80+ Inspiring Quotes about Design

We recieve quote messages everyday and we even have our favorites to keep us up and going. Here’s a collection of inspirational quotes from designers and even from people outside it giving their personal understanding on Design.
These quotes will surely inspire, assist, motivate, and help every one about Design.
Read and Share this Quotes and be Inspired today!

Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.

— Charles Eames

Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.

— Brian Reed

There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence.

— Massimo Vignelli

People ignore design that ignores people.

— Frank Chimero

I’ve always held to the belief that the practice of creating compelling graphic design occurs not by employing the principals of a democracy, but rather, that of a monarchy.

— Thomas Vasquez

Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.

— Joe Sparano

Every designers’ dirty little secret is that they copy other designers’ work. They see work they like, and they imitate it. Rather cheekily, they call this inspiration.

— Aaron Russell

The most innovative designers consciously reject the standard option box and cultivate an appetite for thinking wrong.

— Marty Neumeier

Visual design is often the polar opposite of engineering: trading hard edges for subjective decisions based on gut feelings and personal experiences. It’s messy, unpredictable, and notoriously hard to measure. The apparently erratic behavior of artists drives engineers bananas. Their decisions seem arbitrary and risk everything with no guaranteed benefit.

— Scott Stevenson

Design is where science and art break even.

— Robin Mathew

Good design goes to heaven; bad design goes everywhere.

— Mieke Gerritzen

A designer is a planner with an aesthetic sense.

— Bruno Munari

Design is the application of intent - the opposite of happenstance, and an antidote to accident.

— Robert L. Peters

Design is the search for a magical balance between business and art; art and craft; intuition and reason; concept and detail; playfulness and formality; client and designer; designer and printer; and printer and public.

— Valerie Pettis

Design should never say, “Look at me.” It should always say, “Look at this.”

— David Craib

Bad design is smoke, while good design is a mirror.

— Juan-Carlos Fernàndez

Don’t design for everyone. It’s impossible. All you end up doing is designing something that makes everyone unhappy.

— Leisa Reichelt

Design is as much an act of spacing as an act of marking.

— Ellen Lupton

The design process, at its best, integrates the aspirations of art, science, and culture.

— Jeff Smith

Good design is a lot like clear thinking made visual.

— Edward Tufte

Design is intelligence made visible.

— Alina Wheeler

Math is easy; design is hard.

— Jeffrey Veen

Design is the conscious effort to impose a meaningful order.

— Victor Papanek

Design trends online change more often than the wind, and slightly less often than my socks.

— Suleiman Leadbitter

Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.

— Jeffrey Zeldman

People think that design is styling. Design is not style. It’s not about giving shape to the shell and not giving a damn about the guts. Good design is a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need, and beauty to produce something that the world didn’t know it was missing.

— Paola Antonelli

Design is an opportunity to continue telling the story, not just to sum everything up.

— Tate Linden

Design is not the narrow application of formal skills, it is a way of thinking.

— Chris Pullman

Designers are meant to be loved, not to be understood.

— Fabien Barral

Design is about making things good (and then better) and right (and fantastic) for the people who use and encounter them.

— Matt Beale

Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.

— Steve Jobs

I’m convinced that without bad design, the world would be a far less stimulating place; we would have nothing to marvel over and nothing to be nostalgic about.

— Carrie Phillips

Behavioral design is all about feeling in control. Includes: usability, understanding, but also the feel.

— Don Norman

Good design must be defined by appropriateness to audience and goals, and by its effectiveness, not by its adherence to Swiss design or the number of awards it wins.

— Drew Davies

Being a famous designer is like being a famous dentist.

— Noreen Morioka

Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.

— Robert L. Peters

It’s art if can’t be explained.
It’s fashion if no one asks for an explanation.
It’s design if it doesn’t need explanation.

— Wouter Stokkel

You can’t do better design with a computer, but you can speed up your work enormously.

— Wim Crouwel

I love the comment, “You must love designing for a living.” At that point I usually start to laugh or break into uncontrollable tears.

