Aristoback (kainan sa likod ng Aristocrat)
Caintacky Fried Chicken (Cainta, Rizal)
Goldirocks (gravel and sand shop)
Pizza Hot (pizza place)
Saudia Hairlines (beauty salon)
Side-saki (eatery sa gilid ng Mandarin)
Wash & Carry (laundromat sa Makati, malapit sa Cash & Carry)
Wheels Fargo (eatery)
Ali Baka (shawarma shop)
Holland Hopia (pag-aari ni Mr. Ho, katabi nito ang --)
Poland Hopia (pag-aari naman ni Mr. Po, sa Chinatown, Manila)
Tio Paeng Longganisa Stand (Pampanga)
Miki Mao (noodle eatery)
Leon King Video Rental (Las Pinas)
Fernando Pe's Box Office Hits (video rental shop sa Palawan)
Susan's Roses (flower shop)
James Tailoring
Elizabeth Tailoring
Jane's Pondahan
Sylvestre's Salon
Suzy's Key Duplication
Cleopata's Bakahan and Manukan
Scissors Palace (barber shop)
10/Q (convenience store chain)
Bee Tin (pagawaan ng hopia)
Cute-Thing-Tings (novelty craft shop)
Curl Up And Dye (beauty salon)
Funeraria Mabuhay
Goto Heaven (tindahan ng goto)
Happy Birthday Toyo (dating tatak ng toyo)
Income Taxi
Juice Co. (fruit juice stand)
Labo Optical
Let's Goat Together (kambingan/beer garden)
Mahal Kita Honey (bottled honey galing Batangas)
Meating Place (meat shop)
Meatropolis (meat shop)
Mercy Buko (tindahan ng buko)
Nacho Fast (nachos to go)
Pa-Kap-Log (tindang almusal: pandesal, kape at itlog)
Passers Buy (convenience store)
Perfect-Lee (sari-sari store)
Perm Foundation (Christian beauty salon)
Petal Attraction (flower shop)
Pig Out (restaurant/take-out sa Makati na may pork dishes)
Second Time Around (tindahan ng mga second hand na relo)
Sophisticut (unisex hair salon)
Star Wash (launderette)
TapSi TurBi (tapa, sinangag, turon at bibingka)
The Fried of Marikina (tindahan ng fried chicken)
The Way We Wear (boutique)
To Home It May Concern (tindahan ng furnitures)
Tree's Company (tindahan ng artificial plants)
Triple Bee (restaurant)
Tutti Fruit-asan (fruit stall)
Washing Well (laundromat)
What's Disc? (tindahan ng mga CD)
Wrap and Roll (tindahan ng lumpia)
Your Best Vet (veterinary clinic)
Source: Bakit Baliktad Magbasa Ng Libro Ang Mga Pilipino? by Bob Ong
Funny Business Names in the Philippines
Light Drawing Tutorial
Image Copyright: Nir Tober [Flickr]
I've heard about Light Drawings before. Stuart and Lori have a really neat tutorial about light drawing on their site, LightDoodles.
Light doodling or light drawing can be described as the simple act of capturing the trace of a narrow moving source of light using long exposure photography, long being defined as seconds or minutes. The moving light source will then appear in the finished picture as more then what actually exists and is truely a representation of time as well as space and movement.
Link: Light Doodles Read the rest of this entry »
The CRAP Principles of Design
No, it’s not what you think it is. CRAP is an acronym that stands for Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity. The following is a brief overview of these basic principles that appear in every well-designed piece of work. Although each principles are discussed separately, keep in mind that they are really interconnected and applying only one principle is rare.
Proximity
Very often in beginners’ designs, the words and phrases and graphics are strung out all over the place, filling corners and taking up lots of room so there won’t be any empty space. There seems to be fear of empty space. When pieces of a design are scattered all over, the page appears unorganized and the information may not be instantly accessible to the reader.
The principle of proximity states that you group related items together, move them physically close to each other so the related items are seen as one cohesive group rather than a bunch of unrelated bits.
Items or groups of information that are not related to each other should not be in close proximity (nearness) to the other elements, which gives the reader an instant visual clue as to the organization and content of the page.
