“There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.” John Ruskin

Users’ needs are changing pretty fast and so do types of features which apps provide. However, there are some of them which haven’t lost the actuality ever since the first launch. A weather app can be called “ageless” without doubts. The need to know the forecast will hardly ever step aside, and the possibility to see it via a smartphone is essential.

Today the variety of the choices allows every user, even the most demanding one, to find a perfect weather app. Designers are quite passionate about weather applications and create lots of various concepts since there is wide space for creativity. Graphic designers produce icons and illustrations in different styles which make all interfaces original and attractive.

However, weather apps, as well as the others, require not only pleasant visual presentation but also a high level of usability. Designers always have to take care of delightful user experience even when an app contains minimum functionality like weather apps do. Clear interactions and attractive presentation is a key to success. Designers need to find the balance between these two points so that they could create an efficient and good-looking application which users will love.

There are no certain trends or rules about how the weather app should look and work, only some common characteristics. For example, weather apps usually contain very little of copy. The user interfaces include many graphic details like icons and illustrations. The elements of UI should be functional so that users could utilize features the app provides and core data like temperature or humidity should perform effectively on different devices and in various environments.

People say it is better to see once than to hear (or read). That’s why D4U gathered a collection presenting diverse weather app UI concepts. They include the variety of trends and show how designers approached the issue not only recently but also some time ago in the other conditions. Enjoy!

by Tubik

by Todor Bonev

by Mandy

by Awesomed

by Goumy

by Alex Сhen

by Izabela Jackowska

by Alexander Cafa

by Chand Routh

by Ann Zhong

by Michal Sambora

by Awesomed

by Ankita Kumari

by ∆ Studio–JQ ∆

by Minh Pham

by Jona Dinges

by Bhuvan

by Tiberiu Neamu

by allure

by Tubik

by Han Yu

by Julie Sokolova

by Eugene Tretyak

by Rounded Rectangle

by Awesomed

by Winandra Adnan

by ruki

by Ryan Duffy

by Zoeyshen

by Tubik

No matter how many weather apps have already been worked out, there is always room for fresh ideas. Hope the collection inspired you!

You may also like the collections of cinema apps, music apps, ecommerce app designs, web designs for events, user interfaces for finance management, creative logo designs, UI concepts for education, and other D4U Inspiration posts

Сообщение Sunny and Rainy Design: Weather Apps UI Collection появились сначала на Design4Users.

When you work in a creative industry, time management seems to be something far and impossible to do. Loads of work, lack of inspiration never allow you to feel free in controlling your time. Nevertheless, our bosses and clients expect us to be highly productive, so we cannot afford delays and mistakes and have to use our time in the most effective way. Today our article presents some practical tips on time management for professionals in creative spheres.

Plan your day

Many of us coming at work may spend the whole morning surfing the social networks up till the lunchtime and then wonder where the morning hours have gone. The problem is that we rarely plan the day ahead so we don’t know which task, among hundreds needed to be done, to start with. The daily plan helps to organize the tasks and gives the review on how your day will come to pass. With the plan on hands, all you need to do for having a productive day is stick to the plan as close as you can.

It is useful to form your daily strategy in the evening before you sleep or in the morning before the workday begins. There are many ways to creating an effective daily plan. For example, you can write a to-do list in your datebook or take some notes on your smartphone. Moreover, today many apps make this process even easier.

Upper App

Prioritize the tasks

Creating your personal to-do list may become a problem when you have loads of tasks to accomplish. Of course, all the assignments given to us by our clients or bosses are urgent and all of them are usually marked as “to do as soon as possible” but we’re humans and it’s impossible for us to do lots of tasks at once. That’s why you need to think out the details and prioritize the important assignments. To set the priorities effectively, it can be good to answer to yourself objectively which project needs to be finished today and which can wait a bit more.

However, if you have a creative job, it’s not always possible to stick to your plan and accomplish the tasks in the right order. The artistic job heavily depends on inspiration and its absence can stop the whole process. In this case, creative people are recommended to have a fallback meaning the next project in the priorities. Switching to another kind of work can have a positive effect on your mind and creativity.

Eliminate distractions

If you’re a designer, a writer, or an illustrator, your job includes using the Internet, full-time or partly. Of course, the net is the major source of useful information, but on the other hand, it is also the spring of distractions such as social networks and entertaining websites. Interfering the creative process, you can’t concentrate completely on the task meaning you are not able to do the job properly. Certainly, it is hard to eliminate all the web distractions since we need to check our emails or contact the clients, still, we don’t need to be online for 24 hours. In most cases, you can choose a certain time for this part of daily routine like 10 a.m and 6 p.m. and that is enough to keep up with the things going on and stay in touch with the customers.

Track the time

It is said that happiness takes no account of time. Nevertheless, any project has its deadline and we have to fit it, so the count of time does matter here. To be more productive, it’s advisable to establish your own mini-deadlines for the tasks. For example, the task number one should be ready at 11.20 a.m, the next should be done at 13.00 p.m. Try to estimate the time needed for the specific assignment more objectively, do not overestimate yourself. Having a detailed schedule, you organize your time in the most efficient way and prevent your work from dragging on. Also, this helps your mind stay focused on what should be done right here and now.

Stop procrastinating

The majority of us constantly postpone our duties for a particular reason. However, sometimes it may turn into chronic procrastinating when we do anything but work. This can’t bring any good to either you or your clients, so something has to be done about it. Here are several pieces of advice on how to reduce the procrastination in the workflow.

Don’t push yourself. Negative emotions never help. While you’re biting yourself for the moments of procrastination, you are not able to start work. So, the first step to take is to calm down and understand that everyone is keen to procrastinate. There’s nothing wrong with you.

Find out the reason. Every time we postpone tasks there is a reason standing behind it. So, when you feel like procrastinating you need to ask yourself why you are doing it. Is the task too boring, or complicated, or unclear for you? Finding a reason, you’ll be able to find the solution.

Split big projects into small steps. Consistently, when we have a big project ahead, it may seem a heavy burden that cannot be accomplished anytime soon. That’s why, it is always a good idea to split the project into small, clear, and simple tasks. You can also talk this through with the client and set the mini-deadlines which will definitely improve your workflow.

Stay focused. Multi-tasking has become a part of the routine for many of us a long time ago, but only a few people learned how to deal with it effectively. We often switch from one task to another, and as a result, nothing is done properly. Try to stay focused on one task at the time, so you could perform it as well as you can. Shifting to the other activity is effective only in case you are totally stuck and have no idea where to move next.

Be good, not perfect

Someone may say that perfectionism never hurts but it’s not completely true. When you constantly work under deadlines, the desire to make everything perfect may play a joke with you. Trying to avoid the smallest mistakes at a certain stage of your work, you lose the time reserved for the next steps. And when the deadline comes, you realize that you have 80% of a perfect design, while the client expected the fully accomplished work. To avoid such a situation, try not to get obsessed with the smallest details that are not vital for the task. Remember that you can always polish everything later if you need.

Don’t forget to enjoy your life

Creative job demands creative energy, but the endless projects, meetings, brainstorming, and other work routines can make us tired no matter how much we love our job. It’s necessary to include time for relaxing into your schedule. An evening with your friends or in the gym can charge you with positive energy and inspire you to do something new and wonderful. So, don’t forget to find the opportunity of having a good time.

Using at least some of these tips, you can improve not only your workflow but everyday lifestyle too. Value your time and the others will do the same.

Recommended reading

Why Being A Perfectionist May Not Be So Perfect

19 Productivity and Time Management Apps for 2016

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport

First Things First by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill

30 Time Management Tips For Work-Life Balance

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Useful Tips on Time Management for Design Professionals появились сначала на Design4Users.

