Design Business Links 4 March 2014

Great con­tent found by Pariah and shared to the design and cre­ative com­mu­ni­ties on social media.

  • Nik Plug-in Collection for Photoshop and Lightroom, by Google

    Easily cre­ate the pho­tos you’ve imag­ined with six pow­er­ful plug-ins for Photoshop®, Lightroom®, or Aperture®.”

  • Get a Glimpse into Japanese Culture and the Way They See Americans with These Japanese Travel Tips for Visiting America

    With the help of Google Translate (and an abil­i­ty to inter­pret com­plete­ly ran­dom sen­tence struc­ture), an American can find out what kind of advice the Japanese give to their own coun­try­men on how to han­dle the pecu­liar­i­ties of American cul­ture. Here are some things to look out for if you are vis­it­ing America from Japan.

  • 50 Best Examples of illus­tra­tor Brushes
    “The Best exam­ples of illus­tra­tor brush­es of all time are pre­sent­ed to with the aid of this piece of writ­ing. You will find 50 exam­ples in this set which are very new in the mar­ket and have the mod­ish trend that can cov­er all your demands.


  • How to give your­self a pro­mo­tion as a freelancer

    And most painful­ly, what if you decide you want to upgrade your work-life? What if you get bored with being the “can you nudge that box up 5 pix­els and make it orange?” guy? What if you are ready for a promotion?

  • Adobe Commits Over $300 Million in Software and Teacher Training to President Obama’s ConnectED Initiative
    “Commitment helps advance dig­i­tal learn­ing, teach­ing, admin­is­tra­tion in 15,000 U.S. schools
  • Satisficing: How Overachievers Stay Sane and Avoid Burn-Out

    One of the fastest paths to burnout is when bril­liant peo­ple get so stuck on mak­ing every­thing they do AMAZING that all they have to show for their efforts is a string of sleep­less nights, bro­ken com­mit­ments, and work left undone. But life doesn’t have to be this way.

  • Creative Pros to Follow: Magazine and Editorial Designers on Behance by Pariah Burke

    “Creative Pros to Follow” is Pariah Burke’s series high­light­ing amaz­ing cre­ative professionals—graphic design­ers, pho­tog­ra­phers, typog­ra­phers, fash­ion design­ers, illus­tra­tors, and more—to fol­low and con­nect with on social media and cre­ative shar­ing ser­vices. If you know any­thing about me—author of sev­er­al books on InDesign, QuarkXPress, and dig­i­tal pub­li­ca­tion design and pro­duc­tion; for­mer mag­a­zine art direc­tor; con­sul­tant to some of the world’s most rec­og­niz­able peri­od­i­cals, and; fre­quent re-designer and res­ur­rec­tor of old, tired mag­a­zine design and workflows—you know that I have a deep appre­ci­a­tion for edi­to­r­i­al design and lay­out. It should there­fore come as no sur­prise that I have keep an busy edi­to­r­i­al design Pinterest board, and that I fol­low a num­ber of edi­to­r­i­al design­ers on Behance. Below are 15 of the best such cre­ative pros, from all over the world.”

  • Google Photoshop and Microsoft Photoshop On the Way?

    If Adobe los­es trade­mark pro­tec­tion on Photoshop, can Microsoft Photoshop and Google Photoshop be far behind?

  • The 40 Highest-Paying Jobs You Can Get Without A Bachelor’s Degree

    When the econ­o­my start­ed to show trou­bling signs, many decid­ed to skip col­lege and join the work­force earlier. 

  • A recent post has it wrong – our love affair with tablets is far from over
    “Venture cap­i­tal­ist and for­mer Netflix prod­uct man­ag­er Zal Bilimoria recent­ly wrote a provoca­tive piece, titled Our Love Affair With the Tablet is Over, that got our attention.

  • MediaZilla: The Future of Media Libraries and Sharing?

    MediaZilla is a cloud-based media plat­form for stor­ing, orga­niz­ing, view­ing, shar­ing or dis­trib­ut­ing your pho­tos, music, videos and more – with a user-friendly inter­face that mim­ics a Blu-ray style menu for your collections.

    Many pro­fes­sion­als might find val­ue in it – even if just for a good resource for back­up stor­age and orga­nized con­tain­ment of fin­ished image gal­leries and port­fo­lios to present to clients, or to deliv­er proofs for review.

