Marketing & PR

design in-flight is back, having shifted from a PDF publication to a Web site chock full of tasty design goodness.

Arrangement de couleurs is “a series of close-up photographs of shutters and doors, hoping that they would provide colour inspiration for an up-and-coming design project.”

Yet another great idea from And all that Malarkey

As pointed out on xBlog, (which linked to the Molly Holzschlag’s blog) a recent study conducted by the University of Glamorgan, has found that ” there is no doubt about the strength of men and women’s preference for sites produced by people of their own sex”. While key parts of the study seem pretty obvious to designers (men tend to like angles, women prefer curves, etc.), it is interesting to note the statistics the male/female ratio of corporate Web designers. I was rather surprised that so many designers, were men – especially in companies that sell products focused on a female market (beauty supplies etc.)

Designers and managers of design teams should take note when they approach a new (re)design, as the gender of your target audience is one of the key factors that should shape the design of your site, and overall marketing efforts.

Quick Photoshop tips are very useful Veerle includes information about how to select a color that is outside of Photoshop’s window, which is something that I have wanted to do many times, but had not figured out. There are a couple of other interesting tips, plus a link to an article discussing the next version of Photoshop.

Layer Comps scripts in Photoshop CS explains how to use scripts to copy Layer Comps to a new file with all of the layers intact, turn Comps into a Web photo gallery with the ability to comment on each design or turn Layer Comps into a PDF. Yet another great tutorial from Veerle.

Linotype has released Zapfino Extra Pro:
> “when used in an OpenType-supporting application with all contextual features activated, draws on the rich library of glyphs included in the font to automatically generate numerous, changing alternatives that work together, creating a lively typographic impression. This impression can offer the same harmonious feeling as real calligraphy.”

This is an amazing font. Take a look at the different instances of the same letter within the example image. The variation provided by the different flourishes and letter types fools the eye into believing that this is actual calligraphy. This doesn’t look like a font.

Link via Authentic Boredom

Color Scheme Generator 2 improves upon the older color palette generator that had lived on pixy.cz. This is an extremely useful tool for all designers, and it is great to see that it has a new home at Wellstyled.com.

Wow, this is immensely helpful: Change Multiple Text Layers in Photoshop. As stated in the short article, if you want to make the same change to multiple text layers within Photoshop, you can skip the need to change each layer individually, or create an action. Simply follow these steps:
1. Link all of the text layers
2. Make sure one of the linked layers is currently selected
3. Hold down the Shift key while clicking on on the option bar to make the change

Very cool!

Thanks to Corrie Haffly for posting this on SitePoint.