Today in Design - Top Articles RoundUp 21 January 2016

The day’s best and most impor­tant design- and design business-focused arti­cles, tuto­ri­als, and resources hand-picked by Pariah Burke.

  • What Freelancers Should Know Before Filing Their Taxes This Year
    Preparing your tax­es as a free­lancer can be com­pli­cat­ed, and there is a chance you are leav­ing thou­sands of dol­lars on the table.Tags: Entrepreneur freelance
  • Advice for Graduate Designers

    The most com­mon ques­tions I get asked by recent grad­u­ates is… How do I get a job? Are you hir­ing? And, can you take a look at my portoflio? So, to help you out, I’m going to share my prac­ti­cal answers to the above.

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  • How to Recommend eBooks for Libraries to Add to Their Catalog
    Some pub­lic libraries allow cus­tomers to rec­om­mend spe­cif­ic ebook titles for the library to pur­chase and add to their online cat­a­log for lending.Tags: eprdctn
  • 8 Free Tools to Work & Collaborate Online from Your Home
    Working from home can be a con­ve­nient set­up, thanks to its flex­i­bil­i­ty. But online col­lab­o­ra­tion with clients and teams can quick­ly become com­pli­cat­ed and stress­ful. We show you free tools to build a reli­able workflow.Tags: Entrepreneur Freelance Star…
  • The Most and Least Friendly U.S. States for Small Businesses
    Thumbtack, in part­ner­ship with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, has released the results from the third annu­al Thumbtack​.com Small Business Friendliness Survey. The study, draw­ing upon data from over 12,000 small busi­ness own­ers, provides …
  • 7 Ways to Use Video to Boost Your Social Media Marketing
    Do you use videos in your social media mar­ket­ing? This arti­cle shares sev­en ways to use video to boost your social media efforts.Tags: Marketing SMM
  • 13 Lists That Will Make Your Life So Much Better

    The title of this arti­cle already gave it away , and besides , you’re not here to read what i have to say , so first book­mark this page so you don’t for­get after your mind is blown , and enjoy 

  • 10 WordPress Admin Themes to Rebrand the Backend

    An admin theme can give a unique look and feel to a site, which is not only impor­tant aes­thet­i­cal­ly but also from the aspect of user-friendliness, as an admin theme can add a more intu­itive user inter­face to the dashboard.

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  • TypeTalk: Eight Timeless Typefaces

    Fonts that are in vogue come and go, with pop­u­lar type­styles con­stant­ly being replaced by new­er, trendi­er designs. But even with the hun­dreds of new type­faces being released each year, there are some that don’t seem to age, and con­tin­ue to look fresh while serv­ing their typo­graph­ic purpose.

    Here are eight type­faces that, in spite of hav­ing been around for dozens—and in some cas­es hundreds—of years, don’t appear to have an expi­ra­tion date any time soon. 

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  • Interesting Magazine Layouts
    2A/B Media Production & AnalysisTags: Design Inspiration InDesign
  • Trade Secrets – A Viable Alternative to Patents

    While trade secrets can­not ful­ly replace patent pro­tec­tion in all respects, they do offer a viable alter­na­tive to patents for pro­tect­ing intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty in some cas­es. In addi­tion, while the val­ue of patents in pro­tect­ing IP has been under attack this year, trade secret pro­tec­tion has been on the rise with, for exam­ple, the California appel­late court deci­sion in Altavion, Inc. v. Konica Minolta Systems Laboratory, 226 Cal.App.4th 26. 171 Cal.Rptr.3d 714 (1st Dist. 2014) that broad­ened the def­i­n­i­tion of what infor­ma­tion can qual­i­fy as a trade secret. Moreover, there is a real pos­si­bil­i­ty that Congress will final­ly pass a civ­il trade secrets pro­tec­tion law, which will mean that trade secrets will not be con­sid­ered patent’s ugly step sis­ter any longer.