— Andrew Lewis

The dumbest mistake is viewing design as something you do at the end of the process to ‘tidy up’ the mess, as opposed to understanding it’s a ‘day one’ issue and part of everything.

— Tom Peters

Designers have a dual duty; contractually to their clients and morally to the later users and recipients of their work.

— Hans Höger

Computers are to design as microwaves are to cooking.

— Milton Glaser

I find modernist design boring, but it so much faster!

— Christine Suewon Lee

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

— Douglas Adams

A camel is a horse designed by a committee.

— Sir Alec Issigonis

A designer can mull over complicated designs for months. Then suddenly the simple, elegant, beautiful solution occurs to him. When it happens to you, it feels as if God is talking! And maybe He is.

— Leo Frankowski

For me, design is like choosing what I’m going to wear for the day - only much more complicated and not really the same at all.

— Robynne Raye

Design is a means toward accomplishing the end goals of serving markets and generating profits. Furthermore, design is an element in social responsibility. Good design allows “form to complement performance.” The way things look is not irrelevant to the way things work: how they work is how they should look.

— Thomas F. Schutte

Art is like masturbation. It is selfish and introverted and done for you and you alone. Design is like sex. There is someone else involved, their needs are just as important as your own, and if everything goes right, both parties are happy in the end.

— Colin Wright

Many desperate acts of design (including gradients, drop shadows, and the gratuitous use of transparency) are perpetuated in the absence of a strong concept. A good idea provides a framework for design decisions, guiding the work.

— Noreen Morioka

I would show my my jobs to my mother, and she would always say the same thing: “That’s nice dear.” And then she would say, “Did you write it?” or “Did you do the drawing?” or “Did you take the pictures?” I’d always answer “no,” then I realized the problem. My answer was then, “I made this happen. It’s called design.”

— Brian Webb

Most [clients] expect experience design to be a discrete activity, solving all their problems with a single functional specification or a single research study. It must be an ongoing effort, a process of continually learning about users, responding to their behaviors, and evolving the product or service.

— Dan Brown

Technology over technique produces emotionless design.

— Daniel Mall

I think design covers so much more than the aesthetic. Design is fundamentally more. Design is usability. It is Information Architecture. It is Accessibility. This is all design.

— Mark Boulton

A design isn’t finished until somebody is using it.

— Brenda Laurel/p>

The life of a designer is a life of fight: fight against the ugliness.

— Massimo Vignelli

If design isn’t profitable, then it’s art.

— Henrik Fiskar

Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because that idea wasn’t theirs.

— Frank Chimero

A well-designed text will seem weightless after a time; the initial feel of the book fades away as the mind becomes engrossed in the words.

— Mandy Brown

Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does.

— David Carson

The difference between a Designer and Developer, when it comes to design skills, is the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing it.

— Scott Hanselman

Practice safe design: Use a concept.

— Petrula Vrontikis

Create your own visual style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.

— Orson Welles

Good design keeps the user happy, the manufacturer in the black and the aesthete unoffended.

— Raymond Loewy

Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context - a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.

— Eliel Saarinen

Truly elegant design incorporates top-notch functionality into a simple, uncluttered form.

— David Lewis

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

— Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Designers think everything done by someone else is awful, and that they could do it better themselves, which explains why I designed my own living room carpet, I suppose.

— Chris Bangle

It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.

— Steve Jobs

At a meta level, design connects the dots between mere survival and humanism.

— Erik Adigard

To say that something is designed means it has intentions that go beyond its function. Otherwise it’s just planning.

— Ayse Birsel

— Ivan Chermayeff

No design works unless it embodies ideas that are held common by the people for whom the object is intended.

— Adrian Forty

Many things difficult to design prove easy to perform.

— Samuel Johnson

The designer is a visually literate person, just as an editor is expected by training and inclination to be versed in language and literature, but to call the former an artist by occupation is as absurd as to refer to the latter as a poet.

