As you read this, the deadline for your current graphic design project is quickly approaching. There are so many pieces and parts that need to come together in order to make the project a success. How does your checklist look? Typography (oh yeah), color palettes (yup), icons (yeah…somewhere here…where’s that folder), nicely designed/quick navigation bar (um, gulp).

Having the talent, the right resources in your toolbox, the wisdom to know when to build from scratch, and gumption to use stock material properly can help you to be very efficient—all while reserving some time for innovation in the places that count most. But, there are an overwhelming number of reputable royalty free stock sources to choose from. Where should you begin?

Personally, I savor the opportunity to try out a lot of different sources—to “kick the tires” so-to-speak. Though sampling an eclectic mix of royalty free stock can quickly prove to be drastically expensive. Once in a while, a really great bundle comes along that enables you to enjoy a variety of high-quality design, code, and iconic stock files at a price that would make both junior and senior design talent’s eyes tear up.

GraphicRiver, ThemeForest, ActiveDen, CodeCanyon, and PhotoDune have partnered to offer one such bundle for a limited time. The Web Designer Pro Bundle offers a vast selection of icons, code, photographs, site templates, WordPress Themes, and plug-ins to assist you in your creative endeavors. Even if you don’t immediately use a part of the bundle for your current project (yes, the deadline is even closer now) you can take a closer look at each item to learn how other creatives tackle code and design elements.

Oh, and the individual designers who made each of the resources in the bundle? They get full credit/acknowledgement for their efforts—you can pursue author pages on each of the stock provider’s marketplaces (these, and other, creative marketplaces are managed by evanto who’s mission is to “help people to earn and to learn, online”). If you find a favorite graphic resource, then you can find more solutions from the specific designer. I especially like the style and flair of the Retro Vintage Labels by UK-based Sneek and Retro Vintage Web Elements by Vlade (a graphic designer living in Macedonia).

The Web Designer Pro Bundle will set you back $20US and is available until 12 pm (AEDT) Feb. 27, 2012. Oh, and if you were to purchase all of the items included in the bundle separately? Well, let’s just say your pocketbook or PayPal account would be more than $500US lighter.

Don’t fret if you miss out on this deal. You can always sign up for email notifications of future bundles and promotions.

Illustration/composition credit: “Stock Art Deadline” was created using a selection of free icons from the nounproject.com.

I really love this 15-minute documentary about the Los Angeles office of TBWA/Chiat/Day Advertising. The piece was directed and edited by Matthew Kalish.

Aside from enjoying a hip/fun soundtrack with tunes from the 1970s to present, in this video you will see and learn about:

• what the Chiat/Day design space in LA looks like — from walking through the entrance tunnel, to the open spaces designed for creativity, community, and collaboration
• background on Jay Chiat and the agency — the decision to “be big” and create a great agency in the late 60s
• a montage of iconic print and video campaigns
• philosophy about creating an environment where creative people could “do it their way”
• thoughts on why Jay Chiat was a leader and initiated change in the advertising industry, how he drove and inspired others to achieve
• how Lee Clow did a year-long campaign (“hire the harry”) in order to convince the Chiat/Day team to let him join — his peers describe Lee as “an advertising legend”
• how Lee understands what creative thinking is, how he pushes for the best
• Apple, Inc.’s 1984 advertisement that introduced the Macintosh, and how the spot helped Chiat/Day to become a force in the advertising industry
• another montage of outstanding campaigns for Porsche, and later Nissan
• inspiration for the Energizer Bunny and how it was turned into an effective advertising campaign
• examples from their big accounts: Taco Bell, Jack in the Box, Reebok
• a tour of “the big grey box” where their offices are located (which looks like a miniature city)
• Omnicom’s purchase of TBWA and Chiat/Day
• The Tequila worldwide network of agencies and interactive work, viral videos, and more around the globe
• “Beyond Disruption” — pioneered by Jean-Marie Dru. Looking at unconventional strategies in order to move faster
• Apple, Inc.’s “Think Different” campaign
• And another montage of cool advertisements for iPod, Playstation, and more
• Closing thoughts from key members of the agency: they started small with a passion for great work, they grew and are now big — but, still have the passion. If you have a great idea — go and do it!
• Lee’s formula for growth and profit: great people, doing great work is how you grow and become profitable, there isn’t any other way.

The Pocket Paper Engineer by Carol Barton

 In this book you will learn that people who create three-dimensional forms using flat pages are called paper engineers. The author presents easy to understand diagrams that explain how pop-ups work and how to create pop-ups, pull tabs, and rotating wheels using simple materials that you may already have around the house. Using paper, scissors, and glue, the reader will be able to start with simple pop-ups using box and triangle methods and then progress to dynamic pop-up design using combination and layered effects. The appendix of the book also includes quick access to lists of decorative paper and tool supplier websites.