No secret, the word creativity is often associated primarily with something close to the art of any kind – visual, verbal, musical, etc. However, going back to the roots, we’ll see that the word “create” coming from Latin creare “to make, bring forth, produce” can somehow associate with anything people do for global and personal progress, so creativity goes far beyond arts and crafts. The term is applicable to any sphere of human activity whose outcome is something originally solving problems or responding to life issues. Today, for the fresh issue of the D4U Inspiration section, we have collected a new set of quotes providing some insights into the phenomenon of creativity. These are the wise and witty thoughts by creative people, successful and recognized in various spheres of life, from design and arts to writing, eloquence, and business. So, enjoy and get inspired, creatives!

The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about all kinds of things: ancient history, nineteenth-century mathematics, current manufacturing techniques, flower arranging, and hog futures. Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later or six months, or six years down the road. But he has faith that it will happen. (Carl Ally)

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. (Steve Jobs)

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity. (Charles Mingus)

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. (Scott Adams)

Creativity takes courage. (Henri Matisse)

Creativity is not just for artists. It’s for businesspeople looking for a new way to close a sale; it’s for engineers trying to solve a problem; it’s for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way. (Twyla Tharp)

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. (Maya Angelou)

You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out. (Steve Jobs)

Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way. (Edward de Bono)

Make an empty space in any corner of your mind, and creativity will instantly fill it. (Dee Hock)

There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun. (Pablo Picasso)

An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail. (Edwin Land)

Creativity is as important as literacy and numeracy, and I actually think people understand that creativity is important – they just don’t understand what it is. (Ken Robinson)

Creativity is a gift. It doesn’t come through if the air is cluttered. (John Lennon)

The difference between science and the arts is not that they are different sides of the same coin even, or even different parts of the same continuum, but rather, they are manifestations of the same thing. The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity. (Mae Jemison)

Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art. (Andy Warhol)

That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you. (Ray Bradbury)

Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things. (Theodore Levitt)

Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people. (Leo Burnett)

There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns. (Edward de Bono)

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will. (George Bernard Shaw)

There are no formulas in creative work. I do many variations, which is a question of curiosity. I arrive at many different configurations – some just slight variations, others more radical – of an original idea. It is a game of evolution. (Paul Rand)

Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye. (Dorothy Parker)

Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right or better. (John Updike)

Creativity is intelligence having fun. (Albert Einstein)

Creativity is a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. (Arthur Koestler)

You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. (Andre Gide)

From 30,000 feet, creating looks like art. From ground level, it’s a to-do list. (Ben Arment)

Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working. (Pablo Picasso)

Welcome to watch 10 TED-talks for creative people

Welcome to check out the set of 30 Eternal Quotes from Design Experts

Сообщение Design Inspiration: 30 Bright Quotes About Creativity появились сначала на Design4Users.

Flat design

Flat design has significantly grown its presence and diversity this year, both in interface design and branding. The design approach is known for its minimalist and concise use of visual expressive means and has established itself as a style favorable for enhancing usability and visual harmony of user interfaces. The most prominent feature which actually has inspired the name of this direction is applying flat 2-dimensional visual details as the opposite to highly realistic and detailed skeuomorphic images.

The features of flat design supporting its steady popularity in interface design include:

• simplicity of shapes and elements
• minimalism
• functionality
• bold and highly readable typography
• clear and strict visual hierarchy
• close attention to details
• thoughtful appliance of bright colors and contrast supporting quick visual perception
• avoiding textures, gradients and complex forms
• applying the principles of grids, geometric approach and visual balance.

Cafe Coupon App 

Thoughtful integration of flat design via diverse interface elements, including icons, illustrations, buttons, tabs, and the like, proved itself efficient for making UI bright, attractive, clear, intuitive, and easy-to-use.

Toonie Alarm

Moreover, this year flat design has set a strong link between branding and UI design, mutually supporting each other in digital products.  One of the fields broadly strengthening this trend was creating logos and app icons flat and simplified. This trend has featured itself not only in brand new projects but also for well-established websites, apps, companies, and products, which have presented new redesigned logos and corporate style visuals redesigned according to the principles of flat design.

Conversational UI

Another broadly discussed trend is conversational UI which has been the object for hot debates and themes for many speeches and case studies this year. Basically, the term “conversational UI” is connected with interfaces that enable users to communicate directly to the system in a way imitating conversation with people. In the vast majority of cases, this sort of UI involves voice manipulation and recognition as part of the interaction.

More and more products are featuring this sort of functionality: some want it just because it’s trendy and fashionable while others find real ways to engage it for problem-solving objectives. Most often it is realized by chat-bots providing a flair of talk to the users. In automated dialogues of this kind, depending on the nature of the product and style of talk which is seen appropriate for the target audience, conversational UI can effectively involve both verbal (language) and non-verbal (emoticons, pictograms, etc.) means of communication.

Among the advantages of conversational UIs, one of the frequently mentioned is the automation of some basic and repetitive operations saving people’s effort for more creative and complex tasks. It can enhance the usability of the product and even make it proactive, giving prompts to the user and improving interaction with the product. Still, there is the trap to overload the product with this sort of communication, based on standard situations and issues while missing non-typical cases or questions which need different solutions. Moreover, by far not all target users are ready to communicate in that way, so this design solution needs to be grounded on extensive user research and testing from the early stages of user experience design. Conversational UI can easily give zest to the user interface. Yet, if it’s not analyzed and tested well, conversational UI can do the opposite and spoil user experience by poor interaction.

Anyway, this year UI designers have thought over new perspectives of applying conversational UI, in particular in combination with AI technologies, and this trend will definitely grow to show new rays of creativity next year. Conversational UI isn’t just another fad: it is the trend providing total or partial changes to certain areas of interaction design and giving an alternative approach to problem-solving and decision-making processes.

Minimalism

This year has given a great bunch of applications and websites designed on the principles of minimalism. They support positive user experience by providing clear and simple interfaces, full of space and air, focused on content and navigation. Minimalist interfaces are characterized with thorough attention to visual elements, not numerous but always transferring a particular message. Minimalist interfaces, both for web and app, also feature sophisticated work with typography and visual hierarchy supporting instant scanning and skimming the content of the page or screen. Moreover, interfaces of this sort usually provide a high level of legibility and readability.

Björn

Custom graphics

The desire of originality sprung out in UI design in the area of custom graphic design of all kinds. More and more interfaces apply custom mascots, icons and illustrations that fulfill multiple goals: adding originality to the visual design concept, enhancing usability, strengthening navigation, and marking out the content depending on its nature and functions. Graphic details play a crucial role in the usability and accessibility of the product and even the slightest changes can bring significant results, speeding up visual perception and understanding interface elements or transitions.

Visual perception is one of the most productive and quick ways through which people are able to obtain information and get it processed by the brain. It influences so many aspects of life that neglecting the issue while creating products for users would be extremely unwise. That is why the aspect of applying visual elements of high functionality in interfaces such as icons and their impact on the general efficiency of the product has been an actual topic in the global design community for a long time. In addition, images push the limits of perception for users who have natural problems with text recognition such as, for instance, dyslexic or non-reading preschoolers.

As for custom illustrations or icons, created for specific products, made according to the preferences and needs of the particular target audience and with a view at certain business goals, they are able to make the product work more efficiently solving users’ pains and satisfying wishes. Perhaps, that is one of the most popular reasons why this trend got so popular in 2016 presenting interesting interfaces with custom graphics of diverse styles and performance.

Weather in UI Design

Another side of this trend is the evolving field of wallpapers for desktops and mobile devices featuring original graphic artworks on a variety of topics. It also can be characterized as a user-friendly trend giving users the choice of means for self-expression and satisfying personal aesthetic needs.

Animated microinteractions

Interface animation is one more hot and debatable topic of this year. Although there is a big army of those who find animation an unnecessary feature overloading user interface and making it more complicated, most users expect motion as an integral part of interaction experience. So, designers and developers work over more and more sophisticated methods to make animation pleasant-looking and problem-solving characteristics of modern apps and websites.

One of the frequent methods of adding motion to UI are animated details featuring microinteractions. Microinteractions supported by clear finalization via motion create fast feedback for the user and make the experience positive and efficient while navigation simple and intuitive. Animated buttons, switchers, toggles and other interactive elements inform users in split seconds activating all the potential of fast visual perception.

