Fontanel : Online Design Magazine

Fontanel is one of Hollands largest blogs and online magazine about design and graphic design. Operated by three very enthusiastic Dutch Designers, Thomas Moes, Erik Gelderblom and Willem van Roosmalen, which share on a daily basis their design news and philosophy. Recently Fontanel is redesigned with a complete new look and feel which allows you to really focus on the content and encourage you to read more.

Love the simple presentation styles on Fontanel. Exactly what a publication can be; opportunities for design. - Jason Santa Maria at Twitter about Fontanel

Fontanel focuses on design, typography, graphic design, art and will show you inspiration from other design magazines. They also host a calendar with up-to-date Dutch Design Information.

• Language [Dutch]
• Please visit the great Fontanel website and read about the recent redesign in this article. Thanks guys and keep it up!

Design Blog: Rietveld Academie

Designblog is an online research project initiated by Henk Groenendijk. It is part of the Foundation Year’s design program and stimulates interaction between the design world and all the Foundation Year students. This blog introduces the possibility to enjoy and study a variety of subjecs investigated in the course of ever changing classic and contemporary design themes. It presents research, opinion and reflection in a variety of forms.

• Language [English]
• Enjoy the posts at the Design Blog Rietveld Academie.

Design.nl

Design.nl is a wide focuses blog about Dutch Design, from interviews with Dutch Designers to inspiration, showcases and more. It also holds a great calendar with Dutch happenings in design. Frequently updated with news and information.

• Language [English]
• Find the posts at the design.nl.

Graphic Design Museum blog

The Graphic Design Museum in Breda, The Netherlands. Here you’ll find visionary statements about the changing position of the graphic design discipline. Visuals and slogans, stories behind the objects in our collection, essays about the subjects of our exhibitions and some of our favorite graphic design resources on the web.

The Graphic Design Museum is the first museum in the world for graphic design. The museum is in the centre of Breda and exhibits the broad and dynamic area of graphic design. Really worth the visit when you are in The Netherlands, Breda.

• Language blog [English]
• Find the blog at Graphic Design Museum Blog.
• Information about the Graphic Design Museum, Breda.

NAGO: Nederlands Archief Grafisch Ontwerpers

NAGO holds the largest Dutch Archief on graphic design, designers and design agencies from the Netherlands. NAGO is an exceptional resource for what Dutch Designers created over the last decades. With a good search functionally you are able to search for arists, work, technique and more. When browsing NAGO you really get a good feeling of Dutch Design and Art.

• Language [Dutch]
• Find the website at NAGO.

Dutch Design History

Design History NL is the website of the Dutch foundation that encourages research and publications about design history. The foundation also organizes meetings, lectures, conferences and other activities for participants: design historians, authors and those who are interested in the subject. You will find information about their research in who is who in research.

• Language [Dutch]
• Find the website at Dutch Design History.

Online/Offline magazine: Bright

Bright Magazine is an offline and online platform which shows you the latest information about design, technology, gadgets and more. The online magazine is an constant update of information and if you can find the printed magazine be sure to get a copy, great content. They also hosts tv series where the latest gadgets are reviewed, very funny and educational.

• Language [Dutch]
• Find the website at Bright.nl and the Bright TV Series.

Architectenweb

Hollands largest website about Dutch Architecture and everything involved around design, production, events in relation to architecture. Daily updated with architecture projects in The Netherlands.

• Language [Dutch]
• Find the website at Architectenweb.

Web Designer Magazine

Web Designer Magazine is an online and offline plaform for Dutch web designers.

• Language [Dutch]
• Find the website at Web Designer Magazine.

Type Media

TypeMedia is a one year master course in type design, the blog hosts articles from students and teachers. Operated by Dutch Type designers such as Erik van Blokland, Fred Smeijers and Peter Verheul.

• Language [English]
• Find the blog at Type Media.

1st Floor

Floor Drees a freelance designers and copyrighter operates a Dutch Design blog filled with design news, gadgets, typography news and more. Very frequently updated.

• Language [Dutch]
• Find the blog at 1st Floor Graphics and other stories.

Share your favorite Dutch design resource

Enjoy reading the resources in this roundup and please share your favorite Dutch Design Blog or online magazine in the comments below.

Charity: water

This year I was looking for ways to donate money to charity and get people aware of problems in the world. For some time I am triggered by charity: water a non-profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations.

Right now, almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. That’s one in eight of us.

• Why water?

charity: water is a non-profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. They give 100% of the money raised to direct project costs, funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need. Just $20 can give one person in a developing nation clean water for 20 years.

Comment in this post for charity: water

For every comment in this post I will donate $1,- to charity: water. The more comments the more I donate. The purpose of this post is to bring awareness to the design community about the importance water.

Facts

• charity: water is a non-profit bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations
• One in eight people on the planet don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water.
• $20 can give a person in Africa clean, safe drinking water for 20 years.
• For each comment I will donate $1,- to charity: water
• Proof will be uploaded to this post
• This charity action on designworkplan will run until 31st of December 2009
• Visit charity: water for more information

Thank you!

This year I have had so many great discussions and ideas from designworkplan platform about design, typography, inspiration, signage, wayfinding and more.

