Beautiful Email Newsletters

An amazing gallery packed with tons of beautiful e-newsletter designs!

Questionable Characters

Questionable Characters is run by two guys: Ben and Frank. Together they offer insight and answers to design questions. Fun site to waste some time on :)

Officeal

Officeal is a showcase of workplaces that really take the idea of creative space seriously. These are the types of companies that resist the urge to fill a room with cubicles.

These are our industry heroes of interior design and corporate culture. Officeal exists to bring them to your attention, and give them a spotlight.

C is for Candy

Another interesting blog discovery this week: C is for Candy. Graphic Designer, installation artist, city planner – Candy Chen makes me thing out of my graphic & web design box.

Logo Design Time Lapse Video

I love to watch other designers work. It’s probably not appropriate to stand behind someone and watch…so instead videos like this from Mattosn Creative will have to do. Check out the process of the Mottsy logo design.

Yeah Toast!!!

This isnt really graphic design or web design related, but I know you guys would find this entertaining! Don’t we all need a toast launcher in our kitchens?

Target E-news designs

I’ve been working on e-newsletter designs non-stop this week and came across this insanely clever design by target’s packaging division. Check it out!

Oops I tweeted my pants!

FL2 has an interesting flash based twitter visualization on their site. They also have some pretty sweet work in their portfolio.

Typography in Motion

A nice educational lighthearted video explaining the basics of typography. We should send this video to all the clients out there that want everything big and bold!

Pulp Fiction

Oldie but a goodie – I will never get tired of the this little clip! The typography in this video expresses the tone of the movie quote perfectly. Quite possible the best kinetic typography video i’ve seen so far!

Kinetic Typography Tutorial by Elrond Hubbard

A nice indepth tutorial on how to create a kinetic typography video. Wishing I had aftereffects now!

Sandimation

Another interesting animation technique: Animation with sand…I’ll call it sandimation!

Stop Motion Break Dancing

Funny stop motion video featuring some break dancing moves that i’m sure arent even possible :)

Rotoscoping

This video features a cool animation technique called rotoscoping.

Time Lapse

Cool time lapse video of a guy driving around a city at night. Light is always so much more intense with slow shutter speeds.

Time Lapse Design Process

Video of Mike from carsonified designing some the slides for his presentaiton at FOWD London. Pretty cool to see the process from beginning to end. Amazing photoshop skills!!!

AC Title Design

I love this little techie red/black short intro. Makes me think of Russian constructivism.

3D Typography

A quick intro spot with some awesome 3d typography effects.

Lightpainting

Creepy and serene stop motion light painting set in nature. I’ve never seen anything quite like this. Very cool!

Pipes

Animation inspired by the old ‘pipes’ screensaver

Stop Animation + Candles

A cool little spot for VH1 done with stop animation and candles. Love the low tech approach!

MTV Australia

Love the way the MTV logo gets constructed in mid air in some of these spots – and the flowing cloth as well.

Typographic Battle Scene

I love the way this video uses typography as objects in a battle scene. Check out the process work – pretty complex and amazing!

Megaman

Old school videogame enthusiasts will love this vid! Stop motion animation + cut paper + megaman theme. Wow… funny and well done!

Carsonified Redesigns

Carsonified redesigned their site with a wonderfully illustrative and colorful design! Click around the site and let them know what you think.

Obox Theme Shop

Obox Design launched their theme store this week. I’m really digging their hand done ‘left handed’ theme. Go check it out! Great work guys!

Chat Creative

Chat Creative exists to connect the creative community one video chat at a time. Very cool idea to get to know other designers/bloggers and connect with them and learn!

Mrs. Green

Von Glitschka talks about his process of designing a character and how this expresses a brand.

Bio-Bak.nl

Flashy website with some interesting navigation…

Scrolling Background Effect

Nice header background animation tutorial from youlove.us. Nice use of png’s and jquery!

via The River Current

Packaging With Attitude

Love this simple packaging and identity system and witty copy-writing for Brooklyn Fare. I’m sure all the designers out there would love to have clients like this! :) By Mucca Designs

Post-it Note Stop Animation

Checkout this awesome stop motion post-it note video. I’m amazed at the complexity and length of this video!

Copyright 101 for Designers

Amy has some great tips for designers on basic copyright info over at design sponge. A must read if you a newbie designer or student.

PIXELATED – a lightweight IconKit

PIXELATED is extremely lightweight – the icon file sizes average 60 bytes!
All icons contain only two colors: #222 and #EEE. (I’m considering releasing a developer’s package with PSDs so users can easily customize their colors)
Since the icon’s edges are hard, these transparent GIFs will work on any background.

The icons are free to use – no strings attached.

How To Create a WordPress Theme

Themeshaper has an 11 part tutorial covering wordpress from beginning to end. Good through tutorial for beginners.

Free Typography

Love free (and decent) typefaces? Check out freetypography.com for all the latest on great free typefaces!