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  • Crafting Your Company’s Story
    Call it an ele­va­tor pitch or your com­pa­ny’s sto­ry. However you describe it, being able to quick­ly sum­ma­rize your busi­ness can help you engage with cus­tomers, part­ners and investors.Tags: Entrepreneur Leadership Startup
  • Why I Love Trello (And So Will You!)
    Trello can be used as an edi­to­r­i­al cal­en­dar, sched­uler, to do list, sav­ing links and so much more! It makes for a great blog­ging and social media tool…Tags: pro­duc­tiv­i­ty todo gtd
  • She Makes Comics, a Film About Women in the Comic Book Industry
    She Makes Comics tells the little-known sto­ry of women in comics, high­light­ing the con­tri­bu­tions they have made to the medi­um since the turn of the 20th cen­tu­ry. It fea­tures inter­views with such promi­nent fig­ures as his­to­ri­an Trina Robbins, Cap…
  • Don’T Throw Out That Photo! Salvage Hazy or Foggy Shots Lightroom and Photoshop

    Have you ever delet­ed a dig­i­tal pho­to from your col­lec­tion because its sub­ject was obscured by too much haze, fog, or smog? You may regret that deci­sion after you see how the amaz­ing Dehaze fea­ture can clear things up—literally. I’ll show you how to apply it across all or just part of an image, and I’ll let you in on a spe­cial trick for mul­ti­ply­ing its effect.

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  • 40 Amazingly Creative Double Page Magazine Ads
    Sometimes all it takes is a lit­tle cre­ativ­i­ty. Although con­sid­ered a more tra­di­tion­al form of adver­tis­ing, mar­keters con­tin­ue to use mag­a­zine advertisementTags: Design Inspiration InDesign
  • How to Use Evernote for Your Creative Business
    I am a research nerd and ideas pop up in my head all of the time. I had to find a sys­tem to keep my brain orga­nized. I have sys­tems for a lot of stuff, but keep­ing ideas and notes for writ­ing my blog posts and FUN-mail need­ed a system.Tags: Design Ins…
  • Packaging For A Post-Binary Gender World
    Basik lets you cus­tomize your shav­ing expe­ri­ence based on need, not gender.Tags: Packaging
  • How to Leverage Pro Bono Work to Gain More Work

    Well, you can always go pro bono to build up your pro­fes­sion­al port­fo­lio first. Want to know how? I’ve put togeth­er a quick guide on how to lever­age pro bono work to gain more work.

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  • Decisions you can make to avoid can­cer when you are 20 – Business Insider
    Johns Hopkins can­cer cen­ter direc­tor offers some advice on what you should do to avoid cancer.
  • Ad Blockers : peo­ple final­ly had enough and now see no ads! Can you blame them?
    We have been fol­low­ing this issue since last November – and being one of the first sites to begin the cruisade against online adver­tis­ing back in the 1990s, we’re delight­ed it’s final­ly get­ting some pub­lic notice. But the indus­try is fight­ing back. I post­ed this one yes­ter­day on UGNN … Forbes, ad block­ers and mal­ware … anoth­er warning!

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  • 5 Writing Tips for Starting a Blog

    What’s the pur­pose of your blog? Develop a strat­e­gy to guide the way you’ll write about your top­ic. Use the fol­low­ing strat­e­gy state­ment to get started:

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  • 4 Red Flags You’re Being Hired by a Control Freak

    I’m going to to cov­er a few red flags to look out for. None of these in an of them­selves mean you should walk away from the job, but add a few of them togeth­er and it’s pos­si­ble you’re being hired by a con­trol freak.

  • 25 Body Language Mistakes You May Be Making at Work
    From cross­ing your arms to slouch­ing, these body lan­guage mis­takes could affect the way peo­ple per­ceive you and your business.
  • 45 Free Popup, Alert Window, Notification, Photoshop Designs
    In this round up, you will find 45 free noti­fi­ca­tion, pop­up and alert win­dows PSD files that will be use­ful in your design project.Tags: Photoshop Templates
  • How To Identify The 4 Types of Startups
    Do you know what kind of busi­ness you have?

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  • Working With Irregular Shapes in Gradient Mesh in Adobe Illustrator
    Creating a Gradient Mesh from a rec­tan­gle or an ellipse is pret­ty easy and straight­for­ward. When you have to work with an acute­ly curved shape, it becomes much more dif­fi­cult. Here’s a tech­nique that will do the trick, and save you from frustration!Ta…
  • Color Scheme Tool Accounts For Color Blindness

    After choos­ing your col­ors, Color Scheme by Pixy let’s you pre­view the col­ors as if through the eyes of peo­ple with var­i­ous types of color-blindness—protanopy (which affects 1% of men), deuter­a­nopy (anoth­er 1% of men), deuter­a­nom­aly (which affects 5% of men and 0.4% of women), as well as five oth­er types of color-blindness.

