Today in Design - Top Articles RoundUp 26 December 2014

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

  • 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…
  • Confessions of an Independent Publisher

    A few months ago, Jimmy Wilson got in touch and asked me a bunch of ques­tions about pub­lish­ing. They were great ques­tions and, as many of them were ones that I get asked a lot, I said I’d pub­lish my answers as a blog post. It’s tak­en me a while to get round to it (sor­ry, Jimmy), but — hot on the heels of Lagom’s launch — here they are: 

  • Fires and Riots: California and Graphic Design 1936–1986

    California’s tur­bu­lence dur­ing the 20th cen­tu­ry, both polit­i­cal­ly and envi­ron­men­tal­ly, was reflect­ed in its graph­ic design, which came to have an indige­nous feel that was both bel­liger­ent­ly off­beat and pioneering.

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  • Reading Fantasy Books Could Make You a Better Person
    A group of researchers from Italy’s University of Modena and Reggio Emilia stud­ied the effects of J. K. Rowling’s nov­els on ele­men­tary and high school stu­dents. Before delv­ing into the sto­ries, the chil­dren were asked about their views on peopl…
  • 8 tips for becom­ing the office rock star
    Have you got what it takes to bring rock-star moves to your office? When the spot­light is on, can you pull off a per­for­mance that will be the cen­ter of every­one’s atten­tion? We bet you can.

    Read and adopt these eight slick tricks for doing jus…

  • Who Knew These 7 Celebrities Were Graphic Designers?

    When we think of celebri­ty graph­ic design­ers, the likes of Neville Brody and Stefan Sagmeister imme­di­ate­ly spring to mind, espe­cial­ly when you think of all the famous graph­ic design­ers out there. But this is not the type of celebri­ty we’re talk­ing about; we’re talk­ing about the sort of names we see every day in the media – the screen actors, and musi­cians who, before they became famous, were actu­al­ly trained in graph­ic design. 

  • Introduction to Value Pricing for Designers

    Value pric­ing is an attempt to redress the bal­ance by pric­ing work based on the val­ue it deliv­ers to clients rather than the time it takes to cre­ate. The argu­ment goes that the val­ue of a logo, like the Coca-cola logo, is often worth more than the hours that went into its cre­ation. So whether the final cre­ation took a team of brand­ing experts 6‑months, or was sketched on the back of a nap­kin dur­ing the first meet­ing, the val­ue to the client-and hence the cost-should be the same.

    Value pric­ing also seems to imply fixed scope con­tracts, as you need to define exact­ly what val­ue you’re propos­ing to deliv­er to what price. So there’s an inter­est­ing ques­tion as to whether val­ue pric­ing can work along­side agile practices. 

  • How to Prevent the Harmful Effects of Working in a Windowless Cubicle

    Sitting in a cubi­cle and nev­er see­ing sun­light dur­ing the work­day is unpleas­ant to even think about—and sit­ting in a flourescent-light cube can have ter­ri­ble effects on both our work per­for­mance and over­all atti­tude. Yet there are ways to coun­ter­act the effects of cubi­cle sit­ting, even if you can’t sit in a sun­ny office or work from home.

  • Saying No to Social Media Buttons (in Website Design)
    Social media but­tons are inef­fec­tive, dam­age site per­for­mance and dis­tract from pri­ma­ry actions. Fortunately there is a bet­ter way.
  • 6 Social Media Templates to Save You Hours of Work

    Whether it’s your first time run­ning social media for a com­pa­ny, or you’re just look­ing to boost your online pro­file, here are six social media tem­plates to save you valu­able time and effort.

  • Over 60 of the Best Responsive WordPress Themes for Magazines

    Responsive mag­a­zine themes are great because they give your web­site a pro­fes­sion­al design with a con­stant look and feel on all devices,” writes the author of this arti­cle on Premium WordPress. “It doesn’t mat­ter if a user is view­ing your web­site on a desk­top, tablet, smart phone or any oth­er mobile device. When using a respon­sive theme your web­site will auto­mat­i­cal­ly adjust to the screen size and res­o­lu­tion, deliv­er­ing an opti­mized lay­out for that device with the same con­sis­tent core design.”

  • Conducting an end of year free­lance busi­ness review
    It will help with both per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al goals, and is eas­i­er to do than you may think. Here is a step-by-step guide free­lancers can use to con­duct their own per­for­mance reviews.

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    freelance

  • 20 Suggestions to Boost Your Personal Productivity

    It’s not just the idea but the exe­cu­tion that leads to suc­cess. So pro­duc­tiv­i­ty is a major part of the equation.
    But what hap­pens when you hit that wall? How do pro­duc­tive peo­ple work through cre­ative blocks and ener­gy crash­es to get so much work done? Here are 20 sug­ges­tions to boost your per­son­al productivity.

  • Conducting an end of year free­lance busi­ness review
    It will help with both per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al goals, and is eas­i­er to do than you may think. Here is a step-by-step guide free­lancers can use to con­duct their own per­for­mance reviews.

    Tags:

    freelance

  • Conducting an end of year free­lance busi­ness review
    It will help with both per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al goals, and is eas­i­er to do than you may think. Here is a step-by-step guide free­lancers can use to con­duct their own per­for­mance reviews.

    Tags:

    freelance

  • 20 Suggestions to Boost Your Personal Productivity

    It’s not just the idea but the exe­cu­tion that leads to suc­cess. So pro­duc­tiv­i­ty is a major part of the equation.
    But what hap­pens when you hit that wall? How do pro­duc­tive peo­ple work through cre­ative blocks and ener­gy crash­es to get so much work done? Here are 20 sug­ges­tions to boost your per­son­al productivity.