• Home
• Blog
• Portfolio
• Contact

Creative Quotations #3

Posted 10 May 2010 - 4 Gratefully received comments

Here’s another installment of quotations I’ve collected for your consideration. A lot of these quotes are about life in general but I think they apply to designers, creative thinkers and business people alike.

The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. – Allan K. Chalmers

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. - Elbert Hubbard

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work. - Robert Frost

Happiness is like jam. You can’t spread even a little without getting some on yourself. – Anonymous

Continue Reading

- leave a comment!  

1000 Type Treatments – Book Review #6

Posted 12 Apr 2010 - One gratefully received comment

Typography is one of those design disciplines that can overtake your entire career, it’s very easy for designers to become obsessed with type and then let it become the focus of their everyday activities. Of course even if this isn’t the case and typography isn’t your bag, it’s one of those things that you still need to understand. Type cannot be ignored.
Books like the one I’m about to review give an excellent insight into successful typography, which can lead to the reader obtaining a better understanding of how type works, whether it’s a passion or a chore.

Blurb: The ability to wield typography is a clear indicator of a designer’s talent. Being able to craft type well and thoughtfully requires a deep understanding of typography’s inherent complexities, and a keen eye for it minute, subtle details. This book contains a collection of 1,000 instances of thoughtful and inspired type usage, along with credits that note which fonts were used in the design. The photography in this book homes in on the star of the book – type treatments – so readers can get an up-close look at each piece.
This must-have book showcases an array of fonts in a catalog-like format, making it easy for the working designer to practically shop for ideas.

I was previously unaware of this book and received it as a competition prize from Design Forums (you can see my winning entry here.) It’s great when you get a book as a surprise and it turns out to be really useful, it’s much better than buying the book yourself.
If I had to sum up this book in a glib and slightly vulgar way it would be as follows: 1000 Type Treatments is typography pornography.

Continue Reading

- leave a comment!  

Creative Quotations #2

Posted 15 Mar 2010 - 2 Gratefully received comments

Here’s another installment of quotations I’ve stumbled across. The last lot I published seemed to get a good reaction, so I hope these ones will be just as inspirational. A lot of these quotes are about life in general but I think they apply to designers, creative thinkers and business people alike.

Money can’t buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery. – Spike Milligan

Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century. - Dame Edna Everage

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. - Mahatma Gandhi

He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner. – Benjamin Franklin

There is far more opportunity than there is ability. - Thomas Alva Edison

Self delusion is pulling in your stomach when you step on the scales. - Paul Sweeney

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. - Judy Garland

If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. - Red Adair

The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you. - Wolfdyke B.B. King

Underpromise, overdeliver. - Tom Peters

Mistakes are the portals of discovery. - James Joyce

Nothing will work unless you do. - Maya Angelou

No legacy is so rich as honesty. - William Shakespeare

Successful people do the things that failures never get around to doing. - Unknown

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. - Alan Kay

The question should be, is it worth trying to do, not can it be done. - Allard Lowenstein

Youth is a circumstance you can’t do anything about. The trick is to grow up without getting old. - Frank Lloyd Wright

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become. - Kurt Vonnegut

First, get the facts, then you can distort them at your leisure. - Mark Twain

Live each day as if it were the last day of your life, because so far it is. - Unknown

What you are will show in what you do. - Thomas A. Edison

The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up …and doesn’t stop until you get into the office. - Robert Frost

Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together. - Carl Zwanzig

Your work should be a challenge, not a chore, a blessing, not a bore. - Hal Stewins

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. - Abraham Lincoln

If you found a little glimpse of wisdom in any of these quotes, why not try a little experiment. Choose your favourite and put it on display where you work, this might mean a scribbled post-it, a printed sheet of A4 taped to the wall, whatever. As long as it’s somewhere where you can see it when you look around. You might just get a little kick out of it when you re-read it. It might also give you a little something to think about when you are stuck, think of it as a little oil to grease the cogs of thought in your head.

Let me know which quotes are your favourite and feel free post a few of your own.

- leave a comment!  

How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul – Book Review #5

Posted 11 Feb 2010 - 2 Gratefully received comments

Being a graphic designer is the best job in the world, but I would say that wouldn’t I. It’s no secret I love what I do but what people might not know is that I dislike what I have to do in order to enjoy my job. If you are a freelance designer you will find that a proportion of your time is taken up with activities that aren’t directly design related; this is a necessary evil that must be accepted in order for you to revel in the freedom you enjoy when the good bit of your work-life kicks in.