Tab Bar interaction

As we mentioned in the earlier article, animation in the interface can create a pleasant illusion close to natural interaction with physical objects which often doesn’t need too much cognitive process. For example, if you pull the object, press it, move out the tab, the movements should feel natural. Most users won’t be able to see this sophisticated work accomplished by designers: they will take it for granted and the fact it makes them comfortable will be the biggest praise for design solutions.

Scroll animation

Scroll animation also got new vibes and perspectives of artistic realization. Thought-out movement of layout elements while the webpage is scrolled enhances user experience significantly and creates the harmonic feeling of one integral smooth interaction rather than perceiving several separate parts or blocks of the page. Moreover, this sort of interaction is aesthetically pleasant and engaging, and these emotions are a good factor of retaining users. This year, full of new updates in design tools and software, showed great practices of sophisticated work on scroll animation.

Organic landing page

Animated tutorials

The tutorial is a vital part of onboarding users for most mobile applications. Certainly, a wide variety of means and techniques are applied to make it clear, engaging, and informative as it is a strategically important element of involving users into further interaction with a digital product. This year designers combined traditional techniques with new popular findings: in particular, custom illustrations and animation brought new vibes to app tutorials, making them more dynamic and enhancing their informative potential.

Social Network Tutorial

Diversity of landing pages

Surely, landing pages were discovered much earlier than 2016, still, this year has brought the new lap of their development and diversity. More and more businesses and social projects take advantage of using them for effective presentation of special services, sales, offers, or issues that need focused user’s attention. Landing pages have also grown their presence in the Net as an effective method of promotion for native mobile apps. Accomplished wisely and thoughtfully, grounded on user and market research and testing, broad usage of landing pages can be also seen as the other user-friendly trend, providing users with necessary information and interactions in a clear and accessible way saving their time and effort. From the business perspective, they also work well giving businesses a flexible tool for original and effective presentation.

Coffee Wings landing page

Brutalism

The trend of brutalism in digital design has rocketed this year getting more and more expressions and diversity. It is often characterized as a web design style aiming at breaking standards and predictable design techniques. The websites created in this manner are a sort of rebellion to sophisticated designs with thought-out symmetry and harmony, complex layouts, and accents of aesthetic visual performance. Vice versa, brutalism is based on simple and raw appearance, in most cases not loaded with many visual details and sometimes even close to plain HTML page. Used wisely, for the appropriate goals and audience, this approach can bring a high level of originality to the website and make it really stand out of the crowd.

Contact List Concept 

Custom grid

According to Internet Live Stats, there are over 1 billion websites in the World Wide Web today. This milestone was first reached in September of 2014, as confirmed by NetCraft in its October 2014 Web Server Survey, and first estimated and announced by Internet Live Stats. The number had subsequently declined, reverting back to a level below 1 billion due to the monthly fluctuations in the count of inactive websites before reaching again and stabilizing above the 1 billion mark starting in March of 2016. With more and more websites coming into play, designers have to be more and more creative to not only make them attractive and harmonic but also give them a feeling of uniqueness and original appearance. That is one of the reasons, why experiments with the grid also won their place in the list of general design trends of the leaving year. A custom grid is a way to save the feeling of harmonic layout and placement of the elements with a higher level of flexibility and originality. However, this sort of experiment requires thorough research and in many cases, the final result comes via several iterations tested and analyzed in terms of usability and visual perception.

Slopes Website

Bold and catchy typography

2016 could also be mentioned as the year of further rigorous practice on typography in the global design community. It brought the world loads of new nice typefaces both universal and created with a view to particular objectives or products. Typography continued its progress as one of the crucial aspects of efficient web and app design, and one of the trends in this domain was practices of applying bold and outstanding typography for webpages, catching users’ attention, and instantly informing them about the core message. In particular, this approach got its development in the sector of landing pages whose quick and dynamic presentation of core data to users has a great influence on conversion rates.

Vinny’s Bakery

Large thematic image

One more trend often found in various designs for interfaces is applying prominent images, which could be either photos or illustrations, as the central visual element of the general composition. Important thing is that the image is never just a placeholder of nice looks: it presents a powerful way to strengthen the informative potential of the page or screen, set the theme instantly, and focus the user’s attention at the significant details. Needless to say, it takes much designer’s effort to choose the one successfully transferring the necessary message and supporting the general stylistic concept.

Healthy Food App 

Handwriting lettering

Custom handwriting lettering also got popular as a design trend and is often used for marking out significant details and images in an original way. Special lettering made by professional designers looks fresh and unique, refreshing the visual performance of the webpage or screen. On the other hand, applied in UI design, it demands additional effort to be tested in the layout as it can happen that hand-crafted lettering looks great separately, but doesn’t work effectively in combination with other elements of the interface.

Real content instead of Lorem Ipsum

This year has featured growing attention to content, its quality, and its performance. In user interfaces, content, and design and interconnected parts that should successfully support each other instead of fighting for users’ attention. That makes more and more designers prefer applying real content instead of well-known Lorem Ipsum, even in cases of creative stages or presentation of design concepts. It gets designers, clients, and users closer to real experience and a more natural feel of interactions.

Website on cooking seafood

Videos explaining or presenting products

Due to easy access to reviewing videos via YouTube, social networks, and other platforms of product presentation, video explainers have quickly established themselves as a popular trend. Naturally, it wouldn’t be logical to neglect such a powerful source of connection with clients and users, so 2016 has brought a great variety of videos presenting the products, companies and services, explaining their benefits and special offers, showing the engaging flow of interaction and connection. They took over the responsibilities of the picture which is worth a thousand words: video explainers quickly show the most important features of the product and let the users know what deserves their attention first of all.

Example of video explainer designed by Tubik Studio for Toonie Alarm

Example of promotional year-in-review video designed by Tubik Studio for Opera

Bright and dark color palettes

No secret, color is one of the most powerful and influential factors in UI design. One more trend in UI design deserving a place in the list of this year is a great variety of color palettes designers choose for applications and websites. Diversity of new fonts and typefaces, as well as research of usability studies, allow going beyond standards and trying new combinations which will take advantage of diverse colors but with it won’t lack in usability. More and more creatives are discovering new horizons combining traditional techniques with innovative approaches in the domain of work with color.

Recipe App

magic.co landing page

To sum up, we can certainly say that in the sphere of UI design 2016 has been the year of creative search and experiments, still, most of them were focused on usability and desirability of the final products. No doubt, 2017 will not lose its chance to polish these trends and open the new ones.

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Prominent Trends for UI Design in 2016 появились сначала на Design4Users.

Obviously, the mentioned factors established strong support for the growth of the outsourcing sector in global business. No doubt, it happened not only in design, still, design is definitely in the top list of the spheres which witnessed the most considerable growth of the field around the world. How did it influence the process of product design? Today we would like to provide our readers with a quick and concise review of the benefits and possible pitfalls both for outsourcing design and in-house product design. The review is based on the practical experience of Tubik Studio, the team that has already tried both directions in the design sphere and is ready to share some ideas with the design community.

Outsource design

Being a team with a broad portfolio of outsource projects and having studied the experience of our clients as well as plenty of successful product companies, Tubik Studio have marked out the following points needing consideration.

— In the outsource design process you are given a particular design task. That means you are able to concentrate on design tasks only as the strategic decisions are mostly made on the customer’s side. In practice, however, this disclaimer works a bit differently: creating design solutions solving users’ problems and bringing profit to the customers, designers can and often should influence the strategy of the product progress on the market. Anyway, all the final decisions and small or big changes of the product strategy are made by the customer’s team as they bear the final responsibilities and all the alterations or suggestions should be made in tight collaboration with the side launching the product.

