Guest article written by Paul Scrivens

Originally I titled this article Designers’ Ego, but ego seems to have a negative connotation so I switched it to confidence even though I prefer to use the term ego instead. In the article I will use them interchangeably so please don’t think ego is the mean, pig-headed bully that we conjure up in our imaginations. It’s more the voice that picks you up off the ground and dusts your shoulders off so you can try again.

Do you ever come to the point sometimes when you are designing and the design is just simply not working so you begin to wonder why you are even a designer or could even claim to be one? This used to happen to me, but then I would just surf the web and see somebody else’s ugly site and became instantly re-inspired to push forward. In the field of web design there is always someone worse than you that helps you to believe that you are at least decent and there is always someone better that makes you curl up into a ball. Now I am wise enough to understand that if I really need a great design job done I hire someone else to do it.

So many people enter web design because they believe that designing a website is easy. Unfortunately, they are wrong. Building a website is easy, designing one takes skill. This is where confidence (ego) kicks in. There are two key qualities that designers should possess and they both relate to criticism.

Give Criticism

The first one is that you need to be your own harshest critic. Believe me, this is extremely hard to do on the web since there are many people out there who are quick to point out how wrong your design is. When you think you are done with a design, take a step back and look at it. Could you do better? If you think you could, but can’t figure out how then just step away for a bit. If you don’t think you could do better then either you are right, or you just don’t want to push yourself further.

It’s human nature to believe that something we created is at least decent because we are proud of the work we have done. It’s okay to be proud of your work, but being satisfied with it is a completely different tale. Can you really look at your work and dissect what is wrong with it? Can you already see points of improvement?

Hopefully you don’t think your design is done because it looks like another popular site. You cannot call yourself a designer when all you do is steal other people’s designs. Sort of like thinking you can draw by placing a paper over a picture so you can trace the lines. It is okay to take the design elements of others to help with your own designs, but your ability to self-critique cannot develop until you have your own style. Your style may be similar to someone else’s, but at least when you design something you know that you designed it.

Receive Criticism

The second important aspect of being a designer is knowing how to take criticism. I am fortunate to have an audience that gives excellent criticism without being too harsh or demeaning. Many times I do not agree with what people say, but I have learned to listen to them because maybe in another design their ideas could work. Every once in a while you may get some jackass telling you how horrible everything looks. Why is he saying this? Who knows and who cares. When taking criticism there is always going to be signal and noise to deal with. Filter out the noise. Listen to others. Grow as a designer.

This is more important than ever now because the field is getting crowded. The usual designers who just happened to pick up the profession will troll the design galleries to see what they can pick up and emulate, emulate and emulate till they become just like the person they are emulating. Their ego tells them that they designed it when they didn’t. You need an ego that pushes you to do better with each passing design. You need an ego that accepts the praise and also laughs at it because you know you still have room to grow.

Eventually you might get to a point where you know how to do the right things to make a design look good, but that doesn’t mean it works. Large type, some gradients and the right color choices can get you in your gallery of choice, but is it the right design for the job? Is it what is needed? Did you actually design the site or did you just put on the right decorations? Depending on how your ego is developed will determine your answer.

Even when your ego is too big to fit on screen and you think you are the best around or people tell you there is no one better, there is always a way to learn and get better. Every website on the web has something to teach you. Be it something good or something bad, but from every design it is possible to take some knowledge away with you. If you want to be a designer then be one. You must have an ego or else you wouldn’t be doing it (unless you just do it for fun). Just make sure to keep it in check.

Do designers need an ego to be successful?

