Heartwork is an annual project designed to raise money for art supplies within the art room at Target House, which is a “home-away-from-home for the families of children facing long-term treatment at St. Jude® Children’s Research Hospital.” Each year a group of artists and designers each create an 11″ x 14″ giclee print featuring an interpretation of “Hope.” All prints are limited to an edition of 10 pieces signed and numbered by the artist.

Check out this year’s contributions:

Side note: If you wish to suggest a site for next week, feel free to contact us.

Engage designs and builds great things for the web whilst managing the digital output and strategies for a broad range of well-known clients throughout the UK.

WebKnit is the web workshop of Shane Prendergast. Shane’s a hardworking web ...

Using the same tab-and-slot construction technique as classic balsa wood airplanes, Kinetic Creatures start as flat-packed, laser-cut cardboard and transform into the impressive mechanical Rory the Rhino, Geno the Giraffe or Elly the Elephant. The DIY animals were conceived by Portland, Oregon-based visual arts teacher Alyssa Hamel and industrial designer Lucas Ainsworth, who were interested in encouraging youth to "be builders, thinkers and inventors". After four years of research and design, the duo are launching a Kickstarter campaign today with the goal of raising enough funds to make the project possible while keeping ...

]]> http://workflowfreelance.com/838203/unique-graphic-design-by-kyle-white.php/feed 0 http://workflowfreelance.com/801012/rhino-studio-business-card.php http://workflowfreelance.com/801012/rhino-studio-business-card.php#comments Fri, 30 Dec 2011 08:30:24 +0000 The Design Inspiration http://thedesigninspiration.com/?p=83974 ]]> http://workflowfreelance.com/801012/rhino-studio-business-card.php/feed 0 http://workflowfreelance.com/716342/total.php http://workflowfreelance.com/716342/total.php#comments Tue, 21 Jun 2011 12:21:13 +0000 Eric Hurtgen http://rockthatfont.com/?p=1003

Rhino Records UK released TOTAL: from Joy Division to New Order on June 6, a collection of both bands’ best-known songs. Linking the two makes sense, as the dark post-punk of Joy Division ended abruptly when leader singer Ian Curtis committed suicide. After the posthumous release of their second album, Closer, the remaining members reformed as the decidedly brighter New Order, enjoying decades-spanning commercial and critical success. TOTAL follows the two bands chronologically, highlighting the musical evolution of both.

It’s always been very hard to separate the music of either band from their sleeve art. Peter Saville, a ...

So have a look around, check out the different styles used and let us know which you like the best!

Holographic Business Card | Genix Design

Vlade Dimovski Business Card

RDA

Koji Sueyoshi | Designer Business Card

Easel Business Card by Egil Paulsen

Adriana Chionetti | Designer Business Card

Nation Builder

Rhino Studio | Leather Textured Business Cards

Yannick Armspach

Samuel Arnold | Freelance Designer Business Card

Mogibo | Character Designer Business Card

Sean Kinberger | Graphic Designer Business Card

NinjaBTL Business Card

Ruben Alejandro | Marketing and Sales Business Card

Colokial

Wildlabs – Business Cards

Annalisa Vargiu Business Card

Famepix Black Business Cards

Colorburned

Nicksmismee

Ricky Synnot Studio Cards

T&T Business Cards

Andrea Gallego Business Cards

Black Rooster Business Cards

Vonnda Business Cards

RUPTURE STUDIO

M1 Business Card

Chalk & Talk Business Cards

Card Letter

TRIBO Telecom

I Am Tiago

Enspired Creative

JR BRANDS Business Card

The Virginia Shop

Roselli Graphics Square Business Cards

Oooo-com UA Business Cards

Wine/Bar Business Bards

The Carbon Consultancy

Tarjetas De Presentación Gooru Interactiva

Creative We Are

The Lab

HundredEyes

Winston Warrior Business Cards

Markitable Business Cards

Marca | Marketing and Advertising Business Card

Studio Graficzne

Aleks Faure

OtherDesigns

Qit

Twice

Mikii

I Love Letterpress

TKW

Adora

Tabitha Society

Christian Muller Personal Trainer Business Card

Dreamten Studios

Svengiesen

Firstview

Reshad Huree

Base 10

Vevia

Digital Fish

Chuck Tingley

iDraw

Daniel Sweeney Photography

Intoto

iPhone Monster

Sattom Media

Tom Mayes | Design Business Cards

Blue Custom Skin Care Business Cards

Logoholik

Alacaesar

1scale1

Redbox Media Business Cards

Joint Medias Business Cards

Marco Manojlovic | Grass Business Cards

MentalAudio

DKing

We Shoot Cocktails

KEO

Rich McNabb | Web Designer Business Cards

Matus Macej | Graphic Designer

BCForsada

PVC Business Cards

I Prefer Dogs

Coma

Bridge Photographic Business Cards

guiFX

Velvetant

Down Toner Beauty Consultant Business Cards

Brigada Creativa

Burubundi

Alonzo Euphrosina

Saturized

Lupa Consultoria Ambiental

Nished

Osvaldas

Beauty by Lisette

Post a comment below if you’d like to showcase your business card designs – I know you’ve got one worth showing :)

Need some business cards printed? Try 123print.com for awesome deals and great quality.

Many designers often have other creative sides to them. Although the talent are broadly expanded, some designers enjoy designing toys. In this field, a standard blank toy is called a Munny. It’s a plain white figure that can be drawn on with crayons, pens, paint and other writing utensils. Today we have a wonderful collection of plastic, paper, and other material based designer toys. We hope these toy collectibles will inspire you to create your very own! You can order your own Munny, and let your creativity flourish.

Please don’t take this article as discouragement, you don’t have to be a “Designer” to be creative. We believe that anybody can create a piece of art!

If you wish to see more examples, please check out Toydesignserved.com

We would love to hear you thoughts about this collection. Also if you have created your own designer toy, feel free to post a link in the comment section!

 

My decision to buy a new 13″ MacBook Air (2010) was quite an arduous one. I went through rounds of intensive research before I decided to take the plunge. I must have read every MacBook Air review out there, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Due to popular demand, I decided to share my purchasing decision process as well as some post-purchase insights on the design and usability of the MacBook Air after I put it thought its paces.