— Douglas Martin

Questions about whether design is necessary or affordable are quite beside the point: design is inevitable. The alternative to good design is bad design, not no design at all. Everyone makes design decisions all the time without realizing it—like Moliere’s M. Jourdain who discovered he had been speaking prose all his life—and good design is simply the result of making these decisions consciously, at the right stage, and in consultation with others as the need arises.

— Douglas Martin

Design is easy. All you do is stare at the screen until drops of blood form on your forehead.

— Marty Neumeier

The only important thing about design is how it relates to people.

— Victor Papanek

Our opportunity, as designers, is to learn how to handle the complexity, rather than shy away from it, and to realize that the big art of design is to make complicated things simple.

— Tim Parsey

The public is more familiar with bad design than good design. It is, in effect, conditioned to prefer bad design, because that is what it lives with. He new becomes threatening, the old reassuring.

— Paul Rand

Art is an idea that has found its perfect visual expression. And design is the vehicle by which this expression is made possible. Art is a noun, and design is a noun and also a verb. Art is a product and design is a process. Design is the foundation of all the arts.

— Paul Rand

Designing a product is designing a relationship.

— Steve Rogers

It is easy to fail when designing an interactive experience. Designers fail when they do not know the audience, integrate the threads of content and context, welcome the public properly, or make clear what the experience is and what the audience’s role in it will be.

— Edwin Schlossberg

Good design is good business.

— Thomas J. Watson Jr.

Great design will not sell an inferior product, but it will enable a great product to achieve its maximum potential.

— Thomas J. Watson Jr.

…designers can make life more bearable by producing stuff that touches its audience rather than fucks them in the head.

— Jon Wozencraft

Design is in everything we make, but it’s also between those things. It’s a mix of craft, science, storytelling, propaganda, and philosophy.

— Erik Adigard

I never design a building before I’ve seen the site and met the people who will be using it.

— Frank Lloyd Wright

The fundamental failure of most graphic, product, architectural, and even urban design is its insistence on serving the God of Looking-Good rather than the God of Being-Good.

— Richard Saul Wurman

 

 

Information from:Design was Here

Design Battle: Vector vs. Raster

Vectors and Raster Images is what every designer or graphic artist regularly uses. This leaves us with a question, which among these techniques is better to use? and when do you use vector or raster in your designs? This is a tough question for a designer or a graphic artist. There were even a confusion of what is vector and raster. In this post I would explain each technique? with their examples and the advantages of using one from the other.So let the battle begin and decide for yourself!!

What is Vector?

The word “vector” is a synonym for line. They are composed of mathematically-defined geometric shapes—lines, objects and fills. When creating a vector image in a vector illustration program, node or drawing points are inserted and lines and curves connect notes together. This is the same principle as “connect the dots”. Each node, line and curve is defined in the drawing by the graphics software by a mathematical description. They usually are easily modified within the creating application and generally are not affected detrimentally by scaling (enlarging or reducing their size). If the image is increased in size, the equation is recalculated accordingly resulting in the image increasing in size with no loss of data or detail. A vector object will have a “wireframe” underneath the colors in the object. In a vector object, colors are like clothes over the top of a skeleton. They’re defined as solid objects, and can be moved around in full, or grouped together with other objects.
It can be as simple like this..

a little complicated like this..

a photo-realistic and much more complicated..

Check the details on this. You can see the outlines and how complicated it was done..

Programs or Software

Vector Graphics is most commonly done in programs such as Illustrator, Freehand, Corel Draw, Flash, Inkscape, Fireworks, or other “vector” illustration programs. Vectors in these programs (at the hands of skilled artists and draftsmen) can achieve a nearly photo-like quality or be beautifully abstract.

Resolution

Vector images are defined by math, not pixels. They can be scaled up or down without any loss of quality. When an illustration (drawing) program sizes a vector image up or down, it simply multiplies the mathematical description of the object by a scaling factor. For example a 1″ square object would need to be multiplied by a factor of 2 in order to double in size. The math is simply recalculated to produce an object twice the size of the original. Because vector images scale up or down without the loss of image quality, they can be output at any resolution that a printer is capable of producing.
DWH Logo when zoomed in a Vector Program. The image is still whole and without the loss of quality.