I asked on Twitter if designers need an ego to be successful and here are some of the responses:

“Yes when it leads to confidence and presence. No when it translates to belligerent refusal to continually learn and listen” — @GregMolyneux

“I’d say no. Confidence, yes; ego no. Ego can prevent you from fixing problems and improving” — @futuraprime

“As ego provides a sense of self, yes. Avoiding being egotistical and leaning towards altruism is the key” — @ritchielee

“I would have to say, yes. If there wasn’t any ego, no one could ever support their design decisions” — @kumailht

“Ego, no; but a tough exterior and a love for what you do couldn’t hurt…” —@LeaBotwinick

“No, but all successful designers have egos” — @worldobyrne

“A certain confidence and drive is definitely needed to be a designer, but I’d say the ego needs to be left at the door” — @henrytapia

The above article was written by Paul “Srivs” Scrivens of the fairly new design blog, Drawar. Why I’ll don’t ask many for guest articles on The Design Cubicle I was immediately drawn to Srivs writing style. With his thought-provoking, well-researched, and sometimes “touchy” (see “You are not a designer and I am not a musician”) subject matter, Paul’s articles are often entertaining and enlightening while showcasing his unique voice and perspective.

Srivs’ links:
» Subscribe to Drawar
» Follow Srivs on Twitter
» Check out his Inspiration Gallery and Community Link archives

Sweet Tweets is a weekend feature to The Design Cubicle highlighting some of my favorite, and other Twitterer’s design-related links discovered via Twitter throughout the work week – because having resources and staying up-to-date is important in growth and development.

Week of 2-22-10:

55 Examples of huge typography in web design
“Choosing the correct typography for your website is a very important part of the design process. And as a website is also a communication tool – a very powerful one – you can use the typography to help you on exposing your ideas!”

A guide to creating professional quality logo designs
“Let’s take a look at some of the general rules of logo design, see what guidelines we should stick to in order to build high quality logos, and see how they can all be put into practice to create a logo design that works in the real world.”

Improve your portfolio with pro bono design
“You’re a graphic design student with a portfolio full of fictitious projects. You want to work with clients to build your experience, but you need a more developed portfolio to attract the clients. A classic catch-22.”

Time tracking without timers
An upcoming promising app that should be out in beta in the spring. I’m really looking forward to this one.

Training the Butterflies: Better public speaking interview
“There are certifiably good reasons to fear public speaking, but Scott Berkun, author and professional speaker, points out that at least, “we can’t say that public speaking is scarier than death.” That’s why it’s curious that public speaking is often listed with some of the worst human fears—along with sickness, death, elevators, heights, and snakes.”

The Taxonomy of Type
“This is not a detailed overview of typography, and was not intended to be. Instead, this article’s purpose is to help us as designers to distinguish basic properties of types. Typography encompasses a large field of interests, and to put it all into one article would be difficult and unnecessary.”

Web FontFonts
“For nearly 15 years, web designers had two frustrating choices when it came to type on the web: use one of the few “web safe” fonts preinstalled on major operating systems, or substitute text with images and Flash/JavaScript® hacks. Not anymore. Recent developments in web standards and font formats make it possible to render HTML text in typefaces other than the same old default fonts.”

Geek talk with Brian Hoff
Check out my interview over at Geek talk discussing all things “geeky”

The Designer’s Survival Guide
“Navigating a design project gone wrong is like surviving a wilderness disaster: it takes strength, courage and cunning to make it out unscathed. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to increase your chances of survival. I’ll discuss a few tips and tricks that will help steer you to safety.”

The principles of great design
“As a designer or lover of design you might find yourself asking not what is design, but what makes a design great? How often have you gone through a gallery and looked at some great designs and told yourself that you are going to open up Photoshop or a browser and do the same thing right now only to find that when you are done the end result simply doesn’t match what you were expecting?”

A showcase of 50 amazing personal blog designs (featuring behoff.com)
“The importance of a unique, memorable and well designed blog, especially within the design community, should not be underestimated – First impressions will always count and your blog gives you an opportunity to showcase your skills and highlight how professional and serious you are as a designer.”

Happy Cog’s Redesign of VisitingPhilly.com: An exemplary modern webdesign

“In January, Jason Santa Maria sent out a tweet announcing that visitphilly.com had been redesigned by world-renowned design studio Happy Cog. My interest was piqued, and I couldn’t help but take a look. 