In preparation for this article, I took copious notes on my thoughts of the MacBook Air (both good and bad). These notes have been transcribed into this article and should also reflect my MacBook Air’s chronology of use.

Pre-Purchase

Lets start with a bit of a background. I’m currently using, what I call, a MacBook masquerading as a MacBook Pro. Now more than 2 years old, it was the first generation 13″ MacBook that was launched with the Aluminum Unibody. The only difference at that time between a MacBook and a Pro was the Pro had a faster processor, SD Card slot and a backlit keyboard. My MacBook has a 2GHz processor with 2GB of Ram and runs like a tank (abet a sluggish one) despite falling on and deforming its corner. So technically, I did not really need a new laptop.

I had notice recently that Design Sojourn Consulting was taking me on the road quite a lot. I found I was working in varied environments such as Starbucks, corner of benches, and even PC friendly design studios. In this scenario of use, my MacBook was not hitting the mark in both the laptop’s weight and battery life. Therefore in October 2010, when Steve Jobs introduced a super thin, light and fast Laptop, I was very intrigued. After playing with it at the store, I decided to really think carefully if a MacBook Air (MBA) was for me.

My first question was what would I use an MBA for, especially if I still have a fully functioning laptop? Furthermore what size should I get, the 11″ or the 13″? I ran the question by my friends on Twitter and a surprising number of people suggested I go for the 11″, especially if I still had a functioning laptop.

The majority of reviews concluded that the 11″ would be a good satellite or 2nd/3rd computer and the 13″ should be seen as your replacement machine. I found these conclusions to be partially true and I bucked the trend by buying a 13″ MacBook Air instead.

Purchase

When I finally went to the Apple store to make my purchase, I had two scenarios in mind:

1) As suggested by the reviews, I would buy the 11″ and use it as a satellite or a portable extension of my 13″ MacBook.

2) I buy the 13″ MBA as a replacement for my aging 13″ MacBook. Once I move the data over, I’ll Bootcamp my old MacBook to run Windows for CAD (Rhino 3D).

After speaking to the ever-knowledgeable Apple Geniuses, I ended up somewhere in-between the two scenarios. I decided that my new 13″ MBA was going to be a “serious satellite” as I needed the MBA to run Photoshop on the go. It seems the 11″ will struggle with Photoshop, so say the Geniuses.

Furthermore after spending some time at the store playing with MBAs, I found the screen size of the 11″ just too small to use comfortably. The problem is the 16:9 high-resolution display which packs in more pixels that a 13″ MacBook/Pro horizontally. As a result, everything gets much smaller. For example, the standard fonts sizes on webpages, document icons and toolbars etc., they all get smaller. I did not want to be changing the zoom presets on the programs every time I use them.

You will find that it is hard to gauge the shrinkage as the demo computers are running full screen slide shows all the time! I’m not sure about you but I’m struggling with short sightedness and I’m not planning to risk what’s left of my eyesight by working daily on 11″. The 13″ also has a similar shrinkage problem, but the larger physical size helps alleviate the problem.

Despite the screen size and resolution issue, I still seriously considered the 11″ until the very end. But what actually swung me was the perceived value of what I was purchasing. My initial gut feel was that the 64GB Solid State Hard-drive was not enough for all my data. So I’ll need an 11” with a 128GB SSD. On that note, I discovered that for US$100 more, I could get a larger 13″ screen, faster processor, longer battery life and a SD Card slot!

Post-Purchase

I decided to run my spanking new MacBook Air like an iPad on steroids. This meant keeping the OS light and fast. This was also in anticipation of the new MacOS Lion where the boundaries between MacOS and iOS would be blurred. Finally, instead of migrating my files and software over from my old MacBook, I adopted a policy of installing programs or moving data only when I needed to.

I started the ball rolling with a stripped down Firefox browser to maintain the speed. I converted most of the plugin add-ons into native apps running on the Mac. I guess the only reason why I stuck with Firefox was to sync the bookmarks from my browser on my old MacBook. Other programs I installed were; Dropbox to share files, Evernote for note clipping, WriteRoom for writing, and AppCleaner for maintenance. I also installed Notify as a replacement to the Gmail Manager Firefox plugin, as that plugin made Firefox a resource hog.

I was all happy and dandy with the simplicity of it all! There were no folders/files getting in the way and Apps to bog down the system. So in my first week, my MacBook Air became a very focused tool for Getting Things Done!

I was originally happy to use Twitter.com for updates but after a week later, I broke down and installed Tweet Deck with its Adobe Air overhead. I needed to speed tweet and single column solutions like Twitteriffic did not work for me. To catch up on my RSS feeds, I installed Reeder for the Mac. This allowed me to remove the Feedly Firefox plugin I usually use. I rounded all this up by installing Photoshop, Illustrator and Office for Mac.

The Nitty Gritty

1) I have to say that the MacBook Air is a piece of sublime industrial design. Most of you have probably drawn the same conclusion so there is no real point talking about the industrial design in detail. But one thing I will point out, is that the forward sloping wedge section is a huge evolution in the laptop archetype. If anything, the tapered wedge makes this laptop better than anything on the market and worth the “Apple Tax”. This wedge now makes the transition between the tabletop to laptop almost seamless. This also means our wrists do not suffer from the uncomfortable edges of the thicker aluminum Unibody. Regardless, the MacBook Air makes the MacBook Pro Unibody positively chunky.

2) The Solid State Drive (SSD) allocates memory like a USB thumb drive or memory stick. This means all data has a 10-20% overhead as compared to a regular Hard-Disk Drive. This is something to consider if you want to see if your memory footprint of your current laptop can fit into a MBA’s SSD. On that note, I’m glad I stretched for a 128GB as the MacOS takes up about 15GB. A MacBook Air with a 64GB SSD would have made me nervous.

3) Those who claim that the 11″ MBA can be a replacement for an iPad, may need to rethink that statement. I carried my 13″ MBA around in a sleeve for a day and it was brilliant weight wise. However, even though it is very portable, it is not a “stand and snack” device, but rather a “sit and use” device. The clamshell laptop archetype is the issue here as opposed to the slate/tablet archetype where you can interface directly on the surface without dealing with a moving hinge. Even though my MBA is a 13″, I would imagine it would still be a difficult task for a person to stand, hold the 11″ laptop in one hand and type with the other.

