Best of 2008 Print and Web Design

As is the norm in just about every industry, we marketers also have our own awards. Since design is such a large and important part of marketing, it’s important to highlight the best nuggets of info and inspiration that came about this year.

Best Ways to Enhance Photos
Using the Blur effect in Photoshop can do wonders to make a distracting background complement your focus in a photo.

In the photo on the left, viewers could be left wondering where this photo was taken instead of focusing on the woman’s uniform and pose, which convey strength. TutorialPulse.com has a great tutorial on how to achieve the Blur effect.

Photoshop tricks were all the rage this year, with people getting more creative as the months flew by. A list of the 30+ Nicest Photoshop Photo Tutorials, Part II includes tuts on how to make an eerily calm storm (shown here) using layers, fun lighting effects and how to make a vector portrait from a photo.

 

Best RSS Feed Icons
It’s amazing what designers will redesign next. Of course we’ve all seen the common orange square RSS feed icon, but have you seen any that look like this?

 

Pro Blog Design showcased 110+ Free RSS Icons that could fit into any Web site’s theme. This site definitely makes any site’s standard RSS icon look boring.

Best Typography
Typography is everywhere – print, Web, TV – you can’t escape it. Oftentimes, logos are created by typography alone. Type gives businesses personality. The list from Noupe shows off the best creations this year, including my fave from the list:

 

I love the two-toned colors and the hummingbirds floating about. The “holes” make it look more modern, and almost industrial, save for the colors.

Best Business Card Designs
There are a lot of “best of” lists out there for business cards, but I especially love this one:

It’s amazing how many different designs and techniques are being used for business cards these days. This card comes from a list at DzineBlog. The list includes business cards in the shapes of tear drops and circles, which make for an interesting design, but begs the question of functionality. Those are the cards that are most likely to get lost in the paper shuffle because they don’t fit neatly into wallets or Rolodexes, but is the unique shape enough to keep them on top of a CEO’s paper pile?

Best Inspirational Web Sites
SpyreMag’s list of 25 inspirational Web site designs is enough to get any designer’s creative juices flowing. I love this design snippet from Design Disease.

It’s very relaxing to the eye with the ocean blues and the waves throughout the page, not just at the top. It manages to be laid-back and professional at the same time.

Inspiration for Creative Ads

When it comes time to map out a new ad, whether for a billboard, brochures, a magazine spot or any other multitude of media, it’s hard to come up with something creative that people can just look at and instantly “get it.”

And creating a creative ad doesn’t automatically mean success. If your target audience doesn’t understand it, or if the content isn’t relevant, no amount of creativity will bring in sales. It’s easy for designers to forget that the purpose of the ad is to bring is sales when all they want to do is be creative. Likewise, it’s easy for the ad account managers to see the positive attributes of a really creative ad if they don’t see the sales potential right off the bat.

But, a creative and effective ad can be done. There are plenty of successful, creative ads out there that prove it. Get inspired by this Exposed SEO blog post that showcases 23 interesting, creative ads that don’t need to be contemplated to be understood. Many of these use the environment or an existing venue to play the ad off of (check out the bus exhaust coming out of a person’s mouth like cigarette smoke). Creative, clear and motivating.

And creative ads don’t only come from pros. Students show just as much, if not more creativity, in these ads on Advertnews.com. These feature an ad for Toblerone using what looks to be a bike rack and an ingenious, yet so simple, Windex ad.

 

 

To get a creative idea, you have to look outward, I think. Yes, inward is where the creativity flows, but you have to look outside yourself for ideas. And not stealing other ad ideas, but just looking at a tree and seeing it as a palette for something bigger, like a landing spot for a blown piece of gum (see the Exposed SEO blog).

There are four key elements of making an effective, yet creative ad:
1. It must be relevant to the customer.
2. It should contain a promise to the customer.
3. It should be well understood by the customer, yet not talk down to the customer.
4. Always put the product in the center of the ad.

Many creative ads get the creative part down almost too well, which means the product gets ignored. A number of studies have shown people remember a certain TV commercial, but they can’t remember what product the ad was selling. This is referred to as vampire creativity. If your ad is too entertaining or too involving, it obscures the product.

As you can see, there’s a fine line between being effectively creative and obscurely creative. By having your creative mind(s) working with the business-oriented mind(s), you have a better chance of achieving the right balance for a great ad. Teamwork is what it’s all about, just as in any other business.

Where To Go To Get Inspired To Design

Everyone has those days when you just can’t get creative. It’s like every creative bone in your body has been replaced with a boring bone. Well, I’ve got some sites here that will help stimulate your creative side.

Web Sites
101+ Places to Get Design Inspiration – The Aussie that runs this blog is only 20 or 21 and still in college, but he’s already a great designer. He’s been working since he was 16 for professional clients, designing logos, flyers and everything else a business needs.

Abduzeedo – Very interesting ideas, very unique. Not for the traditionalist.

Freelance Switch’s 60 More Places to Get Design Inspiration – Online and Off – Freelance Switch has a blog with advice for all kinds of freelancers, including this article with Web sites and books recommended to help you get your design on.

Books (all at Amazon.com)
New Masters of Poster Design: Poster Design for the Next Century – This book shows top poster designers’ artwork of now, which has proven that the poster can still serve as a worthy communications tool. According to Amazon: “In doing so, they’ve brought the poster back to prominence. In this book, the author has compiled the world’s finest new work at the height of this rebirth. There is currently no book on the market that can claim it features a ‘definitive’ poster collection.”

Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop – A “comprehensive layout design workshop that assumes that in order to effectively break the rules of grid-based design, one must first understand those rules and see them applies to real-world projects.”

You get to find out about how top designers’ processes work and their rationale while designing. “Projects with similar characteristics are linked through a simple notational system that encourages exploration and comparison of structure ideas. Also included are historical overviews that summarize the development of layout concepts, both grid-based and non-grid based, in modern design practice.”

Typography Workbook: A Real-World Guide to Using Type in Graphic Design – “[This book] is part of Rockport’s popular Workbook series of practical and inspirational workbooks that cover all the fundamental areas of the graphic design business.” It contains loads of info on type without a lot of extra fun facts you don’t need to know about so that designers can get the information they need quickly and easily.

Other books on typography are more technical or showcase oriented, but this book actually gives you ideas and inspiration through real-life examples that show successful uses of typography.

It also offers “a variety of other content, including choosing fonts, sizes, and colors; incorporating text and illustrations; avoiding common mistakes in text usage; and teaching rules by which to live (and work) by.”

Layout Workbook: A Real-World Guide to Building Pages in Graphic Design – This book doesn’t only have great examples for inspiration; it also helps you understand design. “The book illuminates the broad category of layout, communicating specifically what it takes to design with excellence. It also addresses the heart of design-the how and why of the creative process.”