CreativeTechs Tip: Play almost any video file on your Mac.

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If you are not yet a subscriber to Creative Tech’s Tips then I would highly recommend to sign up asap. Here’s one of their latest tips:

There are two essential (and free) utilities that will solve a host of video incompatibility problems with Apple’s QuickTime utility. They are free to download, and easy to install. CreativeTech recommends installing these on most Mac creative workstations.

Perian — Billed as the Swiss-Army knife for QuickTime. This open source plug-in for QuickTime includes a wide number of video codec files that enables your Mac to play most cross-platform video formats.

Filp4Mac WMV — Provides support for Microsoft’s Windows Media files (WMV) — one of the few video formats Perian doesn’t support. The free version allows you to play most WMV files. You can pay to unlock additional options for exporting and converting WMV files into other formats.

Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike

“I HAVE a DVD remote control with 52 buttons on it, and every one of them is there because some engineer along the line knew how to use that button and believed I would want to use it, too,” Mr. Heath says. “People who design products are experts cursed by their knowledge, and they can’t imagine what it’s like to be as ignorant as the rest of us.”

Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike, by Janet Rae-Dupree

Small Business 101: How to Get Started

Small Business 101: How to Get Started, by Barbara Whitacker

Creative Tip: Photoshop CS3 Keyboard Shortcuts

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Photographer and designer Trevor Morris has updated his terrific Photoshop keyboard shortcut cheatsheets for Adobe Photoshop CS3. Download this handy PDF cheatsheet, print it out, and keep it near your computer:

PDF: Photoshop CS2 Keyboard Shortcuts (Mac)

PDF: Photoshop CS2 Keyboard Shortcuts (PC)

Another fabulous tip via creative techs.

Google Calendar + BlackBerry = Love

All you BlackBerry users, rejoice: Google Calendar now syncs with BlackBerry. This comes just a couple of days after Google released a mobile updater that downloads a bundle of Google Mobile apps to your BlackBerry. Read the full Mashable article.

10 Ways To Get Design Approval

10 Ways To Get Design Approval by Paul Boag

(via andy)

Tip: Supervising Productivity

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Action steps are worthless without a sense of accountability to complete them. Every day, the oversight of colleagues and clients helps us stay focused. In the mishmash of daily life, we must feel accountable in order to stay productive and push ideas forward.

However, at some point, supervision backfires. Especially in a creative environment, having a boss over your shoulder or constant nagging reminders will reduce your motivation. After all, we want to take pride in our own productivity. As such, the drive must start from within. But methods to support our drive for productivity are critical defenses in a world of TIVO, email, and countless other distractions.

Tip: Supervising Productivity

Time Management for Creative People | free eBook

Mark McGuiness is offering an interesting e-book compiled from his time management series over on BoDo. In Time Management for Creative People, Mark expands on the concepts and tools needed to be organized in the 21st century. He gives real world tips on how to rule supreme over annoying interruptions, frustrations and distractions. To make way for your creative time. All the while keeping sane.

Time Management for Creative People, by Mark Guiness. Download it here.

Philippe Starck: Why design?

Legendary designer Philippe Starck — with no pretty slides behind him — spends 18 minutes reaching for the very roots of the question “Why design?” Along the way he drops brilliant insights into the human condition; listen carefully for one perfectly crystallized mantra for all of us, genius or not. Yet all this deep thought, he cheerfully admits, is to aid in the design of a better toothbrush.

The Designer’s Toolkit: 500 Grids and Style Sheets: 500 Grids and Style Sheets

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Good graphic design relies on a simple, fundamental concept: the grid. With the invisible, unifying structure they provide, grids bring consistency and visual harmony to multi-page or multi-screen documents. The Designer’s Toolkit is the first book to streamline the use of this critical tool, providing a fast-track way for both experienced and amateur designers to identify and employ the best grid for the job. A CD embedded in the book’s cover includes 500 ready-to-use grid templates formatted for the most commonly used design programs. The templates can be used as-is or be easily customized to create professional-quality work. This unique book-plus-CD package provides the foundation for anyone to create effective, original, and sophisticated design.