    So, how is this dif­fer­ent from say, iTunes, iCloud, Vimeo, DropBox, etc? ”

  • Google, Evil or Not: Your Best Arguments
    ““Don’t be evil” has been Google’s unof­fi­cial mot­to for a long time, but in recent years it’s ques­tion­able whether they’ve lived up to the slo­gan. So we asked you what you thought. Here are your best arguments.”
  • As B2B mar­ket­ing dol­lars shift, pub­lish­ers can fill a void – or get left out in the cold

    The find­ings are in line with oth­er recent stud­ies. A study by Econsultancy and Adobe found that con­tent mar­ket­ing was a top pri­or­i­ty among 44% of B2B mar­keters, clear­ly out­dis­tanc­ing oth­er dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing activ­i­ties. Forrester, in a joint study with the Business Marketing Association, found that that 59% of B2B mar­keters plan to increase con­tent mar­ket­ing expen­di­tures in 2014 and that B2B mar­keters over­all expect to spend what ana­lyst Laura Ramos called a “fair­ly siz­able” 12% of bud­gets on con­tent mar­ket­ing in the year ahead.

  • As B2B mar­ket­ing dol­lars shift, pub­lish­ers can fill a void – or get left out in the cold

    The find­ings are in line with oth­er recent stud­ies. A study by Econsultancy and Adobe found that con­tent mar­ket­ing was a top pri­or­i­ty among 44% of B2B mar­keters, clear­ly out­dis­tanc­ing oth­er dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing activ­i­ties. Forrester, in a joint study with the Business Marketing Association, found that that 59% of B2B mar­keters plan to increase con­tent mar­ket­ing expen­di­tures in 2014 and that B2B mar­keters over­all expect to spend what ana­lyst Laura Ramos called a “fair­ly siz­able” 12% of bud­gets on con­tent mar­ket­ing in the year ahead.

  • Sci-Fi Tech Throughout Film History: An Illustrated Timeline #info­graph­ic
    “Which of these fic­tion­al gad­gets are the most like­ly to come to fruition? We’ve got our fin­gers crossed for Star Trek’s trans­porter (it would sure help with that morn­ing commute).

  • Google This: What It Means When A Brand Becomes A Verb #TM #IP

    We FaceTime and Skype but we gen­er­al­ly don’t Facebook or YouTube. We Google but we don’t Bing (at least not yet). We Rollerblade but we don’t Slinky. In past years, we would Xerox but would nev­er Polaroid. Why are some pop­u­lar brands or prod­ucts used as verbs in our every­day con­ver­sa­tion and oth­ers not?

  • Legendary type design­er dies, all Helvetica breaks loose

    Progenitor of the beloved Helvetica font, and thus the cul­prit respon­si­ble for weird iter­a­tions of memes – Mike Parker – died last Sunday at the ripe old age of 85. He has been described as “the font god,” which to be fair, is prob­a­bly an accu­rate descrip­tion for the guy who helped bring Helvetica to the world. However, he is also cred­it­ed with the devel­op­ment of over 1,100 typefaces.

  • True of False? What do you think? Stick to Thes Font Sizes to Simplfiy Designs
    Do your­self a favor, and only use these tar­get pix­el sizes: 5, 7, 9, 12, 16, 21, 28, 37, 50, 67, 83. These sizes are based off of the pro­por­tion of 3:4, and you can read more on the tech­ni­cal details of arriv­ing at these sizes in How to Establi…
  • 6 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Fear Design Outsourcing
    “Don’t be evil” has been Google’s unof­fi­cial mot­to for a long time, but in recent years it’s ques­tion­able whether they’ve lived up to the slo­gan. So we asked you what you thought. Here are your best arguments
  • 10 Things You Didn’t Think Still Existed

    But some relics from the past have sur­vived the for­ward march­es of time and tech­nol­o­gy. The 10 items on this list will prob­a­bly sur­prise you, since most of us haven’t heard of them in decades. The good news is that, unlike your first kiss, they can still be expe­ri­enced again. Are you ready to feel younger?”

  • 10 Things You Didn’t Think Still Existed

    But some relics from the past have sur­vived the for­ward march­es of time and tech­nol­o­gy. The 10 items on this list will prob­a­bly sur­prise you, since most of us haven’t heard of them in decades. The good news is that, unlike your first kiss, they can still be expe­ri­enced again. Are you ready to feel younger?”

  • Pins Piling Up? 5 Ways to Keep Your Pinterest Boards Clean & Organized
    “I know what you’re think­ing. Oh man, aren’t there enough things in this world to clean? Now we have to tidy up our Pinterest boards? I’ll leave it up to you to decide if it’s worth your time, but I spent an hour doing some work on mine the oth…
  • Want To Keep A Watchful Eye On Your WordPress Install? Here’s How

    Regardless of how you choose to man­age your WordPress instal­la­tion, I’d place mon­ey on you being con­cerned about secu­ri­ty. I like to think of deal­ing with secu­ri­ty threats in terms of three stages.

  • New “Why, God?” Study Says Loneliness May Be Deadlier Than Obesity

    Here’s some god-awful news to keep you awake on a winter’s night: a recent study has con­firmed that true, crush­ing lone­li­ness is just as phys­i­cal­ly dam­ag­ing as it feels, and may even pose greater health risks than obe­si­ty. Wish I had some­one to talk to about this.

