What the cool advertisers are doing these days

Yes, just as the unimaginative people think we cannot find another way in which to advertise, someone comes up with a new crazy way to get attention. Thank goodness. Here are a few that I have found and find interesting.

And now another awesome art piece. I am going to create one of these. Should be interesting. 

and now I shall get back to work...

Eco-Friendly

Ok so as you all know I am all about sustainability these days. And today I have another site for you.

They are a design studio in Melbourne that are an eco-friendly practice - Thank goodness! We need many more of these!


Anyway, there is plenty more information on their site and they have a blog too. So definitely check it out. And for all the people that just want to design "pretty things" - well their website is very pretty so check it out anyway!

My graduate exhibition is just two days away! Getting my poster printed today. Shall upload piccies soon!

Slave labour!

Ok it is about time I had a rant on my blog. Everyone has to do it once (and me, well I will probably do it numerous times) but this is my first!

So I have been looking at some design freelancing websites for extra design to do in my free time. Yes I just cannot get enough :) 

But they are absolutely ridiculous! I am disgusted. It is essentially slave labour!

The two main ones I have found are 99 Designs and oDesk. Both have different systems but both are plain ridiculous. 

99 Designs has jobs posted from the clients with the monetary amount - which in most cases are reasonably priced. Fair enough. Except everyone competes and submits their design and then the chosen one gets the monetary amount. Meanwhile everyone else who spent time creating a logo for example gets nothing.

oDesk is worse than that. At least with 99 Designs the money is good; oDesk clients are slave drivers. One job I saw on there this morning was $5 (not $5 an hour - all up) for two entire website designs for different companies and before you got the job you had to do a trial! Are you kidding me! And then if you got the job you have to pay $1 something to oDesk. You left with less than $4!

Check out this clients sale history. And the poor people that think they should be thankful for this!

I want...

pantone mugsoftware pillows CMYK badges a helvetica necklace typography soap an etch a sketch necklace and so much more....

My Favourite artist of today is...

Tom Bagshaw!

Here is some samples of his work from Behance. I adore his illustrations. Amazing stuff. You should all definitely check his work out.

New Findings

Just some cool stuff I found while at work. I want that soap!



I love the above. Amazing photographer! http://www.behance.net/AndrewLili






and that is all for now...

Random Cool Tutorials

Yes two posts in one day!

Here are some random but great tutorials. I love making these circle wallpapers so I found a tutorial for everyone else. And a few others to inspire. Click on them for the link...

3 Awesome Web Tutorials

So I am loving websites at the moment. There is a flash one up on my site at the moment, but I have made a new CSS cutesy one. But I already want to start the adventure of a whole new one!

Anyway, I know some people are always looking for tutorials so here are two good ones I have found for setting up an interface in Photoshop.

http://psdtuts.com/interface-tutorials/create-a-sleek-high-end-web-design-from-scratch/


http://hv-designs.co.uk/2008/09/28/business-layout-2/


http://www.talk-mania.com/web-layouts/43999-old-paper-layout-great-portfolio-layout.html


and that is all for now...

All Good Things

Yes. ALL good things in my world at the moment.

Got a full time job today as a graphic designer.
Less than two months till I go overseas.
I am conditionally approved to graduate. (On the condition I hand in my next two assignments due this week.)
My website is up - a flash version but I decided I didn't like it enough so I'm nearly finished my new one... Better get in quick to see my flash one. It will be no more in about... 3 days. www.sammiehall.com
AND
I am finished 3 years of University as of next week! Thank you for my degree Griffith University!


As I was researching for my Design, Technology and Society essay, I came across this which amuses me greatly. Not sure if it will you or not.

Save the Planet - Pass the Moet (an extract) By Connor O'Brien

NEVER let a stranger rifle through your pantry. I did, the other day. A friend of my housemate - they wanted toast. Big mistake, letting a stranger rifle through your pantry. HUGE mistake.
What you throw in your pantry is your socio-political statement. Your brand of cereal is your bumper sticker, broadcasting your politics to any and all potential pantry-raiders within snooping distance.

And it's so much worse if your pantry-raider is a post-materialist.
``Oh. Uh. So you, uh, don't have Fair Trade coffee?'' my stranger asked me, picking past the jam and condiments. ``Your eggs are free range, though. Right?''
I wanted to say, ``What do you bloody think? I consider `Woolworths Select' a prestige brand. I shop exclusively on the bottom shelf. My T-shirt is a dish rag, and you're standing in running sewage because we can't afford to fix the pipes. We're not billionaires.'' (Mum, Dad - I'm fine. Really.) Instead, I mumbled, ``I used to be a vegetarian''.

Post-materialism is champagne socialism for the global warming generation. Post-materialists are wealthy and outspoken pseudo-environmentalists. Prius drivers. Hypocrites. Complete tossers, really.

Post-materialists have huge spending power, but don't think of themselves as ``consumers''. Consumers are brainwashed by advertising and buy products they don't really need - post-materialists buy products to save the world! They're like superheros. (Captain Planet, eat your heart out.)

Post-materialists chatter about the evils of ``rampant consumerism '' over chilled glasses of Cascade Green and platters of organic cheese. They've got new digital widescreen LCD televisions in every room, because LCD TVs use less energy than CRT. And the new car? Well, it's battery powered, baby!