 The Pocket Paper Engineer is available in two volumes for $14 to $25 (U.S.) each and is spiral bound so that it may be laid flat on a table top or workspace for easy reading and reference as you work on your new pop-up card project. The first volume of the Pocket Paper Engineer (67 pages) covers basic forms and Volume 2 (72 pages) covers platforms and props.

The Pop-Up Book: Step-by-Step Instructions for Creating Over 100 Original Paper Projects by Paul Jackson

 Combinations of pop-up book creation techniques are presented in this book including straight forward folding techniques and cutting methods using scissors and hobby knifes. The book also includes patterns that can be copied from the text to the paper you are using for your pop-up project and can be easily reduced or increased in size to suit the both large and small formats.

We were most impressed by the creative shapes the author used in the pop-up projects gallery for this book including a dove flying above clouds, a unique Santa Clause face, a silver aikido mask, and a columned Parthenon. It was one of the few books reviewed that went beyond basic shapes and designs for pop-up cards.

The Pop-Up Book is 160 pages in length and may be purchased online for $16 to $25 (U.S.).

Paper Engineering for Pop-Up Books and Cards by Mark Hiner

 The thing we liked most about this book is that how it presented ten basic methods that were easy to understand for creating levers and mechanical movements that are essential for effective pop-up card and pop-up book construction. The illustrations used by the author make it easy for the reader to cut out and create components for both simple and complex cards. What originally drew us to this book were the positive reader reviews, which indicated that the concepts in this book worked well for personal projects, as gift cards that friends loved, in the classroom for K-12 projects, and design courses at the university level.

Paper Engineering for Pop-Up Books (48 pages) is currently out of print but can be readily found through reputable used book sellers for $15 to $30 (U.S.) on Amazon.com, AbeBooks.com, or Barnes and Noble.

Related posts:

• Design your own pop-up cards

An advertisement for the Amazon Kindle displayed when visiting amazon.com in Nov. 2010.

The Amazon Kindle has undergone a gradual evolution since its initial release as a hardware device in November 2oo7 – the second generation devices arrived in February 2009 and included a new text-to-speech feature, and the current generation/model in August 2010 with improved contrast, tech specs, and revised screen size (Wikipedia, 2010).

Today, consumers can use Kindle on a PC or Mac computer, on an iPad tablet, or on any of the three most popular smartphone platforms (i.e., iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry). Advanced functionality has regularly been added to the Android and other platforms– including the ability to add highlighting, notes, and use voice-based search (Purdy, 2010). In fact, content read on one device can be synced to other devices along with notes and highlights — so you could read a chapter on your smartphone while traveling, make notes, and then continue work/research at your home or office computer. Your collection and reading progress is automatically backed up to the cloud — so you don’t have to worry about losing anything.

How have the Kindle device and related services been adopted? In 2009, Kindle-related book sales accounted for ten percent of Amazon’s sales (Godin, 2009). In 2010, for every 100 hardcovers sold, 180 Kindle books were sold and sales of Kindle hardware devices tripled over the previous year (Ostro, 2010). Apple iPad and Amazon Kindle each held a 48% share among students that brought an e- reader / tablet to school (Elmer-Dewitt, 2010). Additional studies found that 27% of Kindle owners have a graduate or PhD level education, and 44% earn more than $80k/year (Elmer-Dewitt, 2010). The platform has been used to market new books in short-term give aways exclusively for Kindle (Bernhoff, 2010). Some consider Amazon’s attention to detail in interface design and user experience to have played a role in how the Kindle still seems to “be a preferred e-reader, with Kindle outselling iBooks 60 to 1″ (Inchauste, 2010). Creating great software experiences appears to be essential for gaining overall market appeal. The focus here for designers and developers should be that the content and experience matter significantly — not just factors relating to the device, platform, or context.

In some cases, adoption and use of Kindle has proven problematic. The device has not met the standards desired for accessibility (Wanger, 2010). Arizona State University settled a lawsuit regarding the use of the Kindle DX in academic related work due to complaints regarding accessibility made by the National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind (Cheng, 2010). The ability to increase font-size for low vision users and the quality and availability of text-to-speech functionality across all available book titles have been of concern for accessibility advocates and disabled consumers. Many of these concerns could potentially be addressed through improvements to developer support for content providers, revisions to hardware interfaces, and patches to software.

In addition to accessibility concerns, some questioned if Kindle software on other device platforms would hurt sales of Kindle devices (Raphael, 2010). In contrast, Om Malik posited that “Amazon should be thinking about Kindle as a platform that leverages other people’s hardware.” (Malik, 2010). There appears to be a fundamental shift from hardware-centric services to that of user experience as it relates to software and interface design.

There is now an abundance of advanced hardware options and location agnostic Internet access. Amazon made a brilliant move by creating separate functions within the Kindle Team for hardware (the Kindle Device), software development (the Kindle Reader), platform development (tools and support for application developers), and content acquisition managers. Amazon’s teams continue to provide iterative advances in their hardware and software offerings and, in my opinion, have set the right focus on creating and pursuing opportunity in areas of user experience and platform/context/location agnostic content distribution.