Color

Since vector images are composed of objects not pixels, you can change the color of individual objects without worrying about individual pixels. Coloring vector objects is similar to coloring with crayons in a coloring book. A drawing program will enable a user to click inside an object and define its color. A drawing program will also enable a user to define the color and width of lines. Coloring vector images is much easier than coloring bitmaps.

File Size

Vector images do not need to keep track of each individual pixel in an image, only mathematical descriptions. For this reason vector files are very small in file size. Vector files are composed of long mathematical descriptions dictating every aspect of the graphic. A 2-inch by 4-inch vector based logo will be the same files size as a 2-foot by 4-foot logo. The file size is the same because the only difference in file is one number defining the size of the file. A raster image file would need to keep track of a whole bunch of additional pixels as the file increases in size. Most vector-based logos are going to be under 100k (.10 megabytes). For this reason, vector files are ideally suited for transfer over the Internet.

File Formats

Common vector formats include EPS (Encapsulated PostScript), WMF (Windows Metafile), AI (Adobe Illustrator), CDR (CorelDraw), DXF (AutoCAD), SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) and PLT (Hewlett Packard Graphics Language Plot File)

What is Raster?

A raster image is a collection of dots called pixels. Each pixel is a tiny square with assigned color value. They are created using a grid of pixels to define the image. When you attempt to increase the size of an image created in a raster based program, the pixels defining the image can be increased in either number or size. Increasing the number of pixels or making the pixels bigger in an image results in the original data being spread over a larger area. Spreading the pixels over a larger area causes the image to begin to lose detail and clarity. When an image is scanned, the image is converted to a collection of pixels called a raster image. Scanned graphics and web graphics are the most common forms of raster images.
It can be a beautiful photograph..

a digital painting..

or a web design..

and many more..

Programs or Software

Raster-based image editors, such as Photoshop, GIMP and other raster programs, revolve around editing pixels. When an image is rendered in a raster-based image editor, the image is composed of millions of pixels. At its core, a raster image editor works by manipulating each individual pixel. Most pixel-based image editors work using RGB color model, but some also allow the use of other color models such as CMYK color model.

Resolution

Raster graphics are resolution dependent. They cannot scale to an arbitrary resolution without loss of apparent quality. The resolution of a raster image or scanned image is expressed in terms of the dots per inch or dpi. A printer or scanner’s resolution is also measured in dots per inch. Typical desktop laser printers print at 300 - 600 dpi. Image setters are capable of printing over 2,500 dpi. Printers with higher dpi ratings are capable of producing smoother and cleaner output. The output quality of a printing device is dependent upon the resolution (dpi) of a bitmap or scan. A 300 dpi raster image will output at the same quality on a 300 dpi laser printer as on a 2,500 dpi image setter.
Take a 300 dpi bitmap and increase the size in a graphics program, and presto - you have created a bad case of the “jaggies”. The only thing that happened is that the tiny pixel squares got bigger and created jaggy edges on your image. Decrease the size of your image and the squares get smaller. The image retains its original edge definition without producing “jaggies”. In other words, raster images do not scale up very well. The quality of an imprint produced from a raster image is dependant upon the resolution (dpi) of the raster image, the capabilities of the printing technology and whether or not the image has been scaled up.
DWH Logo when zoomed in a Raster Program. The image is getting pixelated and jaggy edges are showing.

Color

With any scanned color image, a large number of colors will be required to render a raster image reproduction of the original source artwork accurately. If scanned at 24-bin color depth (16 million colors), most human eyes could not tell the difference between the original image and the scanned raster image. Now if you scan the same image using the palette of 256 colors, it would be impossible to accurately reproduce the original colors because you have a smaller color palette to choose from. To get around this, scanners use a process called dithering to approximate colors that don’t occur in the current color palette.
Dithering produces a distinct dotted pattern that approximates the original color in the image. Dithering will deteriorate the quality of the scanned raster image. Now take all this complexity of colors and try to change colors, and you can see the biggest disadvantage of editing and manipulating raster images. In order to change colors in a raster image you must be able to isolate a specific color or range of colors and tell your software to change the color. This can be quite a challenge for even experienced Corel PhotoPAINT or Adobe PhotoShop users.