4) Unlike the hinge problems of early Unibody Macs, when the MBA stands on its side (on the hinge) the cover does not annoyingly pop open (above). This is quite important as when my old Macbook sits in a carry bag vertically, the open cover picks up a lot of fluff. (Edit: I just had a piece of flesh from my palm pinched painfully between the covers as I was pulling it out of a bag.) The MBA feels like it has a magnetic contact strip that holds the cover and bottom together.

5) Having a USB port on both sides is a very good idea. I now do not have a cluster of cables hanging off one side of my laptop.

6) I had high hopes for the SD Card slot. I had planned for an SD Card to live in that slot to provide for additional memory backup. I even went out to buy the biggest card I could find. To my horror, 1/3 of the SD Card actually sticks out of the slot. That 1/3 is great for pulling it out, but not good for leaving it in there semi-permanently. I wish the slot had a “push-push” type SD card mechanism.

7) I miss having an Infrared receiver. This means I cannot use the Apple Remote Control to manage my slideshows. I still have not figured out a work around yet.

8) I miss the power LED that “breaths” on standby as I often can’t remember if I put it to standby or turned it off. Another issue is that without the LED you would not know if the machine was starting up until screen comes on. Furthermore as the screen takes about 2 seconds to turn on, you would not know how long to hold the power button down for. While the start up is pretty quick about 3-5 seconds, the world seems to go into “bullet time” while I wait for the screen to start up. Lately, as I install more software, the boot up time is starting to get longer and longer. 3 seconds when it was brand new, 5 seconds after my first set of software. 10 seconds after I installed Adobe Air, Adobe Photoshop and Office. Fortunately the shut down time has not change and is still a zippy 3 seconds.

9) I don’t miss the Ethernet slot as I have WiFi. But I would miss it if I did not have another computer with an Ethernet slot to do things like tweaking my router.

10) I don’t miss the optical drive. But I do feel hindered that I can’t install Photoshop from my DVD-Rom. I copied the entire archive on to the SSD and installed it locally. This probably left a huge data gap on my hard drive when I deleted the archive.

11) The “chicklet” keyboard keys are firm and with enough travel for typing comfort. Quite surprising for keys living on such a thin housing. I hope that the keys do not become, like my Unibody MacBook, wobbly with age.

12) Battery life promises approximately 7 hours for the 13”. I manage to get a consistent 6-hour run if I restrict my activities to opening program and closing windows and WiFi internet work. After calibrating the battery, I get my MBA to start fully charged at around 7 hours. If I am catching up on online flash movies, the battery indicator drops to between 4-5 hours. This is still much better than my old MacBook with gives me 3 hours for online flash movies.

13) I mange to get the CPU cooling fan to run while I was downloading and updating the OS. The bottom of the MBA does get warm and even hot in certain areas, but it is not as bad as my Unibody MacBook. The fan sounds like a crowded room, observed from a distance away.

14) The performance of the MBA is really fast and responsive. Programs load faster than my Macbook and everything you heard about the response time of the MBA is true. In a freshly booted environment, Photoshop CS3 takes 5 seconds to load on the MBA, compared to 20 seconds on my old MacBook. App switching on Expose (I had 9 windows/programs open) is instantaneous. Do note that even though my 13” MBA moves faster than my old MacBook, the specifications are quite similar. The Solid State Drive has to be the key-differentiating factor. To date, I’ve not seen the beach ball spin for more than a second and claims that the MBA is an (almost) instant on/load/use system are quite accurate.

15) I’m planning to eventually get Sketchbook Pro installed and see if I can use the track pad as a drawing tablet.

———-

Steve Jobs: What if a Macbook and iPad hooked up?

The MBA is a worthy addition to the MacBook product line up. The entry level MacBook promises a competitive price, the MacBook Pro sells on performance and the MacBook Air fights on portability. I have always said that Apple, as a market leader, runs a defensive marketing strategy by filling up the gaps in their product line. This allows Apple to protect their range from competitors coming up with niche or credible alternatives.

Depending on the economies of scale, I dare say that the Macbook Air could eventually merge or take over the line of entry level Macbooks. This is because I do foresee that my MBA could eventually take over my old MacBook. Furthermore computing sufficiency and Moore’s Law would likely mean that the majority of consumers would not need a faster CPU for most of their computing needs. Plus Jobs did hint that the MacBook Air was the future of laptops.

I don’t think the MBA will eat into iPad sales nor replace it. Both products have different uses. An iPad focuses on media consumption and a MBA focuses on media creation. Most consumers will be split between the two, with a small group owning both devices. With the next MacOS Lion taking the first steps of blurring the boundaries with iOS, I’m curious to see how far up the MacBook bloodline the iPad “DNA” will go.

All in all, I would recommend the MacBook Air to anyone, and in particular the 13” version. The 13” version is neither much heavier nor less portable than the 11”, however it is far more comfortable to use. One word of caution though, you should carefully think how the MBA, or any Apple product for that matter, fits into your lifestyle. If you already own a number of Apple products (say an iPad and a MacBook Pro), every time Apple introduces a new product to fill in a gap, the usage scenarios will start to overlap more and more. This means Apple products can end up doubling up in use and you could end up paying extra for a feature or function you don’t really need.

Wow! This article has gotten longer than I even expected. I hope you enjoyed my detailed insights on the new MacBook Air and if you have any additional questions, please feel free to leave a comment below?

  

Professionals in any field should always keep business cards on them because you never know when you’ll meet a potential client, partner or like-minded person. Despite their small size, business cards are one of the most powerful and handiest marketing tools. Not only do they create a link between you and your new contact, they’re also a quick way to give a great first impression. Business cards promote your skills and achievements and serve as a little container for big ideas.

Don’t underestimate the process of designing business cards; a well-made card does not just share your contact details: it generates further sharing and buzz. Like any self-promotion tool, designing a business card requires solid brainstorming and careful implementation to get the best effect.

This post targets a diverse audience. It features a collection of remarkable business card designs that could help you in your search for creative ideas. The round-up of fresh tutorials and business card templates further down might come in handy for those who don’t have the skills or experience to design their own.

