I’ve had an Apple Watch for a little over a month now, and I wanted to write down some of my initial impressions for anyone who hasn’t already picked one up.
Living in New Zealand meant we had to wait a few months from the initial launch in the US and Europe, which meant it was easy to follow people online and get a gauge of initial impressions. Over-all everyone has been pretty positive about it — but here’s my thoughts.
To start with, I’ve never been a watch person. From memory I’ve owned a Casio, and a classic Timex — but I never really wore them. In todays connected world one never really goes anywhere without their phone, so I use that as my watch normally. It just hasn’t made sense to have another thing that does something my phone already does. …
A lot of people ask me for advice on where I get inspiration from, what apps I use, where and how they should create an online portfolio, and which online design communities to follow. So in an effort to index all of this, I’ve created a list of design resources split up into categories for your reference. I’ll add to this when necessary
Apps
Adobe Creative Cloud (CC)
Atomic
iA Writer
Font Explorer X Pro
Fontstand
Sketch
Slack
VSCO Cam + Film
Colour
Material Colour Palette Generator
Adobe Colour CC
The Day’s Colour
Community
Australian Graphic Design Association (AGDA)
American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA)
Designers Institute of New Zealand (DINZ)
Design Assembly (DA)
The Design Kids (TDK)
Global Association for Advertising & Design (D&AD)
Conferences
99u
Analogue/Digital
Creative Mornings
Semi-Permanent
Sex, Drugs, Helvetica
Supergraph
Typo
Guidelines
Brand Style Guide Examples
Find Guidelines
Inspiration
Aisle One
Brand, Packaging & Opinion
Brand New (Under Consideration)
Collate
Designspiration
Dribbble
Fonts in Use
Form Fifty Five
Friends of Type
Grain Edit
I Love Typography
Monocle
Niice
Smashing Magazine
The Great Discontent
The Source
Typographic Posters
Typography…
This is a recurring conversation in the world of graphic design, and other creative industries. The act of making something look a particular way for the sake of it, vs basing design choices on a founding idea or principle that grounds it, giving some sort of context or reason. At first it sounds daunting, but in reality it just makes sense.
We live in a world of visual noise. Everything around us is screaming for your attention. Amongst this noise is a sea of lies and deceit. Everyone is trying to look better, look different or look the same as you.
The reality is — not a lot of people are being true to what and who they are, transparency and honesty is real, and needs to become the forefront of any brand, design, or business. Yet today, consumers are becoming more and more aware of the lies and tricks multi-national companies are employing and hiding behind to sell their products.
Graphic design, for me is about an idea. An idea that what you are creating has its own voice, story and identity to draw from when fabricating a visual identity from nothing. Everything I work on, I hunt for this, I try to distill the essence of what I’m creating down to one simple idea. …
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