Alignment
New designers tend to put text and graphics on the page wherever there happens to be space, often without regard to any other items on the page. What this creates is the slightly-messy-kitchen effect-you know, with a cup here, a plate there, a napkin on the floor, a pot in the sink, a spill on the floor. It doesn’t take much to clean up the slightly messy kitchen that has weak alignments.
The principle of alignment states that nothing should be placed on the page arbitrarily. Every items should have a visual connection with something else on the page. The principle of alignment forces you to be conscious - no longer can you just throw things on the page wherever there happens to be room.
When items are aligned on the page, it creates a stronger cohesive unit. Even when aligned elements are physically separated from each other, there is an invisible line that connects them, both in your eye and in your mind. Although you might have separated certain elements to indicate their relationships (using the principle of proximity), the principle of alignment is what tells the reader that even though these items are not close, they belong to the same piece.
Repetition
The principle of repetition states that you repeat some aspect of the design throughout the entire place. The repetitive element that may be a bold font, a thick rule (line), a certain bullet, color, design element, particular font, spatial relationships, etc. It can be anything that a reader will visually recognize.
You already use repetition in your work. When you make headlines all the same size and weight, when you add a rule a half-inch from the bottom of each page, when you use the same bullet in each list throughout the project - these are all examples of repetition. What beginners often need to to do is push this idea further - turn that inconspicuous repetition into a visual key that lies the publication together.
Repetition can be thought of as "consistency". As you look through an eight-page newsletter, it is repetition of certain elements, their consistency, that makes each of those eight pages appear to belong to the same newsletter. If page 7 has no repetitive elements carried over from page 6, then the entire newsletter loses its cohesive look and feel.
But repetition goes beyond just being naturally consistent - it is a conscious effort to unify all parts of a design.
Contrast
Contrast is one of the most effective ways to add visual interest to your page - a striking interest that makes a reader want to look at the page-and to create an organizational hierarchy among the different elements. The important rule to remember is that for contrast to be effective, it must be strong.
Contrast is created when two elements are different. If the two elements are sort of different, but not really, then you don’t have contrast, you have conflict. That’s the key - the principle of contrast states that if two items are not exactly the same, then make them different. Really different.
Contrast can be created in many ways. You can contrast large type with small type; a graceful oldstyle font with a bold sans serif font; a thin line with a thick line; a cool color with a warm color; a smooth texture with a rough texture; a horizontal element (such as a long line of text) with a vertical element (such as a tall, narrow column of text); widely spaced lines with closely packed lines; a small graphic with a large graphic.
But don’t be a wimp. You cannot contrast 12-point type with 14-point type. You cannot contrast a half-point rule with a one-point rule. You cannot contrast dark brown with black. Get serious.
Excerpt from The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams
Web and Graphic Design Resources
Still looking for more websites to add to the list. If you know any resources that I've missed, please let me know.
Creative Professional
Basecamp
Basecamp is a web-based tool that lets you manage and track projects (or simply ideas) and quickly create client/project extranets.
Creative Track
Online job tracking and project management for freelance professionals.
Creative Lattitude
Providing detailed work profiles and links to graphic designers, writers, web designers, photographers, illustrators and more.
Behance
Creative Portfolios, Projects, and Collaborations. A new platform for the creative professional community.
CarbonMade
Carbonmade helps you build and manage an online portfolio website. Use Carbonmade to show off your design, illustration, art, or any other type of creative...
Coroflot
An employment community for designers: Make an online portfolio to promote your work. Browse portfolios or post design jobs.
Freelance Switch
Community of Freelancers. On this site you'll find Advice, Jobs, Resources and
much more!
NO!SPEC
The NO!SPEC campaign: Serves as a vehicle to unite those who support the notion that spec work devalues the potential of design
Ideas and Inspirations
DesignFlavr
Design Inspiration: A visual collection of some of the best talent in Design and Illustration served daily.
Ads of the World
Ads of the World is a commercial advertising archive and community showcasing the best and most interesting creative work worldwide
FAVEUP
Faveup is a simple gallery of inspirational design. Everybody gets designer's block sometimes so it's nice to have somewhere to go to get your creative juices flowing again.
