AIGA | How to Survive a Critique: A Guide to Giving and Receiving Feedback

Design is a complex endeavor—one resistant to simple metrics or measures. In design education, instructors rely heavily on a subjective form of review known as “critique.” As a design student, learning how to give and receive feedback effectively is an essential skill that extends beyond the classroom. Here are some suggestions for students and critics on participating in an effective critique.

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AIGA | How to Survive a Critique: A Guide to Giving and Receiving Feedback

MoMA's new videogame collection - Boing Boing

New York's Museum of Modern Art has acquired 14 videogames that will be playable in a gallery there beginning in March 2013. According to Paola Antonelli, the MoMA's senior curator of architecture and design, these titles are "the seedbed for an initial wish list of about 40 to be acquired in the near future, as well as for a new category of artworks." I'm delighted that my favorite game, Pac-Man (1980), was part of the initial acquisition. The others include: Tetris (1984), Another World (1991), Myst (1993), SimCity 2000 (1994), vib-ribbon (1999), The Sims (2000), Katamari Damacy (2004), EVE Online (2003), Dwarf Fortress (2006), Portal (2007), flOw (2006), Passage (2008), and Canabalt (2009). "Video Games: 14 in the Collection, for Starters"

MoMA's new videogame collection - Boing Boing

Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration in Interaction Design Symposium

Friday, November 30, 6:30 pm

Timken Lecture Hall, San Francisco Campus
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6:30 p.m. reception; 7 p.m. panel discussion

In this panel design leaders of a variety of organizations will share with us their best practices around cross-disciplinary collaboration. Each panelist will share “behind the scenes” showcasing how their team structure and work environment enables successful team collaboration. The panel conversation is intended to lead us into a productive discussion about how collaborative structures enable breakthrough innovation.

The panel is hosted by Indhira Rojas, CCA faculty member and founder of Design Theorem. It features Anna Shaw, director of brand at Smart Design; Dani Malik, principal at Hot Studio; Caroline Wiryadinata, senior designer at Fitbit, and Celeste Prevost, designer at Square.

This is a great opportunity for students to learn what to expect once they enter their professional careers. What are the requirements for team collaboration? What can we practice today that will make us great team players?

Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration in Interaction Design Symposium

NYTimes: ‘Ballot Design With Todd Oldham’

In an Op-Docs video, the designer Todd Oldham reviews the design of election ballots from across the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/opinion/ballot-design-with-todd-oldham.html

Pentagram Rebrands Competitive Chess, With A Spiffy 3-D Logo

When entrepreneur Andrew Paulson approached Pentagram to update the World Chess Championship, to give it all the international prestige of the Bobby Fischer era, the creative team responded with a similar trick--creating a 3-D logo constructed as much from enigma as geometric simplicity, a new look for a new era of competitive board gaming that they renamed, simply: World Chess.

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Our Right to Sing - Creative State Presents

Tuesday, October 23, 2012
2:10pm

This project examines the role of music in the resistance movement of El Salvador during two decades of military dictatorship. Our Right to Sing is the first film on the musical byproduct of this collective experience, something director Carolina Fuentes witnessed firsthand as member of a musical group inspired by the principles of Liberation Theology and with the arson of the San Jose Catholic Church, where she was parishioner. After the assassination of friends and classmates, Fuentes fled from her native El Salvador to Mexico, where she lived for seven years. Fuentes, a former radio and television reporter as well as a documentary maker, will be available for questions. Free.

Fine Arts Building, Coppola Theatre

Our Right to Sing - Creative State Presents - College of Liberal & Creative Arts - San Francisco State University

Type Trends: Hipster Design « FontShop Blog

"…So, in an attempt to appear established, perhaps winking at the irony created by the freshness of their look, small businesses today sign off on the work of graphic designers whose aim is to present them as having existed before design as we know it."

Type Trends: Hipster Design « FontShop Blog

The 2012 AIGA | Aquent Survey of Design Salaries

How you can use the salary survey

The 2012 AIGA | Aquent Survey of Design Salaries is a useful tool for students: It allows you to compare compensation across different positions, company sizes, organization types and geographic locations. Log in to designsalaries.aiga.orgto see industry trends, use the members-only salary calculator and learn what designers are earning across the country.

see the data vis'd survey

AIGA | Justified Competition: 2012 Selections

AIGA’s “Justified” competition recognizes case studies that demonstrate the value of design in a clear, compelling and accessible way. Effective design will nearly always reflect the powerful emotional draw of creativity, inspiration and simplicity; and yet today, for design to be truly effective, it must also serve the client’s very specific needs.

Designers’ unique capacity for seeing problems from unexpected angles—as well as designers’ creativity and empathy with human experience—is in high demand. AIGA believes that a competition built around the case study format, rather than one built around the selection of artifacts, offers a more effective means of revealing how designers have approached clients’ problems, with all of the attendant constraints. With this in mind, the 2012 “Justified” competition honors 18 exemplary case studies of design solutions, each of which successfully demonstrate the value of design.

