Daily Brad, the blog

Repeating backgrounds for HTML have been around as nearly as long as I can remember. I first fell in love with the concept years ago while creating some for my desktop. (I had just discovered the wrap-around functionality in Photoshop and thought I was a genius). Most recently - if you call 2006 recent - I blogged about pixel patterns being used as wallpapers, as I played around with them for a couple of my site’s holding pages. (Like Tweet Sweet!)

Today I discovered a great link with a lot more resources than I had mentioned, and wanted to send you there to check it out: 27 Best WebSites to Download Free Seamless Patterns Some are graphic, a few are pixel, but all seem to be pretty high quality. Enjoy!

With the recent announcement of Omniture’s acquisition by Adobe, I’m reminded of how many of the brands I’ve created over the past 10 years that have disappeared by being bought-out and absorbed by larger companies.

Here are some of the logos I’ve designed that are either soon to be no more (e.g. Omniture) and others that only live in my portfolio:

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We’ve long passed the half-way point of 2009 (only 4 months left), and I was curious at how trends predicted for this year in logo design were panning out. After looking at an article on LogoLounge.com talking about 2009 Logo trends, I noticed links back to their previous years trend predictions. So I clicked on 2004 (5 years ago) and looked through the samples.

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I recently noticed that traffic to my blog article entitled IKEA is Coming to Utah and My Logo’s On It! increased, so I investigated why. I found it was because there was raised interest in IKEA based on this Time article The Font War: Ikea Fans Fume over Verdana published last Friday.

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After collecting interesting links in my Yahoo Notes, on 3 or 4 different computers (home and work) and emailing myself dozen of things “to read”, I finally decided to give Delicious a try. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to tag all of the things I’m interested in, but have already begun to make it a necessary part of my daily process to save links and refer back to frequently accessed searches. Here’s the tag cloud for Brad McCall’s bookmarked links thus far. Hopefully I’ll be able to incorporate this tag cloud into my future “About” page on bradmccall.com as I’ve seen some other designers do.

I recently posted several of my new logos (a couple that you’ve seen on my outdated website) on Logospire. Their rating system and comments make it easy to find out which ones people tend to like the best.

I’d recommend visiting the site if you enjoy logos, or just need inspiration for your next design.

As you may have noticed, I don’t take my blog too seriously of late. It’s mostly a place where I put my thoughts, things I run across, latest projects and discoveries, etc. This more casual approach will help me to blog more often and get less anxiety about when I put my fingers on the keyboard.

After my blog post the other day on A Tidbit on Graphic Design Trends, I started noticing many of the people I follow on twitter talk about design trends in logos or web design, etc. Whether you agree with these trends, follow them, enhance your portfolio with them or ignore them all together, I just thought I’d share a few things that came to my attention.

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My dad was a Contractor by trade, and owner of his own business called “McCall Building Company”. Jokingly he asked me one time if I wanted to take over the family business and I can only imagine my face looking back. Though I love architecture and have considered it as an alternative profession, building is hard work. I have much respect for those folks.

My Dad was and is a great builder, a talented craftsman who’s built many beautiful homes and structures. And yet, he’s never built a home for himself.

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So I did a quick search on Twitter to see what people where talking about with regards to graphic design trends. One of the first links I hit is from Jacob Cass, who I follow on twitter. The article called Logo Design Trends 2009 is about a month old, but sums up what several other sites have been saying about logo trends for 2009.

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So I had a brain fart just now (a “brain fart” is a rather crude phrase for a random idea, but you get the point) and thought I’d put it in my blog. Goodness, unprofessional moment. I digress.

So I’ve been of a big fan of Twitter of late for many reasons. Though I do have my off days where I get tired of everyone talking and no one listening (remember Mr. McCall, no expectations). And as the Twittering keeps going and going, I see all my little witty posts disappearing below hundreds of others and then I catch myself saying to myself (Wow, that felt just like a Austin Powers moment there) that ‘hey, I’d like to remember some of these’.

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