[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that there is a Smashing eBook Series? Book #1 is Professional Web Design, 242 pages for just $9,90.]

Showcase Of Original And Memorable Business Cards

Letterpress Cards

Letterpress printing has actually been the only form of printing text and images since it was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. Because of its distinctive qualities, such as crisp and tangible impression onto paper, letterpress work is now widely used for branding and identity development. Letterpress gives stronger visual definition to type and artwork and has a special touch, which is why it’s a popular technique for business card printing. Below you can see some beautiful examples of letterpress business cards.

John Henry Donovan
On this business card, the fine design created by Irish designer and developer John Henry Donovan is complemented by the printer’s excellent choice of paper and inking.

Greg Anderson
This card works because of the stylish dirty texture, good use of color and, of course, letterpress. Designed by Thomas Guy.

Chris Piascik
The funky typography of freelance graphic designer Chris Piascik is set off well by the letterpress work on his business card.

Space 150
This stylish letterpress business card was designed for the creative agency Space150 by designer Evan Nagan. The card is part of the agency’s periodic general redesign, which it conducts every 150 days. The elegant constellation theme and high-quality letterpress printing make for an excellent card.

White Rabbit
This card promotes the portfolio of the German photographer Florian Muller (aka the White Rabbit). The use of the negatives pattern incorporates the card owner’s occupation well, and the surface is enhanced by an embossed rabbit.

One in Zero
The business card of Hong Kong-based idea firm OneinZero is minimalist: the focus is on the letterpress type and paper texture.

Christian Garibaldi
The effective combination of blind and ink debossing, along with the subtle coloring along the edge, makes for a clean and exquisite business card that perfectly conveys the aesthetic of the photographer’s online portfolio.

Montage
Dallas Graham of Montage Creative has a simple and strong business card.

Paper Monkey Press
Some filigree letterpressing is evident on the card of Paper Monkey Press.

Second World Design
The guys over at Second World took their branding very seriously, resulting in the clean beautiful letterpress card you see below.

Kinetic Lens
This card was designed by photographer Riley Maclean for his company Kinetic Lens. Combining various letterpress techniques and a great set of red tones, this business card has a multi-dimensional feel. It’s printed on thick 220-pound-bond cotton paper.

Laura Moretz
A good use of letterpress on the front and back of this card and the labels make this card memorable. It’s printed on French Speckletone #140 stock.

23rd And 5th
Here is a beautiful business card showing fine typography and two-color letterpress. It was designed for the staff of the 23rd & 5th branding agency. This business card for the Director of Development features a QR code that drives contacts to a dedicated mobile website optimized for the iPhone, Blackberry and Android.

Die-Cut Business Cards

Something else that determines a business card’s memorability and appeal is shape. Today many individuals, businesses and organizations die-cut their cards, going beyond traditional dimensions. Die-cutting is an effective way to make a business card eye-catching, unique and even interactive. But remember that a die-cut card should still be compact enough to fit in a standard wallet or card holder. Alternatively, you could suggest some other way to carry or hold your card. Some noteworthy die-cut business cards are showcased below.

Derrick Mitchell
Derrick Mitchell, a designer from Kalispell, Montana, creates his business cards by hand with chip board, screen printing, labels and stamps.

Popupology
This cute die-cut business card is done entirely in-house by designer Elod Beregszaszi.

Dyalect
The chic design of this business card is accentuated by the custom shape and 16-point silk matte finish card stock.

Kaman
This concept-based business card was designed by Mehdi Tuchak for the Iranian multimedia company Kaman.

Sean Gerety
This lovely business card mimics a Moleskine notebook. While the front is glossy, the back is matted and can be used as a note card.

Amundson Films
Cheap card stock and moderate-quality print wonderfully fit the aesthetic of this vintage movie ticket business card. Great job, Alice Cho!

Alteroy
This die-cut masterpiece belongs to the Israel-based designer Alteroy. The cardboard icons can be separated. Much effort was put into this business card, and the result is absolutely worth it.

Carlos Vazquez
This super-cute business card might be the shortest route to any Mac fan’s heart.

Herbert Martin
Besides containing the contact info of German dentist Herbert Martin, this business card has another cool function: it helps you check your bite by way of a die-cut stencil. Designed by Petra Penz.

Truf
The business card is square and “combines a hand-crafted feel with the style of Russian propaganda posters.”

Classic, With a Twist

Most of the business cards below have a classic rectangular shape and standard dimensions… but that is where their classic-ness ends. Creative ideas and skillful implementation make these cards look anything but ordinary.

Coco
The amazing identity concept for COCO was created by Polish designer “Wallstreet Different Creature.” This business card, as part of the overall branding, is pure style and beauty.

Erich Hartmann
Erich Hartmann designed his business card to spell out a bunch of his skills, along with his main occupation. This clever idea is nicely visualized by way of a two-sided card, with an offset logo on the front and letterpress on the back.

Fran Rosa
Motion and graphics designer Fran Rosa takes different angles on both his website and business cards… literally.

Grill Me
To see the info on this business card, grill it against a fire, because the card is stamped with lemon juice for ink. Quite an original idea, but using this effect for non-essential information or for an image, rather than contact info, might be more reasonable.

Luciano Ferreira
A lovely typographic business card made by Brazilian graphic designer Luciano Ferreira for promotional purposes.

Sandra Boils
This elegant business card was made for Spanish jazz vocalist Sandra Boils by graphic design studio Estudio Menta.

Stepan Prokop
A beautiful artistic business card by graphic designer Stepan Prokop.

Synchromatik
The rich grass texture makes the card of designer Marko Manojlovic look fresh and beautiful.

Van Der Buzz
This transparent business card, mimicking an X-ray, belongs to Ukrainian advertising agency Van Der Buzz.

What What
These cool playful business cards were created by twin brothers, designers John and Edward Harrison, also known as What What.

Combining Techniques

When it comes to developing promotional material for a brand today, the variety of choice is impressive. With all the different printing techniques, the loads of diverse paper and material available and relatively cheap digital technology, the process of designing a business card is limited only by the designer’s imagination. The following business cards rely on both paper quality and printing methods to create a memorable experience.

TAM Cargo
Traditional at first glance, this business card can be transformed into a little cargo transport box. The card was design by Brazilian advertising agency Y&R for TAM Airlines.

