Social media networking is huge and everyone knows it. People are also starting to realize that the ability to stand apart from everyone else in the social media sea is the most important step when creating an online identity. One great place for your online individuality is your blog. Blogs serve as a place entirely your own filled with articles, tips, resources, thoughts, or anything you want. Your blog also serves as a launch pad to the social media networks you participate in. Take a look at any blog and you’ll find that all of them have icons linking out to things like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr and more.

Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine was founded in fall of 2006 and prides itself on delivering useful and innovative information to Web designers and developers. Smashing’s goal is always to inform their readers about the latest trends and techniques in web development. Since they are always focused on quality you can be sure that all social media icon sets the deliver here are only the best of the best.

Design Reviver

Design Reviver always strives to give web designers, developers, and almost anyone the best of information when it comes to resources. At Design Reviver you’ll find free downloads for social media icon sets and even social media backgrounds for your Twitter and Myspace pages.

Web Design Ledger

The Web Design Ledger is a publication written by web designers for web designers. The primary purpose of this site is to act as a platform for sharing web design related knowledge and resources. Topics range from design inspiration to tips and tutorials and everything in between. They realease large sets of social media icons from around the web as well as detailed icons for your PC or Mac’s desktop.

The Design Cubicle

The Design Cubicle is the creation of the graphic designer known as Brian Hoff. His blog focuses on providing though provoking articles about print design, web design, logo design, branding and more. He also releases design tips and resources such as large icon sets from across the web.

Dry Icons

Dry Icons is an independent company founded and run by four individuals. The Dry Icon project was originally created by Rabotilnica Doo, a small creative studio working in the creative design and web development industry. The group at Dry Icons wanted to create a place to provide free, high quality icons for the public thinking that it was unfair to charge high prices for such little things. Dry Icons features a wide array of social media and desktop icons to help you stand out against the crowd.

While these websites offer their own default icons to link to their websites, it’s important to take this as an opportunity to stand apart. So instead of spending hours and hours trolling the internet for social media icons that fit your blog or website, just take a look at the great resources we’ve gathered below. Happy icon hunting!

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Orange is by far my favorite color, but sadly I can’t use it on every project that’s placed in front of me. So instead of trying to work the color orange into my own logo design work, I’ve collected 18 logos using the color orange from across the web for your viewing pleasure. All of these logos would look great on orange themed trade show giveaways as well as creative business cards. Enjoy!

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Ever looked up “free WordPress themes” but found nothing but a pile of crap (unless you were looking at Smashing Magazine’s amazing lists)? Well look no further. I’ve compiled a list of 6 FREE high quality WordPress themes that are easily customizable to suit any of your needs as a designer, individual, or even a small business.

Arras theme

www.arrastheme.com/
demo.arrastheme.com/

FX Mag

http://wpvulpe.com/preview/FXMag
http://wpvulpe.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2

Folio Elements

http://www.press75.com/demos/folio-elements/
http://www.press75.com/the-folio-elements-wordpress-theme/

WPESP Portfolio

http://wpesp.com/portfolio/
http://demo.wpesp.com/portfolio/

Inuitypes

http://bizzartic.com/bizzthemes/inuitypes/
http://bizzartic.com/bizzthemes/inuitypes/download/

Rock Solid

http://forthelose.org/theme-released-rock-solid
http://forthelose.org/themes/rocksolid/

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Hello readers and happy Monochromatic Monday! A new holiday in the design world (created today) and I plan on celebrating it on a weekly basis. Today we’ve got five inspiring monochromatic websites for your viewing pleasure. If you have any website suggestions or just want to comment on the designs make sure to leave a note below.

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Holy mother of Christ. So I’m chilling on Vimeo, cruising it up for awesome animations and (BAM), right in the face this one sucker punches me. The beginning of the video isn’t my cup of tee. I’ve seen hundreds of illustration based After Effects animations shoddily done, but something about this one made me linger.

Basheskia snd Edward EQ AIM music video from Enis Cisic on Vimeo.

