Michael Bierut

For one of my classes (Client Services and Relations), I got a chance to research a design superstar. Going into this project, I had no idea who I wanted to research. Nixson, a friend of mine from the class, who recently read about Michael Bierut referred me to him so I said, "why not, it'll be fun!"

After doing a lot of research, I found out that this guy is quite amazing! I can totally relate to him with the way he works with his clients.  He is a designer that works alongside with his client, and that's exactly how I work.

I have an interesting video I'd like to share with my viewers. It's a video about Michael Bierut talking about his 5 secrets of client work, which if any of you here do, this video is GREAT!

Link to video: http://the99percent.com/videos/6056/Michael-Bierut-5-Secrets-from-86-Notebooks

If you don't want to watch the whole 19 and so minutes of the video, here's the 5 secrets he talks about:

1. Listen first, then design

2. Don't avoid the obvious

3. The problem contains the solution

4. Indulge your obsession

5. Love is the answer

Layouts

I've been designing for over 7 years and I haven't really done much with layout wise and that's why I am really excited for next year in 3rd year.

With that said, I've been looking at a lot of layout (grid work) and here is one that really interests me.

Even though it looks scattered, learning how to lay out the body copy and header properly will make it so neat. I absolutely like it how the one can totally not follow the rules and make it work so well.

Here are also a few that I like. (and this is what I plan on focusing on in the next couple of months):

Big Company?

So I came across this picture while searching for a data plan for my phone. As soon as I saw this, I was thinking to myself, "Really? One of the biggest mobile network company can't even hire a decent designer/photo editor?" Honestly? Little details like so makes all the differences!

There's actually more than 1 thing wrong here; the Apple logo was edited/removed poorly and the screenshot looks too fake with no reflection continuing through. It looks as though they inner shadowed the screen way too much, along with not having the split reflection from the top right go down the rest of the screen.

Oh well, what can ya do? I might give them an email with my contact list and portfolio on it. ;)

Pending Client Work...

So the other day I got asked to design a logo for a person on the internet.

I've known him for a while now and he agreed to pay me x amount. After 2 days of working on the logo, him and "his friend" loved the logo. Unfortunately, he ended up saying that his friend thinks that i am "charging too much".

It made me extremely mad because I spend a lot of time on it and I don't even think he has a "friend" working on this project with him. Let's hope he doesn't end up using the logo without paying me...

Lesson Learned: Everything needs to be written out via email or something, making it MORE official.