I can honestly say that I’ve never been more impressed with a website redesign than I was with this one.”

What were some of your favorite Tweeted design resources from the past week? Share in the comments below.

I often receive many emails and interview questions asking what my favorite Mac apps are or what web apps I find most useful in my line of work and business. As an Apple fan and lover of all things “apps” I decide to write a more condensed list featuring some of my must-have apps that I use everyday (or almost everyday) to run my independent design business with explanations of why I like them and what I use them for.

Little Snapper

PURPOSE: LittleSnapper is a beautifully designed tool for capturing, organizing, tagging, and sharing online inspiration.

HOW I USE IT: It’s always extremely helpful to have inspiration that is well-organized and at your finger tips—and LittleSnapper does it with ease and elegance. Whenever I come across online visual inspiration that I enjoy I either snap the web page or crop an area to my liking. I then store them into folders (better known as Collections in LittleSnapper), such as footers, typography, websites, color palettes, lists/tables etc, so I can easily access some arsenal when needed for inspiration. I also use it to take full screenshots of web pages.

HOW OFTEN USED: A few times daily

WHY I LIKE IT: Beautifully designed and integrated with Flickr and Ember for easy sharing. Check out my LittleSnapper inspiration here.

Subernova

PURPOSE: SUBERNOVA is a project management and team collaboration tool with a slick and simple interface. You can use/access it via the web, adobe air app and even your iPhone.

In the words of the creators: “SUBERNOVA makes you more productive by taking the stress out of remembering important details of your projects, lets you track time, send invoices and estimates, collaborate with team mates or clients and keeps your business smooth by keeping tabs on late payments, deadlines and more.”

HOW I USE IT: Although SUBERNOVA has many features without going overboard like other project management apps, I mainly use it for tracking time, and organizing my clients and projects I’m working on at the time. I’ve tried many project management apps and always keep coming back to SUBERNOVA. I also enjoy how often the team adds new features and updates — and not just pointless features so they can say “hey look we update our product more than you!”

HOW OFTEN USED: All day long.

WHY I LIKE IT: Intuitive interface. All the right features without being too much or too little. Works and accessible from anywhere.

Numbers

PURPOSE: Simply put: pretty spreadsheets and data entry.

HOW I USE IT: I’m not a crazy spread sheet enthusiast, but I do use Numbers to organize and track my revenue and expenses for my business. It keeps things nice and tidy for when Uncle Sam comes collecting during tax season.

HOW OFTEN USED: A few times a week.

WHY I LIKE IT: For those afraid of spread sheets (like me), Apple makes it a bit more pleasant experience. Works just like every other Mac app, so it’s familiar.

Coda

PURPOSE: I was looking for a one sentence explanation, but Panic’s website says it all for Coda: Text editor + file transfer + svn + CSS + Terminal + Books + More = Whoah!

HOW I USE IT: I use it whenever I do any development for websites.

HOW OFTEN USED: A few times a week.

WHY I LIKE IT: Great all-in-one powerful tool.

Suitcase Fusion 2

PURPOSE: A powerful font manager for Mac and Windows.

HOW I USE IT: To obsessively organize, tag, and manage my fonts.

HOW OFTEN USED: Everyday.

WHY I LIKE IT: Easy installation of new fonts (it’s quick). One database file contains all your fonts so its easy to take them  on the move. Temporary vs. Permanent fonts allows you to temporarily activate a font(s) for a specific project and then automatically turns off the font when finished with the project to allow your system and apps to run faster. Also, turns the font(s) back on when the specific file is opened that requires it.

Tweetdeck

PURPOSE: The powerhouse of Twitter apps for managing your main stream, replies, lists, searches and more in an accessible layout.

HOW I USE IT: For more more through explanation on why and how I use Tweetdeck, here’s a slightly older, yet informative, article for you.

HOW OFTEN USED: Too much.

WHY I LIKE IT: Great all-in-one powerful tool. Organize great, useful information easily.