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  • Becoming A Brand Change Leader | Branding Strategy Insider
    The first change pol­i­cy, there­fore, has to be orga­nized aban­don­ment. The brand change leader puts every prod­uct, every ser­vice, every process, every mar­ket, every dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nel, every cus­tomer, and every end use on tri­al for its life. And does so on a reg­u­lar sched­ule.” ~ Peter Drucker
  • The Ten Commandments of Design by Dieter Rams

    In the 1980’s design god Dieter Rams expressed the ten most impor­tant cri­te­ria for what he con­sid­ered was good design.

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  • How to Write a Great Tagline or Slogan for Business Purposes
    There have been hits and miss­es when it comes to adver­tis­ing. So what fac­tors sep­a­rate the two, and how do you write a great tagline or slogan?
  • The Ultimate Startup Checklist [Infographic]
    For any­one who has a good idea, a ded­i­cat­ed per­son­al­i­ty, and a mind set on suc­cess, launch­ing a start­up just boils down to what you have to do in order toTags: Entrepreneur Leadership Startup
  • Lessons from the Ocean: A Surfer’s Guide to Design Thinking

    Somewhere dur­ing my years of prac­tice and fail­ure on the ocean, I began my career as a design­er. I learned how the eco­nom­ic use of mate­ri­als on hand could solve prob­lems if applied in the right way. I watched my men­tors and reflect­ed on how they solved prob­lems and how they thought about their dis­ci­plines the same way I study the move­ments and traits of gray-haired surfers. I learned that time spent exam­in­ing the prob­lem was more help­ful in the long run than time spent cre­at­ing the solu­tion. I saw that the best indi­vid­u­als spent the most time prepar­ing, under­stand­ing, and posi­tion­ing their abil­i­ties so they were there to solve chal­lenges when the right ones pre­sent­ed them­selves. It was the phi­los­o­phy of surf­ing made real.

  • 7 Killer Tips for Logo Design (Design 101)
    Designing a logo is sim­ple, right? Think again. There’s more to craft­ing a brand’s visu­al iden­ti­ty than just plac­ing a name in a square and call­ing it a day
  • 10 Best Mobile App Search Engines

    Here we have 12 bet­ter and more enjoy­able search engines for iOS apps to help you dig deep­er into the app pile and find gems that don’t nor­mal­ly make the front page, top of the chart or in the Editor’s roll call.

  • Freelance Consultant’s Guide to Client Interviews (Questions + Process)

    This means that apart from being pro­fi­cient in your field, you should also know how to give a good first impres­sion in inter­views, build rap­port with poten­tial clients, ask the right inter­view ques­tions, and how to turn those inter­views into projects.

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  • How To Sell Without Selling [Infographic]

    Don’t over­look this one just because you’re not a sales­man. Of course any type of busi­ness major should know these things, but unless you’re liv­ing in a straw hut on a remote island then you have some­thing to gain from these statistics.

  • 10 Incredibly Useful Colour Resources for Designers

    Colour is an inte­gral ele­ment of design. And the web is full of end­less resources and tuto­ri­als cov­er­ing it. But, some­times too much choice can be con­fus­ing. So we’ve picked this selec­tion of the best resources that will real­ly help you to get to grips with the subject.

  • Comma Rules for Business Emails

    In your aver­age busi­ness email, a com­ma is very unlike­ly to rep­re­sent the dif­fer­ence between life and death. Still, a mis­placed one can change the mean­ing and tone of the mes­sage, which can cause con­fu­sion and unde­sired con­se­quences. So let’s go over the two most impor­tant uses for com­mas in busi­ness emails.

  • How Do You Do Your Best Learning?

    Of course, in each of these you may use any of the sens­es to ful­ly expe­ri­ence some­thing. As you see some­thing you might be hear­ing and touch­ing some­thing at the same time. However, for most peo­ple there is a pre­ferred option for learn­ing. For con­sum­ing, pro­cess­ing, remem­ber­ing and act­ing on infor­ma­tion (the stimuli).

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  • How to Think Visually [Infographic]

    How to Think Visually Using Visual Analogies info­graph­ic from Anna Vital gives a great vari­ety of exam­ples for any­one to use when you cre­ate your own graph­ics. It begins with the most rec­og­niz­able visu­als, cir­cle graphs and dia­grams. Further down are abstract analo­gies. They are rem­i­nis­cent of phys­i­cal objects, but they are sim­pli­fied and abstract. Next, we have reg­u­lar analo­gies that look like the phys­i­cal objects you are famil­iar with. The final cat­e­go­ry are alle­gories. These are sto­ries, or a series of analo­gies. The key is that these sto­ries are famil­iar enough that we don’t have to retell them, but we should analo­gize every part of them.

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