Dedicated to inspiring designers, inventors & the creative spirit in all of us.

Floor of an elevator made to look like a 1,000-foot drop! I hope no one has passed out in this elevator.

Scale is everything when you are seeing this advertisement from above. From a distance, these people walking over and around this scratching dog look like fleas. 

Everyone dreams about what they would rather be doing; this advertisement shows how extreme that may be for some people.

Clever way to advertise “shark week” on a city bus. I bet it looks way cooler in person!

This vacuum billboard takes a second to get, but it is pretty good.

Nothing says “we sell jumbo muffins” like a car crushing advertisement set-up showing jumbo muffins falling from a billboard.

Awesome billboard idea, but too much white space leaves your logo left unseen.

Driving around the corner and seeing this skyline billboard would set you back. I love how advertisers are creating up exhibit designs to retain the attention of consumers.

Wow, now that is putting trust in the product you are advertising! 3M claims it sandwiched real money into this bus stop advertising campaign.

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round…

This is a clever way to seek out jobseekers at an ATM. This company has an entire ad campaign with miserable people shown ‘working’ in automated machines, like coffee machines and photo booths, as if they are actually inside.

This IPhone app drafting template is pretty sweet. Use it to storyboard that awesome app you think is going to turn the world upside down. The reflective metal material is reminiscent of the Apple brand, but I think that the old-school, green plastic drafting template would be way better.

With all of the talk about the new iPhone coming out soon, and everyone taking a bite at what may be the next iPhone, concept designs like this are popping up. I hope this is a joke, because having something like this go to market would just be an example of lazy design.

Do you think that you would have been excited to see a phone like this come out in 1996?

I will wait for the real thing, trying to ignore the speculative hype in the meantime, in the hope that Apple reveals a new device that is nothing short of revolutionary. The interface and function of the mobile communication device is not dead. We are not at a stopping point in how we can design and redesign the communication device as we know it. Simply extruding the length of the iPhone will be the demise of Apple as the leader in communication technology design. One day, the Apple iPhone will be the Beta or cassette of yesterday. I just hope that day doesn’t approach prematurely because of a failed design like this concept of the G4.

What a clever way to celebrate your book collection and interest in geography. The designer has taken a great amount of time in creating a nice wall display for magazines, newspapers, books and digital media. I think there should be one of these in every library. And I also believe there should be one designed for each continent, not just this cluster of the continental United States. Who would have thought that there would be more reading in Texas than in Pennsylvania?

Two very cool images for those of you who try to stay inspired. I have always been told that you must enjoy what you do, and that idea is pretty much summed up in this illustration. What better way to convey the message of just doing something than this typo-ridden inspirational thought.

I found this image to be interesting. It is difficult to see what role Photoshop had in the color saturation and juxtaposition. I have seen a lot of design blogs posting  collections of peoples’ things recently, and have noticed a great number of them categorizing by color. Stacks of books, shelves full of knick-knacks, and closets appear to be disregarding the subject of what is being stored, tending only to the color arrangement.

For those of you who want to freshen up your rendering skills, or maybe just want a little help learning how to sketch, IDsketching  is for you. I followed along with this tutorial using Alias SketchBook Pro on my Wacom and step by step successfully rendered the earbuds as shown above. If you go into the tabs, you can even navigate through dozens of marker renderings, hand sketches and computer generated drawings posted by the authors. Novice or professional, check out this creative site!

Emily Beros is a student at Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio. She recently co-designed the Certificate of Electoral Votes for the state of Ohio. On Jan. 8 her design was unsealed and read aloud before both houses of Congress in Washington D.C.

1. How did you come across this opportunity to design this special document? The President of CCAD was contacted about the possibility of the project, and the Dean brought my name up in conversation. It was really not a competition in terms of us having to go through rounds before being chosen. We were contacted on a Tuesday and on Wednesday we met with a gentleman who gave us past examples for research. The next day we took them to the Ohio Secretary of State’s office for a meeting with the communications director.

2. I understand you created a unique watermark design that will now be implemented in all future Electoral Vote documents, is that correct? Yeah, in the past, this has been formatted more as a document, but we designed it to include more graphics. After researching the history of this document, we realized they would only be seen together once before being preserved so we wanted to make it special. By including watermarks of state icons like the ladybug, the buckeye and a carnation, there is a once-only time when they are viewed as one single joining display together.

