Archive for March, 2010

I get things done (on a Mac)

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Free Mac OS X to-do apps

Sure there are plenty of ways to organize your work. There’s sticky notes, there’s trying to memorize everything. There’s writing on the sides in notebooks. And there are dashboard sticky notes that can be quite useful. But all of those ways are confusing and not so organized. Sure we do creative work so we’re all a bit artistic and we don’t follow the organized routines. But at some point you’ll notice, especially when you’re doing web designs or any kind of paid designs that keeping tracks of what you have to do is important. So here’s a quick list of applications that are free, work on a Mac and are a good way to organize your things.

igtd

iGTD

My favorite out of the bunch is iGDT, unfortunately it has been discontinued since the author works on a similar but paid app for another company now. But it still is available for download if you search the web for it. The best thing about is is how advanced it is. First of all it syncs with iCal and with ToDo lists in your mail app. So you have the info in a couple of places. Second of all you can use a context view of your to-do, or view them by projects. The icon in your dock has a badge with how many things you have left to do (green) and another, red badge for things you have to do for today. Try it out, it’s really worth it, even if there’s not gonna be a new version. You can download it here

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Monday’s Typography #2

Monday, March 8th, 2010


Another part of our weekly typography inspiration. As usual all the pieces are linked to their authors flickr page so go there and see more. Enjoy as those really are inspiring.

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Viral video timeline

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

viral-timeline

I’ve been thinking about the steps of the viral video before it reaches the final one of being viral and here’s what I came up with. This list is based on the observation I had with a few of my own videos that went viral and after making a few viral websites too.

1. Content

As usual it all starts with the content. It has to have a viral hook, which is something like a hook in a song – a catchy part that will get people “hooked”. So if you’re planning to go viral with a video it has to have at least one moment that others will want to share. It can be a funny moment, a scary one or just plain out of the ordinary. Take note that if you’re making a video about for example skateboarding, it’s rarely enough to be just good at it. If you’re good you will only reach a small niche. So there has to be something else for other people to want to watch your video. In such a case – a not-so-nice conversation with a cop, running away from cops, falling down, whatever. But remember it has to be addictive. It needs to be interesting enough not only for the viewer to send it out but also for the viewer to want to watch it again. Oh and as said before it’s best if it was around a minute in length.

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How much is 2 + 2? 4? More than 4? Less?

Friday, March 5th, 2010

math

I was watching TEDx Warsaw today and the main topic of the event is 2+2>4. Meaning that if we stick together we might achieve a lot. But is it really true?

There’s no I in team. Or is there?

One of the speakers – Sandra Bichl mentioned an interesting point. There are three types of people who enjoy working in teams. One is the people who found a group that they can really well work with (which is very rare). The second one is people who cope nicely with not meating deadlines and team tensions. And the third one is the ones who are just lazy and they want others to do their work for them. But how often does team work actually influence a positive change? I can honestly say that based on my experience it’s about 25% of good team work that will eventually wear out in time anyway, and 75% of good work done in one person “teams”.

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Means to an end can influence the end

Friday, March 5th, 2010

wrench

The truth and fact is that if you’re doing something long enough you get better and better at it. Seriously, unless you’re like totally not doing your thing – you can get pretty good at things if you put in the effort. But there are also some other truths about what happens in time. First of all you start seeing things differently. Second of all you get repetitive and it’ll be hard to “think” creatively. Don’t worry though these are some normal symptoms. Of course a nice computer-less vacation would help a lot in such a case, but that’s not always possible. What to do then ?

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Nice packaging design

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

We believe a package doesn’t need to be a boring thing. It can very well sell a product. Or attract the attention of a potential customer. And to prove it we have found some splendid works from various designers from all over the world. Click on an image to see the authors page.

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Monday’s typography examples

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Some nice uses of glyphs. Click on the image to see the author’s flickr page.

And more after the break.

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