References

Wikipedia. (2010). Amazon Kindle. Retrieved on November 14, 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindle.

Purdy, K. (2010). Kindle for Android Adds Highlighting, Notes, and Voice Search. Retrieved September 25, 2010 from http://lifehacker.com/5645904/kindle-for-android-adds-highlighting-notes-and-search.

Godin, S. (2009). Reinventing the Kindle (part II). Retrieved November 14, 2010, from http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/02/reinventing-the-kindle-part-ii.html.

Ostro, A. (2010). Amazon: Kindle Books Now Outselling Hardcovers. Retrieved November 14, 2010 from http://mashable.com/2010/07/19/amazon-kindle-sales/.

Elmer-DeWitt, P. (2010). iPad owners: younger and more male. Kindle’s: richer and better educated. Retrieved October 6, 2010, from http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/09/28/ipad-owners-younger-and-more-male-kindles-richer-and-better-educated.

Elmer-DeWitt, P. (2010). The Apple-branded campus. Retrieved September 21, 2010 from http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/09/13/the-apple-branded-campus/.

Bernhoff, J. (2010). Strategic generosity: Who, how, and why to give out free stuff. Retrieved September 8, 2010 from http://forrester.typepad.com/groundswell/2010/09/strategic-generosity-who-how-and-why-to-give-out-free-stuff.html.

Inchauste, F. (2010). Avoiding the Uncanny Valley of Interface Design. Retrieved September 5, 2010 from http://www.getfinch.com/finch/entry/avoiding_the_uncanny_valley_of_interface_design/.

Wanger, L. (2010). Kindle Accessibility Review: How Far Has Amazon Opened the Door to the Blind? Retrieved November 14, 2010 from http://blindaccessjournal.com/2010/08/kindle-accessibility-review-how-far-has-amazon-opened-the-door-to-the-blind/.

Cheng, J. (2010). Lawsuit over Kindle navigation by visually impaired settled. Retrieved November 14, 2010 from http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/01/lawsuit-over-kindle-navigation-by-visually-impaired-settled.ars.

Raphael, JR. (2010). Will Amazon’s Kindle Android App Hurt Kindle Sales? Retrieved November 14, 2010 from http://www.pcworld.com/article/196603/will_amazons_kindle_android_app_hurt_kindle_sales.html.

Malik, O. (2010). Why Amazon’s Kindle Will Eventually Win the e-Book Wars. Retrieved November 14, 2010 from http://gigaom.com/2010/06/21/why-amazons-kindle-will-eventually-win-the-e-book-wars/.

Related posts:

• Building brand awareness with 30-year-old videogames

Rhode Island School of Design president John Maeda defines the key qualities of standout innovators – a willingness to struggle, to make mistakes, to live with ambiguity – and tackles the creative’s biggest challenge: How to lead other creatives. Perhaps confronting the status quo, killing bureaucracy, and leading change can be its own art form.

Notes

• Creative — sometimes considered to be a bad word.
• Art and cretaivity is sometimes an awkward thing.
• We look for solutions (like iPads) to problems that we don’t really have.
• Evolution of computer technology, Internet, and mobile computing — an awkward loop. Starting with text, adding images, then audio, and video — each technology has followed the same loop.
• Feeling that work we create is empty — an ongoing effort to fill in the gaps.
• Told he was the creative guy his whole life and to not worry about the money part of things. He realized he needed to learn the orgainzational/leadership side of things in order to succeed.
• Paul Rand – the Michael Jordan of graphic design.
• Spent a day once working with Paul Rand when Paul’s assistance didn’t show up for work the day John was visiting
• Advice from Paul Rand: Make lots of money (“woah, Yoda doesn’t talk like that”), in your life you will do things that you don’t like to do, and you can use that money to make the things you want to do.
• Labor of love comes from the money you make doing other things.
• All artists yearn to struggle. Only when they struggle do they feel alive.
• How do you lead creative people? One of John’s and future leader’s biggest challenges.
• Getting angry isn’t useful. Contemplated tweeting “Anger is an emotion I don’t often feel but often field.” Talked about transforming negative feedback received to make it easier to comprehend and consider.
• Creative people love mistakes. We love to learn from them. We don’t need to be right, but we hope to be right.

Related posts:

• Creativity and art

For an even more in depth look into advertising, copyrighting, and creativity consider viewing the documentary Art & Copy. This documentary, directed by Doug Pray, also includes a section about a family owned billboard company — which gives you a parallel story, to that shared in Up There, into how billboard advertisements are designed, manufactured, and installed.

By the way, if you are not listening to WYNC’s Radio Lab podcast, you really should give it a try — it is a great source for inspiration and interesting ideas. The show is very creative and they do a lot of fun things with the audio storytelling format.

Visit: 16: Moments – A short film by Will Hoffman

Show notes are available here.