i’ve been a HUGE fan of youtube for a couple years and i check it all the time but i never thought that people put their portfolios of work on it.

first portfolio i found that i liked was http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp4Sek6wsVY it’s not a personal portfolio but a collection of work from the website 2shelf.com it’s only logos, but they are very well done logos that really relate to what we’ve been having to do here at school. the video is fast giving you time to see it, understand why they chose the logo for the company, and then move on to the next. in the very short time of the video (under 2 minutes) you get to see alot of their work.

the second video portfolio i like is from an individual named Lorena and the address is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvTNiw0au_A the video is divided up into sections of illustration, web design, digital photography, and flash animation.  everything is presented up cleanly and fast with some upbeat music to keep you grooving along as you watch. a well put together video

the problem with most of the videos i saw was that the people making them were very full of themselves. some would have flashy intros, step by step details on how they created a web site, and fancy transitions to the next picture. overall, it just takes away from the art and has you focusing on the way everything is presented. some of the art work could be great, but if you have ‘haunting’ music and the pictures waving around for a second or two before they stay still on the screen, it doesn’t show you taking it seriously. plus, i dont think clients would waste their time, i sure didn’t.

i’m so clever. anyway,  on to the websites

first up is http://www.phirebrush.com/issues.php?iid=64&cat=artwork a site dedicated to graphic designers with thumbnails on practically every page, so there’s always a new picture to check out. and what i really like is that it’s not all computer done, there are a lot of hand drawn pieces as well, which i don’t see too much anymore.

this next zine really is a feast for the eyes. it’s http://www.spunkunited.com/v2/index.html it’s based in Singapore but the sites entirely in English.  it is the brightest and most colorful site i think i have ever seen. you can tell this site was made by graphic designers. perhaps it has such a unique feel because it’s made by people from another country. the only complaint i have is that it’s hard to find your way around, i’m not sure how to read old issues, but for what is laid out in the home page, there are a ton of articles and the site map helps in finding more pictures.

my final site is the kind i would love to work for. its from Australia and its http://www.dgdesignnetwork.com.au/dgdn/ i like it alot because it combines alot of subjects that all revolve around our world of graphic design. they have articles about action figures, pixar, video games, music videos,  hong kong artists, even young artists just out of college. the site is friendly and clean so it’s easy to get lost in the articles. unfortunately, they do require a membership to view all of their features, but i got to see alot of content without signing up so it’s worth checking out.

three good sites from coincidentally all around the world. just goes to show graphic design is universal.

now that i’ve gotten to the point where i feel comfortable using dreamweaver, i’m ready to be creative with the way it looks so its good that we were to find sources for patterns and things. 

The first site i found that i liked was http://www.squidfingers.com/ it’s a decent site with great work by travis beckham.  he has an extensive patterns gallery with over 150 to choose from and he even says that you are free to use them.  they all have a similar feel.  he doesn’t stray too far from his style, but i personally prefer it so its all right. people looking for bright colors and random patterns won’t be pleased with his site though.

the second site i didn’t even have to search for. as soon as i saw in the homework assignment that images were a design resource, i knew what site to put.  http://www.sxc.hu/home . this site has been a favorite of mine since all the way back in second quarter. i couldn’t have gotten through digital imaging without this site.  it has a ton of royalty free photos. all you do is registar with the site and you’re connected to other users who upload photos and let you use them for free.  it was rare that i couldn’t find a picture of what i wanted using this site.

as i get more and more into dreamweaver, i hope that i can create sites that i imagine in my head. these too sites can help me achieve that easier then if i tried on my own.

looking at a persons website more than their actual work is a bit tough.  It’s like trying to look at a persons character or something.  I found a few websites where i wasn’t too impressed with their work, but the way that they presented it was great.

First i found a funny little site by a guy named lee summers.  its a small site in that there really isn’t much to it, but it gives it an intimate feeling, like your looking in his sketch book. the footer even shows random things about him, but always including his contact info. a clever site for sure. its at www.thisisawakeupcall.com

later i found a page that caught my attention immediately.  Today so much design is based on the Apple store look. clean and white, which, i myself like to a certain degree.  But Nina’s page is all black.  its so simple and yet different from ALL other pages i have been to there’s really nothing fancy going on, but the simplicity makes you want to explore more and more.  it can be found at www.katajamaki.com

this next site is definitely the most out there.  its hard to say why i like it but i think it boils down to that its very different for me.  most of the sites ive been looking at are very graphic design based. this site just seems to be FUN based. its by julie oakes and its at http://www.decographics.com/ it caught my eye at first because of the bulldog wearing sunglasses sitting in the top corner of the screen and he stays there no matter where you go on the website. julie oakes is from florida and it shows through her use of photos of cities to colors that are ‘far out’ enough to make you ‘trip’ if you get my drift.  This site isn’t afraid of color that others would find too much, but for me, any site that reminds me of GTA vice city, isn’t bad.

