Sink or Swim

Designing mockups today for a receipt printer company. I don’t say this a lot but I feel like I’m on fire! Normally, I need about 4-6 hours to design 2 mockups but I’m only on my 2nd hour and I already finished one kick-ass layout, if I may say so myself. I have these quotes to thank for.

I need to print these out and paste them on my wall so I can be inspired all the time.

The personalized cufflinks that I purchased for my ex-colleague’s wedding hasn’t arrived yet. Which is why I’m now scouting the local shops online if I can order something nice for him that can arrive in 3 days. Luckily, I found some funny shirts about marriage which I know he and his bride-to-be will love. They’re both geeks, same as I, so I can imagine how much fun they’d have wearing the shirts on their honeymoon. Too bad I won’t be able to attend their wedding. It’s a 2-hour plane ride and I can’t leave work since it’s only the start of the year. I wish them well though and hope the gifts will arrive just in time.

I finally finished a design for a website selling incontinence products. It wasn’t easy but I’ve decided to just make it as white and clean as possible. Health-related websites are easy to design because you only need to evoke a safe and clean feeling. It also needs to be easy to use or navigate and that all important information are available at first glance.

Having said that, here’s a great collection of health industry web designs that I’ve seen online. Just to inspire you if you happen to be designing for something similar. They are not the usual white boxy types but something that’s more out of the box.

Check out these shocking advertisements that I found here.

The shock factor is very effective, although a bit disturbing. And as mentioned from the blog post, viewer discretion is advised!

Just what kind of graphics does a motorhome insurance banner ad have? I didn’t get any high-res photos of the verhicles so I’m working from scratch. Luckily, I found some really nice ads using typefaces only so I’m a little inspired to do some minimal graphic work. See them below and tell me if they don’t speak a thousand words.

If you’re a designer, you’d be a fool not to try your luck with WebDesignShock’s 1st Anniversary giveaway. All you have to do is subscribe to their newsletter or follow them on Twitter and you can get a chance to win 29 great software products and services. See full info here.

I’m always on the look out for contests such as this because most of the prizes are too expensive for me. It’s my only way to get my hands on these cool apps without putting a dent on our savings account. Anyway, here are the ones that I am wishing to get:

Filter Forge

Description: Filter Forge is a high-end graphic software allowing you to generate textures, create visual effects, enhance photos, and process images. It features several thousand ready-made realistic and abstract textures and effects, and a powerful visual editor to create custom ones.

Photographers and graphic designers will benefit from a large library of ready-to-use textures and effects available for free. The library contains over 8000 filters.

Filter Forge can operate as a standalone application or as a plug-in for Photoshop and compatible hosts. It is available for Windows and Mac OS in three editions.
3 Monthly Subscriptions at DesignTNT

Description: Design TNT is a great resource website of design goodies with the mission to provide all designers out there with high quality resources that they can’t findanywhere else – all in one place!

Admin Templates

Description: Admin Templates is a professional HTML-CSS template that has integrated widgets like tabs, accordion, charts & datepicker. It is very simply coded, easy-to-use and fits to any web project.

ShockBundle

Description: The most impressive design bundle ever with new additions every week! Choose from 3 different sliders, 100+ shortcodes with custom GUI in visual editor, unlimited layouts with our drag and drop layout generator, dropdown menus, several color variations, full support (English, Spanish, French) custom widgets, full source files, full documentation, unlimited clients license and more.

I can’t stress out more how happy I am that I finally converted from Windows to Mac. There are CONS obviously since there are plenty of shortcuts and applications from Windows that are not applicable to Mac. However, the PROs outweigh them so much you wouldn’t mind the little things anymore. I’m not going to blog about the merits of moving to Mac as this might turn out to be one of those Why Mac is better than Windows type of post. Instead, I’ll just share some of these really nice wallpapers that I grabbed from here. You can use these for your Windows desktop too, of course.

I came across invitationbox.com save the dates card and was instantly reminded that I need to send one for the party of my youngest daughter soon. She loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse so I’m not going crazy searching the Internet for free Mickey Mouse wallpapers and graphics. I could draw them myself but I just have no time! I need a pre-made background so I can just add elements, photos and styled text.

So far, here’s what I found:

Wish me luck! I need to send this in a week so my friends will be able to block the date asap.