Cinch Creative
Design company Cinch Creative printed its business cards on 60-point Blotter paper with a fine natural texture. Thanks to this and the debossed logo and text, the card is a pleasure for both the eyes and hands.

Feelme Crew
This creative business card in the shape of a clapper board was designed by Ralev.com for Bulgarian multimedia agency Feelme Crew.

Fiverr
Here’s a green approach to business card design. The cards for Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman are made from recycled paper and cardboard. Moreover, the cards are completely hand-made. See details on Kaufman’s Facebook page.

Groundflights
This card, inspired by a boarding pass stub, was created by creative agency R3M1X3D for transportation company Groundflights. It is a successful mix of letterpress printing and die-cutting.

Herofilm
A beautiful business card stylized as a film frame. It was designed by Jimmituanart for Herofilm Productions.

Philosophy Communications
With a squeezable circle built in, the business card of PR company Philosophy Communications is a two-in-one solution. Brilliant work, wouldn’t you agree?

Rhino Studio
Premium paper, imitation rhino skin and a stylized typographic logo make this card chic indeed. Designed by Contreforme.

Paper Fortress
This vintage-looking business card, which features die-cutting, embossing and high-quality paper, was designed by the studio Second World for the film production company Paper Fortress.

Hear
This fancy silk-laminated card, featuring a spot UV coating, was designed by social media and design company Hear.

Gita Ayu
The cool illusion on this business card was achieved with a thin transparent plate that makes it look as though this faux-3D brick is broken. The amazing card was created by Saatchi & Saatchi, Indonesia, for a karate club.

Something Completely Different

The cards showcased below considerably expand the parameters of the business card format. It seems that business cards can be grown, played with and even eaten! Look at the craziest business card concepts around.

MODhair
Not only can you comb your hair with this business card, you can also play a classic rock song on it with your fingernail. The card was designed by Fabio Milito for a Rome-based hair salon.

Gitam BBDO Spicy
The Gitam BBDO agency uses spice sachets as business cards, associating each of its departments with a particular condiment.

BC Adventure Survival Training
The cards of BC Adventure remain extremely useful even in situations where a business card is useless. They are made of organic beef jerky and are good to eat for up to a year.

RDA
To promote one of his projects (an interactive chopping board), designer Sam Gough created 20 wooden business cards, carving his project’s title and contact info neatly into each.

Dept of Energy
With its business “cords,” Dept of Energy shows a skillful play on its identity and style.

Lush
This business card is a thin envelope stuffed with grass seed. The clean design, clever copy and sneaky seed surprise make for an adorable card. Designed by Brandon Knowlden.

Taberu Me
For the most desperate self-promoters, peanut business cards are not a bad idea. Taberu Me uses innovative CO2 laser engraving technology to print on the peanuts. But before you hands yours out, make sure no squirrels or chipmunks are around.

Wes Thomas
This business card design is an ongoing project of Philadelphia-based industrial designer Wes Thomas. The laser-cut card can be quickly transformed in a cute desktop toy. This is no ordinary concept and is pretty labor-intensive, but who would refuse such a business toy for their desk?

Business Card Galleries

Only the truly unique are remembered. When designing anything for yourself, it’s always useful to look around for fresh ideas. Here are permanent showcase galleries where you can find trends and best practices for business card design.

• Card Observer
• Cardonizer
• Card Nerd
• Cardview
• CardGala
• Creattica
• CardsPress
• The Art of the Business Card (Flickr pool)
• BusinessCardCritic

Tutorials

To get you started on your own business card, we’ve selected some fresh and useful tutorials and guides that cover various issues you might deal with in this area.

Create a Print-Ready Business Card in Illustrator
In this tutorial, well-known designer and blogger Chris Spooner walks you through the process of creating a fun business card with a sketched illustration.

How to Create a Stylish Business Card Template in Adobe Photoshop
In this tutorial, you learn how to create an elegant minimalist business card design in Photoshop. The source files are available for free downloading.

Create a Grunge Print-Ready Business Card
Use this tutorial to create a business card with nifty faded brush strokes in Photoshop.

How to Create a Nebula Background in Photoshop
Learn how to design a business card with an astral background.

Print-Ready Business Card Tutorial
This tutorial explains how to create a print-ready business card with a clean dark design in Photoshop.

How to Make a Print-Ready Business Card in Photoshop
In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a two-sided business card with crop marks and bleed.

How to Design Your Business Card
This article discusses the basics of business card design and covers some best practices.

Business Card Design Walkthrough
Along with other step-by-step tutorials, a detailed case study like this one might be useful to you.

PSD Tutorial: Design a Dirty Business Card
Learn how to create a simple business card, complete with grungy texture.

Business Card Tutorial in Inkscape
Here is a detailed guide on how to design a business card in Inkscape. While the result shown does not look that great, the principles of working in Inkscape are described quite well, so you can get a better result using this open-source graphics editor.

Business Card
If you like the business card shown below, learn how to create it in Photoshop in this tutorial.

Making Creative Business Card
This tutorial shows how to make a nice business card in a matter of minutes.

How to Design a Print-Ready Business Card Design in Photoshop
This business card tutorial includes a couple of bonus templates, which you can download in PSD format and use for free.

How to Design Business Card
Learn how to create the unconventional and attractive business card below.

Grungy Business Card
Another variation of the grunge design is explained in this guide. The image preview and PSD file are free to download.

How to Make your Own Photographic Negative Business Cards
Now, here’s a completely different take on business card design. Photographer Steph Goralnik shares his technique for crafting a unique photographic negative business card.

How to Choose Business Card Paper
Paper is an important consideration when printing business cards. The right paper can make your card shine, while poor-quality stock can spoil even a top-notch design. Read this article to learn the key points and differences between various types of paper.

How to Choose the Right Paper
Although quite old, this article contains some useful tips on choosing the right paper for your business card. A solidly written article.

Templates

A template is definitely a great option for those who don’t have the skill to create a business card on their own. But even if you’re a professional designer, you may need the job done very fast or simply want to save time making customizations. This is when a template comes in handy. Below you’ll find a selection of well-designed free and commercial business card templates that you can take advantage of in your own projects.

