Eco Friendly Fonts

Very quick post today… Eco friendly Fonts.

Yup… fonts with holes in them instead of solid black lines. The idea is that with the small holes, printers will require less toner when printing. Sounds odd, but what’s even odder is that it makes sense and we never really thought about it sooner.

Check it out at Ecofont‘s website.

What do you think? Will it catch on? Be too hard to read? Should large companies like MAC and Microsoft start deploying the font as a default?

Mind Mapping

Mind Mapping, something we talked about from time to time in class but by 2nd year I think most people fell into the habit of doing the first thing that came to mind just to have it done in time to be handed in for marks.

“You are your own worst client” is probably the most accurate statement I’ve heard in the past 3 years.

I have been working on my own personal site/branding now for months and every time I get half done I’m tired of looking at it and have a better idea started. But, nothing is making me happy, nothing seems ‘clever’ enough. I’ll stare at logos on LogoPond for an hour wondering “How do they come up with such great designs when mine all look bleh?“.

I started reading a few other blogs of designers, mostly branding experts, and more often than not the idea of Mind Mapping was mentioned.

Welcome to Design Endeavour

Well, I’ve decided to throw my hat into the world of Blogging for many reasons… two primary reasons are

1. To start something that may help others in my situation
2. To keep myself on track with my goals

A bit about me…

Despite my age (34yrs old when this was written) I went back to school when I was 30, and just graduated April 24, 2009.  I’ve been a Designer now for six months and am still unemployed and looking for work. I’ve gotten that nice blend of being too experienced for a regular job like sales at the local Radio Shack (or The Source as it’s now called) and not experienced enough to get hired for what I went back to school for.

This Blog, I hope, will be a place for other Designers/Photographers just entering the business (or even still in school) can come to collaborate on their experiences, useful links/sites they’ve found, what they might be doing to find work, and just general Design/Photography/Art discussions.

Ideally I’ll break the site into sections once I’ve had a chance to play with Word Press some more. I worked 10yrs prior to Design, in low level computer IT jobs so, should be able to sort this thing out. Until then, please bare with me.

Meanwhile, POST!!! See something new? Interesting? Helpful? Post it for others to see and comment on and get some discussions started.

Thomas H. Robinson

Cg6 Prospecting Freelancer 2009 with George S. Zimbel

If you are in Ontario, student or graduate, you may want to look into Cg6.

Cg6 does (among other things) events to help people like us learn new things, network, and share ideas.

Their most recent event was “Prospecting Freelancer 2009″ held at Zimbel’s Cafe and the guest speaker was George S. Zimbel. Though the cafe isn’t named after him, rather owned by his son.

Currently 80 years old, Zimbel has been doing freelance photography now for 62 years. More so impressive was that he was shooting that night using a 1968 Leica 35mm camera. When he pulled that out I just smiled, because I could see all the 18-20 year old students drop their jaws a little. At the start of the night a few students came in trying to look impressive and professional with their Canon 50D/5D’s and $800 lenses, looking to hear from the pro himself, and out he came with a 35mm older than me. Still shooting B&W as well. When asked why, he said that black and white photos are simpler, you know what the focus/subject is and there is a beauty to that. Colour adds to the distraction.