Thanks for your feedback and reading designworkplan, highly appreciated! Please subscribe to the RSS feed to be updated with the latest posts from designworkplan.

Quote of the year by Philip Kelly

Difficult times continue but if you can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, use a torch!

I’m looking forward to 2010 and bringing you more posts and spread ideas at designworkplan. Thank you and have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year! Please share your thoughts and New Years Resolutions.

Arrow & Icons Magazine

The niche market wayfinding and environemental graphic design is growning on the internet, many companies start their own blog and startups in the field are emerging, visit the wayfinding and design blogs below to be updated with the latest information in this field.

Arrows & Icons is an online magazine devoted to the field of Environmental Graphic Design. It is a place where designers of any experience level can come together to read, learn, share ideas, and engage in community centered around a common passion.

Operated by Ryan Lascano he shares his knowledge and from the fellow contributors, a great blog.

Some of its previous highlights:

• What is environmental graphic design?
• New Jersey wayfinding, guest article by Kelly Bennett and Amy Rees
• Visit the website Arrows & Icons or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Society for Environmental Graphic Design

The global community of people working at the intersection of communication design and the built environment.

The Society for Environmental Graphic Design has a long history on providing quality industry news through their magazine and community. The worldwide highly appreciation for the members and staff has put the SEGD on top of the information source. The blog is a constant update on subjects such as EGD, Typography, Design, Architecture, Communication and more.

• Visit the blog of SEGD or subscribe to the RSS feed.

ID/Lab wayfinding blog

ID/Lab wayfinding blog is a place to exchange ideas about wayfinding, placemaking, human factors science and environmental graphic design.

ID/Lab an Australian based wayshowing consultancy firm and good frieds of designworkplan recently released a blog about their field of work. Looking forward reading more about their philosophy on wayshowing.

Previous highlights:

• Thingfinding-Where is this place?
• Visit the ID/Lab blog or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Johnny Holland Magazine

Interaction Design (IxD) is the study of devices with which a user can interact. The practice typically centers around embedding information technology into the ambient social complexities of the physical world. Wikipedia

All Johnny talks about is focused on one aspect: interaction. He believes that this is the most important part in communication. Instead of focusing on the means by which we communicate we have to think of cause and effect.

Johnny Holland is great website about all that involves interaction design, user experience design, methods & theory, physical interaction and much more. With over 20 experienced writers from all over the world Johnny Holland is a great information resource.

• Visit Jonny Holland Magazine or subscribe to the RSS feed.

UX Magazine

UX Magazine was created to deliver a central place to discuss the critical disciplines that all enhance user experience. Extraordinary user experiences should be the goal of every interaction you deliver to your users at any level.

UX Magazine hold a great archive of user experience articles that apply to design, interaction, technology, strategy and more.

• Visit UX Magazine or subscribe to the RSS Feed.

idsgn (new) typography and design blog

Typography and design is everywhere and designers use typography as a tool to express the visual communication. There are many many blogs about this field of expertise but some startups really gets my attention.

idsgn is a new blog about the things we see and enjoy (or sometimes hate) as designers. We like to talk about graphic design, branding, typography, and sometimes we might post a video or two.

idsgn has a hightl inspirational level of bringing articles into the blog, with detailed and up-to-date resource information they know what they are talking about. Great new blog added to my RSS reader.

• Visit idsgn (new) design blog or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Information Visualizing: Infosthetics

Latelty I have been really into information graphics and the visualizing design, making information readable and understandable for large audiences. There are several great blog that I found that share information about how to design information. Below you will find a list of inspirational websites in the field on information visualizing.

Inspired by Lev Manovich’s definition of “information aesthetics”, this weblog explores the symbiotic relationship between creative design and the field of information visualization.

Infosthetics is a great showcase of information design and visualization, with examples of showing complex information, Infosthetics is a great place to gain inspiration from.

• Visit the website infosthetics or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Information is beautiful

David McCandless from Information is beautiful is interested in how designed information can help us understand the world, cut through BS and reveal hidden connections, patterns and stories underneath. Or, failing that, it can just look cool

Information is beautiful says it all and the blog goes deeper into sharing information, ideas, knowledge and data. With many inspirational examples of showing complex information in a easy to read and understandable design.

• Visit Information is Beautiful or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Web Trend Map

The Web Trend Map community curates meaningful link trends by choosing sources they trust.

Founded by informationArchitects this great visualization website shows trustworhty links by Twitter users. The users can create maps where they place their trusted Twitter friends on, the system tracks the tweets and puts them in a top trending links.

• Visit the website Webtrendmap and be sure to visit designworkplan webtrendmap

make this simple

seethismakesense aims to seek out the worst examples of confusing information

make this simple is a new website about information design fails, they show an image of a map, instructions, letters, signage or related information design and the community can have their say on the design and if it should be redesigned. Looking forward seeing a good interactive talk comming from make this simple.

• Visit the website make this simple or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Enjoy reading

Thank you for reading designworkplan, if you enjoy this content please subscribe to the free RSS feed to get the fresh articles in your favourite news reader. Please let me know your favourite inspiration resource and I’ll put it in Sign-Sphere next month, submit information via contact. Thank you & enjoy reading.