— In outsource design you work on the task you are assigned for, you are not a chooser of the strategy and not a decision-maker if this product is needed and if the idea behind it is good or bad. You have to study how to like and love any idea you have to work with because it is the only way to create good results and by the way to earn money. That is not in your scope of work to get into deep layers and tell the client that this idea will not work — your task is to make it work. That is what you are paid for.

— In outsource design you need to have good skills of getting dip into the business goals and correspondent wishes of your client. In fact, if you are lucky you get a clear task supported with the outlined target audience of the final product, perhaps marketing plan and ideas on the client’s stylistic preferences. In other cases, you will get just a general line containing highly blurred tasks like «I want you to design a social network for drivers» and that is the part of the job to get all the details of how the clients see it. It can be done by designers, sales, and project managers, but whoever the doer of this vital job is, it is the only way to make the process of collaboration on the stage of design smooth and resultative.

— In outsource design you aren’t always provided with the opportunity to communicate with stakeholders and influence their decisions. You are hired to accomplish a particular scope of works. It has to be mentioned that for many designers it is a benefit as they start work with a particular task in mind and do not need to get involved deeply at pre-design or post-design stages. However, there also can be projects at which after the launch of the product designers are later given additional tasks on maintenance and alterations of the existing product.

In-house product design

— In product design accomplished in-house all the scope of stages from ideation up to sophisticated testing and maintenance is done by one team. This means that designers get more chances of being involved in all the phases of strategical decision-making upon the product which is an even more creative and analytical job but at the same time requiring more diverse skills and much higher responsibility.

— Full-scope in-house product design goes much further than actual design tasks. It includes all the creative cycle, with complex of tactic and strategic plans, ideas on commercialization and promotion, budgeting and content marketing, product philosophy and full-scope branding, and so on and so forth. It means that the team will need diverse specialists that will establish a solid foundation of specific skills strengthening design and bringing an effective product into life.

— In in-house product design, the creators are the stakeholders. This certainly means deeper involvement of all the participants into the creative process and at the same time more responsibilities.

— Product design accomplished in-house is the domain of higher financial and creative risks. In outsource design, especially when the process is already tuned and clear, the earnings can be more predictable and flexible in the budget planning of the company.

— Product design accomplished in-house suggests a deep concentration on one project and one aim for a long time while outsourcing projects can be different and support the feeling of refreshment. Should be said, none of the ways is better or worse, they are just different, and sometimes what is one designers’ meat is another designer’s poison according to the individual peculiarities of nature and creative approach.

To sum up, in outsource design you are a vital part of the product creation and support while in product design you are actually in the heart of all the processes being not a part but the whole story. In outsource design you are a sort of hired executive while in product design you are a stakeholder with all the responsibilities of this not-so-easy job.

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Outsource vs In-House Design. Brief Review появились сначала на Design4Users.

One of the productive and highly professional ways to inspiration is TED. Perhaps you remember the collections we have already suggested watching: 20 TED talks for designers about diverse design issues and 10 TED-talks for creatives from different spheres. Today we’re going to recommend you a new set of informative and insightful TED and TEDx-talks presented by recognized international experts.

Here is the collection of 10 TED-talks all with the descriptions given on the TED website or YouTube presentations. This time they are focused on the issues of graphic design. Most of them are already classic, sometimes even could be called legendary, and that makes them even more precious as they have been successfully checked with time and practice. The ability to analyze take the best from the past usually broadens the creative horizons and becomes a solid foundation for innovative thinking. So, enjoy watching and feel the energy of great masters!

My life in typefaces by Matthew Carter

Pick up a book, magazine or screen, and more than likely you’ll come across some typography designed by Matthew Carter. In this charming talk, the man behind typefaces such as Verdana, Georgia and Bell Centennial (designed just for phone books — remember them?), takes us on a spin through a career focused on the very last pixel of each letter of a font.

Intricate beauty by design by Marian Bantjes

In graphic design, Marian Bantjes says, throwing your individuality into a project is heresy. She explains how she built her career doing just that, bringing her signature delicate illustrations to storefronts, valentines and even genetic diagrams.

The art of first impressions — in design and life by Chip Kidd

Book designer Chip Kidd knows all too well how often we judge things by first appearances. In this hilarious, fast-paced talk, he explains the two techniques designers use to communicate instantly — clarity and mystery — and when, why and how they work. He celebrates beautiful, useful pieces of design, skewers less successful work, and shares the thinking behind some of his own iconic book covers.

Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is. by Chip Kidd

Chip Kidd doesn’t judge books by their cover, he creates covers that embody the book — and he does it with a wicked sense of humor. In one of the funniest talks from TED2012, he shows the art and deep thought of his cover designs. This talk is from The Design Studio session at TED2012, guest-curated by Chee Pearlman and David Rockwell.

Can design save newspapers? by Jacek Utko

Jacek Utko is an extraordinary Polish newspaper designer whose redesigns for papers in Eastern Europe not only win awards, but increase circulation by up to 100%. Can good design save the newspaper? It just might.

Why write? Penmanship for the 21st Century by Jake Weidmann

What is the future of writing in the digital age, and why does it matter? In this surprising talk, Master Penman Jake Weidmann explores the connections between the pen and how we learn, think, and carry our cultural heritage at a time when the very act of writing is being dropped from school curricula across the country.

Jake Weidmann became the youngest person to receive his Master Penman certificate in July 2011. He works across several mediums including drawing in pencil and charcoal; pen and ink; painting in acrylic, airbrush, oil and gouache; sculpting in wood, bone, antler and clay; and is versed in numerous forms of calligraphy. He is best known for the integration of flourishing and hand- lettering in his art. Jake also designs his own hand-made pens. He, like his pens, travels the globe, reintroducing this Old World art form and cultivating its relevance in the world of today, of tomorrow, and forevermore.

The beauty of data visualization by David McCandless

David McCandless turns complex data sets (like worldwide military spending, media buzz, Facebook status updates) into beautiful, simple diagrams that tease out unseen patterns and connections. Good design, he suggests, is the best way to navigate information glut — and it may just change the way we see the world.

Wake up & smell the fonts by Sarah Hyndman

Sarah shares with us a story of type and invites us to consider our emotional response to the printed word. Each font/typeface has a personality that influences our interpretation of the words we read by evoking our emotions and setting the scene. We all understand this instinctively but it happens on a subconscious level. Sarah shows us that conscious awareness of the emotional life of fonts can be entertaining and ultimately give us more control over the decisions we make.

Designer Sarah Hyndman explores typography as we experience it in our every day lives under the banner of Type Tasting. Since the launch in 2013 she’s curated an exhibition at the V&A for the London Design Festival, been interviewed on Radio 4’s Today, taken Type Tasting to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas and has been commissioned to write a book.

Sarah has been a graphic designer for over 15 years, working in agencies before setting up design company With Relish. After studying an MA in Typo/Graphics at the London College of Communication she was invited back as a guest tutor.

Typography – now you see it by Shelley Gruendler

Dr Shelley Gruendler is a typographer, designer, and educator who teaches, lectures, and publishes internationally on typography and design. When she is not traveling the world as the founding director of Type Camp International, she is proud to live in the Canadian Typographic Archipelago.

The art of kinetic typography by Dan Boyarski

Dan Boyarski is professor and former head of the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University, where he has been for thirty-two years. His interests lie in visualizing complex information, interface and interaction design, and how word, image, sound, and movement may be combined for effective communication. In the spring of 1999, the Design Management Institute awarded Dan the Muriel Cooper Prize for “outstanding achievement in advancing design, technology, and communications in the digital environment.”

Check out the updates here, new collections of wise creative thoughts are already around the corner!

Originally collected for Tubik Blog

Welcome to check 20 TED-talks for designers, video speeches for product designers, and a set of books for designers

Сообщение Inspiring TED-Talks for Graphic Designers появились сначала на Design4Users.

What is graphic design?

Being now a solidly established sphere of artistic activity, graphic design as a phenomenon and an activity has already been described and explained in many books and articles. Being based on broad practical experience in this direction, we would define graphic design as the art whose aim is communication beyond words.