File Size

In order to accurately reproduce a raster image file, your graphics software must keep track of a large amount of information, including the exact location and color of each pixel in the collection of pixels. This results in huge file sizes for raster graphics. Higher resolutions (dpi) and greater color depths, produce bigger file sizes. A typical 2″ by 3″ 150 dpi black and white raster image logo will be less than 70k (.07 megabytes) in file size. The same file saved as a 300 dpi 24-bit (millions of colors) raster image logo might be 100 times larger (over 7 megabytes). When creating and scanning raster images, file size becomes a real issue, as big files tend to make your computer processor and hard drive work overtime. Transferring big files (over 1 megabyte) over the Internet requires a high speed Internet connection on both ends for timely uploads and downloads.

File Formats

Common raster image formats include BMP (Windows Bitmap), PCX (Paintbrush), TIFF (Tag Interleave Format), JPEG (Joint Photographics Expert Group), GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) , PNG (Portable Network Graphic), PSD (Adobe PhotoShop) and CPT (Corel PhotoPAINT).

Judgment: Vectors

The Pros

• Saved file sizes are smaller.
• Conversion from vector to raster is easy.
• Resolution independent.

The Cons:

• Vector files do not support photographic imagery well and often can be problematic for cross-platform exchange.

Judgment: Raster

The Pros

• Raster files handle the subtleties of photographs very well as a general rule.
• Raster can handle other effects very well and much easier.

The Cons:

• Resolution Dependent.
• Raster files can be very large if there is a large amount of detail and pixels in an image.
• Raster conversion to vector is much more difficult.

When to use Vector?

When you are developing something for scale or sending to a printing company that demands it.
Usually this boils down to business identity print work, logos, promotional posters, and major illustration artwork.
When you want clean-cut and clearly defined shapes - vector is the only way to go.

When to use Raster?

We use raster in photographs and images done in a raster program.
We use it when we put an effect on image, or editing and manipulating them.
It’s when we’re adding a defined texture and accent on our created designs.
If you want textures, fills and other effects, you use raster.

Information from:Design Was Here

3 Reasons Why You're Stuck In A Design Rut

You arrive at your desk in the morning. It’s only Monday. You sit down, turn on your monitor and while listening to the fan busily spinning faster and faster in the CPU, realise that you aren’t in the mood to even be where you are today. What happened and why do you feel this way? Isn’t it one of the great desires in life to find a job where you can work as if you don’t need the money, simply because you enjoy what you do? Identifying the cause is the first step to solving the problem; here are the three most common diagnoses.


1) You’ve Forgotten Why You Love Web Design

Like any art form, you’re going to hit a wall sooner or later. You just want to get started, but you can barely bring yourself to make finger and keyboard meet. Something that you used to enjoy so much has become a pain, a turn-off if you like. The thing with web design is that it’s a service with a high commercial value and demand. Surely that’s one of the biggest factors you thought up of when you decided to turn your hobby into your career: making money out of something you enjoy.

But for the most part, there isn’t much to enjoy about meeting deadlines, designing something which you know looks crap but you’re still made to design anyway and payment disputes. Basically, selling your trade as a web designer wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. Designing for someone else isn’t the same as creating something for your own enjoyment.



2) Being Limited to Clients Who Want the Same Designs

Though it’s something that you can’t always control, if you’re working for a big design firm that distributes work to you, you might find that the stuff that you come up with for them starts looking more and more similar which each design draft that you send to them.

You just want to let loose and create for the sake of creating, unfettered by design requirements and so forth, but all you’re being given is the same, old, corporate-feeling design guidelines. You at least want to be challenged by creating something that no one’s seen before

Sooner or later, you get used to it. You don’t exercise your creative muscle and then out of the blue, you’re given an assignment where you have to design for a toy store, say. That’s when you realise it’ll take you longer than usual to come up with a suitable design after being exposed to monotone for so long.