Launch of Gekko

Gekko gives you personalised hotel recommendations you can trust based on your unique profile and the preferences of like-minded people in the community. Gekko is not a design inspiration resource, but looks great.

• Launched by a close friend of mine, please support and visit Gekko.

Launch of Flash Tuts

It’s all about quality tutorials for Adobe Flash. Whether you want to learn how to create awesome Flash animations and interfaces, bone up on your Actionscript to create games and apps, or just get started developing with Flash, we’ve got you covered!

• Visit Flash Tuts for your favourite Flash tutorials.

Launch of Logofi

Logofi, a inspiration gallery that acts like a leaderboard of the best logos. The best get on the website and the best of the best get logofi’s or voted up!

• Visit this website about logos Logofi.

Launch of Blogfullbliss

Blogfullbliss is designed and maintained by Adrian Balkwill. Blogfullbliss serves as his public blog where I post my random crazy thoughts, ideas, tutorials and more.

• Visit Blogfullbliss for more information.

Launch of Line25

Line25 is the drawing board of creative web design, a place where ideas and inspirations are drafted out and presented to web creatives through articles, tutorials and roundups of cutting edge website design. Line25 is created and maintained by Chris Spooner.

• Visit Line25 here.

Launch of Design Newz

Design-Newz is a site that features articles, resources and tutorials written by designers and developers just like you! The folks at Spyre Studios built and currently manage this site Design Newz!

• Visit Design Newz today for your fresh daily hand picked design news items.

Layer Tennis

Coudal Partners presents Layer Tennis, a design competition played live on internet.

Two competitors will swap a file back and forth in real-time, adding to and embellishing the work. Each artist gets fifteen minutes to complete a “volley” and then we post it to the site live. A third participant, a writer, provides play-by-play commentary on the action, as it happens. A match lasts for ten volleys and when it’s complete, Season Ticket Holders tell us what they think and we’ll declare a winner, so sign up today.

Sign up for Layertennis and follow the design matches on live.

Typeface Anatomy

FontShop released a great resource guide into typeface anatomy. Find out all the terms used for a typeface, recommended readings.

• Visit this extensive glossary about typeface anatomy.

WellMedicated

WellMedicated originally started out as a place by Andrew Lindstrom to vent, rant and moan ad nauseum on the topic of web design, a place to share inspirational findings with other creative individuals.

• Visit the blog WellMedicated.

Robothon09 Conference

Organized by Erik van Blokland and Paul van der Laan Robothon is a type conference in The Netherlands,

• See all links and information about Robothon09 at  FontFeed.

Relaunch of Eightyone Design

After months of developing the crew at Eightyone Design released the redesign for their own website, based on fast loading, design, usability and more. Congrats guys great job!

• Visit Eightyone Design or see the detailed information about the redesign here.

Thinking for a Living

Duane King (BBDK, Inc.) offers you a collection of recommended readings and online links that he has gathered over the years from various reliable sources. Thinking for a Living™ was created for those who believe that while design is a profession, it’s above all a passion.

• Visit Thinking for a Living.

White Space: How to Get it ‘Right’

A great article by Mark Boulton taken from his PDF book Five Simple Steps: A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web. This article learns you how to add white space in order to get an effective design.

Space is important in layout. Space can be created by content – such as text, images, lists, logos etc. – or it can be created by the space in—between content, called negative space, or whitespace.

• Visit the article at ThinkVitamin.

Cut&Paste Amsterdam

On the 2nd of April Amsterdam will host the Cut&Past event, an inspiring gathering of design professionals who will compete in a contest about design and creativity. The show is accompanied by a DJ and all will take place at the wonderful Paradiso. The show will also be on livestream, check the website for more information.

Cut&Paste’s mission is to provide channels of visibility and inspiration for designers, both aspiring and established, to reach their existing audience as well as potential fans.

Visit Cut&Paste for the Amsterdam details and check CreativeAmsterdam, via Dutch design blog Fontanel.

@DesignWorkPlan

Finally I turned myself into the Twitter Sphere!

• Visit @DesignWorkPlan at Twitter.

Enjoy reading

Thank you for reading DesignWorkPlan, if you enjoy this content please subscribe to the free RSS feed to get the fresh articles in your favourite news reader.

fd2s Blog

A discussion of the latest trends and best practices in wayfinding and environmental graphic design for large, complex environments.

At fds2 the company mainly operates in the field of wayfinding and signage design for hospitals, they have recently added a blog to their website with interesting topics, recommended readings.

• Company location: Texas, United States. Visit fd2s Blog.

Büro North

Büro North is an emerging studio dedicated to fusing creativity & pragmatics to generate visionary design. At the blog they discuss work and ideas from the company.

• Company location: Melbourne, Australia. Visit Büro North Blog.

Branch Design

The blog of Branch Design is about interpretation and wayfinding design, they showcase their work through the blog. Interesting read.

• Company location: New Zealand. Visit the Branch design blog.

Digital signage blog

We are a group of technology enthusiasts who are passionate with the uses of gadgets and nifty pieces of equipment. When digital signage came into our picture, we got excited and decided to take it for a ride. In fact, with the tremendous popular rise of digital signage and its applications everyday, it has now become part of our profession.

Frequently updated blog with topics about digital signage.

• Location: Australia, visit Digital Signage Blog.

