February 7, 2009

Seeking out design trends for 2009

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.

More Web Design Trends for 2009
by Smashing Magazine

Last week we presented 10 Web Design Trends For 2009, our review of the most promising developments and techniques in web design that may become big in 2009. In the first part we covered embossing letters (”letterpress”), rich user interfaces, PNG transparency, big typography, carousels and media blocks.
This post is the second part of our review. It presents design trends for 2009 in terms of layouts, visual approaches and design elements.

Article Includes:

  • Out of box layouts
  • One page layouts
  • Multi-column layouts
  • Huge illustrations and vibrant graphics
  • More white space than ever
  • Social design elements
  • Speaking navigation
  • Dynamic tabs
  • Still large search boxes
  • Category visuals
  • Author icons
  • Icons and visual clues
  • Tag index (instead of tag clouds)
  • Illustrations in blog posts
  • Watercolor
  • Handwriting
  • Retro and vintage
  • Organic textures, tiles and photographic backgrounds
  • Badges
  • Price tags
  • And ribbons
Logo Design & Branding Trends 2009
by Logo Orange

2009 ushers in something new, something experimental, something outrageous. More will be the new less. Strong visibility and passion are the dictating themes.

Article includes some great examples of:

  • Psychedelic Pop Backgrounds
  • Origami
  • Tactile Logos
  • Arabesque
  • Classic Modernism
  • Pictograms
  • 80′s Geometry Lesson
  • Typographic Logos
  • Street Art
  • Puzzle Patterns
If I find some more online, I’ll post them here. Meanwhile if you know of some good articles talking about design trends, add it to the comments. Thanks!

February 5, 2009

Time for a makeover?

Redesign working masthead
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.

That’s how I feel about my portfolio site sometimes. I’m always designing for everyone else, sometimes I forget to design for myself. In fact, my current site at bradmccall.com has been there since I initially launched it in March of 1999. Yes folks, that’s 10 years ago next month. I’ve updated the text content as it’s changed as well as adding this blog (still with the default template – blah!), but things are still very much 1999. (Silly little frames and all)

So in celebration of bradmccall.com’s 10 year anniversary, I’m launching it again.

But not quite yet.

I’m working on the templates, creating the designs (and recreating and recreating), and then beginning to gather the portfolio files together. Here’s a 30,000 foot view of my files as they stand right now (sorry it’s not clickable, as showing them might commit me in someway to their aesthetics!):

bradmccall.com designs under construction

I’ve got probably a thousand samples of work I’ve done over the past 10 years, but have begun pulling the logos together.

Some of the logos for the future bradmccall relaunch

This website has served me well over the last 10 years and has brought me a good amount of projects and new clients. But as with all good things, it’s time to retire it and try something new.