Rainbows oh my…

This site might cause you to have a seizure, but this is the glory of the internets. Prepare to bask in the warm glow of animated rainbow gradients :)

Screen Jelly

Screen jelly allows you to record your screen from within the browser. Pretty cool for on the fly tutorials or demonstrations.

247 web usability guidelines

User Focus has put together a HUGE checklist of usability guidelines for web projects. Great in depth resource!

Guru

I love all the quirky little animated characters in Guru’s show reel. Lots of inspiration for animation based motion design.

Pysop

Pysop has a large variety of work for a large variety of clients, but I really enjoy their propaganda section.

Mass Market

Mass Market has a great portfolio filled with lots of big name clients from the music industry. I’m really digging the bubbles and subtle effects in their diet coke commercial.

Lobo

I love this whimsical FIAT commercial that features animation and the gas pumps chasing the car.

Justin Harder

What else can you say about amazing stop motion animation that involves surfing sandals? Niiiiiiiiice!

Shilo

Shilo has a nice spot for gap combining dance and hand drawn marker graphics.

Oktobor

Oktobor has a nice short spot for Fresh & Fruity yogurt. Love the little yogurt character chasing down its owner – very creative!

The Mill

I love the simplicity, 80′s color scheme and lighting used in this video for La Roux.

Dvein

Dvein’s work is in a class of its own – bordering on strange, organic and other-worldly. Definitely inspiring and different.

Buck

Finally the Mt. Dew rebranding makes sense….sort of. Buck designed this spot to be released with the new Dew rebranding.

Owltastic

Do you guys know who Megan Fisher is? Shes a designer for a tiny (and talented) webshop called Simplebits and a freelancer. Check out her recently redesigned and rebranded site! Great job Megan!

Re-design the US Dollar

Think Create Blog proposes that the American dollar is ugly (I wholeheartedly agree) and needs to be re-designed. If the Swiss and Europeans can do it on a (sort of) regular basis then we should as well.

Google Maps Typography

Check out this series of images found within google maps. Typography is all around us!

Vintage Checks

Check out the detailed type of these vintage bank checks. Too bad our checks can’t look like this today!

We Love Icons!

There are an immense number of icons out there on the interwebs, but lets get real – alot of them are crap. High quality is hard to come by, but this site has it right: We Love Icons.

Letman

Just cant get enough of hand drawn lettering and design? Check out Letman’s amazing work.

via hellyeahdude

Oded Ezer

Oded Ezer – a typographic artist, logo and type designer, pushes the limits of the Hebrew alphabet with his experimental typography. Definitely something to check out if you are looking for inspiration that is out of the ordinary.

Rita

I love it when graphic designers venture outside the realm of well…graphic design and jump into the design world at large. Rita is a multidisciplinary design studio based in canada with a lovely portfolio of designed objects.

Thumbnails In Web Design

Ever wonder how other designers handle thumbnail images in their designs? Check out this article by 2 Experts design on examples and best practices of the art of thumbing…the nail…or thumbnails…or whatever. :)

A Slightly…different business card

Looking for a way for your business card to stand out amongst the crowd? Forget about diecuts, folds, embossing and foil – check out these MEAT CARDS!!! Made from beef jerky and etched wiht lasers – YES LASERS!!! :)

Slinky Type!!!

Slinkys – everyone loved this toy as a kid. (I know I did) Well – now you can have your very own typeface based on the popular toy!

Take a peek into designer’s bags!

Do ever wonder what other designers carry around with them on a daily basis? Check out this post to see all the nerdy and not so nerdy stuff designers carry around with them on a daily basis. Lots of macs and moleskine notebooks!

Black Nun Bold

Looking for a nice bold typeface for your next project? Check out Black Nun Bold.

Alpha Text

An interesting typeface based on the way we abbreviate words when sending text or sms messages

Minimal Medical Packaging

Love this minimal medical packaging by Melissa Notaro. I think she’s using the lovely HF&J typeface archer. Its nice to see medical design that isn’t ugly!

FPO For Print Only

Check out the newest blog launch of Under Consideration: FPO For Print only. This blog…is all about print! But not just any print work – they aim to blog about high-end detailed print work. They get into the nitty gritty details of how the work was made. Really interesting!

Preserve

Do you love old painted signs? Then check out Preserve – a blog dedicated to documenting old signs before they fade away. They are also looking for contributors so go grab your cameras and snap away!

Beautiful Wireframes

Looking for wireframe inspiration? Check out Flickr user soxiam’s portfolio of wireframes and UI sketches.

Film The Blanks

An ongoing experiment to abstract and/or reduce film posters. Some famous, some not so famous but all cool in their own way.

Planning Your Wireframes

David shows you how to do a hand drawn plan of your wireframes to give you an idea of what the layout of your website will resemble.

We’re not machines, why do we work like ones?

We can’t be working 24/7/365 like machines. We are not freelancers discuss structuring our work schedules like athletes training schedules – working hard in season and taking is easy in the off season.