Beaver Group Blog

Beaver Group is an organisation whose focus is the delivery of digital signage and design solutions.

The blog is filled with information about digital signage, unfortunally you cannot comment on the posts.

• Location: United Kingdom, visit the Beaver Group Blog.

Digital Signage Blog

DigitalSignage.com seeks to represent the voice of a growing industry by uniting associations, businesses, and individuals in a unique and timely way. Whether information is distributed on out-of-home signage or online, content is king.

Recently started blog about digital signage, the posts are frequently updated. The website also hosts a complete topic supplier list of companies offering signage and wayfinding products for the United States.

• Location: US, visit the blog Digital Signage.

Sixteen Nine

Yet another blog about digital signage and wayfinding, written by Dave Haynes. He frequently updates his blog with interesting and freshing topics.

• Visit the digital signage website Sixteen Nine.

Rise Display Network

Rise Display Network is the industry’s leading web delivered digital signage software solution that brings live data, custom messages and content to thousands of displays.

At the blog of Rise Display Network posts are about digital signage and software.

• Visit the blog Rise Display Network.

All Signs Group

A blog about our projects, the products we make and the people who make them.

The blog is a showcase of the work of All Signs Group.

• Location: United Kingdom, visit the blog of All Signs Group.

GRS Signs company

GRS Sign Company Ltd is on the cutting-edge of sign-making, specialising in design, manufacture, supply and installation.

The blog of GRS Signs is a showcase of the signage & wayfinding work they have produced.

• Location: United Kingdom, visit the blog GRS Signs.

Architectural Signage Blog

Daniel Tillman is an architectural signage and wayfinding consultant specializing in interior, exterior and digital signage. My aim is to help employees and visitors move through a space with ease and confidence while promoting the brand identity and design of the facility

This blog hosts a compilation of interesting resources and examples of signage & wayfinding.

• Visit the blog of Daniel Tillman.

Best Signs

Best Sign Systems is a US manufacturer of proven architectural signage products that have been consistently specified by architects for more than 40 years.

At the blog of Best Signs they showcase work and updates in their inventory.

• Visit the blog of Best Signs.

Please share

If you came accross a signage or wayfinding blog that is not listed in this article, please share in the comments below. Thank you!

FF DIN

I just love FF DIN, a very useful typeface by (Dutchman) Albert-Jan Pool. A remake of the earlier DIN 1451, For years Engschrift and Mittelschrift which was used in our engraving industry. Nowadays FF DIN is found in signage & wayfinding projects around the world. Visit the minisite FF DIN.

The Wayfinding book

I just ordered the wayfinding book by David Gibson, a complete guide into information design for public places. When I receive my copy I will review the book here.
See here for the full introduction of The Wayfinding Book.

Logo Designer Blog

Busy man Jacob Cass released another blog, Logo Designer Blog, a blog about logo design, inspiration, tips & resources. With many contributors in this field of experise I believe this will be another great logo design website. Btw ordered the dot-grid-book, read here for more information. Visit Logo Designer Blog.

Design Dosage

Design Dosage is a design inspiration gallery that features one quality post per day. Each day of the week has a set assigned category. - Icon Monday, - Typography Tuesdaym - Wallpaper Wednesday, - Illustration Thursday, - Logo Friday, - CSS Saturday, - Print Sunday. See for more daily inspiration Design Dosage.

New Veer Marketplace

Low-priced images for the Veer community, produced by the Veer community. With over 100,000 images Veer is to release a new this marketplace with photos starting at $1,- Visit the marketplace from Veer here for more information.

Georgia on my mind

Mathew Carter’s graceful serif typeface Georgia is re-discovered by Web Designers. Featured at inspirationbit are 32 web sites that rely heavily on Georgia to display their content.

Visit this great showcase of usage Georgia websites at inspirationbit.

Type Chart

Typechart lets you flip through, preview and compare web typography while retrieving the CSS.

Finally a great website about the difference between Windows (Clear) Type & Mac Type. Seeing the samples I cannot believe I have been stuck with Windows for so many years. All examples can be used in your own CSS Style Sheet. Check the website TypeChart for more information, via iLovetypography.

Icon Dock

IconDock is brought to you by N.Design Studio. They know your time is valuable, that is why they offer stock icons in vector and pixel format that you can quickly snap in your projects to speed up the development.

Visit IconDock or visit the blog for more information.

Underconsideration now @twitter

The design firm Underconsideration is now also on twitter, follow the moves by Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit.
See the announcement here and follow at twitter.

20 Corporate Brand Logo Evolution

Have you ever wonder how the first Apple logo looks in 30 years back? Did you know Volkswagen was Hitler’s idea? Or how the IBM logo changes over the time? Or where the Mercedes-Benz Brand And The Three-Pointed Star logo came from? Check this post at Instantshift.

Minimal design websites showcase

A website dedicated to minimal designs, although this website if fairly new already several great minimal designs have been added. Submitted DesignWorkPlan recently.
Check the minimal design showcase.

Wireframes

This is the opening of Wireframes Magazine, in which I invite you to take part. The essence behind this experiment is the simple idea that we as information architects, interaction designers, and user experience professionals all create design documentation in one form or another which makes up a large part of our typical work day.
Visit Wireframes.