Graphic design can be described as the sphere of human activity that lies on the crossroads of several directions, first of all, visual arts, communication, and psychology. Basically, graphic designers do the job of communication to others by means of graphic (visual) elements such as images of different style and complexity, types and fonts, pictograms, shapes and sizes, colors and shades, lines and curves etc.

Graphic designer makes all those elements of visual perception transfer the message, so he makes them functional. Therefore, we could say that graphic designers are artists applying their talents mostly not in pure art, but communicating and purposeful art.

Tubik designers creating characters for a new project

Fields of graphic design

Nowadays, graphic design is an incredibly broad sphere for the application of artistic talents. In particular, it includes:

• illustration
• identity (logo and branding) design
• printed publications design (general design and layout of newspapers, magazines, books, etc.)
• icons and pictograms
• typography
• interface graphics and elements
• print advertisements
• big print items such as posters and billboards
• signs
• packaging design, etc.

Thus, it’s easily seen that modern designers in this sphere have multiple options to apply their talents.

Examples

On the basis of experience in Tubik, which is a full-fledged design team, we can offer some examples of digital graphic design created here.

Toonie Alarm (flat illustration featuring a character as the helpful mascot of the application)

Girl and flowers (flat illustration featuring characters)

Free Space Wallpapers (graphic design piece setting the theme)

Monsters Stickers Set  (flat illustration featuring characters/ mascots)

Underwater Explorer  (flat illustration featuring the character and setting the theme)

Weather Icons Set  (stroke icons to be used as part of user interfaces)

Timeline App  (animated illustration providing feedback in the process of interaction with the interface)

Weather Icons Presentation  (flat illustration setting the theme and featuring location in the interface)

Lion browser logo (logo designed as part of the general brand strategy)

Saily App screen animations (flat animated illustration as an informative and stylistic part of the app interface)

Muscles Magazine (graphic design for sports periodical publication)

Pull Down — Space Ship (animated graphic design element used in the interface and enhancing microinteraction)

Travel App Tutorial (explanatory illustration for app tutorial)

Pikachu Poster (graphic design for small printed forms such as posters and cards)

Even this small set of examples shows how diverse the tasks for a graphic designer can be, from simple stroke icons (which are actually not so simple as they seem to be) to complex detailed illustrations or full development of all the elements of brand identity.

The general aim of all these efforts, though, is to make the image or another graphic element meaningful and symbolic, communicating to the customer or user in a fast and efficient way. Improving communication, making it more impressive, expressive, and diverse stands behind most samples of different graphic assets.

Qualities and skills

Some requirements for the specialists in this sphere of work and art include the following:

• technical artistic skills and preferably qualification in some sort of visual art
• artistic talent and creative nature
• good artistic eye and feeling of harmony
• ability to draw well
• good skills in composition and visual analysis
• ability to work on the analysis of the target audience and possible options for communication with it
• ability to apply different techniques of drawing and painting, preferably both with manual and digital tools
• ability to learn and self-improve all the time as the sphere is extremely dynamic and diverse etc.

Can anyone be a graphic designer?

This is one more question actively discussed on Quora and we also took part in the discussion. let’s review the thoughts.

Physically any person, with hands and eyes working properly, is able to try himself or herself in the sphere of graphic design. As well as anyone who is able to write can try writing, and anyone able to communicate can try, let’s say, management or teaching. In any sphere, there always is a chance to become successful (or not) if you have the necessary basic physical abilities. However, it can often be not enough to become professional and efficient in this field.

Being based on the diverse experience of communication with graphic designers, it is easy to see that to become a professional and bring home the bacon with the efforts in the sphere of graphic design, the person needs to have a number of characteristics. And first of them, as for any creative job, are passion, talent, ability to work hard and readiness for constant learning and self-improvement. Having all these traits, the person will be able to practice necessary skills, to master needed software, to gain the solid basis of theoretic knowledge and so on . Behind the passion we mean sheer and sincere interest to the field of design and feeling it as the source of inspiration and ambition. Without it, designers are able to solve the tasks and provide the results, but they will be technical, without any soul and heart. Book without a soul is just a set of words. Image without a soul is a set of shapes and colors. Communication without a soul is just a set of sentences. Design without a soul is just a set of features. To breathe in the life into all of them, the passion of the creator is a key factor.

However, with the words said above you can get caught into a trap. Passion which is being talked about is not something that just strikes you one day and tells you «Stand up and go to design». In most cases passion is like appetite: it comes when the process starts, when you try and feel that THIS is something you would like to do and grow in. Even more, there are many professionals who got into deep and sincere passion for their craft in the process of improving their skills or accomplishing the projects.

No doubt, it’s possible to become a graphic designer only through hard work: the person will get the technical ability and will be able to accomplish the tasks requiring, perhaps, lower level of creativity. And in this process people sometimes open great interest and particular talents needed to achieve high results and appreciation in the sphere of graphic design.

One more thing to mention is that the job of graphic designer (again, as any other creative work) sometimes looks so romantic, inspirational, bright and deeply creative that people do not see hard and thorough work with developing some small details over and over again, with tons of iterations and great effort of creating not only good-looking but also effective and meaningful design. This job is not just the firework of bright emotions, creativity, inspiration, self-realization and happiness. It is also hours of search, sketching, polishing, staring at computer screen with non-seeing eyes, communication with clients, keeping the deadlines and guidelines. The ability to combine all those sides of design reality is one more vital skill to make a successful professional.

So, summing up, we tend to answer: no, not anyone can be a graphic designer. But everyone can try if he or she wishes. This attempt in any case will be the gain as for someone, it will open the door to the diverse world of graphic design, while for others it will close that door opening the others at the same time and giving experience, which is anyway useful.

This topic is so deep that one post is, for sure, not enough to cover all the aspects. We are going to tell more in detail about all the directions of graphic design in our further articles, meanwhile welcome to read in detail about the functional potential of illustrations in UI. Stay tuned!

Useful Reading

Flat Design. History and Modern Practices

Design Glossary: Basic Color Terminology

Functional Art: 10 Big Reasons to Apply Illustrations in UI Design

State of the Art: 15 Creative Graphic Design Concepts

Illustration Case Study: Winter Olympics Illustration Step-by-Step

How to Create Catchy Flat Illustrations: Designer’s Tips

Small Item, Big Impact: Types of UI Icons

6 Creative Stages of Design for Branding

Creative Stages of Logo Design

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Graphic Design. Communication via Art появились сначала на Design4Users.

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” (Albert Camus)

Autumn is appearing on the scene, felt stronger and stronger day by day. It is coming with all its magic of rustling leaves, dim lights, slight gradients, changing hues and shades of diverse color palette, shorter days and cosy sounds of the rain pelting in the windows. It is the time of early twilights, hot tea, and inspiration taken straight from nature.

Today’s issue of D4U Inspiration is also devoted to the autumn vibes which are already in the air. No secret, this season has been the source of great inspiration for plenty of artists presenting different artistic schools and directions. Today the heritage of autumn art is growing larger, adding the works accomplished in digital techniques to classic and traditional visual art performance. This time we collected here the set of works by graphic designers having various styles still united by deep feeling of all the faces of the autumn season.

No doubt, the main and obvious function behind the presented works is aesthetic satisfaction they provide to the viewers. Still, let’s look a bit closer at how works of this sort can be used in the aspect of problem-solving design for users. Among the functional aspects and methods of their application, we could mention:

• illustrations in books, especially if their target audience is kids who need a lot of visual support for the textual material
• illustrations for posters, invitations, and postcards
• branding elements supporting the general visual style concept of the brand or company
• graphics used in game design
• decoration for theme corners, photo spots, theme parties, and fairs
• illustrations for websites setting the theme
• graphic support for e-commerce resources: specific autumn sales, collections, and offers
• graphic materials for lessons and clubs, for example, classes on speech development with kids
• graphic support for art lessons
• blog illustrations and featured images
• interactive elements in digital interfaces, etc.

