Dream job for photoshopping, web-skilled NIN fan.
Posted by Jennifer Farley | April 28, 2008
There’s an ad on the LA Craig’s List, looking for someone with graphic design and web skills to work with Nine Inch Nails art director. It sounds like a very cool job, although the hours sound unusual.
“Work would be done mostly from home, with communication via internet and phone. Sometimes on-site work in the Los Angeles area would be required. Hours would be flexible and sometimes odd. ”
I’d love to apply for this myself - I’d say there’s huge scope for creativity but I suspect the Dublin - Los Angeles commute is possibly worse than my current Westmeath - Dublin commute for my teaching job. The job specs are looking for someone with the following skills:
- Very well versed with web development: Expert at CSS/HTML, Flash, etc. Knowledge of javascript and web programming for mobile platforms a big plus.
- Intimate knowledge of the web, websites, internet culture and trends, etc. Would be helping to maintain NIN presence on various web 2.0 sites.
- Basic knowledge of Photoshop (basic image editing/cropping/resizing)
- Has good visual taste and design sensibilities, and can create new designs/layouts from an established aesthetic.
- Basic knowledge of Final Cut Pro and common video file formats/compression tools.
- Ability to quickly learn and adapt to new computer-related skills.
- Experience with print production/layout software like Quark and InDesign a plus.
- Knowledge of Adobe Illustrator a plus.
- Knowledge of After Effects and/or Motion a plus.
- Must be SUPER Mac-friendly, even if their primary computer is a PC.
Simple Design Idea : Big images with small text
Posted by Jennifer Farley | April 25, 2008
If you’re creating a flyer or a poster, or any kind of design work, often you’ll have an image and some text provided and your job is to make them look good together while conveying a message. Contrast is a great way to add visual interest to your work and grab the viewer’s attention. You can achieve contrast in a number of different ways - large type in headings with small body type, a cold colour with a warm colour and so on. The idea I’m talking about here is how to use a big image with small text.
So to look at a couple of examples;
Here’s a postcard for a gallery advertising their midnight sale. Very, very simple with just a huge alarm clock to draw attention to the time of the sale.
If you don’t have a photographic image but have a bit of clip art to use, go bold. Make the clip art big and the text small. Clip art doesn’t have to look crap!
Both of these designs are set up so that the artwork takes up about two-thirds of the width of display area, and the text is kept very small in the remaining third. It’s easy to do and very effective.
Typography Inspiration
Posted by Jennifer Farley | April 24, 2008
Here’s a three and a half minute clip of some lovely posters, hand painted by the students at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. The first part of the clip is brilliant - showing one of the students making it look SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO easy - because he’s so talented.
Lots of imagination here.
This video is a typographic “treatment” of the old Abbot and Costello routine of “Who’s on first”. It’s very nicely done. There’s actually tons of this type of thing on youtube but I really liked this.
34 Great Design Blogs
Posted by Jennifer Farley | April 22, 2008
Jacob over at Just Creative Design has put a lot of time and effort into a wonderful post featuring 34 great design blogs and their best post as chosen by the author. It is absolutely bursting with design goodness and a must see if you’re interested in the design field. (It also features one of my photoshop tutorials - cue shy, making-circles-on-the-floor-with-toe stance.)
Design Inspiration : Getting Medieval
Posted by Jennifer Farley | April 20, 2008
BBC4 are showing a season of programs about life in Medieval times. The programs are covering everything from crime in the 14 and 1500’s to the oldest cookbook in Britain.
For anyone interested in printing, Stephen Fry presented a program about the Guthenburg press. The program showed how the experts think the press was made, because obviously there are no pictures or descriptive diagrams of the press. They then built a wooden press from scratch. He also created some metal type at a foundry, which was beautiful, laid it out and printed a page on some hand made paper created from rags - 15th century style.
The Medieval Season came to my attention (and the reason for this post) is because BBC have been showing a very cool ad for it. The ad shows images from that time, set to a version of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” played on medieval instruments. I just love the combination of the music with the animation of the medieval symbols and imagery. You can see the ad below.
Women Web Designers
Posted by Jennifer Farley | April 17, 2008
Tara over at the Graphic Design blog has an interesting post questioning why there are so few women web designers about. I’m wondering if there are loads of us out there but maybe women might be quieter on the promotion front?
Are there any women web designers reading today? Say hello in the comments and get some link love!
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About
Hi, my name is Jennifer Farley and I am a designer and design instructor based in Ireland. Read more about Laughing Lion Design .