these offer some interesting portfolio works, but more importantly, some great ways to present that work.

i got to say, i don’t really have any favorite graphic designers. like everyone, i have favorite artists, but graphic designers not so much. i think its because there are so many things designed and the market is so competitive, that i doubt anyone has so competitive more than one famous design (you think the guy who designed the Mac Apple logo has a portfolio of work?) so i basically went on a search and saw what i liked. i mostly found what i didn’t like, which is a lot.  but for the ones i found, they showed potential.

first was http://www.microbians.com/ it has a quirky modern comic book style.  its a bit too ‘hey i like to use adobe illustrator’ but im guessing thats what he’s going for. and it does have a nice anime look, kind of like the Guerillas. remember them? man are they old.

then i found http://www.alexxdesign.com/index.html. it’s a clean very open web site with plenty to look around at and a few surprises on the side bars with funny messages.  His graphic design work isn’t very good, but his web design is.  That being said, it is a bit repatative, but then again, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.  I can see myself doing websites with a similar style as him.

this next entry really surprised me. http://www.okaydave.com/ is practically alive with its just of animations.  the entire site looks handdrawn in pen.  it’s also arranged very messy as though you were standing on a chair looking at his work desk.  It is actually fun to wander around the site and see all the work he has done, including the bank Wachovia website.  It was a great site to browse through and the guy overall has a creative childish style.

 fourth website that i found i liked, i liked alot.  its http://www.residue.ca/web.html and its the work of Shane Whitehouse.  He is geered more toward a photographic stand point than illustrative, but he does with effectively.  He has worked on projects for Sci Fi channel and numerous banners for websites.  His banner work is done like an actual porfolio, with images seeming to be glued on a page and faded with age.  Its definently a new technology presenting his work, but its style is vintage and friendly, not glossy and robotic.  and although he has a unique style, all of his works come off very different.

 Finally i found a unique page of a guy from Austria.  His stuff is very different and its amazing that he alone can do so many styles of work.  he can do childish illustrations, photography, logos, even photo retouching which i haven’t seen too much of in other peoples pages.  He’s pretty good at it too. his website is http://www.florin.reel.ro/portfolio.html 

So there you go. five unique graphic designers that i hope to be as good as one day. these guys are awesome.

  so apparently there has been a buzzword going around that i’ve never heard of called web 2.0. as if the web has just completed a step as a whole, instead of each part crawling bit by bit.  so what is it? about.com describes it as user interaction to the xtreme. yeah that’s right, so extreme they don’t need the first e. apparently a giant widespread version of wikipedia where users add and receive information. of course if thats what web 2.0 is, i got a newsflash. it already happened. a long time ago. because, get this, PEOPLE create the content on the internet.  people are constantly adding things to the web. users add their own stuff too like blogs and myspace pages and ratings of anything thinkable. 

the fact is there is no web 2.0 because not everything on the web progresses at the same rate. google didn’t grow the same way and speed that ebay did or yahoo or whatever other sight you can think of.   so there is no way to judge if we are on web 2.0 or 53.5.  its just a lame attempt to get people excited by thinking ‘oh my gosh! if this is just two then think of whats going to come in the future! by web 5, the computer will be able to read our minds!’  do you really think that with the web starting out as giant gameboy screens and people falling for someone impersanating bill gates to get money we are only on version 2?

 

http://webdesign.about.com/od/web20/a/aa021306.htm

http://nextcustomer.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/what-is-web-20/

Web Design can’t be ignored. it’s the future, and more importantly, it’s the now.  having finished a class last quarter where we had to create our own website, i have a new find respect for the whole process, its not as easy as it looks.  i don’t really want to do just websites though. or much at all if i can help it.  the design and look of a website i might be a part of would spark my interest, but if i was to design for a client, im not so sure i would be very interested. but then again, i found the researching of different consumers for that class i had (can’t remeber what its called and its only been a few weeks since i had it must have killed some brain cells during break) to be somewhat fun.  trying to get involved in a demographic other then your own has a very researchy feel to it. like studying humans in the planet of the apes.  these other human beings that are so different from us and how their lives have turned out.  anywho, my point is, right now i dont want to design websites, but should the need arise, i could find some enjoyment out of it.