Sometimes the simplist design is the most effective. Take these “Fail” stickers : black outline, white lettering and a transparent background. That’s it. Not a crazy design. Not even a crazy font. It’s just very plain and to the point.

I was browsing the blogsphere and ended up on Humancalendar.com. “What a cool idea,” I thought. So I printed one off for my desk at work and decided to share it with you.

However, the better find was this guy’s other site: Humanclock.com

People submit photos with a time of day in them somewhere and he puts them into a rotation where every minute of the day you get to see a different picture.

For the last few hours I’ve been pretty addicted to this site, keeping it in the background and checking it pretty much every minute to see what the new photo is going to be.

The creator is a pretty interesting guy (or at least what he writes on his site is interesting). I found myself reading through the entire “about” page and most of the FANAQ (frequently and never asked questions).

Here is what humanclock.com guy has to say about his human clock creation:

Humanclock.com has both digital and analog clock formats. The digital clock consists of 18,248 photos, each representing a single minute of the day in some shape or fashion. The analog clock is a true “human clock” if there is such a definition. These photos don’t change as much since there is a lot more preparation involved in creating analog clock photos.”

Already the ideas are stirring in my head. I’ll have to give this a try and submit a photo for the clock. I wonder what time I’ll choose.

-”I’m one of a kind. I’m designer.”

It’s summer now, but where I live it’s not acting like it. The past few days have been stormy, so I’ve been spending more time inside than I usually do. And what better way to waste some time, than with a few Web sites that allow you to have fun with your photos.

Johnmonte.com introduced me to these sites a while back in a blog post, so go there, or to the link above to check out the photo sites themselves. (The three sites are Photofunia, Fun Photobox and Photo505. The last one will gives you the most customization, but don’t rule out the other two, they have some fun concepts that Photo505 doesn’t have.)

But if you just want to see some of the cool stuff these sites can do with your photos, then keep scrolling.

I’ll give you a hint. I didn’t take a photo of some woman walking down the street.

Check out the original image here.

The original design is cool too, check it out here.

Can’t see the design on the computer screen very well. See the original here.

-”I’m one of a kind. I’m designer.”

I created this image to post on the blog yesterday but was having so much fun cooking and drinking all day that I forgot. (I was lucky enough to have Tuesday off this year.) I decided that I didn’t want it to go to waste so I’m putting it up today.

The beer glass is the same one I used in a previous project that I featured on the site about Skinit.com cell phone covers.  The beer in the glass was originally brown, so I had to mess with it for quite a while to get a good green color. I didn’t think it was going to be as hard as it was.

The woman was created from a photo that I found on Google Images that I then traced to make a sillouette. And I was in the middle of making the post it note, when I remembered that I already had one on my computer somewhere, so why not save time and use it.

I struggled with what color I wanted the background to be for a while. I eventually settled on brown because it didn’t clash with green.  Not sure if it is the best color for the background, but I couldn’t come up with any other color I liked better.

Happy St. Patty’s Day! I hope everyone had a safe and fun day.

My first introduction to a 3D magazine was last July. Seattle Metropolitan magazine put out a “Best of the City” issue where the cover story, a couple of connected stories and quite a few advertisements were only viewed correctly through 3D glasses. Seattle Metro supplied the glasses and marketed the issue as 3D on the front.

Pretty much if you are going to do a 3D issue, its only the photos and illustrations. 3D text would be ridiculous. I figured that since this mag is still kinda new, it was trying to define itself from the other popular city mag. I was pretty impressed with the advertising department’s decision to promote the 3D thing to their clients and get some 3D ads in the mag as well.

I wondered if I was every going to see this 3D technique used again, and it has finally cropped up again. Tiger Beat just released a 3D issue in conjunction with the movie, “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience.”

I don’t read Tiger Beat, nor do I have any interest in picking up this magazine, but I do think the use of 3D images in print is an interesting idea. It looks like Tiger Beat just had 3D content and did not also have 3D advertising.

Foliomag.com has an article on the issue explaining how the company was able to create the 3D images:

The 3D effect was accomplished by utilizing two cameras shooting at the same time. ‘Our photographer used two cameras, set a few inches apart, to capture images simultaneously,’ (Scott) Laufer explained. “Those two images were then composited together, shifting red and blue channels in the RGB photo, to create the three-dimensional effect.’”

Scott Laufer is the owner and president of Laufer Media.

I’ve only seen these two magazines utilize the 3D technique and I’m on the lookout for more to see if this ends up being a trend in the magazine industry. I’m also thinking about looking up how to create 3D images with my camera and trying this at home.

Found your 3D glasses and wanna look at more three-dimensional images on your computer? Check out this guy’s site.

