Apple stores around the world
Winars.com has put together a photo list of the coolest looking Apple stores in the world. I’ve been to Apple stores in four cities, and all of them are cool. But these really take the cake. The revenue these stores generate certainly proves the theory that a retail environment must be more than just shelves of product. You have to make it a place people want to go when they have more convenient options.
Photos courtesy of: Tonyshi, Worldfrank, mg02, and Apple.
If you’ve never heard of Brand New (part of UnderConsideration.com), you’re missing out on some fantastic conversation about companies who re-brand or at least re-design their logos.
Logo and brand makeovers featured at Brand New
Recently, I read two great reviews at Brand New, the first covering the new Girl Scouts of America logo, and the second dissecting the latest brand makeover of the YMCA logo.
Brand New is a great site for designers, offering intelligent design discussion along with the analysis of corporate re-branding. Definitely worthy of bookmarking!
Click to view original
The infographic, How Apple is Revolutionizing Education, uses simple graphics and a small color palette to get its point across. I think they pulled it off quite well.
You can view the full size graphic here.
I love working on infographics, and found a great place for inspiration. You can check out what other designers are doing with infographics by visiting The Infographics Showcase.
Alien Skin Software, one of my favorite Photoshop plug-in vendors, has released Exposure 3, the newest version of their photography effects plug-in. With this latest version, Exposure grows beyond just film simulation, and dives into being a creativity tool with the addition of Lo-Fi and vintage effects for your images.
Exposure brings all of the creative tools of film photography to the world of digital, such as discontinued films, dark room tricks, and lo-fi camera quirks. New in version 3 are vintage looks like Technicolor movie film and old Kodachrome that are distressed with dust, scratches, and vignettes to complete the illusion of age. Lo-Fi cameras like Holga and Lomo are simulated with lens blur, warped vignettes, and funky colors from cross processing.
Exposure 3's infrared simulation provides an ethereal glow
Exposure 3's Lo-Fi toy camera effects have been greatly expanded
Exposure 3 sells for $249. Owners of any version of Exposure may upgrade for $99. Online or physical delivery is available through the Alien Skin website. Free upgrades will be automatically sent to purchasers of Exposure 2 who purchased in April 2010 or later. Exposure 3 works with Photoshop CS3 or later, Lightroom 2 or later, and Photoshop Elements 7 or later.
While I’ve come across many reviews for iPhone, iPad and iPod apps scattered across the web, I haven’t found a decent site that specialized in it. The closest I’ve found is Appshopper.com, a site that pulls descriptions, screenshots and links from the iTunes Store down and presents it in a blog-style site.
Appshopper brings your app exploration to a blog-style site
While appshopper does little more than reorganize what is already available to you, it does offer a better way to just explore, finding apps you may not have thought of checking out or searching for. If you like a particular app, the site will also display a list of other apps by that developer. You can also add apps to your own wishlist.
Appshopper isn’t as useful as I would like, but it’s a great start, and I’m not aware of any site that offers more. If you know of one, please share the link in the comments!
One of the most exciting and difficult periods of the designer/client relationship is the very beginning. There can be quite a bit of anxiety at the start, because neither of you know what to expect.
Jeremy Tuber sheds some light on what I mean with an excellent article detailing an experience he had with a new client. While his experience may be extreme (or not), it illustrates the idea that you have to read between the lines when meeting with a new client for the first time.
With the release of Creative Suite 5, Adobe brought with it a new set of icons for all their applications. Now I won’t get into the whole debate about whether or not they’re better or worse than the previous ones, but they are different. And if you’re like me, you may have an interest in altering them a bit, and creating similar ones for other folder and applications in your OS X Dock.
Icon Generator is a website and a companion Adobe AIR application, both free, that allow you to create your own CS5-style icons with little effort.
Create your own CS5-style icons easily
As you can see in the screenshot above, you can type in your own letters (up to 15, but it looks bad beyond three), choose a face and font color, and even add or remove icon shadows and glare. I should also note that if you preferred the Adobe CS4-style icons, you can choose that style instead.
But it Icon Generator doesn’t stop there. You can choose to use an image on the face of your icon, rather than letters. You simply upload a 512×512 pixel JPG or PNG file. As you can see below, the results are pretty darn good!
Icon Generator allows you to use images instead of text on your icons
Once you’re finished customizing, Icon Generator allows you to download a .zip file containing various sized PNG files of your icon, and even update your Twitter profile icon if you wish.
Icon Generator is free, so if you like the Adobe CS4 or CS5 icons and want to customize more icons to match, this little AIR app is just what the doctor ordered.
I’m amazed to find there are still designers out there that struggle with Adobe’s tabbed document interface when trying to get objects from one document into a second one, rather than copy and pasting them. The process is a simple drag and drop operation in both CS4 and CS5 apps.
Document tabs offer simple drag & drop convenience
Select your objects and drag them from the current document over to the second document’s tab and hover there for a second or two. The second document will come to the front, allowing you to drop the objects on the page.