Creative Fluff

Creative Fluff is an eclectic group of young designers, artists, writers, and critics. It is not only our goal, but our pleasure to bring you the latest, oldest, and most interesting news from all realms of creative art and design

PDF Book: Designing for the web

A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web aims to teach you techniques for designing your website using the principles of graphic design by Mark Boulton. This is a great PDF booklet and will teach everything from start to finish, filled with many tips and insights from Mark Boulton. See more at the website Five Simple Steps, read here for a full review.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized

The goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated. Created by Jonathan Jarvis, Los Angeles based designer.
To see the video see the website crisisofcredit, via fontfeed.

Examples of presenting work/projects

YouTheDesigner published a great article with examples on how to present your work/projects. It will give you an insight on how to shoot a photo and make your work attractive for a portfolio. Visit the article here.

Dutch Corporate Identity Price 2009

Dutch foundation Grafische Cultuurstichting is organizing a national contest for best corporate identity. Until the first of March you can send in materials. See here for the full details (Dutch only), via FontShop.

AIGA: Air Force One Graphic History

What is the story behind the graphic design of Air Force One? Patton investigates the visual identity of the “flying White House.” Featured on AIGA.

Good Design in ten commandments.

As good design cannot be measured in a finite way he set about expressing the ten most important criteria for what he considered was good design.

Visit the good design in ten commandments here, via designnotes.

Enjoy reading!

Thank you for your visit at Designworkplan.com, enjoy reading the above recommendations. If you have anything to share please type a comment or let me know via contact.

Up next the first DesignWorkPlan guest article by Frank van Leersum about signage and architecture, please subscribe by RSS if you like the content. Thank you.

SignSphere Highlights

In the edition of May 2008 one of the most remarkable mentions was the great Font Game to move to iLoveTypography, still when I play this it just puts a smile on my face.

• Visit the Font Game over at iLT and share your top score!

In the June edition I mentioned the opening of new Dutch Design Musem, Graphic Design Museum Breda. It has proved to be an great place for designers to show their work and come together to enjoy like minds. If you are ever in the Netherlands try to visit this musuem.

• Visit the Dutch Design Museum Graphic Design Museum Breda.

In the July edition there was a mention of a new and exciting website from logo designer David Airey, Iconic logo designers. The website is a huge and complete collection of iconic logo designers and resources of work they have created. A great website if you are into logo designers.

• Visit the website iconic logo designers for more information.

In the September Edition I mentioned the startup of Daily Creattica, by the Envato Network (PSDTuts and more). Daily Creattica is a collection of interesting things that are happening in the field of design on a broad perspective. They have managed to bring the readers every day one or more articles. I always enjoy reading the blog and the quality of the content (links) is very high. Recommended readings.

• Visit Daily Creattica for your daily dose of design inspiration!.

For the October edition I had to share my new corporate website for signage & wayfinding projects and consulting BaumannSign. Since its startup as new corporate website is has been a great succes and hope to grow in this direction for the future to come. Thanks you for the response about BaumannSign.

• Visit the website BaumannSign for signage & wayfinding projects by Sander Baumann.

In the November edition there was a mention of an essay on the NYC Subway and the Helvectia, in this 9 pages counting essay the author writes about how the typeface was chosen and why it is in use for the NYC Subway, an interesting read over at Aiga.

• Read the complete story about the typeface Helvetica and NYC Subway at Aiga.

DesignWorkPlan Highlights 2008

In the past year I have written various articles, some of them got the attention of other bloggers and the discussion started. I am very happy that DWP has evolved to bring information on a broad level of design and visual communication. I could have only managed to do this by the huge support from the (design) community. Thank you all for participating at DesignWorkPlan. Below is a list of articles, highlights of 2008.

• Design case: Shell corporate identity change for the fuel stations in Europe.
• Newspaper restyle: The daily Dutch Het Parool newspaper restyled and started using the typeface MetaSerif from Erik Spiekermann.
• Free vector arrows: The release of a collection of free vector arrows to use in designs as needed designed by Sander Baumann.
• Here at DWP I have collected two showcases of typefaces in the wild, first off was the typeface Meta by Erik Spiekermann which was everywhere… Secondly I spotted Rotis everywhere. Now working on more showcases of typography in the wild, stay tuned.
• Airport Signage showcase: A collection of photos of Airport signage from all over world.
• Branding: Dutch government introduces typeface as part of their branding.
• You can find all the posts in the DesignWorkPlan archive.

Highlights and blogs that I read in 2008

My daily dose of inspiration and news facts on things happening in the design-blog-o-sphere is read in the rss reader. Below are some of the highlights of the past year.

I searched for a best of best article for iLT (iLoveTypography) could not find it, all the posts are great. Visit iLT and subscribe!

A collection of 81 of the best logo design resources by Logo Design Love.

The Paragraph in Web Typography & Design by Jon Tan.

The great type blog The FontFeed, much great information. Visit The FF and subscribe!

Highlights of SmashingMagazine 2008, just amazing! Visit and subscribe!

A great 2008 roundup by David Airey at his personal blog, visit the article.

I have recently discoverd the design website of Michael Surtees, DesignNotes, he covers many topics and has a high quality blog.