I’m not sure how long this site has been around, but I just found it the other day and I’ve been having a blast with it. What the Font takes images of an unknown font and it figures out what the font is for you.

What the Font has a database of fonts and by uploading an image that contains characteristics that make that font stand out, it will match it up with the closest font in their database.

The site also has a forum where you can submit a font and have other typography enthusiasts go on the hunt to figure out what it is.

When I tried it, I took and submitted a picture of a friend’s handwriting. Yeah I know, it wasn’t a font, but What the Font’s database was able to find a close match for me and now I have a pretty good replica of my friend’s handwriting to use in a project for her.

They also have an iPhone app to look up fonts on the go. I don’t have an iPhone, but if I did I’m sure I would constantly be taking photos of different types of typography just to find out what the font is called.

What is this Photojojo, you ask? Well, I think they say it best themselves.

“You probably own an digital camera and you’ve probably taken a bajillion photos with it. … Well, it turns out there’s a whole world of things you can do with your photos and with your camera that nobody ever told you about. We find the most kick-ass photo tips, DIY projects, and gear and bring them to you.”

                              

One of their latest DIY photo projects is the Scrabble board picture frame. This is a truly awesome idea and I’m pretty jealous that I didn’t think of it first. If I can ever find the time, maybe I’ll hit up a thrift store and find a cheesy old board game and make one of my own.

Layer Tennis says, “we’ve awarded the win from Friday’s Match to Brendan Dawes based on the strength of the serve, volley 5 and his idea to repurpose match elements into downloadables in real time.”

To read about Brendan’s experience check out his story, Massacre on Friday the 13th.

The wonderful gal over at iresearched has given me a blog award. Thank you Anna Aron for including me in your list of bloggers that you think deserve some attention.

In other news, I came across a post for a site that I consider to be Photoshop in a tiny box. The site allows for some pretty cool effects you can apply to your photos for a quick and easy way to jazz them up. Check out Popcornmasala’s post and images. I went to the site and used the Warholizer to create my own pop art photo. The Web site is called Big Huge Labs.

A while back I wrote about innovative uses of typography and got a really cool Web site called Advertising Is Good for You left to me in a comment. I wanted to give it a bit more prominence and share it with you all. The site has a series of ads for a newspaper that create people out of type. I’ve posted their typographic image of Marilyn Monroe. If you check out the site you can also see James Dean and others. Thanks Dane for showing me this.

Last year I happened upon a Web site called Layer Tennis put together by Coudal Partners , a Chicago graphic design firm. I came into the graphic design spectacle right at the end of the season and loved every minute of it. Today was the first match and I have to say it was pretty fun to watch.

For those who don’t know: Layer Tennis is a live graphic design event where two graphic designers battle, each layering their design over the top of the last. There are ten rounds with each designer sending the volley back to each other.

Each designer gets one of two advantages. Either they get the first volley, which can be thought out in advance, or they get the last, which can not be countered.

The first match was between Jeffrey Kalmikoff (his site has a great postmortem of the whole match) and Brendan Dawes . Commentary for the match was provided by John Gruber .

I’ve included the first two images from the match to catch your interest, but I suggest you check out the Layer Tennis site for play by play coverage. The evolution of the designs will make more sense and there are a few interactive volleys that require the use of your mouse.

The winner was supposed to be announced today but I haven’t seen anything about it on the site yet.  I’ll let you know here at I’m Designer as soon as I find out.

Also, check out next Friday’s match at 2 p.m. Chicago time for a really fun and creative experience.

I wanted to follow up on that with some designs I saw on Veer.com , a stock photography, illustration and type company that puts together some really awesome campaigns.

They have a wonderful section on their site called Ideas, that has a blog, different groups you can join and all sorts of inspirational images.

I check out the site a couple of times a week to read the skinny (that’s the Veer blog) and to look at the wallpapers they offer free to members.

Note: what I have included on this blog is for viewing purposes only. If you want any of these wallpapers for yourself. Please go to Veer’s site .

I have included a few of their wallpapers that specifically deal with typography, but as a graphical element of the design. I think this will help illustrate what I was saying about fonts changing the mood of a design.

In this one, the script font mimics the flow of the hair. I don’t see any other font type really working with this design.

In this one, the block font has a hint of sci-fi in it, making it more apparent that the story the man is thinking of is a fantasy story. A different type of font could change the way the story is percieved. For example, using a more feminine font may cause the reader to think romance, or a straight serif font may look more like a newspaper.

This one is a great example of text as a graphic element. I don’t have anything to say about the font, I just though this one was really cool.

Do you have any examples of a great use of typography? Let me know about them.

- “I’m one of a kind. I’m designer.”