Free Templates

Most of the templates in this category are free for personal and commercial use, but please be sure to read all accompanying legal usage notes before downloading the files.

I love dA Business Card

This nifty business card design was created by graphic designer depart on the occasion of deviantArt’s birthday. The template is available for free download in both PSD and Ai formats.

FreelanceSwitch Business Card Template
This Adobe Illustrator template can be customized for any freelance profession. The pack comes with templates for writers, coders and designers.

Bokeh Business Card | More
The PSD template for this business card is available in high resolution and is ready to print.

Free Business Card Template for Photoshop (PSD) | More
This minimalist grayscale business card template is available as a free download at DeviantArt.

Free Business Card Design Pumpkin
This “Pumpkin” business card template features 300 DPI resolution and CMYK color mode for professional printing, front and back sides and four color schemes: pumpkin, cream, Indian pink and brown.

Construction Hazard Stripes Theme | More
This print-ready business card template is in Photoshop format.

Free Abstract Blue Business Card Template
This double-sided PSD card template includes well-organized layers and is in CMYK color mode for easy editing.

Die Gallery
In this gallery, you’ll find some unusual card shapes, all for free. All files are in EPS format.

Business Card Template
Here is a blank template for a standard US business card. Both JPEG and PSD versions of the template are available for free downloading.

Noise Modern Card | More
This download pack includes two full-layered PSD files for the front and back. The dimensions are 3.5 x 2 inches, and the resolution is 300 DPI.

Minimax Positivo Business Card Template
The template has six color variations and features a letterpress effect. The template package includes a PSD file, PDF help file and preview image.

Business Card Template (Vector) | More
A free Adobe Illustrator business card template in 3.5 x 2 inch format.

Vertical Business Card Vectors | More
An EPS file containing 18 vertical business card templates with JPG preview.

Free business card templates
10 free business card designs in PSD and TIFF formats.

Seextwood Business Card | More
A minimalist template in CMYK mode and 300 DPI resolution. The dimensions are 3.5 x 2.5 inches.

4 Blue Personal Business Card Templates | More
A set of four PSD business card templates in blue. The dimensions are 3 x 2 inches, and the resolution 300 DPI.

Premium Templates

Pure Style Business Card Template | More
A minimalist two-sided business card design (3.5 x 2 inches) that can fit practically any profession or brand. The template comes in high resolution and requires Adobe Photoshop 8 or higher for editing. Price: $7

Blue Monster Business Card Template | More
This funny template is ready to print and can be easily customized in a vector graphics editor. Price: $4

Business card (set 17) | More business card templates
These cheerful business cards might appeal to people in creative fields. Three license types are available; the basic one gives you this set for $5.

Typography Mini Business Card | More
These bright typographic mini-cards come in two styles, grungy and clean, and include a black and white version for low-cost printing. The templates are print-ready and can be edited in Photoshop. Price: $6

Tender Flowers Business Card | More
An original floral design that would work well for wedding photographers. It is print-ready and can be customized in Photoshop. Price: $7

Blue Bubble business card | More
This clean and airy design will appeal to fans of minimalism. It is in print-ready CMYK, 300 DPI, and includes two PSD files and two high-quality JPG images. Price: $5

Black Business Card Template | More
This business card has a rather universal design and would serve a personal brand, company or other project equally well. It is print ready; all you need to do is change the default text. Price: $7

The Black Family business Card Pack | More
These super-original and cute business cards might be good for showing off members of a creative team. They are two-sided, in CMYK and 300 DPI, easy to edit and print-ready. Price: $6

Related Posts

You may be interested in the following related posts:

• Business Card Design: Better Than A Plain Ol’ Business Card
• The Ultimate Round-Up of Print Design Tutorials

(al)

© Julia May for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: business, card, Design

Over the years the site has become the premier gallery for business card design and this post is just a taste of some of the more unusual examples we’ve got in the gallery. Scroll down to check it out, and jump to the end of the article to learn about the redesign and some of the new features now available on Creattica.

Creattica Design Refresh

A year ago we migrated our small Faveup gallery to its new home at Creattica and the site has been growing quickly ever since. The new design was an improvement, but it’s been showing its age recently, and it had an awful lot of bright red for a site supposed to be aimed at showcasing work. So we’ve given the logo a refresh, toned back the design so it’s more about the work and generally cleaned up the site.

Showcasing … Everything!

Today we showcase 3D, Advertising, Posters, as well as our old favourites: Business Cards, Logos and Websites. And with our redesign we’re adding a whole lot of new categories for Email Design, Mobile Design, Vector Graphics, Photo Retouching, Icon Design, Brochures, Book Covers, Tshirt Designs, Skate & Snowboard Art, and Desktop, iPad and iPhone Wallpapers.

If you’re interested in submitting to the new categories, be sure to check out our competition where you’ll be in the running to win $1000 in cash!

New Features

Of course a new design is not complete without lots of new features! So we’ve built in a lot of great new functionality, particularly focused around finding great creatives to work with:

1. Search, Follow and Contact Creatives
   The biggest update to the new site is the ability to search creatives who have been featured in the gallery. Creatives can specify their country, budget and profession as well as provide a website and contact details. We hope this will give designers and artists one more avenue to get freelance work!

2. Tagging and Colour Tagging
   The new site now provides the ability to tag items with a set of preset keywords and colours. This will mean more ways to browse the gallery – once we’ve got some stuff tagged that is!

3. Extras – Badges + WordPress Plugin + Random Browse
   And there are lots of little extras we’ve added including badges to show that you’ve been featured, a WordPress plugin to add creative inspiration to your blog’s sidebar and a feature to browse the gallery a little more randomly!

We hope you enjoy the new Creattica and get a wealth of inspiration from the amazing work of talented creatives around the world. If you have any feedback about the new site, the new design, the new categories, or pretty much anything else then Fill in the Feedback Form or leave a comment!

  

Yes, this is another round-up of fresh and useful Javascript techniques, tools and resources. But don’t close the tab yet, as you might find this one very useful. In this selection we present calendars, forms, buttons, navigation, debugging, optimization and compatibility tables as well as handy resources and tools. We also cover various jQuery-plugins that will help you extend the functionality of your website and improve user experience with ready components or coding solutions.

