So for those who haven’t stumbled across the beauty that is Pinterest yet, think of it as a combination of your inspiration cork board and twitter, and you will have a fairly good idea of what it does. For me, the best feature is to be able to organize your pinned photos on different boards. I think this will be especially helpful when researching inspiration with a specific project in mind, but so far I have just been keeping my boards fairly non-project orientated. The other great feature that I love is the ability to upload photos from my iPhone through the app: now I won’t need to keep that album of inspiration shots on my phone: sweet!

So to get you started, here are a just a select few of my favorite boards to follow:

Craig M Clark | Letterpressin’

Victoria Pater | greetings + invites

Ursula Sojda | Vintage Dresses

With Talent, Perkins has essentially created an all-in-one business primer for every stage of a design professionals’ career. From choosing a design school, to freelancing, to working within an agency or studio, and to running a business, Perkins outlines the issues particular to each path. Considering that most design school programs gloss over the logistics of running a business or even dealing with clients, this book should probably be on every graduating senior’s booklist.

Of particular (and timely) interest, is the chapter regarding income taxes, but that is just one of the many topics covered. Perkins goes into great detail on everything from finding a job, to legal/contractual issues, to setting billable rates, and to hiring employees—all while keeping a clearly written tone that makes for an easy read. This is by far one of the best additions I have made to my design library, and I find myself wishing that it had been available to me as a high school student considering my future career in design.

Isn’t she a beauty?

I’ll be sure to add better product photos to the portfolio page as I upload that section, but for now, run to your local Toys’R'Us if you want these, because they sure were getting picked over fast! (Or you could just find them online: Harry Potter, Smurfs, Owl)

Harry Potter Gryffindor lunchbox:

Just in time for the last movie!! Can I even begin to tell you what a fangirl I was while working on this one? And the icing on the cake was having this lunchbox getting sold into stores: first time a Harry Potter lunchbox has done that since the first movies came out…10 years ago. Woot!

The Smurfs Movie lunchboxes:

Yes, that one on the right is shaped like a mushroom house. The movie art was cute (especially Brainy Smurf), but I really hope that next year they allow us to sell the Smurfs Classic line I also developed. Who wouldn’t want a food jar with Jokey Smurf blowing something up??

And lastly, my set of Owl lunchboxes that I illustrated myself:

Isn’t she a fancy little thing? There is also a matching standard lunchbox featuring 3 owls at night, but it was nowhere to be found on the shelves…

Open to members and non-members alike, the program pairs up a group of designers for a 5 month season of meetings and allows them to shape the course of their sessions.What a great way to meet others in our community!

I was lucky enough to be the leader of an amazing and inspiring group of local creatives. Our backgrounds ranged from student to seasoned professional, from in-house to agency, and from freelancer to start-up design studio principal. After some initial planning meetings, I took a page from AIGA KC’s Transitions program and invited a guest speaker to each meeting to share their knowledge on a specific topic. Topics ranged from social networking to the legalities of starting your own business to workshops on letterpress with a couple of old fashioned happy hours thrown in for good measure. But by far, the most valuable take-away from the whole season are the terrific friendships I made with everyone in the group. We still continue to meet every other week, and it is great to see a familiar face at design events around town.

On July 20, a special summer session of the Mentorship program begins. If you live in Chicago and have been looking for a way to get involved, this is definitely the way to do it. Not only that, it is by far one of the best values that AIGA brings to the Chicago design community.

Adobecadabra With Rufus Deuchler
This short, little, morning session just highlighted some simple tricks/tips for using any of the latest Creative Suite software. Most notable for me were the Content Aware features in Photoshop: can’t wait to play with those.

Where Ideas Come From and Where They Go
Presented by Stephen Doyle, this session focused on his own work and life observations: very inspiring. Some key thoughts of his that I loved:

• You can’t own ideas. Rather, ideas come from others and from mash-ups of our past experiences.
• A lack of logic in your approach can lead to something logical. (Making as a way of thinking)
• It’s important to convince your clients that your ideas are their ideas.

Power of the Package
Kevin McConkey of Grip Design is one big ball of energy: this was definitely one of the most dynamic sessions I attended. His presentation dealt with packaging trends, with a focus on how to gain more packaging clients. Some of my key take-aways from this one:

• At the intersection of necessity and design is opportunity: great time to be a packaging designer right now.
• Understand your product’s cost margins and the value packaging will add. Then tell a story.
• We can’t design in a vacuum: it takes teamwork to make the dream work.

Publishing to Digital Devices with InDesign CS5.5
Rufus Deuchler also presented this session on behalf of Adobe. The talk centered around producing eBooks on the .epub format and using Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite to create magazine apps for the iPad. I was mostly just amazed at how powerful InDesign is becoming. The only downside that I could see if you could call it that, was that these features seemed to be rather Flash-heavy. Unless I was mistaken?