  • In case you missed it: Candy Crush Trying to Cancel Trademark on a Game That Was Invented First #TrademarkAbuse

    This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a larg­er app com­pa­ny steal the name or con­cept of a much small­er app — Facebook’s also had some recent prob­lems with their Paper app, because an app called Paper already exist­ed. King​.com, though, is tak­ing it a step far­ther by try­ing to buy CandySwipe’s name out from under them. CandySwipe’s not the only com­pa­ny to get tar­get­ed, either, as King​.com has also gone after The Banner Saga for using the word “saga.” Clearly this is a sign that not only is King​.com actu­al­ly kind of a huge dick of a com­pa­ny, but we need some mas­sive amounts of Intellectual Property reform to ensure this kind of stuff stops happening.

  • How To Add Storage To Your MacBook With An SD Card

    Obviously, an SD card won’t get you the the ter­abytes of extra stor­age that’s avail­able in the form of exter­nal hard dri­ves. However, you can add a decent chunk of stor­age to sup­ple­ment your MacBook’s inter­nal hard dri­ve. The exact amount of stor­age you can add depends on what type of SD cards are sup­port­ed by your MacBook.

  • Turn Your iPad Into A Mobile Writing Workstation
    “With the right apps and acces­sories, you can turn your iPad into a mobile writ­ing work­sta­tion that will rival your lap­top. Tackle your next big writ­ing project by using these apps and acces­sories at every stage in your workflow.
  • Toybricks Lego Text Effect Photoshop Tutorial
    “You can cre­ate a LEGO effect in Photoshop out of any shape, text, graph­ics or even pho­tos using this quick tuto­r­i­al. First we’ll use a pix­el effect to cre­ate the blocks and than we’ll add a cus­tom made toy­brick pat­tern. If you are look­ing for …
  • How to Build Your Own DIY Photography Light for Under $15.00

    If you’ve ever done any kind of videog­ra­phy or pho­tog­ra­phy, you’ll know that hav­ing enough light on your scene and your sub­ject is the key to a good image. On a nice sun­ny day, that’s not much of a prob­lem, but when shoot­ing indoors (or if you, like me, hap­pen to live in the Northwest of England) you’re going to need a lit­tle arti­fi­cial assistance.

  • Designer Yves Béhar: Think about the user expe­ri­ence and make it eas­i­er than a light switch

    However, the per­cep­tion about design has changed dur­ing Béhar’s career, specif­i­cal­ly in the US. When think­ing about design, peo­ple often con­sid­ered Paris, Milan, and oth­er loca­tions as the hub of cre­ativ­i­ty. Today, the atti­tude has shift­ed, with Silicon Valley now being viewed as a cen­ter of design. What’s more, the under­stand­ing of the pro­fes­sion has also shift­ed as design is no longer thought of as some­thing you bring in at the end of the devel­op­ment process — now it’s become a crit­i­cal part through­out the lifecycle.

  • Interesting read: 11 Things You Didn’t Know About Comic Sans
    “Comic Sans. Two words that cause more hor­ror in the eyes of design­ers than a mash-up of Microsoft FrontPage and “Paranormal Activity”. 

    I decid­ed to take a deep­er look into Comic Sans. It’s like invit­ing the goofy-looking new kid to sit at yo…

  • How To Use Evernote To Manage Your Meetings

    Organizing and man­ag­ing meet­ings is a tedious yet impor­tant part of get­ting things done, and I didn’t real­ize how use­ful Evernote could be for cre­at­ing meet­ing agen­das and tak­ing min­utes until recent­ly. The lat­est fea­tures for adding to-do lists, cre­at­ing tables, shar­ing notes and note­books, and attach­ing doc­u­ments makes Evernote an ide­al tool for man­ag­ing meetings.

  • 4 Ways Spreadsheets are Great Tools for Designers

    Spreadsheets may seem like the exclu­sive domain of accoun­tants and oth­er num­ber crunch­ers, but they can make life eas­i­er for design­ers too. I’m using Google Drive spread­sheets in the exam­ples below. You can cre­ate and store them for free with a Google account.

  • Design and Science Team Up to Create Public Anti-Abuse Message Visible Only to Children
    “As a way to get in touch with chil­dren who are vic­tims of abuse, the cre­ators of this adver­tise­ment found a way to make it so that only chil­dren can see their impor­tant hid­den mes­sage. The ad is also a warn­ing to par­ents that it’s not okay to …
  • Adobe Creative Cloud Renewals Beating Expectations and Exceed 80%

    Charting strong growth since its ini­tial release and receiv­ing near-five-star rat­ings from cus­tomers, Adobe’s new all-in-one Creative Cloud offer­ing has also been ben­e­fit­ing from high renew­al rates from cur­rent and return­ing cus­tomers, the com­pa­ny divulged dur­ing a recent busi­ness presentation…