designburn

Woody Pirtle Video On The Go.

The video profile we did with Woody Pirtle is now being used to promote an event at the College of Saint Rose. The event will take place January 21 - February 25, 2007 on their campus in Albany, New York. Learn more about "Woody Pirtle Visually Speaking" on their web site. And if you live near Albany be sure to catch the event and see the work as he is not only a great designer/artist but a wonderful person.

All Media. Podcasts Included.

designerID member Von "Vonster" Glitschka has agreed to let us post his "The Illustrative Designer" Podcasts on the designerID web site. We are also trying to provide between 2-4 other different design-focused Podcasts for the site. These Podcasts are fun, informative and inspiring discussions about illustration, design, creativity and everything in between. We feel they meet the spirit of designerID and are happy to share them with our members. Listen to all podcasts by visiting http://www.theillustrativedesigner.com.

We will be trying to setup and interview with Von for our Interviews section. Von has worked in the communication industry for 20 years as a Senior Designer and Art Director. He currently runs Glitschka Studios in Salem, Oregon, USA.

Lecture at BGSU

I will be speaking at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) on February 2, 2007 as part of the BGSU GD Alumni Lecture Series. I am looking forward to reconnecting with the University and seeing the development and evolution of the design program since I graduated in 1991. Poster and copy is below.

"The Division of Graphic Design at Bowling Green State University invites you to join us for our inaugural Alumni Lecture Series with Brian Hock (’91, BFA in Design), Chief ID Officer and co-founder of designerID. In March 2006, Brian and his partner Matt Keith created and launched designerID.com, the first online tool created specifi cally to help designers make meaningful connections worldwide. Both professional and student designers can post a profile, share and research work, e-mail and easily network with other designers locally or around the world. With hundreds of member profiles currently online, designerID is fast-becoming the social network for designers to connect, and reconnect.

Learn the who, what, when, where, why, and how surrounding designerID, as well as background information on this award-winning designer’s “other” gig as president and creative director of Brian Hock Design (BHD), a design firm he founded in March 2003. | For more information, please call 419.372.3997 or email mhdavis@bgsu.edu | Free admission, open to the public."

Designing a Community

Today I had a phone conversation with Aaron Hurst who is the president and founder of the Taproot Foundation. The Taproot Foundation has developed a new model for leveraging the talents of the business community to provide pro bono business services to nonprofit organizations. It has been recognized by Fast Company as one of the most innovative and high potential nonprofit organizations. It is based in San Francisco and has programs in Chicago, Boston, New York and Seattle. They are continually building and growing their organization and partnering with designerID will create added visibility in the design industry and potentially get more designers to contribute in a structured way for helping non-profits in their community. We will begin the partnership by donating ad space and profiling a designer member of the organization. The partnership has the potential to grow and really make a difference in the communities where we work and live.

Animate A Video.

I contacted a new member Dimitra Divani from Barcelona, Spain to see if she would be interested in doing a video interview. Yesterday she sent me a reply back agreeing to do a written one. This was fine with us as she has some very nice and interesting work that I felt would be of interest to the designerID community. Then this morning I received another e-mail stating that she talked with a co-worker and decided that the video interview would be the way to go and that they would add some animation to it. This is wonderful news as it adds yet another video interview in the works (5 total at this point). I will also be very interested to see what is created by our new friend in Spain. The work (detail) above is called "guitarra" and was done for a competition.

Helping Designers.

Yesterday I finalized an agreement with Krop to offer jobs on the designerID web site. Krop is a first-class company that has created a creative employment network that features some of the Design and Development heavyweights including: Newstoday, (mt) Media Temple, Lowdown Magazine, COLOURlovers, Lounge 72, Heavy Backpack, DevLounge, Design in Europe, Urbancollective and many others. Our members have been asking us to carry jobs and we are excited to now have a quality solution for both members seeking positions as well as members needing to find quality people. Those members posting positions will have their position not only on designerID but on all sites in the Krop network (seen by millions of talented creative and tech candidates). Look for this feature as part of the redesigned designerID site coming soon.

iPhone. Wow!

I heard the buzz about the new iPhone today and wanted to check out. I didn't think too much about it until I started the video on Apple’s web site of Steve Jobs Keynote at the MacWorld Conference & EXPO 2007. I could not turn it off or stop. This phone combines great breakthrough design and technology with an incredible user experience. I highly recommend everyone watch it. June is marked on my calendar.

Credit: image from apple.com

Faces of Design

Look for a cool new feature coming this month that will let any visitor to designerID see all designers at one time. The feature will be part of a redesign to the site. It will be a separate page that will load every designer that has posted a picture of themselves. Graphics or logos will not appear on this page as we want to promote that it is a community of people. Additional screens and information about the redesign will be coming soon.

Talented Young Designer.

Look for a new Ad from designerID in the January issue of Create Magazine. The Ad will feature the artwork above from Peter Jaworowski, a designer and principal of The Hejz. When Peter signed into our site I was so impressed with his design work that I wanted to work together if the opportunity presented itself. This Ad came up shortly after and I immediately thought of him. We felt he would approach this project from a different persepctive and one that may be more attractive to our community. His concept focused on the arrow and stated "it is the thing that brings every designer together. No matter what program we work in we will always use the arrow to navigate and interact." I should also mention he was extremely fast, very easy to work with and cost effective. Now that is a combination for success.