3) You Don’t Get Along With Colleagues and Can’t Agree With Clients

Working with clients and colleagues is a perpetual balancing act that can be stressful and frustrating in any industry. With clients, this is a common sequence of events for much cause of headache:

1.They want you to design their website to their requirements,

2.You make a suggestion as to how it might look better,

3.They shoot it down and make you follow their design criteria,

4.You finish the design draft and send it over,

5.They don’t like it and ask you to try doing it your way.

With colleagues, it’s even worse. You can be made to feel incompetent. Since when did creativity have hierarchy and order? Unfortunately, if you rely on this constant flow of projects as a form of income, you have little choice but to take it as it comes. Instead of creating, you can’t wait to get the project over and done with, and this unpleasant feeling perpetuates. Before you know it, your creativity stagnates.



These diagnoses aren’t without a cure. There are several, simple solutions that you can use straight away to reignite your passion for web design.



About the Author

Mathew Carpenter is an 18-year-old business owner and entrepreneur from Sydney, Australia. Mathew is the owner of AddToDesign, a website which provides value added design buzz, along with Design-Newz, the premier source for aggregated design news. Follow Mathew on Twitter: @matcarpenter.


copy from:
http://www.addtodesign.com/2010/04/3-reasons-why-you%E2%80%99re-stuck-in-a-design-rut/

6 Reasons Why You Should Do Personal Design Projects

December 18th, 2009 by Isaac Gube

There’s a misconception that creativity is always on: that either you have it or you don’t, or that if you produce great work once, you’ll always be able to produce great work.


Now if only that were true, right?

The truth – and I think most creatives will agree – is that the creative juices that lubricate and facilitate the flow of unique and effective ideas sometimes dries up and you need, from time to time, to refill and ferment those juices before it’s once again ready for public consumption.

One of the most effective ways to inspire creativity, I’ve found, is to do some self-initiated work; its what’s best described as personal design projects.

Whether it’s just sketches, creating a poster, or designing a super awesome personal blog, there’s something to be said about doing things for yourself that really brings out your creativity and nurtures your passions.

Why should you work on personal design projects regularly when you get paid do it for other people?

1. Personal design projects are challenging

Challenging is good. It’s challenging because whether you’re a designer, an illustrator, or any other kind of creative, you’re more an artist than anything else. And if artists have taught us one thing throughout history, it’s that we’re never happy.

There’s always more you can do. There’s always perfection to strive for. This is good and bad.

It’s good because it challenges you to produce your best work. It’s bad because with nobody to tell you stop, you’re more likely to keep working to the detriment of your project. The key is to know when your work is the best it can be.

Working on personal design projects is great practice when it comes to testing the limits of your work. It gives you a chance to set goals for yourself even if you think you should keep going. It teaches you about your own work ethic and can test your self-restraint.

At the end of the day, this practice will be valuable in delivering not only on a client’s deadline, but delivering your best work.

2. They will help you find your personal tastes

Sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of what you find interesting when you’re working for someone else. You always make design decisions for the good of the client’s project. In many instances, it may even be choices that you’d never accept if it were entirely up to you.

Doing work for yourself allows you to focus on what you like since you don’t have to take orders from bosses, clients, and managers about what they would like – or need – you to do. This is very liberating and can propel your work in directions you never thought you could go.



3. They let you reexamine your design style

When you’re working on your own project, you’re not merely concerned about what you will get out of it but also about what goes into it.

Sometimes with client deadlines fast approaching, all you can think about is getting your work done and not disappointing your client. The choices you make rarely get a second glance. This is good for your client (because you didn’t miss the deadline) but bad for you as an artist.

It’s important to slow down and scrutinize your work. Are you improving? Are you getting lazier, opting for easier design methods? Is your work behind the times?

No matter what other things you have going on in your work life, self-initiated work helps you develop your inner artist.

4. They’re opportunities to explore new techniques

If you’re a working creative, it’s easy to get sucked into trends and creating stuff that sell. After all, we all have to eat. There’s nothing wrong with trends. However, doing work for yourself lets you step out of the industry’s influences, giving you a chance to explore new techniques and alternative options for your work.