Thanks readers

DesignWorkPlan has brought and thought me many wonderful things, I enjoy writing for you and are amazed with the feedback, thank you! I could not have achieved this without you! 2008 was a blast, stay tuned in 2009 here we come…

Share your favourite blogpost of 2008

There are many more articles to mention, but now its time to let hear the DWP readers voice! Please share your favourite blogpost of 2008 in the comments! Thank you very much in advance! Happy New Year.

The (mostly) true story of Helvetica and NYC Subway

A fabulous article by Paul Shaw for the New York subway graphic system. In a dept review of the sign system, choose of typeface and creation of design manual this nine pages essay describes everything. I have enjoyed reading this article but was looking for some examples of the sign manual, searched Google and found some images of the sign design manual at Flickr.

NYC Transit Authority graphics system

• Visit the article by Paul Shaw at Aiga and take a look at this Flickr set of the original NYC Transit Authority graphics system—designed by Massimo Vignelli and Vignelli Associates in 1970.

Minisite FF Trixie

Dutch type teacher and designer Erik van Blokland released with FontShop the minisite about his typeface FF Trixie, since its release in 1991 Trixie was one of the few good workable typewriter typefaces available.

Erik van Blokland finalized the typeface Trixie with two new variants: FF Trixie Rough, and FF Trixie HD, available each with Light and Heavy weights. At the minisite you are able to see the typeface fontfonts and the new typefaces have much more detail than the original. In the images you can see the effects of the analog look and feel of Trixie, Erik was kind enough to send me the masthead (at the top of the page), text designworkplan, thank you very much for sending it to me.

Example of usage FF Trixie

• Visit the ministe Trixie or see the insight article at fontfeed. Download the typeface Trixie via Fontshop.

Vancouver 2010 Pictograms

Via Iconglobe I spotted the newly designed pictograms for the Vancouver Olympic Wintergames in 2010, as part of a complete brand identity.

Olympic and Paralympic Games designs have a long tradition of creativity and excellence

• Visit the brand identity for Vancouver 2010 and see the article at Iconglobe.

The designers review of Books

A new website about books for the creative minds, written by designers. With designers reviews books the authors review (expensive) design books and allows you to buy or find related information about the books online.

Although there are several good design websites that occasionally have book reviews, there didn’t seem to be a single place online where you could get constant updates and reviews of new (and sometimes old) design books.

• Visit The Designers review of Books website

Thoughtpile

Thoughtpile a website where visitors are allowed to share thoughts about specific (green) topics, users can submit ideas and the most discussed idea will be featured in the Thoughtpile. Crowd thinking and creating ideas and solutions is becoming more and more popular.

• Visit Thoughtpile and share your thoughts and ideas.

PANTONE Sneakers

Today is the last day that you can pre-order special PANTONE SeaVees Sneakers, use the code on the website in the onlinestore to get yours! The collection will be in stores Spring 2009.

• Visit this website to find the information about PANTONE Sneakers.

iPhone App: Font Viewer

OSXWerk released one of the first iPhone apps for font lovers, this free app allows you to select MACOSX fonts and enlarge the typeface. You have the ability of type text and display it in the selected typeface.

It would be very interested to see more type related iPhone apps coming. For instance what I would think will work great is a iPhone version of WhatTheFont. You make a photo of a typeface you are interested in, the iWhatTheFont will recognize the typeface and can view it online or buy the specific typeface.

Please share your ideas or suggestions of type-related iPhone Apps?

• Visit the website of OSXWerk for more information about FontViewer iPhone App.

Not for paper

Not for paper is a website dedicated to bring you some of the most exciting design work for screen. Work best realized away from a printed surface.

• Visit notforpaper for inspiration

Fuel your creativity rebrands

Adelle Charles manages the great design & inspiration website Fuel Your Creativity, she publishes frequently articles for a wide design audience. Recently FYC rebranded with a new logo and website layout. Congrats Adelle for this great achievement.

• Visit Fuel your creativity for more information

Write in Helvetica

If it would work I want one, my handwriting is terrible, so writing in Helvetica would be just great. Visit the website for more information about this pen writing tool.

Is Graphic Design Art?

There has been much talk about this website, Is Graphic Design Art?. When I first encountered this question I was intrigued by the fact people think about graphic design as art. In fact most people think graphic design is art. Lets take a look at the definitions.

Graphic Design: The term graphic design can refer to a number of artistic and professional disciplines which focus on visual communication and presentation.
Art: Art is the process or product of deliberately and creatively arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions.

• So tell me is Graphic Design Art?

Submit your news

SignSphere is a montly collection of design related and inspirational topics, use the contact form to send in your materials. Thank you.

Introducing my new corporate signage website

Baumann Sign is the name of my new corporate website (at the moment Dutch only). For quite some time I haven’t had the time to implement the new corporate signage website for my company. We are a signage & wayfinding company in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Designing & producing signs for office buildings, parking facilities, public buildings, hotels and more. We are specialized in create unique signage systems through the use of well thought out design in combination with color, architecture and typography. Our main goal is to create signs & wayfinding systems that work in the environment and lead visitors in the right direction. As a wayfinding product I designed a sign system called SignSwitch, a flexible signage system with a touch of design using materials such as stainless steel in combination with colored acrylic.