So, let’s get inspired and feel the best of autumn richness!

Autumn Illustrations

By Natalie Smith

By Emily Dove

By DKNG

By Nidhi Chanani

By Melanie Matthews

By Mikibo

By Olga Bessonova

By Ilias Sounas

By Brad Renner

By Jelena

By Ania Frątczak

By Peter Nagy

By Karol Rzadczyk

By Yoga Perdana

By Scott M Thigpen

By Vania Agnoletto

By Sébastien DEL GROSSO

By EJ Hassenfratz

By Huangyana

Autumn Patterns

By Jez Burrows

By Miguel Camacho

By Graphicsoulz

By Laura Bohill

By Kevin Yang

By Carla Corrales

Bright productive autumn to you! Stay tuned!

You may also like the collections of motherhood illustrations, autumn illustrations, environmental protection art, love illustrations, spring illustrations, winter illustrations, lockdown life illustrations, shopping illustrations, and other D4U Inspiration posts

Сообщение D4U Inspiration. Autumn Vibes in Digital Art появились сначала на Design4Users.

This time the main topic of the day is creativity. No doubt that inspiration for designers of all kinds is much larger than design itself as well as for the writers it’s much broader than books and for the artists, it’s far beyond the art. Inspiration is everywhere when we are ready and willing to absorb it. And, no doubt, the great spark of creativity and encouragement is traditionally transferred by avid creators who are keen to share their inspiration, experience, and ideas. They say, a candle loses nothing burning other candles. And here in the studio we always take the moments of absorbing wise thoughts and creative ideas from great masters.

So, this collection is concentrated on the creativity of all kinds from experts in different spheres of human activity. We offer you 10 TED-talks all with the descriptions given on the TED website. Most of them are already classic, sometimes even could be called legendary, and that makes them even more precious as they have been successfully checked with time and practice. The others are very fresh and reflect the trends of the moment. Enjoy watching!

Elizabeth Gilbert: Your elusive creative genius

Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses — and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius. It’s a funny, personal, and surprisingly moving talk.

Some thoughts to remember:

And what I have to sort of keep telling myself when I get really psyched out about that is don’t be afraid. Don’t be daunted. Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be. If your job is to dance, do your dance. If the divine, cockeyed genius assigned to your case decides to let some sort of wonderment be glimpsed, for just one moment through your efforts, then “Olé!” And if not, do your dance anyhow. And “Olé!” to you, nonetheless. I believe this and I feel that we must teach it. “Olé!” to you, nonetheless, just for having the sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up.

David Kelley: How to build your creative confidence

Is your school or workplace divided into “creatives” versus practical people? Yet surely, David Kelley suggests, creativity is not the domain of only a chosen few. Telling stories from his legendary design career and his own life, he offers ways to build the confidence to create… (From The Design Studio session at TED2012, guest-curated by Chee Pearlman and David Rockwell.)

Some thoughts to remember:

Everybody has a change-the-world thing. If there is one for me, this is it. To help this happen. So I hope you’ll join me on my quest — you as thought leaders. It would be really great if you didn’t let people divide the world into the creatives and the non-creatives, like it’s some God-given thing, and to have people realize that they’re naturally creative. And those natural people should let their ideas fly. That they should achieve what Bandura calls self-efficacy, that you can do what you set out to do, and that you can reach a place of creative confidence and touch the snake.

John Maeda: How art, technology, and design inform creative leaders

John Maeda, former President of the Rhode Island School of Design, delivers a funny and charming talk that spans a lifetime of work in art, design, and technology, concluding with a picture of creative leadership in the future. Watch for demos of Maeda’s earliest work — and even a computer made of people.

Some thoughts to remember:

… in many senses, a regular leader loves to avoid mistakes. Someone who’s creative actually loves to learn from mistakes. A traditional leader is always wanting to be right, whereas a creative leader hopes to be right. And this frame is important today, in this complex, ambiguous space, and artists and designers have a lot to teach us, I believe.

It’s because leaders, what we do is we connectimprobable connections and hope something will happen, and in that room I found so many connectionsbetween people across all of London, and so leadership, connecting people, is the great question today.Whether you’re in the hierarchy or the heterarchy, it’s a wonderful design challenge.

Tim Harford: How frustration can make us more creative

Challenges and problems can derail your creative process … or they can make you more creative than ever. In the surprising story behind the best-selling solo piano album of all time, Tim Harford may just convince you of the advantages of having to work with a little mess.

Some thoughts to remember:

…yes, we need to run the stupid experiments, we need to deal with the awkward strangers, we need to try to read the ugly fonts. These things help us. They help us solve problems, they help us be more creative.

 Julie Burstein: 4 lessons in creativity

Radio host Julie Burstein talks with creative people for a living — and shares four lessons about how to create in the face of challenge, self-doubt and loss. Hear insights from filmmaker Mira Nair, writer Richard Ford, sculptor Richard Serra, and photographer Joel Meyerowitz.

Some thoughts to remember:

Artists also speak about how pushing up against the limits of what they can do, sometimes pushing into what they can’t do, helps them focus on finding their own voice.

So experience and challenge and limitations are all things we need to embrace for creativity to flourish.

We all wrestle with experience and challenge, limits and loss. Creativity is essential to all of us, whether we’re scientists or teachers, parents or entrepreneurs.

Sunni Brown: Doodlers, unite!

Studies show that sketching and doodling improve our comprehension — and our creative thinking. So why do we still feel embarrassed when we’re caught doodling in a meeting? Sunni Brown says: Doodlers, unite! She makes the case for unlocking your brain via pad and pen.

Some thoughts to remember:

Under no circumstances should doodling be eradicated from a classroom or a boardroom or even the war room. On the contrary, doodling should be leveraged in precisely those situations where information density is very high and the need for processing that information is very high. And I will go you one further. Because doodling is so universally accessible and it is not intimidating as an art form, it can be leveraged as a portal through which we move people into higher levels of visual literacy.

Stefan Sagmeister: The power of time off

Every seven years, designer Stefan Sagmeister closes his New York studio for a yearlong sabbatical to rejuvenate and refresh their creative outlook. He explains the often overlooked value of time off and shows the innovative projects inspired by his time in Bali.

Some thoughts to remember:

And one of the handy things that came about was that you could take the logo type and create advertising out of it. Like this Donna Toney poster, or Chopin, or Mozart, or La Monte Young. You can take the shape and make typography out of it. You can grow it underneath the skin. You can have a poster for a family event in front of the house, or a rave underneath the house or a weekly program, as well as educational services.

Shonda Rhimes: My year of saying yes to everything

Shonda Rhimes, the titan behind Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away With Murder, is responsible for some 70 hours of television per season, and she loves to work. “When I am hard at work, when I am deep in it, there is no other feeling,” she says. She has a name for this feeling: The hum. The hum is a drug, the hum is music, the hum is God’s whisper in her ear. But what happens when it stops? Is she anything besides the hum? In this moving talk, join Rhimes on a journey through her “year of yes” and find out how she got her hum back.

Some thoughts to remember:

When I’m hard at work, when I’m deep in it, there is no other feeling. For me, my work is at all times building a nation out of thin air. It is manning the troops. It is painting a canvas. It is hitting every high note. It is running a marathon. It is being Beyoncé. And it is all of those things at the same time. I love working. It is creative and mechanical and exhausting and exhilarating and hilarious and disturbing and clinical and maternal and cruel and judicious, and what makes it all so good is the hum. There is some kind of shift inside me when the work gets good. A hum begins in my brain, and it grows and it grows and that hum sounds like the open road, and I could drive it forever.

Rory Sutherland: Perspective is everything

The circumstances of our lives may matter less than how we see them, says Rory Sutherland. At TEDxAthens, he makes a compelling case for how reframing is the key to happiness.

Some thoughts to remember:

So the power of reframing things cannot be overstated. What we have is exactly the same thing, the same activity, but one of them makes you feel great and the other one, with just a small change of posture, makes you feel terrible. And I think one of the problems with classical economics is it’s absolutely preoccupied with reality. And reality isn’t a particularly good guide to human happiness.