The last section also covers a number of useful educational resources such as a compilation of useful JavaScript coding practices, a detailed comparison of JavaScript frameworks and general JavaScript programming conventions. We are looking forward to your feedback.

You may be interested in the following related posts:

• 50 Fresh JavaScript Tools That Will Improve Your Workflow
• 45 Powerful CSS/JavaScript-Techniques
• 70 Useful AJAX And JavaScript Techniques

[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that Smashing Magazine has one of the most influential and popular Twitter accounts? Join our discussions and get updates about useful tools and resources — follow us on Twitter!]

Calendars and Timelines

jDigiClock – Digital Clock (HTC Hero inspired)
jDigiClock is a jQuery plugin inspired from HTC Hero Clock Widget.

jQuery Sliding Clock v1.1
jQuery transpearant Slider clock with CSS sprites.

Date / Time Picker
Note that this control is not designed to work in IE6; although it will function correctly in most cases, the positioning of the calendar may be way off depending on how your page is styled.

JavaScript Debugging and Validation Tools

Venkman JavaScript Debugger project page
Venkman is the code name for Mozilla’s JavaScript Debugger. Venkman aims to provide a powerful JavaScript debugging environment for Gecko-based browsers namely Firefox 3.x, the Netscape 7.x series of browsers, Netscape 9.x series, Mozilla Seamonkey 1.x and Mozilla Seamonkey 2.x. It does not include Gecko-based browsers such as K-Meleon 1.x, Galeon 2.x and Netscape 8.x. The debugger is available as an add-on package in XPI format. Venkman JavaScript Debugger has been provided as part of the Mozilla install distribution since October 3rd 2001.

CompanionJS
Companion.JS (pronounced Companion dot JS or CJS) is a Javascript debugger for IE.

How to Test your JavaScript Code with QUnit
QUnit is a powerful JavaScript unit testing framework that helps you to debug code. It’s written by members of the jQuery team, and is the official test suite for jQuery. But QUnit is general enough to test any regular JavaScript code, and it’s even able to test server-side JavaScript via some JavaScript engine like Rhino or V8.

JS Bin – Collaborative JavaScript Debugging
JS Bin is an open source collaborative JavaScript debugging tool.

Forms, Buttons & Navigation

Making a Google Wave History Slider
Here is shown how to create a Google Wave-like history slider. Using it will enable visitors to go back and forth in time to view the changes that take place on a comment thread.

Fancy Radio Buttons With jQuery
Creation of 2 mandatory option sets that a user could choose, while hiding off the radio button inputs and using an anchor links to make it a bit more usable.

Creative Button Animations with Sprites and JQuery
Fading hover effect for which the transition is smoothed with JavaScript, using jQuery library.

Password (un)Masking
JavaScript jQuery that toggles the masking and unmasking of the password field.

jQuery MagicLine Navigation
These “sliding” style navigation bars have been around a while, and turns out it’s really pretty darn easy. Here are put two examples together.

Fixed Fade Out Menu: A CSS and jQuery Tutorial
The aim is to have a fixed navigation that follows the user when he scrolls, and only subtly showing itself by fading out and becoming almost transparent. When the user hovers over it, the menu then becomes opaque again. Inside of the navigation we will have some links, a search input and a top and bottom button that let the user navigate to the top or the bottom of the page.

jQuery plugin: Simplest Twitter-like dynamic character count for textareas and input fields
The best way to explain what this plugin does is to mention Twitter. Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters. While typing the Twitter post there is this always present information about how many characters the users have before reaching the limit. The information is not only provided merely by displaying a number, there are different colors applied to certain stages to notify the user about the status.

Sliding Labels v2
Form label keeping the label inline, but sliding it off to the left rather than going away on click.

Ketchup Plugin
Ketchup is a slim jQuery Plugin that validates your forms. It aims to be very flexible and extendable for its appearance and functionality.

Layout tools

jQuery {css}designerGrid Plugin
{css} designerGrid is A jQuery Plugin developed for website interface developers who use the grid system of layout. {css} designerGrid is intended to assist these developers with CSS prototyping.

css-template-layout
JavaScript (jQuery) implementation of the CSS Template Layout Module

How to create a fluid grid with jQuery
Grid-based layout is probably the more preferred way to style up a webpage to give it more magazine-like look and feel. This tutorial is about how to use CSS and Javascript to create a fluid grid-based layout (See demo here). The algorithm/procedure used in this tutorial is very simple and straightforward. There are more advanced algorithms out there which can handle multiple scenarios. But the purpose is to understand the basic logic on how to create such layout. So here it goes…

closure-templates
Closure Templates are a client- and server-side templating system that helps you dynamically build reusable HTML and UI elements. They are easy to learn and customizable to fit your application’s needs. Closure Templates support JavaScript and Java and use a data model and expression syntax that works for either language. You can also use the built-in message support to easily localize your applications.

Useful jQuery Plugins

TipTip jQuery Plugin
TipTip detects the edges of the browser window and will make sure the tooltip stays within the current window size. As a result the tooltip will adjust itself to be displayed above, below, to the left or to the right of the element with TipTip applied to it, depending on what is necessary to stay within the browser window. TipTip is a very lightweight and intelligent custom tooltip jQuery plugin. It uses ZERO images and is completely customizable via CSS. It’s also only 3.5kb minified!

jQuery Roundabout
Roundabout is a jQuery plugin that converts a structure of static HTML elements into a highly customizable turntable-like interactive area. (And now, not just turntables, but many shapes!)

jParse – jQuery XML Parse Plugin
jParse is a jQuery plugin that allows you to parse XML that was fetched with the jQuery .ajax method (making it fully customizable).

jQuery Quicksand plugin
Reorder and filter items with a nice shuffling animation.

typeQuery, change website typography with jquery
typeQuery gives the flexibility to change the font-family for everything you define with class, id, or tag, this example is referring to the selected item on a select object with id=”tag” and the font-family value at select object with id=”family”: $($("#tag").val()).css("font-family", $("#family").val());

Flip! A jQuery plugin v0.9.9
Flip is a jQuery plugin that will flip easily your elements in four directions.

Data Encryption With JavaScript: jCryption
jCryption is a jQuery plugin for encrypting POST/GET data submitted by forms. It uses public-key algorithm of RSA for the encryption & has a PHP file for handling the decryption of data.

