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Si vous êtes un tant soit peu intéressé par le design, vous devez connaître Alessi, agence de design italienne qui vient d'éditer son nouveau catalogue en ligne dont voici le lien : ici

La deuxième chose du jour sera  le nouveau prix de l'ipod 1Go (49 euros) et dispo également prochainement en 2Go (à 69 euros). Plus d'info...

Et enfin, je finirais par une news sur l'institutionnel site de la Sofres dont voici le titre : Web 2.0 : nouvelle frontière pour la communication corporate ? (analyse d'une étude réalisée par le département Stratégies d'Opinion de TNS Sofres à l'occasion du TopCom Corporate Business 2008) et la suite juste là.

Bon week-end

In any decent website, the pictures and graphics incorporated into the page aren’t simply for show, but can also be a marketing strategy. When graphics are used properly it can get your revenue up tenfold. On the other hand, poorly chosen, made or placed graphics within a webpage can be more devastating then having no graphics at all.

Graphics on any type of website should be a tool used to accent the major points of your page. When pictures are well placed, it will persuade your visitor to become a client. This can be done by simply integrating marketing strategies when designing your graphics.

For instance, when picking out a color for your graphics, don’t only choose your favorite colors or colors you find nice, but pick hues that will emphasize your sites product or service. For example, let’s say that your website is one that offers summer vacations near the ocean. For this site topic, choosing colors like grey and purple has nothing to do with your product. Instead, choosing colors such as blue, gold and orange are good example because it contrasts’s the colors of the ocean, sand and sun.

Another point is to moderate the amount of graphics you apply on each page. Too many pictures will give your page a butchered and messy look, which can be a turnoff for a lot of internet users. Also, a lot of graphics will definitely slow down your site loading speed, which is another thing you probably wouldn’t want happening. But putting too few pictures can also be a major turnoff since it gives your page an incomplete and plain look.

The picture you decide to use as your sites background can also be a deciding factor for your web page’s success. The graphic and color used as a wallpaper should never, and I repeat, NEVER interfere with the legibility of your content. For example, putting yellow writing on a white background won’t help sales. Background graphics should be applied the same way as any other graphics, to accentuate your business.

In the end, keep in mind that people purchase items depending on emotion. So use your graphics to play on those emotions to up profits. For instance, pictures of individuals with a content, satisfactory look on their faces while using your product are good.

Floor tile design ideas are many. Within the home or business area, ceramic tiles can be used to enhance and beautify a home. For anyone who is interested in finding the perfect type of tiling, they truly have their work cut out for them because there are many types that they can use.

 First, let’s start by saying that there are many types of floor tile. That is, it can be used within any element of the home. In bathrooms living rooms, dining areas and kitchens. It can be used in the basements as well as on walls. Depending on the area you plan to install it will help you design which elements to look for in the ceramic tile.

Secondly, we say ceramic tile because it is one of the most commonly used floor tiles. It is, beyond a doubt, one of the strongest and most reliable flooring options that you can use. It is often easy to clean and takes a good beating. Consider these floor tile design ideas with ceramic tiles.

seemore 

for more information logon to www.gharexpert.com
 

This is a really good read for all of us, not only industrial and communication designers. People at Ideasonideas have put together a nifty article called Fuck style. In it they're thinking about what style is vs. design and I'll give them two thumbs up for it. It's really sad how people can get massively effected by 'style', forcing them to be 'in style' all the time, spending enormouse amounts of money to feel a part of a society/ group. And if you're a designer/ architect and fall in that cycle - we have a problem. Design is here to SOLVE things, make life easier and better. ''For hardcore designers, “does it work?” is the one question that must be obsessed over. Really, this should be the case for any designer anyways; not whether it looks cool, and not if it can win awards. Hardcore design is about taking away the cute, fluffy stuff, and concentrating on what is actually accomplished.''

/read it her

Caution: There are NO photos or pretty pictures- I repeat - no photos or pretty pictures. Just text.

