Today in Design - Top Articles RoundUp 5 January 2016

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

• Men’s Rights (Bigotry) Group Claims Boycott of “Non-White and Female Agenda” the Force Awakens Cost Disney $4.2 Million
  From Yahoo News: Online “men’s rights activism” group Return of Kings has claimed that its boy­cott of ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ cost Disney $4.2 mil­lion (£2.8 mil­lion) in tick­et sales. The prob­lem with ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’, accord­ing to Return of Kings, is its “non-white and female agen­da”, ie its lead char­ac­ters – Rey and Finn, played by Daisy Ridley and John Boyega – are not white men.

  “$4.2 mil­lion amounts to less than one per­cent of total box office (.006) and half that inter­na­tion­al­ly (.003) which isn’t even enough to make Disney chuck­le in deri­sion, let alone care.”
• Report: Facebook Tested User Loyalty By Sabotaging Its Android App
  Users just kept on com­ing back. A source told news site The Information that Facebook users were so hooked that they “nev­er stopped com­ing back,” despite the errors. Some even tried to access Facebook on their mobile brows­er when the app did­n’t work.

  
  
• Branding From The Inside Out
  As impor­tant as mak­ing a unique and com­pelling brand promise is keep­ing that promise. It’s that sim­ple. That’s where inside out brand­ing comes in. The process of acti­vat­ing the brand promise with the help of an orga­ni­za­tions’ great­est asset – its people.

  Tags: Branding Marketing

• Development of a Successful Content Marketing Project [Infographic]

  In order to have a strong, suc­cess­ful busi­ness and online brand, process is key. As a rel­a­tive­ly new medi­um, con­tent mar­ket­ing can be a tricky process to pin down. Take a gan­der at the graph­ic below to see how we at Vertical Measures like to look at bring­ing a con­tent mar­ket­ing project to com­ple­tion (hint: it all ties back to our 8‑Step Process). Hopefully this info­graph­ic will inspire you to take your own con­tent mar­ket­ing to a whole new lev­el fol­low­ing this tried and true process!

  Tags: CM ContentMarketing

• 20 Uses for Evernote That You Probably Haven’T Thought of Yet
  We all know Evernote is great for keep­ing track of notes and tasks, but it can be used for so much more than that. When it comes to get­ting orga­nized, Evernote can be a pow­er­ful tool to have in your arse­nal. In fact, it’s our favorite note-taking plat­form—by far—because it lets you do so much more than just take basic notes. Through Evernote’s web and mobile apps, you can cre­ate dig­i­tal note­books for every­thing from your grandmother’s lasagna recipe to ideas for your next great nov­el, and every­thing in between. But you can also use it to back­up your pho­tos, cre­ate slideshow pre­sen­ta­tions, and man­age your cal­en­dar. Read on for more cool Evernote uses that you might not have thought of.

  Tags: pro­duc­tiv­i­ty gtd ever­note

• 8 Ways to Establish a Popular Blog
  Blogging has become incred­i­bly pop­u­lar today, and it can be cru­cial for your busi­ness. Learn how to make your blog stand out and work for you.Tags: CM ContentMarketing
• How to Book the Cheapest Hotel Possible
  Accommodation is often one of trav­el’s biggest expens­es. Here’s our best hacks to cut­ting costs, find­ing FREE accom­mo­da­tion & land­ing the cheap­est rates!Tags: Travel RoadWarrior
• 10 Facts Everyone Should Know About Anonymous — Including How to Join Them
  Have you ever thought about join­ing Anonymous? If you do, be care­ful who you trust. To become a mem­ber of Anonymous is easy. All you have to do is proclaim
• A World Coffee Shortage Is Inevitable
  In the coffee-world, there’s been qui­et rum­blings of a short­age brew­ing for awhile now. And yet, despite the threat, it hasn’t hit quite yet—but that doesn’t mean it’s gone away.

  Tags: Beanpocalypse cof­feep­oca­lypse

• Learn to Create a Variety of Beveled Lettering in Illustrator
  In this tuto­r­i­al I will show­case three dif­fer­ent approach­es, which result in three dif­fer­ent beveled let­ter­ing styles. Starting with my least favorite, and least com­plex, work­ing my way to a style of beveled let­ter­ing that accom­plish­es an extreme­ly po…
• 50 Beautiful Examples of Vintage and Retro Typography
  Bring a nos­tal­gic feel to your designs with vin­tage and retro typography.Tags: Typography
• How to Make People Fall in Love With Your Ridiculously Competent Hero
  We all love char­ac­ters who are good at what they’re doing. Nobody wants to root for some­one who screws up con­stant­ly or walks into traps we can see a mile away. But at the same time, it can be hard to love some­one who’s too per­fect. So how do you make us believe in, and love, a major badass?

  (You could argue this is also one rea­son why there’s less “por­tal fan­ta­sy” and more fan­ta­sy about heroes who were born in the mag­i­cal world and know their way around. But that’s a top­ic for anoth­er day.)

  Tags: writ­ing amwrit­ing

• 40 Crucial Lessons From The Most Famous Graphic Designers in History
  Meet the pio­neers of graph­ic design. While graph­ic design can some­times feel like a brand new indus­try, it’s actu­al­ly quite the opposite.

  Tags: Design GraphicDesign

• This Online Tool Generates Color Palettes From Images on the Internet
  Web design­er Steve DeGraeve has cre­at­ed ‘Color Palette Generator’, an online tool that gen­er­ates col­or palettes from images on the Internet.

  Tags: Design GraphicDesign

• Should You Refer a Friend for a Job?

  So, should you or shouldn’t you point your friends in the direc­tion of posi­tions you hear about? It’s not an easy yes or no, but here are a cou­ple of things to con­sid­er before sub­mit­ting any names.

• Managing Online Communities [50-Minute Video Course]
  Topics include:Building an online communityUsing social media to build communityCreating con­tent to engage your audienceFinding brand advocatesMeasuring your com­mu­ni­ty’s growth
• UX Expert Caroline Jones on How to Mentor Others – and Why You Should Mentor Non-Creatives Too
  Caroline Jones says that design­ers and oth­er cre­atives should look to men­tor those out­side of their skillsets – in oth­er depart­ments or companies.

  Tags: Design Business

• Get Started With SVG for Responsive Web Design
  Discover how to cre­ate a scal­able image that won’t pix­e­late no mat­ter the res­o­lu­tion of the brows­er, using Scalable Vector Graphics.Tags: WebDesign Vector SVG
• How Companies Are Using Legos to Unlock Talent Employees Didn’T Know They Had
  If LEGO is about any­thing, it’s the use of one’s hands while the mind is in an unplugged state.

  Tags: Entrepreneur Leadership Startup

• The Key Difference Between Urban Fantasy and Horror
  Are you an urban fan­ta­sy pro­tag­o­nist or a hor­ror pro­tag­o­nist? The answer may depend on just how you’d react if an eldritch, uncan­ny super­nat­ur­al being burst out and decid­ed to attack you.

  Tags: Writing amwrit­ing

• The 4 Secrets to Successful Side Projects
  It’s hard to find the moti­va­tion for your side project at the end of the work­day. Use these 4 invalu­able lessons to keep your side projects mov­ing forward.

  Tags: Entrepreneur Freelance

• The New Year’s Resolutions Most Likely to Fail, and What to Do Instead
  New Year’s is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to reflect on how far we’ve come and where we hope to go next. The trou­ble is, most of us then pro­ceed to set entire­ly unre­al­is­tic res­o­lu­tions that we ulti­mate­ly fail. Here are the most com­mon failed res­o­lu­tions, and how to approach them instead.

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