Loving DVNO by Justice, French electronic music duo.
The video could be described as a designers “wet dream”…
Awesomeness.

Awesome semi-slab serif typeface from Exljbris, a free type foundry.
Check out Anvers and Diavlo too! Exljbris.

Internet Explorer 7
html>body #center { *float: none; }

Internet Explorer 6
* html div#block { css rules }

Safari
@media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0) {
/* Safari 3.0 and Opera 9 rules here */
}

Firefox
#hackme, x:-moz-any-link {styles for Firefox 2.0 here}
#hackme, x:-moz-any-link, x:default {restore styles for Firefox 3.0 and newer}

Somtimes you just gotta…

As Tim Gunn says, make it work.

This is Sacred Mtn.

Cute visuals and aural goodness for Nokia.
Illustration by James Taylor, Co-Animator: Mark Warrington.

This is the 6. Interview within 2 weeks. We are all happy that Abduzeedo is workin so good. As a special gift we offer you a insight in the colorful world of NoPattern.com mastermind Chuck Anderson

For more of his work, check out nopatter.com

First of all we would like to thank you for taking the time to provide Abduzeedo.com with this interview. Please tell us more about your art and design background and what made you become an artist and designer?

I've been an artist at heart my whole life. Ever since I was a little kid I loved to draw and create things.  It just feels like a natural part of me, so becoming a freelance designer was just the most freeing and rewarding type of job I could have ended up with.  I pursued it starting back in 2003 and things snowballed and really took off the following year.  I don't feel like I really chose to become an artist, it just is something I love to do.

2. Your work is pretty unique. You use a lot of creativity in it . Where does your inspiration come from?

I think too hard about an answer for this question sometimes when I give interviews.  I don't think I really have a set source of inspiration.  To be honest, I just really love creating things that are striking and fun and vibrant.  Things that jump out as far as color goes.  You'll see in my work a lot of times really intense light and color - I really enjoy creating things that feel supernatural and like they came straight out of my imagination.

3. You sure have your own way to do a job. How does your typical workflow look like?

Usually all the business part of a job gets taken care of first.  Working out timelines, budgets, direction, concepts, etc. comes first.  From there I usually start slow and send clients a little portion of what I'm working on to make sure they like the direction.  If they like where it's headed I keep building on that.  Sometimes a client will just love what I'm doing and leave everything up to me to finish up, leaving some time at the end for minor revisions and refining.  Other times I work very intensely and closely with the art director on a project doing tons of revisions and back-and-forths until things fall into place.  There really is no set workflow for me, I just handle each job with what it needs and demands.

4. What are your tools of work? Do you use special software and hardware?

Photoshop and Illustrator are the only software programs I use.  I work on a Mac Pro, Wacom Intuos 3 Tablet, Epson Stylus Pro 3800 printer, and my trusty Dymo double-turbo label printer for labels for my online store, npandco.com.  I also use a lot of photography in my work and I have a Canon XTi for that.  For drawing I mostly use Micron pens.

5. What is the best part about being a designer?

The best part about being a designer is the fact that I do it independently as a freelancer. I don't have a boss or anyone telling me what to do - I take on the work I want, set my schedule, and work at my own pace.  It's really perfect for me and how my personality is.  Other than that, I just love creating things.  I don't know how else to describe that - I just love to sit down and create.  It's relaxing and rewarding to me both personally and financially since I've been able to turn my passion into a career.

6. How does your job influenced your life? Do you see things differently?

I definitely do see things different in my personal life because of work. I think they go hand-in-hand though. I have made very good decisions in my personal life and I think that has led me to be successful with my profession.  I never wasted time in my teenage years drinking or doing stupid things I would regret now. I really just loved art and wanted to take it seriously.  I have no regrets whatsoever about that, never look back and think "I wish I'd done this or that differently".  I have a beautiful wife, parents, siblings, and friends and just really enjoy that I have such a fun job that allows me so much freedom. I am very grateful for it and feel incredibly blessed.  So yes - my job and life definitely influence each other, for sure.

7. What are you 5 favourite sites in the web?

In no particular order:
Engadget.com
ffffound.com
lambgoat.com
thebrilliance.com
archive.org

8. Thank you very much for this nice interview. Do you have any tips for upcoming designer?

Do what you love to do and don't copy other people's work.  Being inspired and influenced is one thing.  Knowing what to do with that inspiration and influence is another.

For more of his work, check out nopatter.com

After a few weeks of intensive design work, we're proud to announce Tradd.us, a powerful web translation service that will be very useful to some of our readers.

Tradd.us which means translate in portuguese is a powerful web translation service powered by Google Translator. The aim of the service is to help people translate text paragraphs providing rich information around the content translated.

Tradd.us offers lots of cool features including:

• Translation powered by Google Translator
• Semantical Analysis of the Content
• Tagging
• Related Terms ans Sites
• Word by Word translation including Synonyms

But there's more, however we can't talk right now about some killer features, but stay tunned. For more information, check out http://tradd.us and register for the private beta!

Here's a screenshot of the application:

We’re still buzzing about the insights and inspirations from the MX conference in April!

We’ve gotten a lot of comments about the graphic recording notes that were taken during the conference, so we’ve compiled them into a graphic guide.

It was a pleasure to connect with all the folks who attended, and the presentations and conversations provided great food for thought that will nourish our brains until we can meet up again at MX 2009.

See you then!

• You can download the guide here:
  MX 2008 Graphic Guide [pdf 13mb]
• The individual images of the graphic recordings are here:
  mx conf graphic guide on Flickr (19 images)

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When people ask me what I do for a living their first response usually is: “You must be creative.” People seem to think that being creative is something that you either have or you don’t; that it is an innate skill. I could not disagree more.

Creativity is not something that you can repetitively call upon like a memory. It is something that you have to work on. The first step in becoming more creative is to realize that we act a lot of times out of our acquired judgements and thinking habits. You cannot be creative if you only act within the realms of what you are familiar with. The second step to becoming more creative is to playfully question these acquired judgements: Become a playful rebel, someone who is willing to resist conventions and who is brave enough to put unfinished thoughts out in the big, bad world. This is something everybody can do. You have to work at it, but it is something that is worth investing in if you want to come up with surprising ideas that go beyond your familiar realms.

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