A few years ago, after one too many ‘things’ related to my work as a designer got under my skin and frustrated me, I resolved to find the common theme and discover how to overcome this frustration I was experiencing. The common theme was that people who aren’t designers don’t understand design, designers and the […]
$5 logo from Von Glitschka!
Once upon a time, this very popular illustrator/designer named Von Glitschka created a website to sell logos for $5. The kicker is that he would only spend 5 minutes on each one and there would be no revisions allowed. It was done out of frustration from what he calls ‘cheap a** clients’. However, for fans […]
An Event Apart: Faster Design Decisions with Style Tiles
At An Event Apart – Austin 2013, Samantha Warren shared about her new idea: Style Tiles. Here are my take-aways: Design is art without clients – and in-house designers still have clients Creating 3 fixed-width pixel-perfect Photoshop comps encourages ‘Frankencomps’ – where client will request pieces of each to be put together to make a […]
An Event Apart: 10 Commandments of Web Design
I was lucky enough to attend my very first web design conference this week. It was amazingly inspiring and gave me a lot of things to think about – mostly a lot of things I need to do better at in my work. It was great to be in a room full of 400-500 other […]
Dieter Rams once said…
Question everything generally thought to be obvious —Dieter Rams For me, right now, this means – rethink all of my design tendencies. For example: Is Helvetica right for this project too? Does this website need to be centered (margin: 0 auto; for the web nerds)? Do buttons need rounded corners and a gradient? In your […]
Good design is….
Recently, I came across Dieter Rams’ ten principles of good design. I didn’t even know who Dieter Rams was – but assumed that he was surely a graphic designer, based on his definition of good design (and maybe the glasses). I was wrong! (which proves good design is transcendent) Dieter Rams is an industrial designer […]
Line and Shape in Nature
These photos are a result of a photo exercise I took on. I recently read on a blog that at some point, photographers should try this: Go to a location, whether it’s indoors or outdoors, and spend 15 minutes there. Spend the first 10 minutes observing your surroundings. Don’t put the camera to your eye […]
JazzFest Poster Design Process
This is the coolest project I’ve worked on in a while. It’s a poster to advertise the annual Jazz Festival at Mineral Area College, where my Creative Improv counter-part, Michael Goldsmith teaches music and leads the jazz ensemble. Why did I love this project? I could combine my love for jazz music, art and design […]
David Carson style type design
A few years ago I had a course where we were encouraged to push the limit of what graphic design is and break the rules of design and typography to create something fresh… as fresh as sweet, sweet mountain dew. Here are a few pieces from that time period (which also draw much inspiration from […]
StephenEmlund.com through the years
It’s been almost 6 years since I originally launched StephenEmlund.com. This October, I redesigned my website for the first time ever. I have been surprised how well my website has held up to all the design trends in the last 6 years. Of course, it’s because I made the website very minimalistic. Although orange was […]