The Designer’s Toolkit: 500 Grids and Style Sheets: 500 Grids and Style Sheets

(via aisleone)

Use Mouseposé for presentations of complex interfaces!

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If you give Macintosh training presentations, demos or design presentations of complex interfaces, give Mouseposé ($14.95) a try. Your audience will appreciate it. With Mouseposé installed, press your defined hotkey, and it dims the screen and puts a spotlight around your mouse pointer, easily guiding the audience’s attention to an area of interest. Very useful when you are trying to point out a small-but-important detail on a large projection screen. BRILLIANT!!

Mouseposé 2 from Boinx Software

(via creative techs)

Tools for retaining creative knowledge in an advertising agency

Post by Tim Büsing, on the difficulties of retaining knowledge within creative and planning processes.

(via formfaktor)

Productivity & Organization Resources

Best of Mashable: Productivity & Organization

vector magic

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Need an image vectorized? Quickly? Try this amazing tool called Vector Magic. The tool converts bitmap images to vector art – it’s an online auto-tracer.Just upload your image and it will vectorize it for you. And in case you don’t know: Vector art is useful because it allows you to scale an image without making it blurry or pixelated.

(thank you for reminding me christina)

ponoko | Create, make and trade your product ideas

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The post-industrial revolution is changing the way products are created, traded and distributed. Now everyone can engage in the manufacturing process through their PCs – bringing personal manufacturing of individualized products to the masses. Ponoko is the world’s first personal manufacturing platform. It’s the online space for a community of creators and consumers to use a global network of digital manufacturing hardware to co-create, make and trade individualized product ideas on demand. The ponoko.com marketplace connects creators, consumers, digital manufacturing hardware and service providers to promote, make and trade products on Ponoko and social networking websites.

(Thank you Matthew)

Freelancer or Design Consultant?

Freelancer or Design Consultant – What’s in a Name?

dropio

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Dropio. A private place for storing and sharing photos, video, audio, notes, docs, etc. Each is accessible only to those whom you tell exactly where to look. No signup and no ‘account’. They e don’t even ask for your email. Create as many drops as you want, and access each at: drop.io/thedropname. learn more

(I can’t remember where I saw this, I apologize)

Petite Pattern Book – Japanese Style

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I picked up one of these Petite Pattern Books over the weekend and am probably going to buy the entire Series. The book/disc features 140 creativity-inducing patterns. You can use them as backgrounds, screen-savers, wrapping paper, textiles, book covers, you name it. You can use any pattern as is, or change size and color to your liking. All are presented in EPS files for Illustrator and JPEG files. A fabulous little resource.

Petite Pattern Books, $23.48 at Amazon

staple free stapler

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Staples are history! You’ll never have to run out of them again. The Staple Free Stapler cuts out tiny strips of paper and uses the strips to stitch up to 3 pieces of paper together. Environmentally friendly.

Test email campaigns and how they will look in every mail client

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Testing your design in all the different email clients out there has got to be the most frustrating and time consuming parts of sending email campaigns. Campaign Monitor’s design and spam testing tool changes all that by doing the hard work for you with a single click.

(via chrisglass)

Dieter Rams 10 Commandments of Design:

Good design is innovative
Good design makes a product useful
Good design is aesthetic
Good design helps a product to be understood
Good design is unobtrusive
Good design is honest
Good design is durable
Good design is consistent to the last detail
Good design is concerned with the environment
Good design is a s little design as possible

Dieter Rams

(via perpenduum)

Why RFPs are bad for designers

…The worst kind of business, in my humble opinion, is that which beckons in the form of an RFP. For those who aren’t familiar with RFPs – I can’t imagine many who aren’t – the acronym is derived from “Request For Proposals”. Talk to most experienced design managers and they’ll feel similarly: RFPs simply don’t work when it comes to purchasing design services. RFP, R.I.P., by Eric Karjaluoto

Managing design

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Not sure how design could fit into your business? Want to find out how other people do it? Read in-depth articles on how design is managed, with practical ideas and real-life examples of design being used for business success. Managing Design.

(via monoscope)

good – cheap – fast

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Maybe I should reference this chart next time I am quoting a job: Good – Cheap – Fast.