Woopra Desktop App

PURPOSE: Website analytics.

HOW I USE IT: To manage my blog and various websites statistics and analytic…. in real-time.

HOW OFTEN USED: A few times a week. Especially when I am getting heavy traffic I get a kick out of watching the real time numbers.

WHY I LIKE IT: Google analytics on steroids. Real-time stats. Military-style interface looks bad-ass.

Dropbox

PURPOSE: Online storage. Online backup. Photo sharing. File sharing. File syncing. File/Folder restoration.

HOW I USE IT: I couldn’t live without Dropbox. It has become such a valuable service in my business I can’t remember what I did without it. I work directly off Dropbox and keep all of my files on it (if you are running Time Machine on your Mac, it will even backup your Dropbox if you are nervous about only keeping it online!): this helps to keep my files synced across multiple computers. I purchase the 50GB membership with an additional $3.99 per month of unlimited restoration capabilities — meaning that if I need to revert back to an older version of a file I can, no matter how old or how long ago it was. I also use it to create share folders to collaborate with others and share large files with clients.

HOW OFTEN USED: All day, everyday.

WHY I LIKE IT: Here’s a full review of Dropbox I did a while back, but I’m sure you can understand why I like it from the above.

Droplr

PURPOSE: Extremely quick File/Folder sharing. Image sharing. Note & Code storage. Twitter integration.

HOW I USE IT: Quickly create short URLs when referencing websites in email. Quickly share a photo, file or folder via a web link.

HOW OFTEN USED: Numerous times week.

WHY I LIKE IT: Quick, fast and functional. Lives on the Mac toolbar for quick dragging and dropping to it.

Xmarks

PURPOSE: Cross-browser and computer bookmark syncing.

HOW I USE IT: To keep my obsessively well-organized bookmark collection in sync and accessible no matter where I am or what computer I’m on.

HOW OFTEN USED: It just does its thing 24/7

WHY I LIKE IT: Works across all major browsers. Keeps myself and my bookmarks happy. Much like LittleSnapper keeps my inspiration handy, Xmarks keeps my resources accessible at all times. Remember, a construction workers is much more effective and efficient with his tool belt.

Remember the milk

PURPOSE: Manage your tasks, notes and life.

HOW I USE IT: In addition to the normal task and note organizing, I use it to keep track of my clients. Read more on that here.

HOW OFTEN USED: Every morning, every conclusion of every day, and a few times in between my day.

WHY I LIKE IT: Intuitive interface. Smart, simple task line (easily set dates with ‘next Friday’ or “2 weeks” etc.). Receive reminders via email, text messages, instant messenger, Twitter and more. Create categories to better manage your tasks. Share and publish tasks with others. Add tasks from anywhere (even your iPhone).

Mint

PURPOSE: Website analytic program.

HOW I USE IT: To monitor and track The Design Cubicles website statistics and progress.

HOW OFTEN USED: Every morning. Possibly sometimes throughout the day. At night before bed.

WHY I LIKE IT: Intuitive and simple. Beautifully layout for glancing at various areas of statistics. Real-time.

What’s your favorite Mac or web apps that are “must haves” in your collection?

Suggested sponsored link: Cloud Server

Sweet Tweets is a weekend feature to The Design Cubicle highlighting some of my favorite, and other Twitterer’s design-related links discovered via Twitter throughout the work week – because having resources and staying up-to-date is important in growth and development.

Week of 2-8-10:

New Heinz Ketchup packaging
Ketchup lovers two cool ways to enjoy Heinz Ketchup: either tear off the tip to squeeze with pinpoint accuracy, or peel back the lid for easy dipping.

The ultimate website prelaunch checklist
“Do you think to yourself, ‘I know every pixel on this site inside out’ and put it live? Hopefully not. You’ll have a printed checklist which you complete before you go public.”

Georgia on my mind
Great read on a website redesign.Explains and showcases the inspiration for the site and explains elements such as typographic choices.

