Whatever’s Clever: How to Take Screenshots Like a Pro

This week’s roundup is about screenshots, screenshots, and screenshots:

6 Screenshot Utilities You Should Know About “I use different screen capture utilities depending on the type of screen I’m trying to grab. Some are great for a quick and dirty capture of a page I want to send someone. Others are good for annotating an interface I […]

Why Boring Desktops are Good

Some of us in the office are fed up with beautiful, distracting desktop backgrounds. So we’ve changed them to a medium grey:

The solid grey reduces distractions and creates a nice neutral backdrop for design work. But it’s boring. So boring, it makes you want to spend less time mesmerized in front of the computer. That’s […]

Portfolio 101: Pick a Least Favorite

When I review a designer’s portfolio, I love to ask: “Which project is your least favorite?”

The answer I loathe to hear is: “Oh, they’re all my favorites and I love them all!”

That’s when my eyes roll.

The answer’s polite. It’s inoffensive. It’s safe. But it’s also the lamest response you can give. I know, […]

Get a Crash Course in Graphic Design

If you’re aching to learn design skills but don’t have the time—or the confidence—then check out Robin William’s The Non-Designer’s Design Book.

The approachable, unassuming, and humorous book explains basic design principles in a way that anyone can grasp—from grandmas in Scranton to art directors in New York City.

So what are these basic design principles? It’s […]

Supercool typographic posters of supercool cities

Ork Design has some very clever typographic posters of famous US cities. Each poster shows the neighborhoods of a city arranged as a typographic map. Cities include Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Manhattan, and best of all, San Francisco. It’s sweet candy to the distintiguished designer’s eye.

Cost is $20 for posters that are offset printed. If […]

5 useful Quick Look plugins for designers

Quick Look in Leopard is super handy for instantly previewing files such as Word docs, Quicktime Movies, PDFs, and HTML files. But what about previewing file types that designers care about? You know, like Illustrator, InDesign, Freehand, Quark, and Flash documents? Unfortunately, Quick Look doesn’t natively support them.

Thankfully, a few plugin developers have come to […]