Press Check

PRESS CHECK is a designer ode to the old-school art of print plate alignment re-imagined as a challenge of speed and accuracy on your iPhone/iPod Touch. Show off your non-digital skills with levels ranging from the beginner 2-color set-ups to the expert 5-color jobs.

50 Creative Business Cards of 50 Graphic Designers

The Design Cubicle has a great roundup of reader submitted business cards of all shapes and sizes.

20 Great (and 20 not so great) Logo Redesigns

Logos express complex ideas and concepts with simplified illustrations and typefaces that communicate distinctively and effectively. They are one of the most difficult aspects of graphic design for this reason. Some logos are incredibly clever and effective while others are poorly made and fail to communicate.

5 Tips For Design Students

A short article that details several tips for design students and those about to graduate and make their way out into the design world.

Design Community Twitter Hours

Designer and Twitter-er Chad Engle (@chadengle) decided to start #DCTH after a chat with some fellow designers. DTCH takes place on Thursday evenings from 6-8:30pm (eastern time) and includes a chat time and a question and answer time.

Finding Inspiration When Starting a New Web Project

The beginning stages of a new web project can often be daunting, especially if there are areas of uncertainty that lie ahead. Believe it or not, this a blessing in disguise! Obstacles in the way of achieving your end result challenge you to be better at what you do. Let’s face it, our jobs would be boring if they were easy! I’m going to show you how to deal with venturing into uncharted territory.

Andy Smith Illustration & Design

Looking for illustration inspiration? Look no further than Andy Smith’s portfolio. It’s chock full of hand drawn typography goodness!

Tutorial 9 Turns 1!

Yay! Tutorial 9 has been cooking up great Photoshop tutorials for a year! A big thanks goes to David Leggett! Keep up the great tutorials!

How to Spot Quality within Web Design: Examples & Tips

Yay! Tutorial 9 has been cooking up great Photoshop tutorials for a year! A big thanks goes to David Leggett! Keep up the great tutorials!

Love Helvetica

All Helvetica all the time – Love Helvetica is (one) of Graham Smith side projects. Check it out for tons of type inspiration.

10 Awesome Free Sans Serif Fonts

Andrew from My Ink Blog has a great round up of free sans serif fonts. Some of then I have not heard of!

How To Build A One Page Portfolio

Chris from Spoon Graphics has an awesome and simple tutorial on how to build a single page portfolio site. Great tutorial for people that need to get their work up quickly.

Twitter Paid $6 or Less for Crowdsourced ‘Birdie’ Graphic

Wired.com has an interesting article about crowsourcing and the famous twitter bird. Crowdsourcing and spec work is always a hot button issue in the design community.

Outlaw Design Blog Podcast

Danny from Outlaw Design Blog has started a new podcast! In this episode Danny discusses how to jump start your freelance career.

Well Medicated

Well Medicated is not a new design blog by any means, but its new to me! With a nice clean design and lots of posts full of design inspiration – definitely a blog worth checking out!

The art of the title sequence

Design inspiration is everywhere – even movies. Check out this great roundup of title sequences and prepare to be inspired by typography in motion!

The Letterpress Effect

Knocked out text or the ‘Letterpress Effect’ has managed to make its way into a range of website designs. Chris from Line25 has gathered up some great designs that feature this effect.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly of Portfolios

So you think your work is aesthetically pleasing and meets your client’s goals? Then, why not showcase it with a user-friendly portfolio? UX Booth has some great tips and pointers for making your portfolio website the best it can be.

Adobe Integration Poster – Mig Reyes

A slim sized poster designed for Adobe that shows the parallel between the design process and its integration with their software. The likes of Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign all work hand-in-hand, much like the design process is a continuous and joint process.

Australian Childhood Foundation: Invisible

Provoking street campaign which can be seen right now in Melbourne for the Australian Childhood Foundation. For their ongoing campaign Stop Child Abuse Now they used child size mannequins to represent children suffering neglect. The mannequins were placed in high traffic locations around the city and then a billposter was pasted over the top of the figure so only the feet and legs could be seen.

Linzie Hunter Sketchbooks

Check out this gallery of Linzie Hunter’s sketchbooks. Lots of inspiring doodles and typographic experiments!

Pretty Sketchy

Love the layout of this blog post by Jason Santa Maria! Check out some of his other articles – his layout and design changes based on the article. Interesting idea!

Never Use Comic Sans…Again

I’m such a sucker for tight leading and bold, thick type. This poster by Lure Design is hilarious. Pledge to never use comic sans again…ever!

Paul Ryding

Love the sketchy + hand drawn pixel illustration style of Paul Ryding. Check out the rest of his work at his portfolio website: http://www.paulryding.com/

Last Chance

I love this new background set by Fudgegraphics – nice texture and geometric qualities!

Draplin Design Co.

Draplin Design Company has an inspiring set up simple and geometric poster designs in their portfolio.

Aesthetic Apparatus

Simple and tactile business card by Aesthetic Apparatus for photographer Judah Dueck.

Fake 3D

Love the depth in this image! Web Designer Mag has a great tutorial on how to create in 3d without using any rendering tools.

Via @collis