Please take a look at our signage projects page to see some of the things we have done in the past. Please let me know what you think of the design of the website, your comments are highly appreciated.

• Please visit my new corporate signage website Baumann Sign for more information.

Use of DesignWorkPlan Arrows collection

Logo Designer Kathy Moore used various icons from my arrow & icons collection as a basis for the logo design of South Logan County Rural Health Care Network. Great work! Thank you for sending your materials.

The reason I chose the circles with the arrows is that I needed to represent the community as a whole and the healthcare community coming together. I liked the idea of having the arrows intersect to represent that connection. Sustainability is a major goal for our project so the circles help to express that because circles are often representative of something that goes on and on. Overall, the graphics I used from your site couldn’t have been more perfect to represent the project and the goals of it and all of the members were very happy with the final product. Kathy Moore

• Visit the website of Kathy Moore to see more of her work.
• See the professional arrow & icons collection.

Re-design of InspirationBit

The long awaited re-design of InspirationBit, a faboulus website about design, inspiration, art, photography and much more, written by Vivien. The re-design is great work, I really like the way she has put up the website, the focus on the content and thoughts on navigation. At the homepage at the top you will find the three latest articles with below that the latest featured article. At the bottom of each page you will find a huge footer containing everything you want to find at InspirationBit. The website is scalable, with a wider screen the tree on the left will have a bigger impact on the design. A nice drawing and looks great aswel! The color usage is purple and green which is a colorful yet professional look. The content of InspirationBit is just superb, posts are really thought out well and giving a in-dept look on the articles topic. Take a look at InspirationBit and tell us what you think!

You know you’ve achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away. Antoine de Saint-Exupery

• Visit InspirationBit or comment on the new design in this article. Do you want to know more about Vivien then subscribe to InspirationBit.

Launch of Typerepublic

Typerepublic is an independent type foundry based in Barcelona (Spain). Founder and principal designer Andreu Balius has designed (and designs) an exclusive collection of typefaces to be distributed throughout this website.

• Visit Typerepublic for more information.

Source Creative: Inspiration

An English design company who publish their design work on the website. They update their website a few times a month with new creative work. A inspiration to look at the design work they accomplish.

• Visit Source Creative for design inspiration and more information.

Japanese Icons

Via iLT I discovered this page, the website is completely written in Japanese, so cannot read anything. But the icons are superb. Nice balanced and beautiful designed.

• Take a look at these faboulus designed icons

Largest LED advertising screen: Podium

Via The Inquirer I found this image of the biggest ever build LED advertising screen. Size? 100 x 20 metres, that is huge! Build by Dubai-based construction company Tamee and will be placed on a office building at the Kingdom’s Majan district.

Visible at a distance of 1.5 kilometers, the magnificent screen on the façade of Podium is designed by the L.E.D. technology. This curved façade will be a powerful medium for advertising, messaging and art. Highly-reflective tinted glass will be utilized to achieve astounding visual quality, as the massive screen gives off an elegant bluish sapphire glow.

• Visit the website of Tameer for more information about this LED screen

Name that Pantone code:iPhone App

In one word, what a faboulus app for your iPhone. I recently got mine and can’t stop working with this tool. It contains the complete PANTONE® color books, so you can quickly search through PANTONE® solid coated, PANTONE® solid uncoated, PANTONE® Goe™ coated, PANTONE® Goe™ uncoated, Web Safe Colors, HTML Colors. The real power of this app is the snap-shot function. Take a photo with your iPhone and select the color, voila ColorExpert will tell you the PANTONE color. I’ve checked it with several colors and it matches almost everything correctly. Beautiful!

• Take a look at the website of Code-Line for the ColorExpert and install the app for only just under ten Dollars (or 8 Euros).

Graphic ExchanGE Design

A graphic design website that shows showcases of inspirational designs. Graphic ExchanGE covers many different design topics, but this page is full on (laser) engraved design graphic, on different materials with superb taken photos.

• Visit Graphic ExchanGE for more inspiration resources and be sure to take a look here.

The visual history of 11 successful blogs

Over the years blogging has become more popular than regular websites, this post from Royal Pingdom compares the design of 11 successful blogs from the start to the current design. Interesting readings.

• Visit Royal Pingdom to read the complete post

Environmental Graphic design

In this post from +KN Kitsune Noir the author writes about the importance of environmental graphic design. The examples are of great design and serve their purpose.

• Visit Kitsune Noir for the complete article

Zabox: Design News

Yet another voting design news website has been born: Zabox. So why is Zabox different than the other design news websites? It is a bit more focused on just design than other news websites. I submitted a story recently and I will post my findings in a future article.

zaBox is a design related social bookmarking website, focused on offering its users design news, tutorials and resources in a spam-free environment.

• Visit Design News website zaBox for more information & news

Viscom Fair Frankfurt

One of the largest media fairs in Europe will be hosted in Frankfurt this year. With over 260 exhibitors in various fields of print media, visual communication, singage, digital signage and more will bring you their latest information. It will be a great fair, although the exhibitors list is quite the same as last year in Italy. I really enjoyed the Italy fair… So anyone is going to Frankfurt? Let me know and we can meet there.