About 15 seconds in I’m already knee deep in an unconscious plot that my own brain started to form around the visual scenery. There is no implicit plot, the narrative is left up for you to decide, but the motion graphics sent me into a visual overload that rarely occurs. Surreal, beautiful, and horrifying: this video will give you something worth watching.

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I understand when you’re in design school, or you’re just coming out (school just let out for the summer not too long ago) you want to work but you find most positions at design studios, corporate firms, and other venues filled with hard working (theoretically) designers. So what do you do? You freelance. After a while of making a break here or there freelancing you start talking to other freelancers to help your self-started business get off the ground. A couple of jobs later you’ve completely forgotten that your original goal and you’re perfectly content working your own hours. I know a lot of great designers who are freelancers, but I know even more horrible freelance designers who ruin the market for real ones. I’ve freelanced and worked for businesses along with studios and firms and still find that freelancing is not it for me and here’s why:

1. Medical Benefits
I’m not sure about freelancers out there, but in the US, Health Insurance and Dental Insurance are pretty expensive and hard to come by at an affordable rate. To be a freelancer, you have to be organized; sadly most people aren’t and taking care of their health insurance properly is something most freelancers probably forget here in the states. Sticking with a business or firm allows you the alleviation of this by having it simply as part of your benefits package for working with them. There’s nothing worse than paying for a broken ankle right out of your pocket.

2. Learning from Peers
Freelancers learn from other freelancers; they rarely learn from people in the industry who are attached to a firm because people like that tend to keep the secrets of their trade to themselves out of fear of losing their position to someone else. However, when you’re a designer working at a firm with other designers, they teach you quickly and efficiently to make sure that you’re a valuable member of the team. Teamwork is important, one of the most fundamental skills of being a human being, but it becomes hard to develop when you work alone and never stay attached to a business for too long.

3. Growth/Advancement
The best thing about being a freelancer is that you’re the boss. The worst thing about being a freelancer is that you’re only the boss of yourself. Ever wanted to run a corporation or have a higher position than just “the guy that designed this”? Attaching yourself to a business allows for growth and advancement. I started off with one firm as a logo designer and ended up as their assistant director for marketing. What’s nice is that people in and outside of the business start to know your name, and the harder you work, because you’re part of a company you’ll be noticed and have the ability to rise in rank. Freelancing means once you’re done with the project you’re done. They might contact you again for more work, but it will always be the same thing for the most part.

4. Stock
Most freelancers don’t care about it, and they probably don’t understand it. With the economic recession still in force here in the states and around the world most people wouldn’t think having stock at this time is even a good idea. Wrong. Now is a great time to have stock as well to buy up other stock while it’s dirt cheap. Having stock in a company that’s doing well, and keeping track of your stock will not only be great for when you leave the company (sell the stock and get rich anyone?) but it teachers you how to manage it.

5. Resources
As a freelancer, there’s no doubt you’ve accrued a large amount of contacts through your years of working for various businesses. But as valuable as these contacts are, the likelihood of them sending you work from other businesses are close to none. Businesses provide great resources such as laptops, desktops, art supplies, and printing costs for you as long as you’re doing your job well. These resources are great perks when you realize you can go to your boss and say: “I need a new Mac Intel Laptop to do this work right”, and they give it to you to keep.

Working from home is great, but working in an office on strict hours trains you to be diligent and efficient with your time instead of thinking: “Oh I can just do this at night and sleep in”. It’s common knowledge that if you don’t get anything thing done by 12pm in the afternoon, nothing’s going to get done at all.

So what are your thoughts on freelancing as opposed to working directly for a firm or business? I’d like to hear your thoughts.

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1. Designatr – “Designer Meets Band”

One of the more interesting things I’ve heard of lately. I’d have to say it’s one of the few interesting coming soon pages that actually got me interested in what it was. Apparently Designatr will be a place where bands can go to find designers to do things like cover art, poster design, CD design, and possibly even band branding. Of course, it is also a place where designers will be able to go to find work to add to their portfolios. Definitely a great resources as more and more people are coming together to create music at a time where almost everyone wants to be a designer of some sort. Definitely stay up to date with them.