What you also notice is that in any case our perception is leaky. We can’t tell the difference between the quality of the food and the environment in which we consume it. All of you will have seen this phenomenon if you have your car washed or valeted. When you drive away, your car feels as if it drives better. And the reason for this, unless my car valet mysteriously is changing the oil and performing work which I’m not paying him for and I’m unaware of, is because perception is in any case leaky.

Adam Grant: The surprising habits of original thinkers

How do creative people come up with great ideas? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant studies “originals”: thinkers who dream up new ideas and take action to put them into the world. In this talk, learn three unexpected habits of originals — including embracing failure. “The greatest originals are the ones who fail the most, because they’re the ones who try the most,” Grant says. “You need a lot of bad ideas in order to get a few good ones.”

Some thoughts to remember:

Originals are nonconformists, people who not only have new ideas but take action to champion them. They are people who stand out and speak up. Originals drive creativity and change in the world. They’re the people you want to bet on. And they look nothing like I expected.

Procrastinating is a vice when it comes to productivity, but it can be a virtue for creativity. What you see with a lot of great originals is that they are quick to start but they’re slow to finish.

As we can see, the set of talks is diverse and involves thoughts based on different fields of human activities and self-expression. Anyway, they enrich us with ideas that bring us closer to the user, creating efficient design and taking everything possible from our natural creativity.

Originally collected for Tubik Blog

Сообщение 10 Amazing TED-Talks for Creative People появились сначала на Design4Users.

Here we offer you 20 TED-talks all with the descriptions given on the TED website. Most of them are already classic, sometimes even could be called legendary, and that makes them even more precious as they have been successfully checked with the time and practice. The ability to analyze take the best from the past usually broadens the creative horizons and becomes a solid foundation from innovative thinking. We also added some prominent thoughts full of wisdom and practical experience. So, let’s move on!

Don Norman: 3 ways good design makes you happy

In this talk from 2003, design critic Don Norman turns his incisive eye toward beauty, fun, pleasure and emotion, as he looks at design that makes people happy. He names the three emotional cues that a well-designed product must hit to succeed.

Some thoughts to remember:

The middle level of processing is the behavioral level and that’s actually where most of our stuff gets done. Visceral is subconscious, you’re unaware of it. Behavioral is subconscious, you’re unaware of it. Almost everything we do is subconscious. I’m walking around the stage – I’m not attending to the control of my legs. I’m doing a lot; most of my talk is subconscious; it has been rehearsed and thought about a lot. Most of what we do is subconscious. Automatic behavior – skilled behavior – is subconscious, controlled by the behavioral side. And behavioral design is all about feeling in control, which includes usability, understanding – but also the feel and heft.

Emotion is all about acting; emotion is really about acting. It’s being safe in the world. Cognition is about understanding the world, emotion is about interpreting it — saying good, bad, safe, dangerous, and getting us ready to act, which is why the muscles tense or relax. And that’s why we can tell the emotion of somebody else — because their muscles are acting, subconsciously, except that we’ve evolved to make the facial muscles really rich with emotion.

James Patten: The best computer interface? Maybe … your hands

“The computer is an incredibly powerful means of creative expression,” says designer and TED Fellow James Patten. But right now, we interact with computers, mainly, by typing and tapping. In this nifty talk and demo, Patten imagines a more visceral, physical way to bring your thoughts and ideas to life in the digital world, taking the computer interface off the screen and putting it into your hands.

Some thoughts to remember:

And when you think about it, this makes a lot of sense, that using specialized physical objects would help people use an interface more easily. I mean, our hands and our minds are optimized to think about and interact with tangible objects.

Margaret Gould Stewart: How giant websites design for you (and a billion others, too)

Facebook’s “like” and “share” buttons are seen 22 billion times a day, making them some of the most-viewed design elements ever created. Margaret Gould Stewart, Facebook’s director of product design, outlines three rules for design at such a massive scale — one so big that the tiniest of tweaks can cause global outrage, but also so large that the subtlest of improvements can positively impact the lives of many.

Some thoughts to remember:

Now, the first thing that you need to know about designing at scale is that the little things really matter.

The next thing that you need to understand as a principle is that when you introduce change, you need to do it extraordinarily carefully. Now I often have joked that I spend almost as much time designing the introduction of change as I do the change itself, and I’m sure that we can all relate to that when something that we use a lot changes and then we have to adjust. The fact is, people can become very efficient at using bad design, and so even if the change is good for them in the long run, it’s still incredibly frustrating when it happens, and this is particularly true with user-generated content platforms,because people can rightfully claim a sense of ownership. It is, after all, their content.

Matthew Carter: My life in typefaces

Pick up a book, magazine or screen, and more than likely you’ll come across some typography designed by Matthew Carter. In this charming talk, the man behind typefaces such as Verdana, Georgia and Bell Centennial (designed just for phone books — remember them?), takes us on a spin through a career focused on the very last pixel of each letter of a font.

Some thoughts to remember:

You know, at times of technical innovation, designers want to be influenced by what’s in the air. We want to respond. We want to be pushed into exploring something new.

Aris Venetikidis: Making sense of maps

Map designer Aris Venetikidis is fascinated by the maps we draw in our minds as we move around a city — less like street maps, more like schematics or wiring diagrams, abstract images of relationships between places. How can we learn from these mental maps to make better real ones? As a test case, he remakes the notorious Dublin bus map. (Filmed at TEDxDublin)

Some thoughts to remember:

So for a successful public transport map, we should not stick to accurate representation, but design them in the way our brains work.

Stefan Sagmeister: Happiness by Design

Graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister takes the audience on a whimsical journey through moments of his life that made him happy — and notes how many of these moments have to do with good design.

Some thoughts to remember:

You know, one is: just working without pressure. Then: working concentrated, without being frazzled. Or, as Nancy said before, like really immerse oneself into it. Try not to get stuck doing the same thing — or try not get stuck behind the computer all day. This is, you know, related to it: getting out of the studio. Then, of course, trying to, you know, work on things where the content is actually important for me. And being able to enjoy the end results.

Tony Fadell: The first secret of design is… noticing

As human beings, we get used to “the way things are” really fast. But for designers, the way things are is an opportunity … Could things be better? How? In this funny, breezy talk, the man behind the iPod and the Nest thermostat shares some of his tips for noticing — and driving — change.

Some thoughts to remember:

Why do we get used to everyday things? Well as human beings, we have limited brain power. And so our brains encode the everyday things we do into habits so we can free up space to learn new things. It’s a process called habituation and it’s one of the most basic ways, as humans, we learn.

My first tip is to look broader. You see, when you’re tackling a problem, sometimes, there are a lot of steps that lead up to that problem. And sometimes, a lot of steps after it. If you can take a step back and look broader, maybe you can change some of those boxes before the problem. Maybe you can combine them. Maybe you can remove them altogether to make that better.

Our challenge is to wake up each day and say, “How can I experience the world better?”

Chris Urmson: How a driverless car sees the road

Statistically, the least reliable part of the car is … the driver. Chris Urmson heads up Google’s driverless car program, one of several efforts to remove humans from the driver’s seat. He talks about where his program is right now, and shares fascinating footage that shows how the car sees the road and makes autonomous decisions about what to do next.

Some thoughts to remember:

The better the technology gets, the less reliable the driver is going to get.So by just making the cars incrementally smarter, we’re probably not going to see the wins we really need.

…it’s not to say that the driver assistance systems aren’t going to be incredibly valuable. They can save a lot of lives in the interim, but to see the transformative opportunity to help someone like Steve get around, to really get to the end case in safety, to have the opportunity to change our cities and move parking out and get rid of these urban craters we call parking lots, it’s the only way to go.

David Carson: Design and discovery

Great design is a never-ending journey of discovery — for which it helps to pack a healthy sense of humor. Sociologist and surfer-turned-designer David Carson walks through a gorgeous (and often quite funny) slide deck of his work and found images.