How to sell the value of a design
“As a designer it’s not always easy to stand up for yourself… clients often have demanding requests, tight budgets and due to one reason or another, designers will succumb to taking on labour heavy jobs at heavily discounted rates. This does not have to be.”

Cookie cutter websites
“We’re all learning better practices in web design, and that’s a good thing. But designing a website isn’t a simple recipe, and while it’s important to make a website useful, they don’t have to all look the same.”

The Oscars of typography
“Various type blogs and font foundries released their own best-of lists at the end of 2009. I sifted through them and cast my own votes. Each of the selections presented here comes from a published list of the year’s top typefaces”

Find your type match
This one is fun: What’s your “type?” Find out what your best match would be if you were a typeface.

Tips to choose good text type
“Today, I want to take time to analyze how to choose correct text typography design in different cases. It is very important to understand that these tips are not final word, but they can be good help at the moment of choosing a text type.”

Bring your websites alive
“Some have a passion for web design; others consider it a mere task! This article is for those who consider web design more than just a task, in fact, it is meant for those who always have a passion to create something new”

What were some of your favorite Tweeted design resources from the past week? Share in the comments below.

We are often fascinated with the end result of a project that we often forgot how a design originated and morphed into the work that is shown. Personally all of my designs, whether its a logo or the layout of a website, always start off in my sketchbook. Sketching helps to get the brain working creatively, get ideas out quickly, free your mind, and overall improve your design work.

I’ve always enjoyed viewing others sketchbooks as well, so I asked my Twitter friends if they wanted to contribute a page from theirs. Below is a showcase of designers sketches, notes, and other doodles within their sketchbooks.

ALSO… Continue reading below on how to win 10 free sketchbooks by Logo Nest!

Jeff Sheldon - @ugmonk

“One of the early sketches for my “There’s More to Life” Ugmonk shirt.” The full process can be seen on Ugmonk’s blog.

Adam Olenchick - @adamolenchick

“I had the challenge of having 4 companies on a single full page print Ad. It’s not my favorite sketch but one that shows my process better than most. I find that working on gridded paper helps.”

Andrew Steger - @drewski1979

“This is a stream of consciousness sketch. I like to do this when I’m feeling stuck. I often find pieces in it that I like and end up using in later designs.”

Linzie Hunter - @linzieh

“A pages of doodles from my lettering sketchbook.”

Carolyn Sewell - @carolynsewell

“This is sketch of notes taken during the recent AIGA design conference in Memphis. I’ve found that if i like looking at my notes, I’ll read them more, be inspired more, and thus use them more.”

Prescott Perez-Fox - @scottperezfox

“Sketches for logo development for New Day Rescue & Adoptions. These all follow the “dog silhouette” route, which ended up being the final approach.”

Charles Riccardi - @charlesriccardi

“This page out of my sketchbook was used to create the first concepts for a logo project. The company is a green company seeking after better, more environmentally away lighting solutions.”

Poyin Voon - @poyinphony

“I wish i can go somewhere which can let my imagination grow…”

Luther Spicer - @designjones

“Ideas for an airport-based exhibition called ‘Perceptions of Beauty’. The central idea was based around giant luggage tags as posters that could be wrapped around anything in the airport i.e. columns, chairs & signage.”

Denise Lange - @deniselange

“I was creating (and practicing!) a handwritten script and elements to be used in a logo and accompanying branding materials.”

Dan Redding - @danredding

“I keep sketchbooks for creative inspiration and enjoyment. This page features a drawing I did of an creepy but beautiful abandoned mental hospital in Massachusetts.”

Chris Sharp - @csharpdesign

“Brainstorming sketches for a logo design. Basis was a theme of renewal and growth focusing on the letter ‘C’ (Change for Real - the client brand name) as a motif.”

Joey Ellis - @joeyellis

“In planning some games for my son’s pirate-themed birthday party, I decided I should take a moment and draw out some ideas.”

