News 16
Restore Your Mac’s Startup Sound
The startup sound was one of the delightful things that made a Mac a Mac, differentiating it from the beige boxes and bargain computers of the past. Apple made great efforts to add unique sounds to new models as well. The crash sound of the Power Macintosh 6100, 7100 and 8100 was particularly amazing (unless […]
This Hidden iPhone Feature Will Blow Your Mind (And Change Your Life)
If you are one of those people who still care about spelling, punctuation and grammar when sending a text message or email from your phone, this mind blowing iPhone feature is for you. Before this amazing iPhone feature, if you wanted to correct a typo or change some text you had to press your finger […]
Google Chrome To Start Labeling HTTP Sites as “Not Secure”
Google has been touting the benefits of the HTTPS protocol for years, elevating sites using HTTPS in Google’s search results since 2015. With the release of Chrome 68 in July, 2018 Google is going one step further, actively marking any website that use the older (and inherently less secure HTTP) as ‘Not Secure’ right in […]
Futura: The Font That Escaped The Nazis and Landed on the Moon
My love affair with typography started when I purchased my very first computer – a trusty Mac Classic with a tiny black & white screen, and a tinier hard drive. I absolutely loved opening a magazine and finding a floppy disk loaded free fonts, freeware and shareware. Many of the fonts I discovered this way were often useless and hideous, but […]
Aquafina’s New Logo – Love It Or Hate It?
Logo redesigns are hard. Some people are bound to prefer your old logo, some will hate the new logo just because it’s new, and sometimes the new logo just plain sucks. This time around it’s Aquafina taking a stab at a new logo design. The original logo was almost two decades old and it showed […]
20 Things You Should Never Ask A Graphic Designer
Would you ask a painter to paint each wall of your bedroom a different colour to see which one you prefer? And you sure wouldn’t ask your dentist to work for free because you have a lot of friends and you’ll tell every one of them how great of a dentist he is. So why […]
John Oliver Explains Why Apple’s Right About Encryption
If you’ve ever watched John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight you know that he’s often snarky, often over-the-top, but also pretty insightful on any point he tackles. In his latest episode John Oliver covers the FBI’s ongoing fight with Apple over unlocking the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone 5c. The issue is really not about Apple refusing to help the government […]
Canada 150 – Travesty or Good Government?
Canada is celebrating its 150th birthday next year and preparations are fast and furious for the whole affair. Surprisingly, the biggest controversy surrounding the event concerns graphic design. The Canadian government decided to hold a student contest to design the official 150th anniversary logo and professional designers are literally up in arms over the whole affair. Some […]
Spec Work In The Real World
You walk into a restaurant and say, “I’m not sure if I like your food but I want to give it a try, so give me a free meal and if I enjoy it I will pay the bill”. Or even better, “I promise to recommend your restaurant to all my friends if you give […]
Before There Was Photoshop
I will be seriously dating myself here, but I (somewhat fondly) recall the days before Photoshop and scanners and Adobe inDesign. Times were simpler, but so much more work that’s hard to even comprehend how things have changed. I was just old enough to skip the Letraset era, using a Mac Plus, Ready, Set, Go! […]
Minion Yellow: Pantone’s Newest Colour!
Pantone is the absolute standard in colour matching for designers across the world, with literally thousands of different colours spanning the entire spectrum. For the first time in three years there is one more colour being added to Pantone’s colour universe and it’s totally unique. For their latest release, Pantone has partnered with Universal pictures to create a colour based […]
What version of Adobe Creative Suite are you using?
Designers absolutely love to hate Adobe – the only thing we complain about more than Adobe products are annoying clients. There are dozens of blogs and websites where designers vent their frustrations – Adobe Gripes is one of the best. With the introduction of Adobe Creative Cloud some of us designers have even more to complain about. […]
Make Email Opt-In Beautiful With Bloom
If there is one thing that I have learned over the past year, it’s that email is perhaps the single most important tool for website and business owners. There is no better way to cultivate your brand, build a fan-base and keep in touch with your customers. The user engagement that email marketing provides far exceeds […]
Photoshop Experts Using Photoshop 1.0
It’s unbelievable that Photoshop debuted 25 years ago – and it’s even more unbelievable how things have changed since then. In honour of the 25th anniversary of Adobe Photoshop, CreativeLive asked 8 Photoshop experts to give Photoshop 1.0 a try. The complete lack of layers and live previews and the single Undo feature look absolutely archaic in comparison to […]
Google Making a Push For a More Responsive Web
Google has begun sending web masters of non-responsive websites notifications a warning that if they do not update their websites to be more mobile friendly they are risking negative effect on their Google ranking. This isn’t anything new, Google has been advising web masters about mobile issues for years, but this is a new and […]
Damn You Art School
Damn You Art School is a massive collection of resources, apps and tools for a wide range of creative professionals to help you get better organized and more productive. There are categories for different industries too, including architects, fine arts, graphic design, illustration, fashion and photography. The Communication Toolkit contains links to a lot of […]