Our graphic design new years resolutions
Happy New Year everyone!
We always try and make new years resolutions here at eightyone design. Last year we blogged about our clients new years resolutions but this year we’ve listed a few of our own graphic design resolutions. Most of them are just bad habits we need to break, but there is no time like the present to start a fresh and wipe the slate clean!
1. Stop naming files “final” or “this-one”, or worse still “final-this-one”
2. Don’t save everything to the desktop. The desktop is clear at the moment and I intend to keep it that way! I most certainly don’t want it clogged up with any “final” or “this-one” files.
3. Keep on top of paper work! I have a bad habit of letting admin stack up resulting in a giant toppling mound casting a giant shadow in our office! This will not happen this year!
4. Keep client files tidy! I don’t know about you, but towards the end of a project the overall client folder is brimming with different files and sub folders. Once the project is complete you move on leaving a trail of chaos! Well not this year when the project is finished I intend to rummage through the file tidying away files in appropriate folders and trashing unused files so when we return to the project everything can be found with ease!
5. Launch our new website! We’ve been working on our new website over Christmas and want to launch it in the first few months of 2009! This is the one resolution we have to stick to (especially as we have told you about it now!).
6. Make more time for personal projects! Steve and I have so many uncompleted personal projects it’s hard to juggle them all (one of which we launched last year was vwcampervanblog.com). So this year we intend to make sure we put plenty of time aside to indulge in our creative hobbies.
7. Make more time for blogging! We already have regular design blogs we subscribe to and read, however it would be great to break out of the mould and read some different blogs as well as our regulars. David Airey recently blogged about the best graphic design blog posts from 2008 (in which he kindly featured one of our articles) and there are some great blogs featured that we have not read before that have been added to our RSS reader.
8. Post an article to the eightyone design blog at least once a week! Ok, so this is not actually a resolution as this is something we currently do but we intend to keep up with it!
So what graphic design new years resolutions do you have?
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Posted in Graphic Design
vwcampervanblog.com featured in Web Designer Magazine
In this months Web Designer Magazine there is an article showcasing ‘50 trendy and inspiring blog designs’. We are very excited to have one of our own designs featured as part of the collection - vwcampervanblog.com.
This fantastic news comes hot on the heals of our double page feature in Images magazine last month for our clothing and t-shirt design work for WBR World Beach Rugby.
The VW Camper Van Blog was created as a personal project enabling us to blog about our second favourite passion. In the article, it features alongside some great blogs, many of which we regularly read such as Spoon Graphics, Veerle’s Blog and Smashing Magazine.
There are some really well designed blogs featured such as Dawg House Design Studio, Style 4 You, MA.TT and Jeff Sarmiento so if you are looking for some blog design inspiration then run out and grab a copy now!
Thanks to Web Designer Magazine for featuring our blog design. Have you been featured in a magazine or on a website for one of your designs? Tell us your stories!
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Posted in Design Inspiration, Freelancing, Web Design
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from eightyone design!
We would just like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all our readers and subscribers for taking the time to read the eightyone design graphic design blog and for all your comments and thoughts. We wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year!
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Posted in Blogging, Uncategorized
eightyone design christmas card designs
Tis the season! Yes it’s that special time of year again where vector snowflakes, christmas trees and stockings are in abundance in the design world! There’s no escape from the festive look and by now it feels like they have been around for too long (especially since Christmas seems to start in September)!
We thought we’d share our Christmas card design for this year with you and get your thoughts.
We want our Christmas card to be a reminder of us and therefore be quite strongly branded. We always have our contact details on the reverse and our logo repeated a couple of times.
Last years card was really quite simple as we wanted to really push the logo. We went with a silver snowflaked logo on white with our company green in the centre to add some spark to the card.
This year we have gone for a similar design, however we didn’t want to utilise the logo as the main focus. We therefore experimented with several design concepts incorporating our branding with a Christmas element - we tried everything from snow men to christmas puddings! We finally decided on this bauble design, which we feel does liken itself to our logo (if you turn your head counter clockwise - the smaller bauble the top of the eight and the bigger logo the bottom?).
We explored several colour combinations but felt that the ligher silver colour followed on well from last year and had a stronger ‘christmassy’ feel.
The inside of the card was left white as we felt the strong green background may be a little too overpowering with the silver front. We inserted our logo with “Merry Christmas” above and below the logo we replaced “eightyone” with “everyone”.
The back of the card holds our contact details and logo repeated again.
Overall we are really please with the card and think that it reflects our branding and style as well as looking ‘Christmassy’!
Do you like the card? Did we go with the right colour choice or do you prefer one of the other options?
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Posted in Colour, Graphic Design, Logo Design, branding
Eightyone Design featured in Images Magazine
Images Magazine is a publication produced for textile screen printing, embroiders and garment decorators. It has a circulation of around 10,000 across the UK and Europe.
We were recently featured in Images Magazine showcasing the Summer 08 collection of World Beach Rugby Clothing. The magazine discovered our blog through Google and read our post about how we created the WBR Summer clothing range. Soon enough the magazine got in contact and asked to feature the article. We were more than happy to be included in the publication and thrilled they found us through Google.
We have just had the magazine delivered to our door and are really pleased with the article and the photography! Click here to download a pdf of the magazine and check out the article.
Have you been recently featured in a magazine / publication for a project you are particularly proud of? Are you finding a lot of people are finding through Google? Let us know your tales and stories!
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Posted in Blogging, Freelancing, T-shirt / Clothing design