You can collaborate with other artists. You can work with new tools. You can try other forms of media. In other words, you can take bigger risks without any real repercussions to the work that pays your bills.

The only real investment you make in your personal design project is the time it takes to complete it. Furthermore, at the end of your project, you’re more likely to come out of it with new lessons learned and new tools to put in your creative arsenal. Win-win.

5. They let you diversify your portfolio

It’s important to put some personal design work in your portfolio. It shows employers that beyond what you’re able to do for your clients, you have your own style and your own thoughts on design.
When you work in a certain field for an extended period, your work will likely reflect the demands of your client. Pretty soon, all your work will start looking like everyone else’s work. One way to distinguish yourself is through your self-initiated work since it’s work you’ve created to consciously step out of the regular grind.


6. Personal design projects are fun!

Sometimes it’s easy to forget why you chose to be a creative: it’s fun, or at least, it’s supposed to be fun.

However, if you’re a working creative, more often than not, all you hear is "change this", "delete that" and "make this bigger" (that’s what she said – beat you to it, ha!).

The critics telling you that you need to do better can sometimes kill all the fun to be had in this type of profession. But that’s the nature of the beast. That’s why self-initiated work is important. If anything, personal design projects remind you that, amidst all the finicky clients and bastardization of your designs, you chose this profession because it gave you joy and fostered your passions.

What do you think about personal design projects?
What are other benefits for working on personal project? Are personal design projects a waste of your time? Do you set aside some time to work on personal projects?


Link to your favorite personal design projects
In the comments section, link to, and talk about, your favorite personal projects.

About the Author
Isaac Gube is a photographer, philosopher, illustrator, adventurer, designer, and whatever else he chooses to be on any given day. You can connect with him on Twitter @IAMTHEGUBE or visit his Flickr page to see some of his photos.

copy from:
http://sixrevisions.com/project-management/6-reasons-why-you-should-do-personal-design-projects/

Ben The Illustrator

Sometimes you need to get some inspiration, so i got some cool stuff for you. This is a UK based illustrator named “Ben the Illustrator“. This man got some sick productions. You can buy posters, badges and postcards on his site.
A tutorial by Ben The Illustrator at computerarts

Interview by urbanretrolifestyle.com

copy from:
http://internetanddesign.com/other-things/ben-the-illustrator/

[reshiftment]The Different between Art and Design

The subject of what separates art and design is convoluted and has been debated for a long time.

Artists and designers both create visual compositions using a shared knowledge base, but their reasons for doing so are entirely different.

Some designers consider themselves artists, but few artists consider themselves designers.

So what exactly is the difference between art and design? In this post, we’ll examine and compare some of the core principles of each craft.

This is a subject that people have strong opinions about, and I’m looking forward to reading the various points of view in the comments.

This post isn’t a definitive guide, but rather the starting point for a conversation, so let’s be open-minded!




Good Art Inspires. Good Design Motivates.

Perhaps the most fundamental difference between art and design that we can all agree on is their purposes.

Typically, the process of creating a work of art starts with nothing, a blank canvas. A work of art stems from a view or opinion or feeling that the artist holds within him or herself.

They create the art to share that feeling with others, to allow the viewers to relate to it, learn from it or be inspired by it.

The most renowned (and successful) works of art today are those that establish the strongest emotional bond between the artist and their audience.

By contrast, when a designer sets out to create a new piece, they almost always have a fixed starting point, whether a message, an image, an idea or an action.

The designer’s job isn’t to invent something new, but to communicate something that already exists, for a purpose.

That purpose is almost always to motivate the audience to do something: buy a product, use a service, visit a location, learn certain information. The most successful designs are those that most effectively communicate their message and motivate their consumers to carry out a task.


Good Art Is Interpreted. Good Design Is Understood.

Another difference between art and design is how the messages of each are interpreted by their respective audiences.

Although an artist sets out to convey a viewpoint or emotion, that is not to say that the viewpoint or emotion has a single meaning.