 SmartArt are designs and shapes to be used in presentations. The specialty with these is that their colours change to suit the theme you use for the presentation, so you don’t have to worry about them individually. Go to the Insert tab on the Ribbon and then select the SmartArt icon. A wide variety can be found here. The same goes for Shapes tool—their colours change accordingly as well. Disable Image Compression By default, PowerPoint 2007 compresses images put into a presentation while saving. While this saves file size, it can result in a loss of quality—which you might not always want. To disable compression, select the Office Button > Save As. Then select Tools > Compress Pictures. Click Options. Uncheck the box against Automatically perform basic compression on Save. You can also change the density (pixels per inch) of the images saved. Keep in mind that this option will only be set for the current presentation, which means you have to do this over again when you work on another presentation. To enable this for all the presentations you make, you need to turn to the Registry (back up your Registry before proceeding). Start the Registry Editor. Navigate to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\PowerPoint\Options. Create a new DWORD here. Call it AutomaticPictureCompressionDefault. The default value will be 0. This disables the automatic compression of pictures. If at anytime you want it enabled, double-click the DWORD and change its value to 1. 

I just took Banana Nut muffins out of the oven and they smell delicious. I feel like such a homemaker.  While they cool I want to go over my first day of my 16 week residency at Milikin.

This Wednesday B.Max and I went out to the Jr high for the third time. While we completed observations a few weeks prior, I felt like we were walking into unchartered territory (with sensible close toed shoes of course). We were led half way to the bungalow in the back of the school, where Ms. Rahamin teaches a mixed 6th-8th grade ESL class. At this point there were so many things going through my head. Mainly I was curious to see if these kids would understand our presentation. At the bell we warmed up the projector and smoothed out the wrinkles in our presentation attire. But when all eyes were on me, I realized that this was going to be nothing like the presentation Brittany and I gave to our ArtsBridge class. I quickly ditched my notes so that I could talk off the top of my head and engage the students in coversation. Surprisingly enough, they were really into our presentation. I think one of the main reasons was our highly visual power point. There was not a sentence on the presentation, but the students were given a nicely designed handout with all the information for our introduction to graphic design. I know that most of these handouts will end up crumpled in the bottom of their jansport backpacks, but if even one kid reads it then I am happy. During the presentation we asked the students about their interests and about the images. They were responsive and inquisitive. Some of the students were even asking about how they could get to UCLA.

At the end of the class period we assigned homework to bring back a piece of information that they found interesting. One student, said that she was going to bring in a piece of collage that she has been working on.

The next order of business is to create a solid outline of the residency. I would also like to learn all the student's names so I need to get a roster and study. I feel like this is really important in showing that I care about their learning process.

Rene Wanner is an avid poster collector and his website Poster Page has a good collection of posters on art, design, theater, politics and is a good all-round resource for poster designers. The image below is so beautifully simple yet powerful, it just makes me swoon. It's by an Italian designer Gianni Bortolotti.

Voici en exclusivité le dernier né de chez Apple, le iToilet :D comme vous pouvez le voir sur les photos, nos amis Italiens se sont bien amusés et le résultat final est plutôt pas mal, non? En tout cas, ça va sûrement donner des idées à d'autres personnes avec bientôt le iMicro-Onde, le iBidet... wait and see ;) et pour voir toutes les photos, c'est ici, enjoy!!!!

First up, for all readers in Korea, here's a quick note to let you know that the BBC drama "Robin Hood" is being aired on KBS here in Korea. You can view the webpage by clicking HERE

It's a fantastic drama and the Sherif of Nottingham is SO funny :-) Watch it this weekend

For an inspiring story on how your life can change from just one meeting check out Scott Kelby's story about meeting Clement Mok, a very famous graphic designer responsible for many famous brands such as Apple Computers and Harvard Business School (check his website out HERE) Click HERE to view story.

Finally, for all those of you who are interested in design. Here's an interesting article about how technology companies' logos have evoloved over the years. Click HERE

That's it for now. Have a great weekend everyone and see you all next week :-)

125 // February 21, 2008

A collaborate design book I participated in came via FedEx today! This is a limited edition, handmade book that only enough are made for the participants involved. The theme was "Alphabet" and you can see from the pictures that the packaging to the decorative elements were all related to this theme: braille paper wrapped the book, letter beads spelled out my name and the volume number.

This was my first time participating, and I'm hooked. Receiving this book and flipping through at everyone's individual concept of the theme, I'm overwhelmingly wowed and inspired and keep picking it up. There were so many unique elements in the book, it's really meant to be seen in person.

One of the participants has taken pictures of all the pages, about as close as you will get for now :). My page focused on the Hawaiian Alphabet, using original photographs and piecing together the unique language of Hawaii.

This is how Creatives keep the juices flowing -- I'm already thinking about next quarter's theme!