Published: Thinking Design. On trusting your gut, and other lost arts.

I recently published an article on Medium presenting some observations I’ve made over the course of my 20-year career as I witnessed the rise of User Experience Design and branded problem solving processes like Design Thinking. I want to bring attention to how the success and popularity of UXD is impacting the role of Visual Designer. One of the main audiences I’m hoping to reach is the up-and-coming creatives who don’t have the same historical context and may not even realize this massive transition and change in how we approach design is happening. If you are a creative or UX practitioner, I would love to get your thoughts or anecdotes.

Read the article

Design Facts™ selected for Communication Arts Typography Annual 7

I am very pleased to announce that Design Facts has been selected to appear in Typography Annual 7, the January/February 2017 issue of Communication Arts. The judges evaluated a total of 1,839 entries that were narrowed down to 143 finalists based on, "creative excellence and quality of execution." The 2017 jury included:

Lara McCormick – head of design education, CreativeLive, San Francisco, CA
Neil Summerour – type designer/lettering artist, Positype, Jefferson, GA
Craig Ward – senior vice president, head of design, Deutsch, New York, NY

Design Facts features Playfair Display designed by Claus Eggers Sørensen of For the Hearts and also Crimson Text designed by Sebastian Kosch.

www.designfacts.org

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About Communication Arts
Communication Arts is a professional journal for designers, art directors, design firms, corporate design departments, agencies, illustrators, photographers and everyone involved in visual communications. Through its editorials, feature articles and the annual competitions it sponsors, CA provides new ideas and information, while promoting the highest professional standards for the field.

Now in its 58th year, CA continues to showcase the current best—whether it’s from industry veterans or tomorrow’s stars—in advertising, design, photography, illustration, interactive and typography. Everything is reproduced with quality printing and attention to detail unmatched by any trade publication anywhere.

With a paid circulation of over 30,000 (29,351 subscribers and 2,336 single copy sales), CA has a rich tradition of representing the aspirations of a continually-growing and quality-conscious field of visual communications. CA’s editorial content, knowledgeable presentation and writing, use of color and quality reproduction are all designed to be consistent with the standards CA’s readers set for themselves in their own careers.

Secret handshakes, side projects and other reasons to join a club

I was recently invited to be a keynote speaker at IBM Design’s Craft Con 2016, an “all-day program packed full of inspiration, stories, workshops, keynotes, and more.” The event is part of a three-month design bootcamp that gets new designers up-to-speed on IBM’s creative culture and design thinking process.

I am always thankful for opportunities like this as they typically result in discovering something new about myself and my work and remind me why I do what I do for a living. Through the process of preparing my talk, I rediscovered my childhood and learned about a passionate group of creatives doing some really interesting things inside the belly of a 100+ year-old company.

Speaking to a sizable batch of new designers at IBM Design’s Craft Con 2016. Photo by Lara Hanlon.

I love to talk shop

I’m always up for meeting interesting people and sharing stories. Hit me up!

New space, old brands

Always fun to re-discover artifacts while unpacking. I was sporting this @NASA patch on my backpack circa late 90’s.

So much to know, so little time

I am extremely proud to announce the launch of Design Facts, a platform for sharing the inspiring, shocking, passionate, brilliant, revolutionary, carefully crafted and relatively young history of our craft, all in bite-sized servings.

Launch Design Facts

Design Facts has been a true labor of love and I could not have done it without the coding genius of my good friend and talented developer, James Walton. For more information and to see other images, visit the Design Facts project on my site.

Launch Design Facts

Shane Bzdok cards featured on Neenah Paper’s, The Beauty of Letterpress

It was such an honor to see my letterpress business cards featured on Neenah Paper’s, The Beauty of Letterpress. Thanks to the extraordinary Jason Wedekind at Genghis Kern who did a truly spectacular job printing the cards. See more photos of the cards as well as the accompanying note cards.

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The Beauty of Letterpress is brought to you by Neenah Paper featuring Crane® Papers as an online resource and showcase, featuring the best and most innovative letterpress work in the industry today. In addition, the community will be assisting the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in their efforts to relocate and effectively salvage a priceless piece of letterpress history. There will be monthly issues curated by prominent designers, highlighting their favorite projects on the site. There will also be an accompanying Beauty of Letterpress Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, each showcasing the intricate nature of the craft and the incredible results of this printing technique.

Best Press Photos of 2015

Amidst the heaping mound of ‘best of 2015’ noise on the internet right now, I found myself caught up and captivated by the collection of ‘Best Press Photos of The Year 2015’ posted on Design You Trust. Some are humorous while some are sad or even disturbing. Looking at the whole, it makes me so appreciative of the comparatively trouble-free world we live in here on our little patch of earth.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off over Cocoa Beach, Fla., at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Monday, December 21, 2015. The rocket, carrying several communications satellites for Orbcomm, Inc., is the first launch of the rocket since a failed mission to the International Space Station in June.
(Photo by Craig Rubadoux/Florida Today via AP Photo)

Branding the Razorfish Global Creative Summit

In the fall of 2015, I was asked to name and brand the Razorfish Global Creative Summit. The brief mentioned this year’s theme was focused on the culture of startups. With only a few days to get a first round presentation together, I had to move quickly. After some research and sketching, I landed on the name, “Proto;” a prefix that by definition means, ‘first’ or ‘precursor’ — and also a word that inherently has some nice geometry to work with.

You can view additional images on the Proto project page.

Never use PowerPoint

A favorite quote from Shaughnessy’s, “How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul.” This book is packed full of sage advice appropriate for everyone from the aspiring designer to the seasoned pro who might be thinking about starting up a studio of their own.

New in my bookshelf - Lance Wyman: The Monograph

So pleased with this standout volume from Unit Editions. Lance Wyman: The Monograph showcases the extensive career of a truly prolific graphic designer.

From the publisher:

This monograph is the first major publication devoted to Lance Wyman’s entire output. It showcases the achievements of a long and productive career, from his early work for General Motors, through his iconic designs for the Mexico 68 Olympics, to the Minnesota Zoo and his more recent projects.

Read more and see pages from the book.