, the event marked a first time partnership for the two organizations. New APC President George Ashbrook said, “The APC are excited and privileged to collaborate with another of New... CONTINUE READING

Sure, there are perks to freelance life like flexible hours and the ability to work from home, but ask any honest independent creative professional and they’ll tell you there are downsides too. One of the biggest? Less daily opportunities for collaboration and interaction with like-minded peers, something The Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman comically captures in “Why Working from Home is both Awesome and Horrible” Recognizing this, a growing number of co-working spaces have emerged worldwide with 537 in the... CONTINUE READING

Earlier this month “The Life of Julia,” an interactive slideshow designed to contrast the Obama campaign’s policies with Republican presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney’s managed to cause a bit of a stir, generating over 2,900 tweets on Twitter, 51,000 “Likes” on Facebook (as of this writing) and filling the blogosphere and online news channels with an assortment of rebukes, responses and parodies. Politically speaking, perhaps not much remains to be explored. But what about from a graphic design standpoint? Embedded... CONTINUE READING

What do a Graphic Designer in Karachi, Pakistan, a photographer in Treviso, Italy, an Illustrator in Bogota, Colombia and an Art Director in Montreal, Canada all have in common? They represent just a portion of the 4,000 creatives worldwide to participate in Behance Portfolio Review week kicked off at Grind NYC on Tuesday, May 15. The event turnout was just one remarkable aspect of the event series described by Sarah Rapp, Behance Community Manager as being “designed to help... CONTINUE READING

From products and packaging to printed materials and digital interfaces, graphic design permeates every day life. Since the advent of desktop publishing not only have graphic designer’s roles expanded, but the types of work that fall under the umbrella of graphic design have as well. Current technologies continue to impact design in new and often unexpected ways, hence the organizing theme of “Graphic Design—Now in Production” focusing on “recent innovations in the ways designers work.” Arriving just in time... CONTINUE READING

While some of the initial uproar may have died down, the topic of crowdsourced design continues to be a lightning rod issue for the industry. Recently, one of the largest design crowdsourcing sites, 99designs held a contest for their own homepage redesign, presenting an opportunity to revisit the controversial topic. I spoke with Patrick Llewellyn, CEO, 99designs and Debbie Millman, President of the design division at Sterling Brands and President Emeritus of AIGA, the largest professional association for design,... CONTINUE READING

The word “resume” has been known to strike fear in the heart of many a creative (including yours truly), and while advice on best practices abound online, much of it is geared towards more traditional industries, outdated or both. So, where is a creative to turn? Earlier this month creative staffing agency The Creative Group released a survey providing a measure of guidance sure to help alleviate some of our collective resume writing angst. The survey showed that almost... CONTINUE READING

As promised in my article earlier this week, I’m back with a first hand account of GE’s indescribably awesome interactive experience Throttle Up. Having visited the site and viewed the video clips I thought I had a firm idea of what to expect. Well, may I say expectations were vastly exceeded? Excitement started to build as soon as I overheard a Throttle Up guide explain to the group ahead of me on line that they could opt to be... CONTINUE READING

Shake off those Monday doldrums and get ready for a week chock-full of creative presentations, events and awards shows! Today kicks off New York Creative Week, and while there’s no shortage of fantastic things to see and do (after all it is New York), GE’s mind blowing Throttle Up should be on everyone’s “must see” list. Happening alongside Creative Week, and located down the street from the events at Galapagos, Throttle Up is an installation featuring GE’s one-of-a-kind, 34’... CONTINUE READING

Another busy weekday afternoon in New York City. Hurriedly walking past what at first glance appears to be another plywood construction panel I stopped midway and turned around. What I had thought was just another temporary façade, upon closer inspection revealed itself as art in progress. Or, rather an artistic intervention called Color Splash, part of a larger project Kaavya Jayapratap calls Urban Speed Bumps which are intended to encourage people to slow down, stop and enjoy the moment... CONTINUE READING