Minimalist jQuery: 11 useful plugins under 4K
jQuery makes our lives easier. So much so that it’s tempting to use it all the time, inadvertently slowing our page load times (cue YSlow and Hammerhead). Combining, compressing, and delivering scripts at the end of your page helps in the HTTP request department. On the file size front, below are jQuery plugins that give solid bang for your performance buck.

Undo/Redo in jQuery
An easy-to-use plugin for adding undo/redo capabilities to a jQuery application. It is based loosely on the Objective-C/Cocoa way of doing things.

editease
editEase – jQuery CMS | no fuss, no database, no worries

jsHub
jsHub is a single piece of JavaScript (a “tag”) that can handle reading different sorts of page information and then send them to many different vendors’ products. One piece of code to send to Google Analytics, Omniture SiteCatalyst, WebTrends and Mixpanel. Instead of one piece of JavaScript per vendor, jsHub has a single piece of code (the “hub”) and plugins that know how to translate into the required wire protocol for each vendor. Vendors only maintain the plugin for their product.

Educational JavaScript Resources and Tutorials

Caffeinated Simpleton
JavaScript is an amazing little language, but it’s got some quirks that turn a lot of people off. One of those quirks is this, and how it’s not necessarily what you expect it to be. this isn’t that complicated, but there are very few explanations of how it works on the internet. This article is an attempt to explain how this works and how to use it properly.

What You Need To Know About JavaScript Scope
This article discusses how JavaScript handles scope and how various JavaScript libraries provide methods for dealing with it and how they smooth out a few bumps. We’ll also look at how you can get back to basics and do some interesting scope wrangling without a library, a useful approach if you’re writing code that needs to stand alone.

Learning Advanced JavaScript
A very nice tutorial to learn JavaScript, containing code and discussion from the upcoming book Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja by John Resig.

Highlight search terms automagically with JavaScript and mark
Script surrounding the search term(s) with the mark element rather than a span, although the class searchword is retained in case you want to style these marks differently from others. In the CSS, the rule article mark is just added to turn it a gentle shade of pink.

10 Really Helpful Traversing Functions in jQuery
With jQuery, selecting HTML elements is laughably easy. But at times, we may wish to further refine the selection, which can be a hassle when the HTML structure is complicated. In this tutorial, we’ll explore ten ways that we can refine and extend a set of wrapped elements that we wish to operate upon.

Using keyboard shortcuts in Javascript
If you want to enhance your web app, Javascript keyboards shortcuts is definitely something to consider. In this article, you’ll learn to use JS keyboard shortcuts, with and without the JQuery framework.

Code Conventions for the JavaScript Programming Language
This is a set of coding conventions and rules for use in JavaScript programming.

jQuery – Select element cheat sheet
This cheat sheet helps you to find the index of a selected option, set the selected option by value, set the selected option by text, insert a new option before or after another and get the text or value of the selected option.

Compare JavaScript frameworks
Modern Web sites and Web applications tend to rely quite heavily on client-side JavaScript to provide rich interactivity, particularly through the advent of asynchronous HTTP requests that do not require page refreshes to return data or responses from a server-side script or database system. In this article, you will discover how JavaScript frameworks make it easier and faster to create highly interactive and responsive Web sites and Web applications.

Park your Horse, Code Cowboy: Professional JavaScript Workflows, Part 1
In this series, we’ll talk about tools & techniques you can use to cover those No’s, and cut a lot of strife & embarrassment from your JavaScript experience.

JavaScript Reference examples (example source code)
JavaScript Reference examples, organized by Objects, Properties, Methods & Collections. Some Event Handlers Reference are also available.

JavaScript best practices
A compilation of best practices and good advice I’ve amassed over the years, much of it learnt the hard way (experimentation and suchlike). Take the advice below to heart and keep it in a part of your brain that has a quick access route so you can apply it without thinking about it. I am sure you will find things to disagree with, and that is a good thing – you should question what you read, and strive to find better solutions. However, I have found that following these principles has made me a more effective developer and allowed other developers to build upon my work more easily.

wtfjs
JavaScript is a language we love despite it giving us so much to hate. This is a collection of those very special irregularities, inconstancies and just plain painfully unintuitive moments for the language of the web.

Related Posts

You may be interested in the following related posts:

• 50 Fresh JavaScript Tools That Will Improve Your Workflow
• 45 Powerful CSS/JavaScript-Techniques
• 70 Useful AJAX And JavaScript Techniques

Poll

© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | 63 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: AJAX, javascript, jquery

The greening of the toy industry is a daunting task to say the least. Many newcomers are simply exploiting the trend by jumping on the green bandwagon while a host of industry leaders seem to be ignoring the issue altogether. Nevertheless, we found a few mentionable eco finds at this year's Toy Fair.

Bepuzzled, a branch of the University Games Corporation, introduced the Jungle Walker, which they're touting as the first walking animal puzzles ever. Made from recyclable cardboard, the figures (a giraffe, a rhino or an elephant) stand between 10" and 22" when assembled and can be made to walk by rotating a "walking stick" in the animal's side. As design objects, the purity of these puzzles reminds us of toys from the past and was an attractive find amidst the chaos of the fair.

idbids recognizes the need to not only create an environmentally sound toy, but to teach children about the environment as well. The idbids Eco-friendly Starter Kit teaches the "iddy biddy steps children can take to keep our earth happy, healthy and green." The kit includes a 9" plush toy—either Scout, Lola or Waverly), an organic cotton backpack, a storybook, an activity based field guide, and an online reward program. Of course, all of the components in the kit have been meticulously selected, right down to the recycled cardboard, blisterpack-free packaging. Though the company just launched last August, it has already garnered a host of awards and the starter kit has nominated for the Toy of the Year Award given by the Toy Industry Association.

Hosung Naturals miYim line of organic cotton baby toys proves that childrens products needn't be all about bright noisy colors. The company uses a trademarked PureWaterWash process in which untreated cotton thread is woven and hand dyed repeatedly in soy-water to set the color. The process yields remarkably soft plushies and knit figures, all somewhat unique in their colorways. All of the cotton used in miYim is certified organic by the OCIA and is free of herbicides, pesticides and toxins. They also make a line for dogs called SimplyFido.