Art connects with people in different ways, because it’s interpreted differently.

Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa has been interpreted and discussed for many years. Just why is she smiling? Scientists say it’s an illusion created by your peripheral vision. Romantics say she is in love. Skeptics say there is no reason. None of them are wrong.

Design is the very opposite. Many will say that if a design can be “interpreted” at all, it has failed in its purpose.

The fundamental purpose of design is to communicate a message and motivate the viewer to do something.

If your design communicates a message other than the one you intended, and your viewer goes and does something based on that other message, then it has not met its requirement. With a good piece of design, the designer’s exact message is understood by the viewer.


Good Art Is a Taste. Good Design Is an Opinion.

Art is judged by opinion, and opinion is governed by taste.

To a forward-thinking modern art enthusiast, Tracey Emin’s piece “My Bed”, which was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999, may be the height of artistic expression.

To a follower of more traditional art, it may be an insult to the medium. This goes back to our point about interpretation, but taste is more about people’s particular likes and dislikes rather than the message they take away from a piece.

Design has an element of taste, but the difference between good and bad design is largely a matter of opinion.

A good piece of design can still be successful without being to your taste. If it accomplishes its objective of being understood and motivates people to do something, then whether it’s good or not is a matter of opinion.

We could go on discussing this particular point, but hopefully the underlying principle is clear.

Good Art Is a Talent. Good Design Is a Skill.

What about the creator’s abilities?

More often than not, an artist has natural ability. Of course, from a young age, the artist grows up drawing, painting, sculpting and developing their abilities.

But the true value of an artist is in the talent (or natural ability) they are born with. There is some overlap here: good artists certainly have skill, but artistic skill without talent is, arguably, worthless.

Design, though, is really a skill that is taught and learned. You do not have to be a great artist to be a great designer; you just have to be able to achieve the objectives of design.

Some of the most respected designers in the world are best known for their minimalist styles. They don’t use much color or texture, but they pay great attention to size, positioning, and spacing, all of which can be learned without innate talent.

Good Art Sends a Different Message to Everyone. Good Design Sends the Same Message to Everyone.

This really falls under the second point about interpretation and understanding. But if you take only one thing away from this article, take this point.

Many designers consider themselves artists because they create something visually attractive, something they would be proud for people to hang on a wall and admire.

But a visual composition intended to accomplish a specific task or communicate a particular message, no matter how beautiful, is not art. It is a form of communication, simply a window to the message it contains.

Few artists call themselves designers because they seem to better understand the difference. Artists do not create their work to sell a product or promote a service. They create it solely as a means of self-expression, so that it can be viewed and appreciated by others. The message, if we can even call it that, is not a fact but a feeling.




What Do You Think?

Depending on how you look at it, the difference between art and design can be clear-cut or hazy. The two certainly overlap, but art is more personal, evoking strong reactions in those who connect with the subject.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Craig Elimeliah, who covered this subject in a fantastic article for AIGA, which I discovered during my research for this post.

“I do not claim to be an expert on defining what art is and what it is not, but I do know that if we look at the differences between art and design we will see a very clear line drawn between the two.

An engineer, if given the exact co-ordinates to place different colored pixels in specific places, could render a beautiful website or ad simply by following instructions; most design projects have a detailed set of instructions and most design is based on current trends and influences.

An artist, on the other hand, could never be given any specific instructions in creating a new chaotic and unique masterpiece because his emotions and soul is dictating the movement of his hands and the impulses for the usage of the medium.

No art director is going to yell at an artist for producing something completely unique because that is what makes an artist an artist and not a designer.”




Further Reading and Sources

•Art and Design: What’s the Big Difference – Michael Brady, Critique Magazine: 1998.

•Mona Lisa Smile: Secrets Revealed – BBC, 2003.•The Turner Prize – Tate Britain, 2008.

•Tracy Emin – Wikipedia, 2009.

•Talent vs. Skill and Experience – Acland Brierty, 2005.

•Art vs. Design - Craig Elimeliah, AIGA, 2006.