Clearly, the design and creation of man-made Christmas trees started long before the more versatile and multi-disciplinarily minded architects of recent generations got involved. The debate of the environmental impact of both cutting natural trees for the celebrations and using their artificial replicas that became popular in the 90s is ongoing. The best solution to avoiding the [...]

This is a guest post from Tony Shin – with a double major in Economics and Management from the University of Washington, this Seattle native regularly contributes his work to several other publications. He has moved into social media and creative design in hopes to help lead and innovate the future of information with others. [...]

As you may know by now, Inspired Magazine is a sucker for data visualization. That’s why we invited Tony Shin – a social media ninja and creative design samurai – to curate the weekly dose of infographics. If you like them as much as we do check out some of the older editions and follow [...]

There are two reasons for you to make an Application: for fun or for business. If your App is made for fun, just do it and don’t read this post. If it’s the other and you want to maximize your chances to make a living from your Apps, this is for you.

You’re creative. You’re talented. You want the world to see who you are and what you can do. But the world’s a big place, and it’s hard to stand out. If people can’t see your work, they won’t come knocking at your door. You need people to see what you’re all about, and that requires [...]

It’s all very well creating beautiful, intricate illustrated letterforms, but how do you convert them into a usable display font without sacrificing detail or quality? HypeForType explains how they converted Alex Trochut’s illustrated alphabet into Neo Deco, an D&AD award winning quality display font. Alex Haigh provides us with a key insight into this process in [...]

The encyclopedia at interaction-design.org has just launched and includes video interviews, commentaries, interactive illustrations, and lots more. The encyclopedia deals with Interactive Design, Usability, and User Experience and the heading of the project is “Democratization of Knowledge”: That people from all the far corners of the world can get free access to world-class educational materials. [...]

Email Direct Marketing Campaigns (EDMs) are becoming an increasingly popular method of communication and, assuming you are not a business selling male enhancement products, they can be very effective. But before you start coding an HTML email, there a few things you should be aware of. 1. Scrap Divs, Tables are back. You have probably [...]

I think we can all agree Amazon.com is a pretty uninspiring website, no revelation there. They were once known for pioneering much of what is now referred to as ‘standards’ in ecommerce. These days, the online giant is looking a little worse for wear. Personally, I’ve been avoiding the website for years because of how unappealing I find it, so when I recently went to buy a Kindle I was not surprised to learn of some major fragmentation and usability problems.

Follow Patrick Branigan on Twitter @pbranigan | patrickbranigan.com | fourfifthsdesign.com In September of 2007, I chose to engage in a four year art program at the University at Buffalo’s Department of Visual Studies. My hope was that my interest in graphic design would lead me on a path far from the arid and repetitive routine [...]

Craig Baldwin writes a helpful column here at Inspired Mag were he organizes and posts the best design inspiration to be found on the web. His posts are great for designers looking for an extra boost. But without offline inspiration, you risk to narrow your vision of creativity. Lately, it’s started to become forgotten that your designs can be inspired not just by the work of others, but by your surroundings and the objects around you.