Today in Design - Top Articles RoundUp 2 March 2015

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

• The Ideal Work Schedule, as Determined by Circadian Rhythms
  Unfortunately, we often get this wrong. Many employ­ees are flood­ed with writ­ing and respond­ing to emails through­out their entire morn­ing, which takes them up through lunch.
• For the Best U.S. Architecture Per Square Mile, Head to Dallas
  New York has the nation’s tallest sky­scraper. Chicago has some fan­cy build­ings. But one city wins when it comes to sheer den­si­ty of urban design.Tags: Architecture
• Adobe Illustrator tuto­r­i­al: Create a retro-style comic

  In this Masterclass, illus­tra­tor Toby Leigh will guide you through how he devel­ops a narrative-based art­work in his hip graph­ic style that puts a mod­ern spin on British com­ic traditions. 

  Tags: Illustrator vec­tor

• Online rep­u­ta­tion is becom­ing more valu­able than mon­ey or power
  The author of The Reputation Economy believes online rep­u­ta­tion is now so impor­tant that we risk becom­ing per­sona non gra­ta if we ignore it.Tags: SocialMedia
• Van Gogh and the deci­sion that changed art history
  In the spring of 1878, Vincent van Gogh turned 25. As he looked back over his short life, the Dutchman found lit­tle to cel­e­brate among the mea­gre endeav­ours of his fal­ter­ing career. By con­ven­tion­al, middle-class stan­dards, he was a failure.Tags: Art M…
• The Self-Publishing Sky is Not Falling. Self-publishing remains strong.

  Second, the key to mak­ing a liv­ing as a writer, has not changed and will nev­er change, because it’s always been the same!

  Tags: Writing AmWriting

• Films Boosting the Market for Enhanced Ebooks?

  The enhanced e‑book for American Sniper was released simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with the hard­cov­er in 2012, well before the film pre­miered on Jan. 16, 2015, and the sup­ple­men­tal mate­r­i­al is not direct­ly relat­ed to the movie. It con­tains 12 orig­i­nal inter­views with Kyle inter­spersed between chap­ters, in which the NAVY Seal (who died in 2013) touch­es on the book’s themes—and it also includes a video with his wife, Taya Kyle.

  Tags: eprd­ctn EPUB amwrit­ing

• How to become a YouTube super­star [Video]
  Bethany Mota suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gat­ed the crowd­ed land­scape of YouTube to build a chan­nel with a fol­low­ing of more than 8 mil­lion subscribers.

  Tags: YouTube

• 3 Painfully Public Site Redesign Disasters
  While it’s easy to snick­er at big site redesign dis­as­ters, the most use­ful thing is to try to fig­ure out where it all went wrong – and why.Tags: Webdesign
• How to Use Pushbullet to Bridge the Gap Between All Your Devices
  Pushbullet, the ser­vice that acts as a bridge between your mobile and desk­top OSes, sets the gold stan­dard for devel­op­er updates. If you haven’t used it recent­ly (or ever), this is a great time to check out all the cool stuff it can do.Tags: Productiv…
• 5 Smartphone Apps for People with Disabilities
  Smartphones have become much more than call­ing and tex­ting devices. For those with dis­abil­i­ties, the smart­phone and the apps have become assis­tive tech­nol­o­gy devices.Tags: UI UX MobileDesign Accessibility
• 5 Smartphone Apps for People with Disabilities
  Smartphones have become much more than call­ing and tex­ting devices. For those with dis­abil­i­ties, the smart­phone and the apps have become assis­tive tech­nol­o­gy devices.Tags: UI UX MobileDesign Accessibility
• 5 Smartphone Apps for People with Disabilities
  Smartphones have become much more than call­ing and tex­ting devices. For those with dis­abil­i­ties, the smart­phone and the apps have become assis­tive tech­nol­o­gy devices.Tags: UI UX MobileDesign Accessibility
• Make a Table of Contents in Evernote for Easy Access to Everything
  If you’re using Evernote the right way, you prob­a­bly have a lot of con­tent to sift through. Evernote’s Table of Contents fea­ture helps you find your notes quick­ly when they’re pil­ing up.Tags: Evernote
• A Scientific Ranking Of The Sexiest Types Of Creativity
  What’s hot­ter, play­ing in a band or build­ing web­sites? Science weighs in.
• How to make sure your clients always pay you
  Why free­lancer Nicole Martinez says no to test dri­ves, plus how to play hard­ball when it comes to get­ting paid.
• What Good Is Twitter? A per­son­al inves­ti­ga­tion into just how lit­tle traf­fic Twitter con­tributes to websites.
  At the heart of the medi­a’s chat­ti­est tech­nol­o­gy is a hol­low shar­ing econ­o­my. A per­son­al inves­ti­ga­tion into just how lit­tle traf­fic Twitter’s mael­strom actu­al­ly con­tributes to websites.Tags: Twitter
• Why Doesn’t English Have A Gender-Neutral Pronoun?
  Referring to a sin­gle per­son who may be of any gen­der in English can be tricky. It can be awk­ward to use words like “one” or phras­es like “he or she,” and many a gram­mar­i­an hates using “they” as to refer to a sin­gle per­son. How has English got­ten this…
• 5 (+ 1) Useful Creative Apps to Love
  Roundup of some of our favorite and most use­ful recently-launched design iPhone, iPad and Android apps for the design­er community.
• What’s new for (web)designers: The best of 2014

  Almost every­thing on the list this month is free, with a few low-cost, high-value apps and tools also includ­ed. They’re sure to be use­ful to design­ers and devel­op­ers, from begin­ners to experts.

  Tags: Webdesign

• A Visual Guide to the Ampersand [Infographic]

  The amper­sand sym­bol (&) has a long and rich his­to­ry, dat­ing as far back as 63 B.C. To this day, its use can be wit­nessed in a wide range of sit­u­a­tions, from being a key com­po­nent in a Fortune 500 company’s logo/brand iden­ti­ty mate­ri­als to casu­al SMS/text mes­sages between old friends.

  Below is a visu­al guide to this beau­ti­ful and artis­tic symbol.

  Tags: AmpersandLove Typography Ampersand

• Editing Clauses in Publishing Contracts: How to Protect Yourself
  Writers, on the oth­er hand, need assur­ance that they will be a part­ner in the edit­ing process, and that their work won’t be changed in major ways with­out their permission.Tags: Writing AmWriting
• My top 7 secrets on how I run my (super-successful) design business

  I was pret­ty chuffed with his com­ment, I must say. And I don’t mean to brag, but I real­ly do get a lot done.

  Don’t believe me?

  Tags: Design Business

• 27 Pre-Written Templates For Your Toughest Work Emails – Forbes

  To help make the most of your time and ener­gy, we’ve round­ed up some of our favorite scripts and tem­plates for mak­ing email (and a few oth­er things, like that pesky LinkedIn rec­om­men­da­tion you need to write) much eas­i­er and less time con­sum­ing. Whether you’re job search­ing, net­work­ing, deal­ing with day-to-day work com­mu­ni­ca­tions, or try­ing to be a bet­ter man­ag­er, find your sit­u­a­tion below, tweak the tem­plate to your lik­ing, and send it off!

  Tags: Email Communication

• The real mean­ings behind 11 puz­zling expres­sions we still use today
  Rule of thumb, cut to the chase, the bit­ter end — ever con­sid­ered the ori­gin of these anachronisms?

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