Misty Belardo - @mistygirlph

“This is a sketch of my TwitterBackground design. I did a new version of me. Hand drawn design of me was used to depict what I love doing.”

Paul Randall - @paulrandall

“These was some early concepts on a logo for a local community arts centre.”

Chris Skelton - @sk3lton

This is a double page from my Moleskine which formed the start of my logo design for the childrens outdoor activity and Forest Schools equipment supplier Muddy Faces. View the completed website.

Ashraf Ghori - @AshrafGhori

Concept design for Virtual Geographic for CG animated film www.Xero-Error.com

“A Medical Assistant vehicle design for my animated film.”

Josh Cagwin - @joshcagwin

“Rough wireframe sketch of a home page for a project.”

Delve Withrington - @delvew

“Sketches for the logo of my independent font foundry, Delve Fonts.”

Paul Barrera - @PaulBarrera12

“It was long day at the internship, working on a logo for a class / killing time. Go Sketch! it doesn’t need to make sense.”

Cynthia Lavigne - @clavigne

“This was an idea for a character I wanted to use in a Flash animation.”

Noel Miciano - @noel1215

“I hardly draw anymore, so I wanted to get back into it this year and introduce myself to typography.”

Martin Kulakowski - @notanotherone

“This was just one of the many sketches for my personal website that never saw the light of day. The main goal of the website was to showcase the latest portfolio work and the blog entries. I also wanted to allow the visitor to be able to switch between different “themes” with some CSS and PHP magic.”

Brian Hoff - @behoff

A mix of icon and typographic identity sketches for Dreamvast.

SKETCHBOOK GIVEAWAY DETAILS

About Logo Nest

Logo Nest is a place dedicated to creative designers, both professionals and amateurs, where they can share and compare their creative work. Publishing on this web site is free, and it includes no payment of any kind. Every day, every month and every year, we declare the best logo design, and all logos published on this site will be published in a book Logo Nest 01 at the begin of the 2011! My Nest is part of the Logo Nest as we want to promote sketching as very important part of the logo design process.

The giveaway

Courtesy of Logo Nest, we are giving away 10 free sketchbooks (view sketchbooks here or photos below) to 10 lucky Tweeters!

How to win:

Tweet this article on Twitter including the hastag #sketchbooks [or just copy and paste the line below on Twitter]:

Designers Sketchbook Showcase & Enter to Win 10 Free Sketchbooks - http://bit.ly/aL27Vp - #sketchbooks

Make sure to follow me on Twitter, @behoff, so I can direct message (DM) you if you are one of the winners chosen at random on Sunday, February 14th. So what are you waiting for? Tweet away!

Sweet Tweets is a weekend feature to The Design Cubicle highlighting some of my favorite, and other Twitterer’s design-related links discovered via Twitter throughout the work week – because having resources and staying up-to-date is important in growth and development.

Week of 2-1-10:

CSS transitions 101
“Despite people’s expectation of change and movement on the screen, CSS and HTML have few controls that allow you to design interactivity, and those that exist are binary.”

Make all links feel subtly more button-like
“On this current design of CSS-Tricks, you may have noticed how all links bump themselves down one pixel as you click them. I started noticing this effect on sites of luminaries like Tim Van Damme and Andy Clarke’s sites, so credit where credit is due.”

New and high-quality icons for elegant design
“When working on design projects its always essential to have a good collection of icons. Designers use Icons to create breath-taking designs. Having the right icons can help to make a web design look much more professional and complete. Fortunately, there are some excellent free icon sets available that offer very high quality icons.”

Custom letters of 2009
“Appreciation for the people making Custom Letters. Inspiration for everyone else. A whole lot of great work.”

Life below 600px
A great writeup discussing the topic of ‘above the fold.’ Great to show clients if need be.

Ways to streamline your web business
“If I told you that there are twenty different ways you can streamline your web design business, makemore money and work less, would you believe me? What if I showed you – would you believe me then?”