Stock Libraries
Getty Images
For Digital stock photos and on-line stock photos - Getty Images is the leading provider of creative and editorial imagery and film to communications
Dreamstime
Stock photography community providing high quality stock photos and stock images. Free photos added weekly.
Istockphoto
Royalty free stock photography and art for print and use on websites and presentations.
Stock.xchng
stock photography community - browse our huge gallery for high quality stock photos or share yours with others.
FlashDen
At FlashDen you can buy and sell files to use in your Adobe Flash projects. You’ll find everything from preloaders to site templates
Template Monster
Template Monster offers professional web templates, flash templates and other web design products available for immediate download.
1001 Fonts
Download free fonts for Windows and free fonts for Apple Macintosh. All fonts on this site are either freeware or shareware and in the TrueType
Da Font
Archive of freely downloadable fonts. Browse by alphabetical listing, by style, by author or by popularity.
UrbanFonts
Download free fonts and free dingbats. PC fonts, Mac fonts, truetype fonts.
Web Design and Development
Typetester
The Typetester is an online application for comparison of the fonts for the screen. Its primary role is to make web designer's life easier.
W3C Quality Assurance Tools
The W3C QA Toolbox - Validators, checkers and other tools for Webmasters and Web Developers. Home of the HTML and CSS validators, link checker, and more.
Google Webmaster Central
Google Webmaster Central. Welcome to your one-stop shop for webmaster resources that will help you with your crawling and indexing questions.
Down for everyone or just me?
Down for everyone or just me?
Tutorials
NETTUTS
Web Development & Design Tutorials.
PSDTUTS
Photoshop Tutorials
VECTORTUTS
Illustrator & Vector Tutorials.
W3Schools Online Web Tutorials
HTML XHTML CSS JavaScript XML XSL ASP SQL ADO VBScript Tutorials References
Blogs
Designers who Blog
DWB features blogs discussing graphic design, web design, illustration, marketing, photography, branding, writing and advertising.
Typography: I Love Typography
A web site devoted to typography, type, fonts and typefaces.
Legal
Creative Commons
Creative Commons licenses provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators.
Communities
Philweavers
Community for Filipino Web Design
deviantART
Community of artists and those devoted to art. Digital art, skin art, themes, wallpaper art, traditional art, photography, poetry / prose. Art prints.
Affiliate Programs
Commission Junction
Commission Junction is a global leader in Affiliate Marketing, Online Marketing, and Search Engine Marketing.
Google AdSense
Offers a contextual advertising solution to web publishers Delivers text-based Google AdWords ads that are relevant to site content pages.
Amazon Associate
The web's most popular and succesful Affiliate Program
Text Link Ads
Buy Ads. Begin Building Links. Publishers: Make more money by selling text based ads.
Miscellanous
You Send It
File transfer and email service. Also offer secure and large file transfer.
Lorem Ipsum
Reference site about Lorem Ipsum, giving information on its origins, as well as a random Lipsum generator.
The Process
Discover Analysis Becomes Insight
Research is important in understanding the client' goals and its target audience. Using this knowledge as a springboard for design, my client and I collaborate on solutions to fulfill the needs of both company and consumer.
Design Insights Become Ideas
Design is about more than just aesthetics, it should also be functional. Each facet of the completed product is part of the solution to achieving my client’s goals. My approach to the process and the design reduces development cost and enhances user experience.
Deliver Ideas Become Reality
Projects are delivered along with documentations and the materials used in the process. Furthermore, my relationships with my clients extend beyond delivery dates. I’m here to respond to my clients’ evolving needs.
Meet the Designer
Hello. My name is John Monte and I'm a freelance graphic designer based in Makati, Philippines. I have over five years of experience in print, identity and web design , an additional knowledge in front-end development, and an educational background in marketing for a better visual communication with the target audience.
I call myself a designer, first and foremost, although I've learned a lot of new media in the past that I can now do more rather than just graphic design. I'll add more stuffs on this in the future. In the meantime, feel free to contact me.
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