A few years back the media jumped on ``downshifting'' (and then just as promptly jumped off) - individuals taking fewer hours at work, buying second-hand, or just buying less.
For the record, downshifters are cool (hey, I can't diss on everyone). Downshifters grow their own veggies, ride bikes everywhere (even though bike-riding is terrifying), throw great house parties, and generally mind their own business. Downshifters don't fly frequently or obsess over whether a product is organic-Fair Trade-free range blah blah blah, because they don't have the cash to worry about it.

Yeah, downshifters are basically all hippies. And they basically all smell of manure. But at least you know it's manure from their veggie gardens - and you know their tomatoes are going to taste delicious.

Post-materialists are high salary earners who couldn't bear to downshift because then they couldn't afford to purchase organic-Fair Trade-free range blah blah blah. Fine. But, dear post-materialist stranger, don't bang on loudly about your eco-credentials when you're the one causing the damage - it's downshift, or be nice about my pantry.
The poorest members of our society are the greenest, not because they give a stuff about saving the environment, but because they can't afford to muck it up. And they drink instant coffee!

*Note I did not write this Connor did

Graduate Catalogue

Want to see my year's beautiful catalogue in all it's glory? Well here's a photo of it anyway. I didn't design it. The very talented Porsha Marais did :) Don't you just love the paper texture and UV? I know I do.

Ultimate Branding

Yes it really is. Rebrand awards! I have just stumbled over this website in my favourites after who knows how long it has been there. I favourite everything I want to look at further when I do not have the time and usually I continually find more stuff, so it never gets looked at. Consequently, millions of favourites in a folder I take with me everywhere.

Now today I have a bit of time to clean it up a bit. Bit mind you - it is a BIG job.

So getting back to it. The amazing Rebrand website. It has images of elements of the previous branding and then the entire rebrand. Very nice. Though I will admit, a few of them that one over the distinctions baffle me.


http://www.rebrand.com/2009-winners-brands

So take a look and see for yourself!

In other news I've nearly graduated! 3 weeks to go!

Website coming really really soon! http://www.sammiehall.com/

FTP Confusion

So you need to send a file via FTP. You have either never done it before or like me it has been so long you cannot remember the software you used to use and the advantages and disadvantages of different packages.

Well I had this problem today. I move between PC and Mac Platforms so that also comes into play... Well for now I have just found one on PC that I like very much.

SmartFTP is so easy to use, I like the layout and until I find something better (I looked at Filezilla and a few others today that just frustrated me) I'm stickin with this for the next 29 days of my trial and then I'll see what else I have found better in the meantime.

SmartFTP is so simple but it also has tutorials on their site which makes me extra happy. So give it a go if your having troubles, I'm sure after this you won't be any longer.

http://www.smartftp.com/

Awesome Retoucher

Hello avid readers... I'm not in denial, I just hope I get some soon!

Today I have the link to an amazing retoucher. Watching how he edits fashion photographs has definitely improved my abilities. Observing how he has used burn tools and shadowing etc. I think I have enough content to make a small retouching section in my portfolio now as I was inspired. So here he is for all to be inspired by!

Yahor Shumski - freelance photo retoucher
http://www.euphoria-imaging.com/

Check out his portfolio - its wowzers!

Cute but quirky business cards

I am doing some branding for Uni for a restaurant named River Canteen at Southbank. I discovered I need to update my quirky folder of business cards, letterheads etc. and so I went on some blogs. These are a couple of my favourite business cards.

I love this one. Will never use it but...

A clear message from a debt recovery agent. If you don't pay I'll break your bones. Here's the x-ray of my last client broken finger as proof.

And this one. Very cute. Would be a pretty small range of opportunities to use this idea.

And yet very cute.

Website is up!

Yes it's finally here! But only in the form of a Coming Soon page. www.sammiehall.com
So check it out. For the moment it only links back to my blog but just you wait! Give me less than a month and the real deal will be up and running. I will have illustration, branding, retouching and all sorts of other things displayed. So get excited :P

In other news I have chosen my Design, Technology and Society topic finally. It has been narrowed around 50 times now (ok maybe 10) Anyway, it is *drum roll* :

Advertising must change in response to global issues and the impact this will have on the future of advertising and the graphic design practice.

My lecturer is finally happy and I'm still interested in it so it's all smiles.

Otherwise I have found a really cool blog for you all to look at. It intrigues me and makes me laugh. What more could you ask for?

http://adverlab.blogspot.com/

Till next time... Stay smashing!

Sustainable Design

So currently I am taking an art theory class called Design, Technology and Society. It's very controversial and I need to come up with a topic for my research essay. Problem is I could go so many ways with this. However, I am very interested in sustainable design and am looking into some practices that help the environment.

These include a font named Ecofont. It’s a free, multi-platform font based on Verdana, that’s full of holes — the Swiss cheese of type — to save around 20% of the toner you’re currently wasting. Ecofont isn’t Swiss, though, it’s Dutch; brought to you as a public service by the Utrecht-based design firm, SPRANQ.

There is a company in the UK named Curb that specialises in using natural materials to build wareness for clients products and services.

Another idea is look for printers who do waterless printing. The waterless process eliminates the fountain solution used in offset lithography, and instead of conventional metal printing plates, you use a silicone rubber plate and special ink. It’s a faster, cleaner process that reduces the amount of paper required for make-ready and thus, uses less energy.

And this is one I actually do. Try not to design so that the media needs bleed or design the item so that it is smaller than standard paper sizes and only needs a small amount of bleed.

And last but not least. Today I purchased my web domain and a year's hosting. www.sammiehall.com Content coming soon!