Information is beautiful (and a showcase to prove it)
“Unfortunatly I never had the opportunity to do client work on an infography, but it seems to be one of the most challenging task for a graphic designer. The perfect infography must synthetize complex information in a simple visual representation, which is not easy. The following examples take information architecture to another level by making it beautiful.”

Elliot Jay Stocks interview on Unmatched Style
“Our most recent designer interview in our series is with Elliot Jay Stocks; designer, illustrator, speaker, musician and author of Sexy Web Design.”

Ampersand 10-pack
Hot Diggity Dog! Haäfe & Haph presents a selection of custom ampersands at just 9.99! These 10 ampersands come packaged as.eps vector files and an opentype font!

What MTV’s show The Jersey Shore can teach you about branding
“Branding can be a vague, nebulous concept to folks, particularly clients. We often try to teach them the value of building a strong brand by citing great ones that already exist. Unfortunately, we tend to fall back on a small list of great brand case studies, such as Apple, Nike, Harley Davidson, and a few others.”

Design tips that you can learn from Apple
“There is no shortage of companies that follow popular design trends to appeal to a mass market. Much more rare is the breed of company that actually sets design trends. Today we’ll examine the techniques of a company that occupies the top of the design food chain: Apple.”

Revised font stack
“Serious efforts are being made to get more typeface choices on the web to enhance web typography. Still, most of us prefer web-safe fonts like: Verdana, Georgia,Times New Roman and Arial. Though choices are limited, yet the number can be increased by exploring other pre-installed fonts.”

The missing Google Analytics manual
“Whenever I open Google Analytics my brain seems to go into freeze mode. Sure, I know how to see where my traffic is coming from and how much traffic I get overall but it pretty much stops right there.”

From time to time we all need a little texture and pattern goodness in our designs and keeping a toolbox of resources is a great way to stay proficient as designers. Over the past year I’ve been keeping a collection of my favorite texture and pattern resources and collections — and who else better to share them with than all of you.

The next time you need that Bokeh or watercolor textures, among others, you will know where to reach for your tools with little effort in finding them.

RESOURCES

TextureKing

Texture Lovers

Lost and Taken

BittBox freebies

Design Spice

Squidfingers

HighResolutionTextures.com

ava7 patterns

milleseicentopercento

Seamless Tiles

COLLECTIONS

50+ random textures

Random Photoshop Patterns

100 Beautiful Textures

XRay Textures

60+ Concrete Textures

50 Fabric Textures

40 Ornate Patterns

Paper Textures

Spray Paint Textures

21 Eye catchy textures

80+ Fresh textures for your website

Water color textures

450+ Adobe Illustrator Patterns

50 Rusted Metal Textures

155+ Bokeh textures

MORE MOTHERLOAD COLLECTIONS:

» The Motherload Collection of Inspirational Website Galleries

» 600+ Free Design, Twitter and Social Media Icons: A Collection Motherload

It’s giveaway time on TDC and this time the fine folks at UPrinting have offered to give 500 free die cut business cards each to three readers of The Design Cubicle. Now’s your chance to “dress to impress” for free!

Continue reading below on how to enter.

UPrinting

For those unfamiliar with UPrinting, they are an online printing company offering quality printing in the areas of business cards, brochures, flyers, stationery, stickers, posters, and more. For great prices you get fast turnaround times and excellent customer support (used them twice in the past). You can even download templates available in all the major design programs that guide you along the setup process for printing specific products.

Giveaway rules and details

WHO CAN ENTER AND WHAT YOU CAN WIN:

UPrinting is offering three readers a set of 500 die cut business cards each, with free shipping within the U.S. (outside of U.S. can enter, but will pay shipping costs out of pocket).

THREE WAYS TO ENTER:

1. Leave a comment below stating what you enjoy most on The Design Cubicle (1 winner)

2. Leave a comment below stating what you would like to see more of or differently on The Design Cubicle (1 winner)

3. Tweet this giveaway with the hashtag #designcubicle and link back to this article (1 winner)

Feel free to enter in all three ways if you like to increase your chances. Best of luck!