Would you like to know how to make the sour side of your freelance life that little bit sweeter?

How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul, Written by: Adrian Shaughnessy. Publisher: Laurence King, publication date: 2005.
Blurb: Independently-minded designers need sound advice on striking out on their own, and guidance on the ethical and practical issues facing designers today. This book offers guidance on employment options straight out of college; setting up as a freelancer; establishing a firm; finding and keeping clients; pitching, and generally doing good work. In the near-endless stream of books on design and designers, there has never been a book on how to be a graphic designer until now. Also included are interviews with leading designers working in the US and UK today, including Neville Brody, John Warwicker, Rudy VanderLans and Alexander Gelmen.How to be a graphic designer… is a practical and inspirational user’s guide for designers who want to create meaningful work without losing their shirts… or their souls.

Continue Reading

- leave a comment!  

Creative Quotations #1

Posted 18 Jan 2010 - 2 Gratefully received comments

I thought I’d try to start the week with a little bit of unconventional inspiration. I’ve collected a few quotes that I like and get a bit of a kick out of. A lot of these quotes are about life in general but I think they apply to designers, creative thinkers and business people alike.

Readiness is all. – William Shakespeare

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. - Harold R. McAlindon

Even within the limits of the possible, the possibilities are limitless. – Jules Deelder

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. - Henry David Thoreau

All glory comes from daring to begin. - William Shakespeare

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. - Mark Twain

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm. - Henry David Thoreau

If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee – that will do them in. - Bradley’s Bromide

Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. - Oscar Wilde

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness. - Margaret Millar

When inspiration comes I want it to find me working. - Pablo Picasso

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen. - John Steinbeck

Pay no attention to what the critics say. No statue has ever been erected to a critic. - Jean Sibelius

Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It’s already tomorrow in Australia. - Charles Monroe Schulz

If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worried about one year ago today. - Anonymous

Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach. - Tony Robbins

I couldn’t wait for success, so I went ahead without it. - Jonathan Winters

I have done my best. That is about all the philosophy of living one needs. - Lin Yutang

If you cannot convince them, confuse them. - Harry S. Truman

The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do. - Sarah Ban Breathnach

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. - Aristotle

Set peace of mind as your highest goal, and organize your life around it. - Brian Tracy

My own business always bores me to death, I prefer other people’s. - Oscar Wilde

Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training. - Anna Freud

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don’t know. - Mark Twain

If you found a little glimpse of wisdom in any of these quotes, why not try a little experiment. Choose your favourite and put it on display where you work, this might mean a scribbled post-it, a printed sheet of A4 taped to the wall, whatever. As long as it’s somewhere where you can see it when you look around. You might just get a little kick out of it when you re-read it. It might also give you a little something to think about when you are stuck, think of it as a little oil to grease the cogs of thought in your head.

Let me know which quotes are your favourite and feel free post a few of your own.

- leave a comment!  

10 Sites that will make you a better Blogger

Posted 30 Nov 2009 - 2 Gratefully received comments

This is another first for my blog, that’s 2 in a week. I ran my first competition last Thursday, and now I present to you my first list article.

I’ve been running my blog for almost six months now and felt that it might be helpful to others if I share the sites that have helped me through that time.
A few of the sites have helped me directly, some of the sites I admire and hold up as examples of how blogging ‘should be done’, and others are helpful resources.

Continue Reading

- leave a comment!  

Wally Olins: The Brand Handbook – Book Review #4

Posted 23 Nov 2009 - 3 Gratefully received comments

Ever wanted to know what a brand is? Do you know your product brands from your corporate brands? What about brand structures and value? How do you make a brand work?

If those last four sentences meant nothing to you, or even if you think you know what it all means this is the book for you.

Blurb: Many people talk about branding, but very few people know how to actually do it. Wally Olins, generally recognised as the world’s most experienced practitioner of corporate identity and branding, draws on a lifetime’s experience to present a concise, practical guide. He explains – in trademark straightforward fashion – what brands are, how to create them, how to make them work, and how to sustain them. All aspects of the process are covered, from developing the ‘core idea’, creating the name and designing the logo to launching and managing a successful branding programme. Inspirational as well as practical, this easy-reference manual is essential reading for anyone interested in the field of corporate identity and branding.

Continue Reading

- leave a comment!  

© Ken Reynolds Design