A Friday update

I suppose you all are missing all the posts on the blog lately. So lets see what we can do to get things moving to keep you all inspired. It’s Friday, and I think it’s a great time to share some awesome things I’ve stumbled upon recently that  may make your Friday a little more fun, inspiring, and hopefully help you all pass a little faster before the weekend begins.

The web designer and type geek in me loves this first one. The folks over at Tripwire Magazine have an awesome post where they’ve showcased 30+ Excellent examples of Large Typography in Web Design.

Just last quarter in one of my SCAD courses I told everyone how inspiring matchboxes could be to a designer. Pakel Fuksa designed 178 matchboxes and put them together to music lyrics in a music video. Totally awesome stuff. You can see more of Pakel’s inspiring work in his flickr – totally worth checking out!

So you need a typeface? Yeah, then go check out this cool flow chart.

Have you seen Letterheady? Man is this a sweet collection of vintage letterhead!

Speaking of vintage, have you seen the collection of 902 letters to and from Van Gogh archived online? Man is this amazing. You can read the translations and check out a ton of his sketches. Totally inspiring, even if your not an artist or designer!

Of course I have to be sure to keep the html5 hype going. This grid titled, “WTF is HTML5 and why should we care” is just totally inspiring and informative. It’s totally convincing to see why more web designers should begin considering the move towards HTML5. Of course if you’re looking to learn HTML5 you may want to check out “15 useful HTML5 tutorials and cheat sheets”. If you’re still not convinced, maybe you should head over to Web design ledger’s “10 HTML5 demos to make you forget about flash”.

I’m a web geek so I’ll keep on spreading the geeky web love. Love like, smashing magazine’s recent post on CSS3. Smashing magazine is holding a CSS3 design competition. Deadline is July 1st, 2010 so go check it out.

Still on the topic of web design, yes, IE is finally going through a few updates. So it’s a shame to hear some web designers are still having issues with png files. David Shea has shared examples of his png file uses in browsers and man does it show evidence that IE still renders png’s pretty awfully. Yes, David, I say it’s another IE Fail too…but we’re not surprised, are we?!

I’ll stop harping on you guys to join me using twitter. I’ve written a few times about it’s usefulness. Here’s evidence again. Valencia’s foundation is looking to connect with more of you out there. Yes, YOU. Students, faculty, staff, alumni. Just today I learned that they’re handing out $50 target gift cards randomly to those that help spread the word. Geraldine Gallagher who leads the foundation efforts assured me,

“We’ll do this more than once. The cards are burning a hole in my pocket. Full disclosure: Not a dime comes from cash donations. 100% of every dollar donated to the foundation goes directly to scholarships, chairs or programs, based on donor intention.”

And if you’re an alumni looking to take continuing education course you can earn 10% off for a limited time. You can check out more info online. So take a minute and go follow the Valencia foundation in twitter!

Now you know it’s tough to make it through sharing all this inspiration without sharing a little photography love too! I just ran across “19+1 ideas on how to be inspired as a photographer” written by Tom Bourdon. Totally inspiring, even for those who aren’t photographers. If you’re in central Florida it’s not too late to enter the Historical Orlando calendar photography competition. Deadline is July 12th, 2010.

If you’re looking for a good laugh you will enjoy the Lost cat poster designs on 27b/6’s web site. I’ve warned you…you may be in tears laughing, especially if you’re a designer. Designers will equally enjoy “Please design a logo for me. With pie charts. For free.” Yes, these two are the great humor I know you all need to help the busy week come to an end a little quicker.

If you’re looking for an internship Disney is looking to hire a graphic/web design intern. The opportunity is paid too. Check it out. Now if you guys get a call back for an interview on this opportunity or other internship or job opportunity take a second and go read 9 ways to ruin a job interview so that you don’t make any of this big mistakes!

That’s it…it’s Friday. Hope you all have a good one. And hope the weekend is even better!