Viscom frankfurt 2008 will be opening its doors at the Exhibition Centre Frankfurt from 30 October.

• Check the website of Viscom for the latest details, programms and more.

Enjoy reading

Thank you for your visit at Designworkplan.com, enjoy reading the above recommendations. If you have anything to share please type a comment or let me know via contact.

Search Amazon for type related books

A nice search tool to search for typographic books at amazon, it uses a interesting way to present the bookcovers, the covers form the search word you typed. Great tool.

• Go to Amaztype for more information about this book type search tool.

Search Twitter for type comments

More type related searches in the world of twitter. Typesites released a search tool that crawls twitter posts for type related keywords. A nifty tool created by Kyle Meyer.

• Visit the twitter type search tool for more information or background info at Astheria.

Typegraphunnies

Type can be fun, at Typegraphunnies there is a huge collection of type jokes. Warning only for type junckies!

• Visit Typegraphunnies to see the fun!

Design your Heineken

The guys from Fitzroy send me this url, here you are able to design your own Heineken beer bottle. A superb tool that allows you to easily add text or images and have your own designed Heineken beer. Awaiting mine…

• Visit the official website of Heineken or visit the makers Fitzroy.

Creattica Daily

Creattica Daily, a site of daily news and links for creatives and designers. They cover a broad range of creative inclinations from graphic to product design, interactive to motion, advertising to articles.

• Visit Creattica Daily for your fresh update design update.

20 hand written fonts & resources

Adelle has compiled a list of free fonts in the category handwritten, this article is a great resource if you are looking for handwriting fonts.

• Visit Fuel Your Creativity for more info about free handwriting fonts.

Vot.eti.me

A new digg pligg voting design inspiration website, Vot.eti.me has a easy to use interface and is a great resource for finding design related information. I believe this website has been created because of the sell of designbump. Good luck with Vot.eti.me! Small note, make the logo a direct link to the homepage. Thanks.

• Visit Vot.eti.me and start voting today!

Divitodesign Redesign

Dutch blogger Stefan Vervoort just redesigned his website DivitioDesign, with more functions like community news, interviews and wordpress themes. Check out the website.

• Visit Divitodesign for more information.

How to write an effective design brief

Jacob Cass from JustCreativeDesign wrote a very interesting post about a design brief, which items are important when informing a client, ideas behind a design and more.

• Visit JCD on How to write an effective design brief.

TypeisArt

Type is Art is a wonderful tool that allows you to create art with type. With the type on screen you are able to scale, rotate and create a design you like. Have Fun with Type is Art!

• Visit Type is Art and create your own art with type!.

New blog from Erik Arjaluoto (ideasonideas)

Eric Karjaluoto is a designer, serial entrepreneur, and author of numerous articles on design. Now he started his personal weblog with short ideas/articles with a more casual read than Ideas on Ideas.

• Visit the homepage of his Awesome blog, the introduction post or find more design inspiration at IdeasOnIdeas.

44 tools to help you in your design work

A huge resource with design tips, inspiration and everything you need when designing. A comphrensive list organized in a coherent structure. Read more at Designer Daily.

• Visit Designer Daily for 44 tools to help in your design work.

Lettercult kick off

A great new website about letters The Custom Letter Cult.

LETTERCULT IS OUR ATTEMPT TO HIGHLIGHT ARTISTS & designers doing remarkable work with Custom Letters. This group includes type designers, letterers, sign painters, graffiti artists, stone carvers, calligraphers, poster artists, and graphic designers. Just people. Who make letters.

• Visit Lettercult homepage or see the Kick off post.

Everything is okay…

Via Grainedit I found this resource, a faboulus yet simple yet very effective innovation. I really like the idea of adding information about a situation. It started out as a design idea but at the moment it is becomming a cult of everything that is ok or not ok!

• Visit Everything is ok and subscribe to grainedit, a great design resource that is online for one year, congrats! Check the homepage for a celebration giveaway.

5 reasons your business needs a blog

Blogging started out as a personal thing for computer nerds, nowadays it is a vital part of business online and offline. From my personal experience, my blog designworkplan has gained more visitors than my corporate website, read this wonderful post from Randa Clay.

• Read about 5 reasons your business needs a blog by Randa Clay.

Speckyboy: 15 free fonts

Free fonts are always handy when designing, Vincent Schwidder (colorlab) just send me this link from SpeckyBoy who gathered 15 free fonts to use in design. Worth taking a look at.

• Visit Speckboy for the complete list of 15 free fonts, thanks Vincent, visit his websiteColorlab.

Overview of changes in global corporate identity

Via CreatticaDaily I found this resource, a complete overview of corporate identity changes for mayor companies in the last few years. This resource is just a wonderful list! I would suggest to bookmark that reference guide, it will always come in handy.

What’s new in corporate identities, and worth attention? Who did it and why? Fact and opinion. We tell stories of worldwide strategic interest, creative excellence, and leadership intent (or the regrettable lack of it), when we can find the story and properly credit the CEOs, planners, and designers

• Visit Identityworks for this huge list of corporate indentity changes

More to come

Stay tuned for more inspiration to come, comming up: How to design Airport Signage, a new collection of type in the wild I’ve collected and more. Subscribe to the free RSS feed to stay updated on the latest information from DesignWorkPlan.