Looking at the redesign of the @nooka website
I’ve been really lucky in 2010 so far. It has also been incredibly busy. While transitioning from Daylife and before starting at Behavior I had the opportunity to work with one of my favourite brands to design their new site in terms of UX. I’m not a huge fan of the word UX as I see it as part of the natural part of design, but I’ll save that discussion for... Read More
Nashville Flood Relief Poster Along with Source Files
Looking at Monoscope tonight I noticed a really nice poster to raise money for the flooding in Nashville. After taking a closer look at Mattson Creative’s site with their poster I noticed this fascinating idea. “I’d like to donate this art to help with flood relief in the broadest possible way. So instead of printing these myself, or working exclusively with one organization,... Read More
My Parsons Design IV Presentation is Up
Parson's Design IV Presentation: Unexpected Narratives and Creating the Right Conditions View more presentations from Michael Surtees. I’ve posted my presentation that I prepared for Parson’s Design IV class. It’s quite similar to the talk that I did in Dallas for the AIGA in February though I shuffled the order up for a more appropriate context for the class.... Read More
Video on Agile Design from my Creative Mornings talk is up
I’m really happy to mention that my Agile Design talk at Creative Mornings can now be seen on Vimeo at http://www.vimeo.com/4831538. The entire video is about half an hour with the Q & A—I guess I went over my ten minute slot, ha. I just want to thank Tina and the entire Creative Mornings team for giving me the opportunity to talk, setting up the event and producing... Read More
Quotes to remember as a designer
For me personally, I don’t think there’s two more important quotes out there for a designer to consider. Zuzana Licko in an interview mentions “you read best what you read most” in 1990, while more recently during the 2008 US Presidential Election a student quipped “if the news is that important, it will find me”. They’re universal truths that are applicable... Read More
51% Design or Design just as much as you have to…
There’s an old saying in advertising about it being correct 50% of the time—people just aren’t sure which 50%. In the print world (which is just about dead), they’ve got one shot to get the content and design right before it hits the presses. When I think online I consider it to be the thing that has an infinite life. You can always update it. The only time something... Read More
What Graphic Designers need to understand
After reading the less than compelling outline about why members of the AIGA should remain members by their national president Richard Grefé titled How Is AIGA Helping Designers Survive the Recession? I wondered if graphic designers will ever get where things have been for a while and where they’re headed. Creativity and marketing the power of design (and thinking a star... Read More
My M.O.
It’s been a while since I actually thought about why I design, after all it’s what I do all day long and for most of the evening too. But I thought it would be interesting to look back at a statement that wrote before I moved to New York about my world of design. See to Think Think to Design Design to Live It’s a fairly straight forward concept that ideas appear... Read More
Guidelines for moi
Over at Uniquely the Epitome, Marc Rapp asked a bunch of creative types (including me) to write down some laws that they follow. Here’s Marc’s original post: IT’S THE LAW ( AT LEAST FOR TODAY ). I don’t know if I could say the below nine points are necessarily laws so much as they’re guidelines that I try to follow for the most part. You may have even... Read More
The Perfect Bottle Cap?
For such a simple task as opening a bottle of sake, I don’t think this cap could have been any clearer on the instructions. I suppose you could ask why, as in why bother informing the person about which direction to twist the cap to begin with? But if you’re going to take the time to do something on the cap, at least do it well. Read More