Some thoughts to remember:

I’m a big believer in the emotion of design, and the message that’s sent before somebody begins to read,before they get the rest of the information; what is the emotional response they get to the product, to the story, to the painting — whatever it is.

Why not experiment? Why not have some fun? Why not put some of yourself into the work? And when I was teaching, I used to always ask the students, What’s the definition of a good job? And as teachers, after you get all the answers, you like to give them the correct answer. And the best one I’ve heard — I’m sure some of you have heard this –the definition of a good job is: If you could afford to — if money wasn’t an issue — would you be doing that same work? And if you would, you’ve got a great job. And if you wouldn’t, what the heck are you doing? You’re going to be dead a really long time.

Philippe Starck: Design and destiny

Designer Philippe Starck — with no pretty slides to show — spends 18 minutes reaching for the very roots of the question “Why design?” Listen carefully for one perfect mantra for all of us, genius or not.

Some thoughts to remember:

And here is something: nobody is obliged to be a genius, but everybody is obliged to participate.

With billions of people who have been born, worked, lived and died before us, these people who have worked so much, we have now bring beautiful things, beautiful gifts, we know so many things. We can say to our children, OK, done, that was our story. That passed.Now you have a duty: invent a new story. Invent a new poetry. The only rule is, we have not to have any idea about the next story. We give you white pages. Invent. We give you the best tools, the best tools, and now, do it.

David Kelley: Human-centered design

IDEO’s David Kelley says that product design has become much less about the hardware and more about the user experience. He shows video of this new, broader approach, including footage from the Prada store in New York.

Some thoughts to remember:

…it’s really exciting that we’re taking a more human-centered approach to design, that we’re including behaviors and personalities in the things we do, and I think this is great. Designers are more trusted and more integrated into the business strategy of companies

Linda Hill: How to manage for collective creativity

What’s the secret to unlocking the creativity hidden inside your daily work, and giving every great idea a chance? Harvard professor Linda Hill, co-author of “Collective Genius,” has studied some of the world’s most creative companies to come up with a set of tools and tactics to keep great ideas flowing — from everyone in the company, not just the designated “creatives.”

Some thoughts to remember:

Leading innovation is not about creating a vision, and inspiring others to execute it. But what do we mean by innovation? An innovation is anything that is both new and useful. It can be a product or service. It can be a process or a way of organizing. It can be incremental, or it can be breakthrough. We have a pretty inclusive definition.

Innovation is not about solo genius, it’s about collective genius.

What we know is, at the heart of innovation is a paradox. You have to unleash the talents and passions of many people and you have to harness them into a work that is actually useful. Innovation is a journey. It’s a type of collaborative problem solving, usually among people who have different expertise and different points of view.

Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

Some thoughts to remember:

I don’t mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original — if you’re not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this. We stigmatize mistakes. And we’re now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities.

We know three things about intelligence. One, it’s diverse. We think about the world in all the ways that we experience it. We think visually, we think in sound, we think kinesthetically. We think in abstract terms, we think in movement. Secondly, intelligence is dynamic. If you look at the interactions of a human brain,as we heard yesterday from a number of presentations, intelligence is wonderfully interactive. The brain isn’t divided into compartments. In fact, creativity — which I define as the process of having original ideas that have value — more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.

Young-ha Kim: Be an artist, right now!

Why do we ever stop playing and creating? With charm and humor, celebrated Korean author Young-ha Kim invokes the world’s greatest artists to urge you to unleash your inner child — the artist who wanted to play forever. (Filmed at TEDxSeoul.)

Some thoughts to remember:

We don’t know why we should be artists, but we have many reasons why we can’t be. Why do people instantly resist the idea of associating themselves with art? Perhaps you think art is for the greatly gifted or for the thoroughly and professionally trained. And some of you may think you’ve strayed too far from art. Well you might have, but I don’t think so. This is the theme of my talk today. We are all born artists.

David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization

David McCandless turns complex data sets (like worldwide military spending, media buzz, Facebook status updates) into beautiful, simple diagrams that tease out unseen patterns and connections. Good design, he suggests, is the best way to navigate information glut — and it may just change the way we see the world.

Some thoughts to remember:

The eye is exquisitely sensitive to patterns in variations in color, shape and pattern. It loves them, and it calls them beautiful. It’s the language of the eye. If you combine the language of the eye with the language of the mind, which is about words and numbers and concepts, you start speaking two languages simultaneously, each enhancing the other. So, you have the eye, and then you drop in the concepts. And that whole thing — it’s two languages both working at the same time.

Aaron Koblin: Visualizing ourselves … with crowd-sourced data

Artist Aaron Koblin takes vast amounts of data — and at times vast numbers of people — and weaves them into stunning visualizations. From elegant lines tracing airline flights to landscapes of cell phone data, from a Johnny Cash video assembled from crowd-sourced drawings to the “Wilderness Downtown” video that customizes for the user, his works brilliantly explore how modern technology can make us more human.

Some thoughts to remember:

Our lives are being driven by data, and the presentation of that data is an opportunity for us to make some amazing interfaces that tell great stories.

…an interface can be a powerful narrative device. And as we collect more and more personally and socially relevant data, we have an opportunity, and maybe even an obligation, to maintain the humanity and tell some amazing stories as we explore and collaborate together.

Golan Levin: Art that looks back at you

Golan Levin, an artist and engineer, uses modern tools — robotics, new software, cognitive research — to make artworks that surprise and delight. Watch as sounds become shapes, bodies create paintings, and a curious eye looks back at the curious viewer.

Some thoughts to remember:

I’m an artist, and I’m really interested in expanding the vocabulary of human action, and basically empowering people through interactivity. I want people to discover themselves as actors, as creative actors, by having interactive experiences.

Milton Glaser: Using design to make ideas new

From the TED archives: The legendary graphic designer Milton Glaser dives deep into a new painting inspired by Piero della Francesca. From here, he muses on what makes a convincing poster, by breaking down an idea and making it new.

Some thoughts to remember:

Sometimes, in the middle of a resistant problem, I write down things that I know about it. But you can see the beginning of an idea there, because you can see the word “new” emerging from the “old.” That’s what happens. There’s a relationship between the old and the new; the new emerges from the context of the old.

Tim Brown: Designers — think big!

Tim Brown says the design profession has a bigger role to play than just creating nifty, fashionable little objects. He calls for a shift to local, collaborative, participatory “design thinking” — starting with the example of 19th-century design thinker Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Some thoughts to remember:

Systems thinkers who were reinventing the world, to a priesthood of folks in black turtlenecks and designer glasses working on small things. As our industrial society matured, so design became a profession and it focused on an ever smaller canvas until it came to stand for aesthetics, image and fashion.

So if human need is the place to start, then design thinking rapidly moves on to learning by making. Instead of thinking about what to build, building in order to think. Now, prototypes speed up the process of innovation, because it is only when we put our ideas out into the world that we really start to understand their strengths and weaknesses. And the faster we do that, the faster our ideas evolve.

Richard Seymour: How beauty feels

A story, a work of art, a face, a designed object — how do we tell that something is beautiful? And why does it matter so much to us? Designer Richard Seymour explores our response to beauty and the surprising power of objects that exhibit it.

Some thoughts to remember:

Form is function. It informs, it tells us, it supplies us answers before we’ve even thought about it. And so I’ve stopped using words like “form,” and I’ve stopped using words like “function” as a designer. What I try to pursue now is the emotional functionality of things. Because if I can get that right, I can make them wonderful, and I can make them repeatedly wonderful.

As we can see, the set of speeches is quite diverse: some of them are giving the examples of designs, some unveil the life and routine case of famous experts, some bring general ideas on creativity and design process aspects. Anyway, they enrich us with the ideas which bring us closer to the user, to creating efficient design and taking everything possible from our natural creativity.

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение 20 TED-Talks for Designers. Inspiration Full of Thoughts появились сначала на Design4Users.