To learn more about the competition and the selection process, read the jurors’ comments.

AIGA | Justified Competition: 2012 Selections

30 Reasons 2012

30 Reasons is gearing up for 2012.

They’re enlisting 30 designers to each create a poster that represents a reason to re-elect President Obama. Starting on October 8th, we’ll reveal a new poster on 30reasons.org every day until the election. Join our mailing list, and we’ll email you each poster so you can share them with fellow supporters or undecided friends.

Back in ’08 we featured posters by some of the best designers and artists in America. We reached hundreds of thousands of registered voters, and are upping the ante for ’12. This year we’re providing powerful visual messages and the facts to back them up. Let’s stop the misinformation and give voters 30 reasons to vote for Barack Obama in November.

30 Reasons

2012 Poster Competition | Recyclemania!

RecycleMania’s 2012 Poster Contest
Coordinated by the RecycleMania Poster Review Committee
As part of RecycleMania, Inc. (“RecycleMania”)

All entries must be uploaded by 3:00 pm Eastern Time on Monday, October 22, 2012

2012 Poster Competition | Recyclemania

All The Pretty Gradients Mapped Out in Three Big Books: The RGB Colorspace Atlas

The full atlas is a compilation of three books, each of which resembles a solid cube of gradients from afar, as they measure a perfect 8 x 8 x 8 inches. Each volume contains the entire visible spectrum and the spines slice the RBG cube in different directions: vertically, horizontally, and from front to back.

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Voters Annoyed by Hard-to-Read Ballots

In New York City, you may want to bring a magnifying glass.

Voters who trekked to the polls for Thursday’s primary races were handed ballots with candidates’ names printed in an eye-straining 7-point type, akin to the ingredient list on the side of a cereal box.

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SF State Web-design Opportunity for Students

We are seeking creative, computer-savvy students to create a website for our student-led sustainability campaign here at SF State. It's called The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF) and it's been wildly successful at other campuses nationwide.

This is a great opportunity to add to your portfolio while contributing to the campus community and working with students from different departments who are all united by a passion for sustainability, social equity, and improving our school. You don't need to know anything about sustainability - we'll fill you in! There are no set hours and we'll do all we can to make the task as easy for you as possible. You have a valuable skill we need.

This is not a paid position, but time spent building the TGIF website could potentially be used towards volunteer/internship requirements or just as a chance to work on your web-design skills and take on a fun, fulfilling challenge. Additionally, if the TGIF campaign is successful, it may eventually be used to establish a paid student web-manager position - that could be you!

We welcome all and any SF State community members to join our team, and not just web-designers. There's something for everyone, even if you can only spare twenty minutes or just want to become informed about green happenings on campus.

Interested students should email TGIF.SFSU@gmail.com for more info.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Yael Ofer
Campaign Manager, The Green Initiative Fund at SFSU
Ecostudents

Meet Your Type: A Field Guide to Typography

Why settle for casual flirtation when looking for a long-lasting relationship? Finding the perfect match is easy if you know the rules. Meet Your Type will help you overcome common obstacles, and keep your heart thumping for your one true love: typography.

Education | FontShop

People Who Like Art Are Better Than People Who Don’t, Study Finds [from UnBeige]

Pat yourself on the back because finally we have proof that you’re a superior bunch. It’s not simply reading here that makes you a better person but your love for art and design. According to a new study, people with an active interest in the arts contribute more to society than those with little or no such interest.

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The Complete Engraver - NYTimes.com

Nancy Sharon Collins is a graphic designer (for clients like the Museum of Modern Art and Clinique) who is also known for her luxurious stationery designs, which are witty, chic and thoughtful at the same time. Collins herself is something of a crusader for the art of engraving, and her fervor has produced a lively book called “The Complete Engraver: Monograms, Crests, Ciphers, Seals, and the Etiquette of Social Stationery” (Princeton Architectural Press).

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Microsoft Unveils a New Look

"In advance of one of the most significant waves of product launches in Microsoft’s history, today we are unveiling a new logo for the company."

Microsoft Unveils a New Look - The Official Microsoft Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

NYTimes.com: MetroCards for Sale

Last week, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York announced that it would be selling advertising space on the front of its fare cards to raise revenue. “The whole thing is available, except for the black stripe,” said Aaron Donovan, an agency spokesman. As a MetroCard-carrying subway rider and graphic designer, I offer a couple of ads that both natives and tourists might actually find useful.

Chip Kidd is a graphic designer and author.

from MetroCards for Sale

Spec work simplified

The next time a potential clients asks you to do spec work, you can just send them a link to this video that does an excellent job of explaining why it’s not cool to ask designers to do work for free. (This helpful video was created by Topic Simple, which specializes in educational web animation.) And here’s a link to AIGA’s statement about spec work.

[From the How Blog]