Apple | Mac
If you’re a designer, you’ve probably come across Unsplash, the free stock photography site that has exploded in popularity over the last few years. They have absolutely stunningly good photos you can use in your commercial design projects. They also happen to be a great place to get photos to use as desktop wallpapers.
Adobe Photoshop
If you’ve ever designed with type in Photoshop, you’ve probably encountered a situation where changing the size or font caused the text to not fit on the canvas any more. Or maybe you’ve placed a large logo file that didn’t fit on the canvas to begin with.
Read more “Resizing the Photoshop canvas when your text or artwork goes off the edge”
General
Inc has published a great article titled 10 Dumb Rules That Make Your Best People Want to Quit. It’s a subject that is near and dear to my heart, both because I’ve experienced working with companies with some or all of the rules, and I’ve been working in the advertising business long enough to see first-hand how these dumb rules actually come into the conversation whenever I’ve asked why someone was leaving.
General
Color is one of the most powerful tools in a designer’s toolkit. It can draw attention, set a mood, and influence a users’ emotions, perceptions and actions. Did you know that color accounts for 90% of the reason why you purchased a specific product? Or that full-colored ads in magazines are recognized 26% more than black and white ads?
Read more “The impact of color on conversion rates”
Resources
Fivo Sans is an awesome sans-serif font, perfect for use in small body copy or giant headlines. I love a nice neutral looking sans serif font that still manages to have some personality to it.
General
Yeah, I get it. You’re not a copywriter. But you’re probably a designer, and that means you’ll be writing at some point in your career—even if it’s just a headline or two.
I love these quick grammar lesson types of articles.
Apple | Mac
Here’s a great tip to recover Admin privileges on almost any Mac. If you’ve ever been locked-out of a Mac, you know what a pain it can be. This security tip should never be used for evil purposes, but it’s worth knowing.
Read more “How to recover Admin on any Mac”
Apple | Mac
When I came across MagicPrefs a few weeks ago, I didn’t think I would use it beyond a quick peek at what it could do. It just seemed like the sort of app that was too good to be true, be difficult to work with and make a general mess of a simple thing.
Read more “Control your Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad or MacBook trackpad like a boss”
Adobe InDesign
This free script for Adobe InDesign outputs the file with proper supporting CSS and JavaScript to a “fixed layout” type of HTML format, that looks and behaves just like a fixed layout EPUB, with the big exception that each page is output as a single HTML file.
Resources
FreePik has this really nice magazine PSD mockup, high-resolution and free to download. I like this one in particular because it’s straight-on, so you could use it to show off a 4-page newsletter just as easily as a 64-page magazine.
Read more “Free magazine mockup PSD”
General
I found this article about Apple’s work with the hearing impared fascinating. I had no idea we were at the point of surgically implanting hearing aids, but apparently 10% of hearing aid customers could really stand to benefit from the surgery. And I’m sure as the technology improves (along with the hardware), it’s going to be more common.
While some companies “throw together” features to sell their wares, Apple spent years developing a low-energy form of Bluetooth for just such a use-case. Bravo, Apple!