Designing for Love—ESPN.com Refresh The insanely talented Edwin Tofslie recently decided to create a full refresh of ESPN.com after getting sick of their dull and outdated site.  Although this was a ‘just for the love of design’ project, it’s a good reminder to take the time to go through similar design exercises to keep your creative mind sharp. My inspiration really came from ESPN the Magazine. I really believe the merging of magazine layout and website content will continue to blur the lines. I especially believe if I were to tackle this as a real project, it would have to be designed, and built to scale and spider to any platform, in any form. This would allow a specialized iPad version of their site that would mimic a powerful interactive magazine. After checking out the details and larger images on the ESPN.com redesign, spend some time looking at his other projects for Nike, Microsoft, Ford and others.  Don’t forget to hit refresh a few times to check out his collection of animated GIFs. Now I just need to figure out a site that could use a refresh and do the same.

Designing for Love—ESPN.com Refresh

The insanely talented Edwin Tofslie recently decided to create a full refresh of ESPN.com after getting sick of their dull and outdated site.  Although this was a ‘just for the love of design’ project, it’s a good reminder to take the time to go through similar design exercises to keep your creative mind sharp.

My inspiration really came from ESPN the Magazine. I really believe the merging of magazine layout and website content will continue to blur the lines. I especially believe if I were to tackle this as a real project, it would have to be designed, and built to scale and spider to any platform, in any form. This would allow a specialized iPad version of their site that would mimic a powerful interactive magazine.

After checking out the details and larger images on the ESPN.com redesign, spend some time looking at his other projects for Nike, Microsoft, Ford and others.  Don’t forget to hit refresh a few times to check out his collection of animated GIFs.

Now I just need to figure out a site that could use a refresh and do the same.

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“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit.”

Ira Glass, on taste and creative work

Found on Kottke

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The Seven Deadly Sins That Choke Out Innovation

Even companies serious about innovation can fall victim to their own, well-meaning creative process.

  1. Thinking the answer is in here, rather than out there
  2. Talking about it rather than building it
  3. Executing when we should be exploring
  4. Being smart
  5. Being impatient for the wrong things
  6. Confusing cross-functionality with diverse viewpoints
  7. Believing process will save you

Taken from Ryan Jacoby, the head of IDEO New York’s practice, talk at NYC/Poly Leading Innovation: Process Is No Substitute.  Read the full overview on Co.Design.

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The Shape of Design Graphic designer, illustrator, and writer Frank Chimero just announced his first book, The Shape of Design, with a Kickstarter project to fund the effort.  In the book Chimero will provide an “overview the mental state of a successful designer while they go through their creative process”.  In just two short hours the book is nearly funded with over $17,000 of the total $27,000 goal.  Help support the project on Kickstarter and make the book a reality. If you aren’t already, follow Frank Chimero’s excellent blog on Tumblr.

The Shape of Design

Graphic designer, illustrator, and writer Frank Chimero just announced his first book, The Shape of Design, with a Kickstarter project to fund the effort.  In the book Chimero will provide an “overview the mental state of a successful designer while they go through their creative process”.  In just two short hours the book is nearly funded with over $17,000 of the total $27,000 goal.  Help support the project on Kickstarter and make the book a reality.

If you aren’t already, follow Frank Chimero’s excellent blog on Tumblr.

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SOUR / Mirror Japanese band SOUR along with a long list of creative, technical, and design credits created this unique music video that combines your Facebook, Twitter, geo-location and webcam data.  I can’t say that I’m a fan of the music itself, but the technical execution is well done. I can confirm that connecting to Facebook and Twitter does not auto-post anything to your accounts.

SOUR / Mirror

Japanese band SOUR along with a long list of creative, technical, and design credits created this unique music video that combines your Facebook, Twitter, geo-location and webcam data.  I can’t say that I’m a fan of the music itself, but the technical execution is well done.

I can confirm that connecting to Facebook and Twitter does not auto-post anything to your accounts.

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projeqt \ how great stories are told

TBWA, mega agency with 12,000 employees in 77 countries, jumps into the mass-market, online product game with the launch of their creative work sharing platform projeqt.  To help announce projeqt the agency relaunched TBWA.com using the platform.

Only time will tell if the platform really takes off, but for now my money is on the smaller and agile teams behind Cargo, Carbonmade, Behance and even Tumblr. 

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Cindermedusae Artist and programmer Marcin Ignac created these Haeckel-inspired randomly generated algorithmic creatures using Cinder—the cross-platform, open-source C++ toolkit created by the brilliant minds at The Barbarian Group.  Cinder was developed for creative coding applications for Windows, Mac and iOS devices, and is being used to generate fictional organisms, provide visuals for Peter Gabriel’s latest tour, create the augmented reality for Esquire magazine, and much more. Stay up to date with the Cinder library and see the latest features added in Cinder 0.8.2. Via Rick Web (co-founding Barbarian and active on Tumblr)

Cindermedusae

Artist and programmer Marcin Ignac created these Haeckel-inspired randomly generated algorithmic creatures using Cinder—the cross-platform, open-source C++ toolkit created by the brilliant minds at The Barbarian Group.  Cinder was developed for creative coding applications for Windows, Mac and iOS devices, and is being used to generate fictional organisms, provide visuals for Peter Gabriel’s latest tour, create the augmented reality for Esquire magazine, and much more.

Stay up to date with the Cinder library and see the latest features added in Cinder 0.8.2.

Via Rick Web (co-founding Barbarian and active on Tumblr)

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Tiny Inventions - Creative & Technical Process

Tiny Inventions is a Brooklyn based animation and illustration studio that playfully combines mix-media, photography, physical models, illustration, and After Effects rocket science to create their short films, commercials and music videos.  

If you have ever worked with After Effects I guarantee this behind the scenes video of their entire process will blow your mind.  The methods they use to animate and craft the dimensional videos only using Photoshop and After Effects is incredibly creative.

Check out more of Tiny Inventions’ work. 

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Welcome to the Era of Creative Meritocracy

Imagine a world where the best ideas have the best chance to succeed. No more favoritism that places the wrong people on creative projects. Cut out the middlemen that arbitrarily recommend cost-efficient talent over the most deserving talent. Forget the corporate nepotism that appoints leaders based on relationships over merit. Every individual, team, and industry would benefit from a world where the most talented people got the most opportunity.

For the last year and a half I have been living in this era of creative meritocracy.  After walking away from the often counter-meritocracy advertising agency world I could not be more thrilled with the opportunities that have opened up.  If you’re not doing what you love today, then why don’t you start?

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How To Sell Creative Work To Clients

Absolutely anyone can sell crappy work to clients.  It’s actually quite easy, and on of the main reasons why there are so many terrible ads, mediocre campaigns, and uninspired websites reeking of sameness.  If you want to sell a truly unique idea or creative work to a client it will take hard work and serious effort.

Here are a few key points from the article: know the work inside and out, pick apart your idea, be ready to fight for your ideas, believe in what you’re presenting, and brass balls can help too.

After you finish reading part 1, continue on to part 2.

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