You didn’t think I was done, did you? Here’s a handy tool for your design future: typetester

The Typetester is an online application for comparison of the fonts for the screen. Its’ primary role is to make web designer’s life easier. As the new fonts are bundled into operating systems, the list of the common fonts will be updated.

Enjoy. (via)

(via Merlin)

Back story. Results. Use wisely. (via)

Freelance Switch has a good article about the various types of clients you’re likely to come across in you design life, your regular job, and pretty much anywhere else. And good heavens, have I met all these peeps at least twice. Know any of them? Are you any of them? Enjoy:

12 Breeds of Client and How to Work with Them (via)

To further your journey into the wonderful world of creating identities, I present to you Brand New, a blog that in its own words discusses “opinions, and focusing solely, on corporate and brand identity work.” Groovy. I can’t say I always agree with their breakdown, but they almost always have good background information on the process and reasonings behind the (re)designs. You should by now be able to read their opinions but form your own opinion of the work.

On a related note, I’d also like you to add LogoPond to your design quiver. Basically a design gallery for logos, the site also offers up resources for you to check out. So check it out.

Way back when we discussed Cameron’s article about inspiration vs. influence. Well, the natural extension of that article is After the Brief: A Field Guide to Design Inspiration. This was a SXSW presentation given by Jason Santa Maria and Robert Weychert (Cameron was supposed to be there but came down sick). Fortunately for us, the audio and slides (pdf) from the lecture are available for free download. Grab them both and dedicate an hour to listen and follow along. This is an enlightening discussion about how and where to find sources of inspiration for your designs (and a great look at how today’s designers do it day in and day out).

Still stuck for ideas? Suffering from creative block? What’s a (new) designer to do? Cameron puts forth one idea (which should sound kind of familiar by now) for breaking through the haze: unplugging from the grid for a while. But not to be outdone, Cameron post yet one more on the topic: Pressure = Inspiration?

So, a recap:
Download and listen to After the Brief: A Field Guide to Design Inspiration (slides)
Read Uninspired? Unplug yourself
Read Pressure = Inspiration?

Anything stand out to you? What new ideas will you take to your other classes moving forward? Which of these were you already doing?

The odd thing is that no one sets out to design something that’s mediocre. So why does design go wrong so often? Let’s set aside the rational reasons why projects can fail - like budgetary constraints, deadline pressure and lack of talent - to concentrate on the scenarios that should be easily avoidable, but crop up again and again, with predictably dire results.

Brilliant article. Give it a read. (thanks John)

Josh Penrod over at Amishrobot has a quick post about advertising. Be sure to catch the humor/sarcasm and check it out. Very funny.

Advertising Is Easy

This is old, but worth looking at and evaluating. Back in the summer of ‘05 a call went out to the design community for logo design submissions for Simplified Standards. Sixty-four (ish) entries were submitted and voted on by the community. Some are great. Some are not so great (see #53 and #58).

And can you specifically tell me what’s wrong with number 41?

Simplified Standards logo submissions

Whitespace is one of the least understood yet most abused concepts by new designers. Mark Boulton takes a moment to clarify some of the finer details in his recent article for A List Apart.

See the article here.