2. Fuel Brand Network – Fuel Your Portfolio

Anyone familiar with Fuel Your Creativity knows that they produce quality stuff. Much like Envato, they’re a group trying to provide as many quality resources for designers as possible by gathering them into one place for the community. The particularly communities you don’t want to miss out on are their “Fuel your Portfolio” and “Fuel Your Career”. The details are still somewhat in the dark but my general assumption is that they will provide the design community with a place to submit and rate portfolios as well as look for related jobs.

3. FaveUp – Envato Network

Creattica has always provided a great daily digest of design inspiration and it’s great to see that they launched a place where designer can submit logos, illustrations, and portfolios and have them rated by the rest of the design community. The layout showcases the best of the day in terms of designers and it’s a great way to get yourself known in the community.

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I haven’t posted anything related to Motion Graphics in a long time and figured that 3am on a Thursday morning was the best time to post anything at all.  Considering I’m hyped up on coffee and starting to feel the effects of two consecutive all-nighters, I thought it was best to find a motion graphics piece that best represented the mental state that I’m in.  Luckily the search was short and I came across the mind-numbing and awkwardly intense music video preview: Clarte by Jemapur.  The motion graphics piece is “the latest film by W+K Tokyo Lab creator, Genki Ito. The concept is nuclear fusion in the micro world, matching poetic animation to a heavy-hitting track.”  The intense soundtrack, coupled with simple and powerful visual elements creates a wonderful menagerie of images that keep you at the edge of your seat while you watch the microscopic process of nuclear fusion unfold before your very eyes.  If you’re interested in Jemapur, make sure to check out the blog here.

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Now you might be thinking, well didn’t the game “Linger in Shadows” offer people great screenshot material on the ps3? Indeed, Linger in Shadows lets you make and record video game art, but that’s the primary purpose of the “game”. I would argue that the new edition of Wipeout – Wipeout HD for the playstation 3 has finally added in something that will attract non-gamers to a particularly polarized gaming genre: racing.

I just recently purchased a 1080p high definition screen to replace my old crappy 17 inch CRT monitor that finally died and to test it out I hooked up the ps3 to through HDMI to see if there was actually a visual difference in games, and of course I needed a game that was also rendered in high-definition quality to test it on. For the price of $20 I set myself into a world of fast cars, asian designs, and glowing lights that might make the weak of heart feel sick. As I won my first race I saw a strange option: “hit square for photo mode” Photo mode? What the hell is Photo Mode?. Apparently this is Photo Mode:

It allows you to take pictures at any point during the game, and not only are these screenshots but you can edit them as you would in Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, or even on a real camera with options like Aperture, Depth of Field, Motion Blur, Exposure, Saturation, etc. ** Also, all of the pictures that you see in this post from Wipeout HD are ones taken by me.**

I was also really amazed at not only the game’s but the Playstation’s ability to crunch HD images into small JPEG files without losing any quality. It’s like having the Adobe air App – Shrink O’Matic inside your video game console. If you have a Playstation 3 and you can blow $20 dollars, I suggest you get this game for its high-octane races and creative content.

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Videogame companies around the world seem to be capitalizing on all of the talent available at their fingertips.  The age of the pure 3d rendered trailer seems to be losing steam in places like Japan, China, Korea, and here in America; major gaming companies have taken note of these and have started to provide more down to earth, inspiring, and moving motion graphic pieces that keep you on the edge of the seat even though you know the game looks nothing like it.  Battlefield Bad Company 2 HD trailer offers promotional material that had me going =O.  The video focuses around the simple, beautiful, morbid, and brutal circle of life that is war.  It is both effective in terms of telling a complete story in a short amount of time, and it also finds success in terms of its simplicity involving the actual motion graphics techniques implemented in the trailer.  Take a look and get the game which is sure to have more of this content even if you’re not a videogame fanatic.

*Title image found at: http://revraph.deviantart.com/art/Battlefield-Bad-Company-68851321*

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