1. New Steven Heller & Lita Talarico Book. The Design Entrepreneur (Core77)

2. Cool InDesign Trick: Align Guidelines with a Click (CreativeTech Labs)

3. Hungry Scientist: Nerdy Cookbook for Kitchen Hackers (boingboing)

4. The Missing Stage in the Digital Design Process (Digital Web Magazine)

5. Back to the Future: Check out “The Delorean” of Rubber Band Guns (Make)

6. Long-awaited Chicago Tribune Redesign (NewsDesigner)

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I’m back from holiday and raring to go.

While away, I took a break from my laptop. Oh, I checked e-mail and Google Reader, but I limited my time to 10-minute sessions—and no Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin. Gasp! What did I do? I worked on outdoor projects—like the pond that needed cleaning. And the stone wall with a gate and arbor that needed finishing. I love working outdoors on projects. It clears my mind and provides the instant gratification of creating, fixing and admiring.

As a designer, I need that same break for the computer. Too often, jobs in my department are a rush and need “designing” now. I jump on my trusty Mac and design-away, for better or worse. But what happens if I take 5 minutes to work it out with pen and paper first? Typically, I find a better solution. And in most cases, I find the solution quicker. I just feel like I’m engaging a different part of my brain when I have pen and pad versus mouse and monitor. I feel like I can bail on a bad idea quicker. With the computer, I feel compelled to “work it” a little more. I usually get there, but may I could have gotten there quicker and with better result.

So give it a try. On your next rush, step a way from the computer and sketch out your designs–you just might like the process and the results a little more. And who knows, maybe the solution is one that’s completely hand-drawn.

I’ve run across a couple great posts lately, involving hand-drawn designs. Here’s great one from SPD.org

For the September issue of Los Angeles, art director Joe Kimberling collaborated with illustrator and type designer Marian Bantjes to create the cover. The solution, done solely with a blue ballpoint pen, is a notebook covered with doodles inspired by a creative, yet distracted high school student. As Marian says on the contributors page “I did everything but the bar code”. Check out more of her amazing work here.

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Drawing from Bruce Mau Design.

I want to start Monday with a little perspective.

While online last night, I re-read An Incomplete Manifesto For Growth by design icon Bruce Mau. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. And if you have, I recommend re-reading it. It’s a quick read and very good.

His site describes it like this:

Written in 1998, the Incomplete Manifesto is an articulation of statements exemplifying Bruce Mau’s beliefs, strategies and motivations. Collectively, they are how we approach every project.

I’m personally working on Number 32.

Listen carefully. Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.

When I was younger I was very good listener. I would listen to my friends’ or coworkers’ ideas on a subject, stew on them a bit, and then usually form a competent opinion on the matter. Now that I’m older (not old,older), I feel like I’ve lost that skill. So much of my day is spent answering questions, giving instructions or following direction that I rarely, honestly listen to anyone or their ideas. When I’m “listening” I’m really just pausing, waiting for my turn to talk. I’m trying to change that.

So lately, I’ve been listening more. Like when my wife read the first draft of this post and told me she was bored, I listened. She was right. Like when my youngest son wanted to fix the workbench in our garage a certain way, I listened. He was right. Or when my Creative Director pushed back on my crappy ideas around brochure project, I listened. He was right.

I’m finding when I genuinely listen to my family and friends, I almost always learn something new. When I genuinely listen to our clients, I almost always do better work. When I genuinely listen to my coworkers, I hear the whispers of new ideas–and I love new ideas.

Winston Churchill said, “It takes courage to stand up and speak; it also takes courage to sit down and listen.” With this blog I’m trying to do a little of both.

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Image from Baby Name Wizard.

I love options and hate to rule any out until I need to.

I’ve been thinking about creating this blog for a long time. And along the way collecting urls in my Google Doc. I have 50+ urls, eight of which are for this blog alone. I’ve looked into DontLetTheBastardsGetYouDown.com (taken), NotaCorporateTool.com (available), to InHouseDesigner.com (taken) and InhouseDesignAdvocate.com (available).

The site is for writers, designers, and even those wacky video people, who do thier work within the calls of a company, corporation, government, or school. And so, I whimped out calling it something too controversial for fear of spam filters, overzealous IT departments and that lurking department manager.

In the end, I narrowed it down to these three urls:
TheCompanyCreative.com
CreativesInACorporateWorld.com
and TheInHouseCreative.com.

Oh, and if you’re looking for UglyOnAnApe.com or StinkOnaMonkey.com, they’re taken…

I would really love your comments. (leave a comment or email me)