The Un-Guide to Creativity and Brainstorming
This session with Disney’s Chris Chapman was perhaps my favorite of the entire day. Full of energy, Chris jam-packed the session with studies on how the brain works, how that relates to developing a creative culture, and brainstorming techniques for your creative team. Some key thoughts:

• Wrong answers are the basis of discovery.
• There is a time for brainstorming and a time to be logical: know when to use each.
• Rules [in an office] can create structure, but too many stifle creativity.

Developing Addictive Experiences for the iPad and Other Interactive Tablets
David Link’s session focused on outlining his team’s process for creating both magazine apps and other apps for tablets. It seems that most magazine apps are linear in nature, and as such are being created on InDesign right now. While most other apps are still developed using the established development process. Some notes:

• Print designers making the transition to designing apps need to know and understand how UI works.
• Keynote is surprisingly great for prototyping app functionality.
• There are not enough tablets in consumer hands to make it worth designing for more than one platform. Users with an iPad dwarf the competition.

Today’s schedule on the other hand was a short one: just two panel discussions and the closing keynote. The first panel discussion on fringe trends in the mass market was interesting, but lacked a conclusion. The second one, called Making Your Way in the Digital World, was a lively debate and packed full of good tips and insights into transitioning to interactive design. Finally, the keynote was an energizing talk on how to use your personality traits to influence others, further your career, and sell to/for your clients.

What an amazing weekend! And let me tell you, I can’t wait to do it again!

I missed last night’s keynote opener, but made it in time for the opening reception: a great opportunity to see who all was attending, run into some friends, and also check out the vendors. If I don’t happen to win an iPad from all of these vendor give-aways, I….well..I’ll keep using my laptop. Today’s schedule, on the other hand, was packed:

Design + Marketing = Supercharge Your Results
Presented by Cynthia Price and Taylor Schena of Emma, this session focused on email marketing and the technical issues of designing for eblasts. Some key thoughts:

• Social media isn’t killing email marketing: it’s forcing it to adapt and evolve.
• When designing/coding for email, think mid-90′s coding: straight-up HTML using tables and in-line styling.
• Always test your design across platforms: Litmus and Email on Acid are good tools.

Creating the Martha Stewart Living Digital Magazine App for iPad
Presented by Gail Towey, this session was different than what I expected. The session description made it sound as though it would focus on designing for iPad/touch screens. In fact, it was more of a behind the scenes look into the brand history of Martha Stewart Living. Nevertheless, there were some good take-aways:

• When designing products for mass market, you must think about the in-store experience in addition to each object’s functionality/design.
• Think about tactile functionality within your app: how can the user interact with the content? Where can you surprise/delight with interactivity?
• Use your app and other media channels to cross-pollinate your content.
• Consider your app’s findability within the iTunes App Store during it’s creation.

Influence in Business Through Design Thinking
Presented by Matthew Loyd of Method, this session focused on the design method of approaching a problem to all aspects of running a business or dealing with a client. I loved this session because I am so interested in the strategy side of our business. A lot of good information, but my favorite bits:

• The way a designer thinks and approaches a problem is typically different from the rest of the business world: we can share these skills and help provide better insight.
• Defining your company’s brand position, will lay the foundations for carrying design thinking into the rest of the business.
• Begin each problem by listening: avoid designing by template as each problem is a chance to learn and bring something new to the table.

Top Secret Adobe Technology Preview
Can I just say how stoked I am for Adobe’s new Muse to come out? I’m curious to see how coders weigh in on a program that is essentially InDesign for the web, but it looks like a great, powerful, new tool. The only downside, as far as I can see, is it’s subscription payment schedule. I’d much rather pay all at once as you do for the rest of the Creative Suite.

Using the Brand Value Pyramid
Although dense with technical information, this session led by Shannon Carter of Cartis Group was highly interesting. The way he approaches a branding problem seems highly logical and effective. Key points:

• Trust between brands and their consumers is developed over time through mutually satisfying interactions.
• A brand isn’t what we say it is: it is what the consumer says it is.
• Brand strategists make sure internal and external perceptions align.

Critiques: Powerful tool or Power Trip?
This session led by Jaime Pescia and Tip Quilter was by far the most interactive session of the day. It also seemed to be the most controversial if other audience members’ reactions are to go by. The two outlined steps that will remove any egos from the critique room and allow ideas and collaboration to flourish. Seemed pretty common sense in my book:

• Trust between team leaders and co-workers drives collaboration and creativity.
• Being a leader means being genuine and also guiding the critique to stay in line with the creative brief.
• Open-ended questions using who/what/when/where open up the dialog and help remove any ego on behalf of the leader.
• Goal is to get everyone to voice their thought-process and guide them towards a better design that is in-tune with the brief.

In the meantime, head over the portfolio page and check out the new projects I added over the holiday weekend.

Cheers!