3. So where did the documents go after you presented them? We had a ceremony with the Governor of Ohio and the Secretary of State to whom we presented the official documents. From there, three portfolios were created. One portfolio went to Washington D.C. to the President of the Senate, one went to the National Archives for preservation and the last portfolio went to an Ohio Supreme Court judge for preservation.

4. It seems pretty exciting. Was it really fast paced and cut-throat doing this design work with your design partner? I’m afraid the work I was doing for the Electoral College documents was less than exciting. Historic, yes, but not so much exciting. Sorry if this isn’t nearly as exciting as you’d like… you can totally add some explosives or car chases where need be.

5. Now that you have some time to do some down-to-earth projects, not so presidential, what are you working on? I currently am working with the College of Design Group, a school based design job where I am a senior designer. We handle all design work like websites, promotional videos, flyers and view books for both current and prospective students. Anything design goes to us and we help to promote and educate our students and faculty.

6. How is it working out, being a full time student while simultaneously working for the College of Design Group? It is great; lots of experience. Working with both students and experienced faculty is great. My boss, Robert Cole, is an inspiration to me as far as working in design. He is a former designer for Victoria Secret and now does marketing and manages the design group for the college. He has really helped me realize how much target audience affects a design.

7. Who else would you attribute as a major influence to how you see things with a designer’s eye? My first impressionable moment in design was taking a class with an instructor here at CCAD. Doug Fisher, who teaches advertising and graphic design, has really played a role in how I see design. He is so knowledgeable, fully understands design as a profession and is accepting of newer technologies as well as seasoned techniques like marker rendering in this day of computer interface.

8. When was your first impressionable moment as far as designing goes? When I was in the fifth grade, after school I would spend time in my mom’s classroom. I would get onto her computer and “fix” her Clip-Art that she had used for teaching. As funny as that may seem, she still uses some of the artwork I created for her back then. Also, when I was supposed to be writing essays and school projects, I would go off on a tangent, adjusting fonts and layout, spending far more time on the graphics rather than the writing content.

9. What stirs your imagination and influences you when you are doing design work? I do a lot of online referencing. My day always begins combing through design blogs and current design trends. Most recently, I got a Swiss design book as a Christmas gift, which is a great wealth of information. I also love botanical illustrations. Since I was young I have always loved the appeal of the detailed illustrations and layouts.

Very well done! This illustration caught my eye because of the style, which is like that of any children’s poster that I remember from elementary school. Then the content popped out at me, almost instantly causing me to inspect its detail. 

I remember watching a TV program about how machines in the rainforests have influenced nature, specifically the call of different species of birds. The ring-tone of cell phones, the ratcheting sound of jackhammers and the diesel-driven engines of large machinery have all been mimicked by nature due to the introduction of commercial logging. How ironic it is that the machinery designed to tear down the forest is so much influenced by nature. The large, bug-eyed glass windows. The long-reaching extensions with hydraulic pinchers and cable driven armatures. The colors even imitate what may as well be the exoskeleton of a rare species of insect, with their striking bright hues and dull camouflage of their underbellies. I do wish this illustration would include machinery used to re-plant trees.

In a time when loggin’ is glorified on television, it is nice to see an illustration like this, which offers a bit of humor and a lot of truth to start a conversation about what we do to feed the monster of consumerism. The questions that could arise from a child seeing this in the classroom would intimidate even the best teacher. Maybe this illustration can challenge a few young minds to think about how to use more sustainable materials and perhaps be more conscious of how we consume and what we acquire. 

This poster is well designed in how it educates the viewer to the actual inhabitants of the rainforest. Yes, there are many species of plants and animals that we all know and love to learn about, but there is an ugly side to what inhabits our rainforests too. So, whether it is simple because of the visual appeal or its deeper content, take a good look at this advertisement, which is both a great illustration and a stimulus for thought.

No designer’s Christmas stocking (or book shelf) is complete without this collection of titles. This box set includes an idea index, color index and layout index for reference to any design challenge. With over 1,900 illustrations, you don’t even need to know how to read to enjoy it!