Category: <span>Create</span>

Published June 23, 2008 by

Making a photo book

I have made a few interesting observations about design the past few days, and wonder at times if I am walking into a obsolete career.

The other day I pulled out out wedding photos in order to finally do something with them and wound up facing the reality that the cheapest means of an album was a coffee table photo book, like those that Iphoto produce. I found Iphoto somewhat limiting – probably because I haven’t upgraded my mac to Leopard yet, but got put something similar called Blurb. Thus far I am fairly impressed, we shall have to see what a completed book looks like, but the cost and the design software is clean and fairly impressive.

But there you have it, designed photo albums for anyone with half a bolt of computer know-how’s finger tips. There are templates for layouts and lots of them, and lots of them are quite nice. Yes it is still limited. (There are ways to get your own layouts into the software, I intend to explore that avenue).

The simple fact is, anyone can make a photo book.

In the few photography classes I’ve taken, photographers either bemoan the coming of the digital age because it takes generic photography further from their hands or they celebrate it and the capacity it opens up for ease/scope and the need for photographers to display a greater level of skill.

Photographers still make money and for the most part they still take better photographs.

It is the same for designers. You can go and make your photo book and perhaps you will be happy with it and perhaps you have some skill or eye for it, but for the most part the sample books out there – the ones people have created and paid to have printed look like absolute crap. What surprised me most was that many professional photographers books look just as ridiculous.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, at the very least read up on design, or for or goodness sakes pay someone to do it, or even get your arty-eyed grandson to help you.

And ladies, it might be fun to make a wedding album and you might not care if it’s not super professional but please, please, please do not use pink text over a photo… or pretty much anywhere, however much you like pink. It’s difficult to read and screams tacky.

Create Design Wedding

Design photobook Photography Wedding

Published April 29, 2008 by

Chair lust and the DIY

I was so close the other week to buying an old op-shop chair and doing something with it.

I confess when I was younger and maybe even now, I had a small fascination with things being re-done or made-over. Tonight I found this chair that has been made over. I am a) jealous b) inspired. I shall have to go find myself a chair and I’ll also have to see if I can squeeze some kind of half nice material out of Spotlight (craft-store) – the last time I looked, all they had was boring as cack.

Create Design Experiments Op Shop

chair Design diy makeover opshop

Published April 18, 2008 by

The grapple

I have been feeling increasingly flat about this whole ‘study to be a designer’ thing today. I have a small inkling that it’s simply the homework blues but the homework blues can seep ever so slightly into, the crap-what-have-I-gotten-myself-into despair.

The other part of this inkling is that at the moment my idea of graphic design is too tightly tied with the fact that I can’t draw very well and it’s hard to find examples of designers that are the same and have this weird affinity with writing instead.

If you could find me an avenue where design and writing were intrinsictly linked, I would be a happy happy girl. Gosh I’m becoming reliant.

To brighten the room, let me share the web-based folio I made for my interactive web class. Although I ran out of time and never managed to work out how to get my fixed positioned site to sit centrally via CSS (How do you do that btw?), I’m relatively happy with it (except the slight off positioning of one of my links – damn, the things you realise later!). Curiously the site looks a billion times better on my lovely shiny new mac than it does on the PC I built it on – ahh screens.

Have a look.

I’ve been really impressed with the web tutors at Swinburne, although I’m mystified why they bothered teaching table based layout before they launched into CSS. The assignment could be created in either form. Why?!

My next self initiated task is to turn the static thing into a blog template to give myself the experience in creating templates from scratch.

This is the stuff I enjoy.

My question is, can I possibly get myself a job in the web-design/print-design/writing field with what I’m studying?

Yes you silly girl, you can, you just need to get over your loathing of package design and your mistrust of anal retentive development methods.

Create Design Life Uni

frustration web design

Published March 31, 2008 by

Starred Posts: Late Jan – July (Design)

Crikey, it’s been a long time since I’ve done this, and I’m going to pay because there are 60+ well worth going-to posts sitting in Google Reader waiting to be shared. I think I’ll should make this a monthly/bi-monthy effort. But hey, I’m on this beautiful new machine so I might as well hit the list.

To change it up a bit this time I’m going to somewhat categorise the links. As you might have guessed I do read particular types of blogs, design features up there oddly often in the shape of interiors (rather than graphics) I think it is my secret lust of pretty yet functional things. I’d love to have a house I could do anything to and the money to match. Alas I shall for the moment content myself with saliva inducing photographs. Anyway as I was saying, design isn’t probably the highlight of everyone’s day – regardless you should at least venture in to just ONE of these posts if only to expand your mind even if it constricts and flees with horror.

Design/Art/Interiors/Creativity

And that’s all for the design line up this time around, more ‘other’ coming later.

Blogging Create Design

Art Blogs blogs worth visiting Design good reading Links starred posts

Published March 12, 2008 by

Bigger than Helvetica

So I have this assignment (which I’ve just completed) where we have to replicate with precision a double spread layout from a magazine.

It took me hours just to find one that wasn’t using a commercial font (ie. Go and pay for it) in the end the one I used DID use something commercial, but I found a free ‘similar’ substitute ie. 6+ tiny things different.

I really would’ve enjoyed the exercise if not for that… okay I did enjoy it. Mostly.

The world of typefaces is much much bigger than you can imagine.

I also had the immense privilege the other day of watching the movie Helvetica. It’s a full length documentary on the typeface Helvetica, and it’s fascinating. I’d been hanging out to one-day see it. It was worth it. It did help me understand designers like Erik Spiekermann a little more in that my view was slightly tarnished by being dumped early in the deep end at uni one day and having to re-design an article about him after just discovering he’s some ‘great’. I felt small.

None of this moody lot of brooding black-wearing, art-fantasizing, genius, individual-clones. Designers are quite a down-to-earth, friendly lot.

Chums. I’m pleased to be chasing the dream… even if I still am not 100% sure it is mine yet.

Create Design Life Movies

Design indesign layout spiekermann typeface