Winners will be selected on Thursday, February 4th via email or a DM on Twitter if you are tweeting to enter (make sure you are following me to be notified on Twitter).

Sweet Tweets is a weekend feature to The Design Cubicle highlighting some of my favorite, and other Twitterer’s design-related links discovered via Twitter throughout the work week – because having resources and staying up-to-date is important in growth and development.

Week of 1-25-10:

Tips for better ideas [video]
A beautiful and inspiring video on how to be more creative. A must-watch!

‘Lorem  ipsum’ for images
Dummy text generator for images.

What makes design seem intuitive? [video]
“If you’ve ever seen Jared speak about usability, you know that he’s probably the most effective, knowledgeable communicator on the subject today. What you probably don’t know is that he has guided the research agenda and built User Interface Engineering into the largest research organization of its kind in the world.”

Hourly rates vs flat fees
“This week, we’re asking the panel what they think of the hourly rate - do they like it, hate it, how do they determine it - that kind of stuff. As you will see, some panelists prefer the hourly rate while others prefer a per project fee.”

What graphic design schools are lacking
“Design school teaches you how to talk to other designers … there needs to be an entire course on talking to people who are notdesigners.”

Fonts ideal for big and powerful headings
“Headings play a major role in the way users digest content. Through size and style, they help establish a hierarchy and make text easy to scan.”

Invoicing tips for designers and freelancers
“Most designers don’t particularly enjoy the financial side of running a business, but handling it properly is a necessary part of being a freelancer or running a design agency. The financial side of the business includes invoicing clients, and in this article we’ll look at some tips and best practices for invoicing.”

Website owners need more than web designers
“Website owners have an increasingly difficult job. Not only do they need to provide visitors with an engaging, usable and accessible website, they also have to interact with them through social media, great content and other online marketing channels.”

A brand for london
“While famous for so many things, London [still] lacks a unifying, cohesive graphic brand identity under which all sectors can co-exist. The Mayor, and other officials, sought to bring together the previously branded elements of transport, tourism, government, the Olympics, and other public programmes with the creation of a new branding effort.“

Designers these days…
A great article by CSS Tricks discussing skills and traits a designer these days must have.

Michael Bierut of Pentagram discussing Clients [video]
“Our speaker at the January 2010 CreativeMornings was Michael Bierut of Pentagram hosted at the fabulous Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn. It was our biggest CreativeMornings audience yet with 300 (!) NYC creatives attending. Enjoy Michael’s insightful presentation.”

What were some of your favorite Tweeted design resources from the past week? Share in the comments below.

If you are new to TDC and didn’t know — well lets just say I love me some good ol’ typography — I come from a traditional print design background where layout and typefaces were used more flexibly. With (more) recent advances in web technologies and real font integration services, such as Typekit, the web has definitely become a more beautiful and interesting place aesthetically.

I often collect and save examples of layout and typography that interests me or I find enjoyable and beautiful, so below I’ve gathered 30 websites showcasing beautiful typography and layout design for your viewing pleasures. Enjoy.

Chirp

Neutron Creations

Vigepops

Billings

Simon Collison

The Gates Notes

SimpleBits

Vegas Uncork’d

Build Guild

Epic Event

Happy Cog’aoke

Pictory

Trent Walton

OrderedList

Design Litmus

Analog

Authentic Jobs

Electric Pulp

Frank Chimero

Information Highwayman

Ligature, Loop & Stem

Matthew Henry

Ryan Clark

SVA

Veer Ideas

Fever

Squared Eye

DevDays

Sushi & Robots

The Sew Weekly

Also if you are interested, I recently had the opportunity to visit and chat with some new friends over at Two Paperdolls letterpress shop and design studio and managed to take some pictures of their beautiful antique letterpress machines, wood blocks and other studio shots (with my new DSLR). Feel free to check out the photos on my Flickr page.

Feel free to share other beautiful typography or layout-based designs in the comments below.