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Why this? Because the ability to search and discover is one of a designer's greatest attributes.

Clients who spend their career inside the walls of a particular industry sometimes lose sight of how prospects see their products and services from the outside. A designer who is adept at search and discovery develops a talent for forming opinions and developing marketing approaches about fields of endeavor we start out knowing next-to-nothing about.

On a good day, we leave a seasoned insider saying, "Hey, why didn't I think of that?"

Thanks for your time and interest, Chuck 

P.S. Check out my Adobe InDesign Ideabook: 315 template files in 19 different categories Everything from brochures, newsletters, and direct mail to packaging, calendars, and books (one CD works with both Mac and PC). Use two or three files and you'll pay for the entire book and disc...

For Adobe InDesign > For QuarkXPress

 

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Designing the unknown

I think it's important to be aware of what I don't know. By that I mean, it is important to acknowledge that there are many possibilities outside my current field of vision. To me, continually expanding one's vision is a critical part of growing as a designer.

For example, I never would have predicted my clients would have the opportunity to advertise their products and services by sight - twenty miles out and 10,000 feet above.

Yet that is precisely what MondoWindow, a new service now in beta, offers to airplane passengers. They define it as, "A platform for online, in-flight, location-based content and entertainment," and explain it as "A map that tells you where you are and what you're looking at as you fly." It is an outgrowth of the Window Seat book series written by one of MondoWindow's founders, Greg Dicum, about reading the landscape from the air.

An article by CNET's Geek Gestalt (below) explains the commercial application as follows: "Dicum thinks that there is a lot of advertising opportunity when dealing with a captive audience onboard planes, especially when the advertisers will know precisely where the users are going."

Here > If you are not aboard a flight when reading this, choose "Or fly the demo"...

Here > A overview by Daniel Terdiman, the Geek Gestalt at CNET...

Discuss this topic here... Design is about experimentation

It's easy to lose track of that simple fact but Keetra Dean Dixon, kindly, reminds us of it. She got me asking myself when I last designed something, primarily, for the purpose of expressing myself - its been a while.

Dixon is as much an artist as she is a designer. I'll point you here, to some examples of here work that include typography but be sure to explore her whole portfolio of work.

Here > Example 1...

Here > Example 2...

Here > Example 3...

Here > Dixon's website: FromKeetra.com...

Here > A profile of Dixon from the Designing Minds series...

Discuss this topic here...

I try to remain as objective as possible about the information I share here. Unless I tell you otherwise, I receive no compensation from the organizations and people mentioned except for occasional product samples. Comments? Suggestions? Write me at chuckgreen@ideabook.com