Some great advice for designing T-shirts that people will want to wear! Much like buying a house, it’s all about location, location, location.
Category: Links
12 reasons hiring managers aren’t reading your resume
CareerBuilder recently surveyed 2,298 U.S. hiring managers and human resources professionals and asked what would make them automatically dismiss a candidate from consideration. Some of the biggest resume mistakes they communicated were:
• Resumes that don’t include a list of skills – 30 percent
• Resumes printed on decorative paper – 20 percent
• Resumes that detail more tasks than results for previous positions – 16 percent
• Resumes that include a photo – 13 percent
• Resumes that have large blocks of text with little white space – 13 percent
For graphic designers, those particular mistakes are inexcusable. As someone who has hired designers and production artists, one of my biggest pet-peeves is seeing a resume where the first item below the name/contact info at the top is an “Objective” paragraph. I immediately throw those resumes in the trash bin. I know what your objective is… it’s to GET THE DAMN JOB!
A special hell for designers like me
My tiny exaggerations were about to become a dangerous contribution to a lie that ended up permanently injuring people.
This was a fantastic (and completely sad) read, especially when you get to the meat of the story in Part 2 of the article (linked at the bottom of the article). It’s a shocking news story.
Sometimes you have to pause and think about the clients you’re working with. 99.9% of the time, they’re great people. But there may come a day when you find the corporation behind the people aren’t so great.
8 tips for photo sharing on Facebook
Following up on last week’s post about social media image specs, here are 8 more tips for sharing photos on Facebook.
It’s kind of sad that it’s so complicated to get an image to show up the way you want it on social media, but posts like this one at TheDailyDot make it a bit easier.
8 tips for combining typefaces
You finally chose a typeface that’s perfect for your next print or screen design project. Good job, but don’t break out the bubbly just yet. For many projects, one font isn’t enough to create visual interest and establish the information hierarchy. And when you have multiple typefaces, you want to be sure that they work well together.
2016 tech predictions – as made by a dolt
Any time I see something from an analyst, I immediately mark it as invalid, uneducated drivel. Because it almost always is. But Fred Wilson is a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley—so what’s his excuse for his list of 2016 predictions that are so blatantly obvious, incredibly stupid, or slightly crazy?
I won’t comment on each of his 10 bouts of idiocy, but here are my thoughts on a few of them:
#2 We will see a new form of wearables take off in 2016… If I had to guess, I would bet on something we wear in or on our ears.
No shit, Sherlock, they’re called wireless earbuds. That’s the only wearable that’s going to take off… because wearables haven’t taken off as a concept to begin with. Even Apple’s awesome watch isn’t a mass-market breakthrough.
#3 One of the big four will falter in 2016. My guess is Apple. They did not have a great year in 2015 and I’m thinking that it will get worse in 2016.
If you ignore the fact that Apple had one of it’s most successful years in history, and managed to grow its lead as the world’s largest company, then yeah… they had a really crappy year. And of the “big four” (whomever they are), of course you choose Apple, because they’re the only one that will get you page views.
#4 The FAA regulations on the commercial drone industry will turn out to be a boon for the drone sector…
No. It won’t. The drone industry will sit in the fringe “I play with remote control vehicles” sector that it has sat in for the last few years.
#5 The trend towards publishing inside of social networks (Facebook being the most popular one) will go badly for a number of high profile publishers who won’t be able to monetize as effectively inside social networks…
Yeah. Because publishers are monetizing so effectively outside social networks. Honestly, this one is the big “no-duh” statement you’ll read all year. I’m not even sure about what “trend” he’s referring to, since there are only a small handful of publishers who are test publishing with Facebook, Twitter, etc…
#7 Bitcoin finally finds a killer app with the emergence of…
Oh please. Bitcoin is never going to happen. Stop trying to make it happen.
#9 Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee and… As a result the tech sector will line up behind Hillary Clinton who will be elected the first woman President.
The tech sector is going to line-up behind whomever the Democratic candidate is because they know the Republican Party hates anyone who isn’t a rich, white male. Donald Trump actually has a better chance with the tech sector because, you know, they need a little light comedy in their life.
Is the Apple Watch a stalled platform?
I reply to a large portion of text messages from the watch, using customized quick responses. Tracking my exercise has helped me lose 10 pounds. But that’s about it. And they are pretty much the same ways I used the watch when I first got it.
The platform simply feels stalled.
I recall a lot of journalists claiming the same thing about the Apple TV years ago. The Apple Watch is going to take some time to become a mainstream device that everyone wants or has. Right now, it doesn’t offer anything new, it just offers another way to see what you already can on your phone. It’s going to take time to train people to leave their phone in their pockets and use the watch instead—and even longer to make that a habit that users don’t want to be without.
Mayer fails to bet the Yahoo! farm
Over all, Yahoo remains much the same business it was three years ago. It is a far-flung collection of news, entertainment and communications destinations supported by ads. Ms. Mayer was hired to build something novel. Instead, at best, she appears to be building a better Yahoo — with debatable results.
We all know Yahoo needs to do SOMETHING to shake things up. The debatable question is WHAT? Everybody is quick to point out that Mayer isn’t doing anything… but nobody seems to have a solution.
Font use inspiration
Have a look at FontsInUse for some great font inspiration for your next design job. The examples are large images, complete with the names of the fonts used in the piece. There’s some really great work here, definitely worth checking out.
Extensis offers free Type Trends Report
Extensis, makers of Suitcase Fusion and Universal Type Server, surveyed thousands of graphic designers, art directors and creative people from around the globe to learn what they think about current trends in typography. The Typographic Trends report is free to download.