http://www.cartoonbrew.com/

I chose this site because I’ve always been very interested in animation and I think this site is a great way to keep updated on what’s going on in the animation industry, I stumbled upon it a while back while looking for tutorials and found that it has a lot of great information. It’s frequently updated with posts about new shows, movies, and shorts, and even contains articles with insight from prominent animators. I think it’s a good resource as well because the site is pretty simple and straight forward to navigate, with the drop down menu providing links to resources such as job searches, links to different categories of interest, and includes a search bar for navigating to specific articles you may be looking for or themes you might be interested in. I think for the purpose the site is fairly well laid out, the news style lay out is familiar, with the prominent article of the day larger in the center, and smaller links to other/older articles laid out along the sidebars.

By: Andrea Del Rio

www.dezigningeye.com

The reason I choose Dezigning Eye Studios is because it could be a very useful resource for both graphic and multimedia designers alike. It features an array of how-to instructional videos covering a number of unique and innovative tricks and tips.
Dezigning Eye features videos that included new skills in a number of different programs, including photoshop, illustrator, indesign, and premiere pro. For example, A recent post on the blog has a walk through on how to create an animated, 3D Logo for a website. It covers each and every step, and even shows you how to write it into a site using CSS and Javascript. They seem to be very straight to the point, and the information on the site is organized and written well. The layout is simple, yet effective for the reader to navigate around the site with ease. There is a search bar along the right side of the site that allows you to specify the category of interest, along with the specifying the date of posts within the site archives. Overall it seems like a well educated, highly skilled designer (or team of designers) are the ones creating the useful information on this site. The site may be relatively simple in terms of looks, but the information on the site seems to be pretty advanced, judging by the techniques they are teaching and demonstrating in each and every blog post. My only negative thing I found about the site is that they seem to not post as often anymore!

www.dezigningeye.com

The reason I choose Dezigning Eye Studios is because it could be a very useful resource for both graphic and multimedia designers alike. It features an array of how-to instructional videos covering a number of unique and innovative tricks and tips.
Dezigning Eye features videos that included new skills in a number of different programs, including photoshop, illustrator, indesign, and premiere pro. For example, A recent post on the blog has a walk through on how to create an animated, 3D Logo for a website. It covers each and every step, and even shows you how to write it into a site using CSS and Javascript. They seem to be very straight to the point, and the information on the site is organized and written well. The layout is simple, yet effective for the reader to navigate around the site with ease. There is a search bar along the right side of the site that allows you to specify the category of interest, along with the specifying the date of posts within the site archives. Overall it seems like a well educated, highly skilled designer (or team of designers) are the ones creating the useful information on this site. The site may be relatively simple in terms of looks, but the information on the site seems to be pretty advanced, judging by the techniques they are teaching and demonstrating in each and every blog post. My only negative thing I found about the site is that they seem to not post as often anymore!

Blog URL: http://www.elleandcompanydesign.com/blog/aspiring-designers

I particularly sought a blog that provided freelancing tips or even invoice design suggestions (I highly recommend researching this). Presently, I am finding myself in the freelancer’s world since graduating, having done branding for two small businesses and now I have a small commercial client with challenging demands. It is really making me think.

This blog, titled “Top 10 Tips for Aspiring Graphic Designers”, written by Lauren Hooker, provides a solid foundation for anyone starting out in the creative field. There are a lot of insights that speak to experiences I have faced in my short freelancing career. One being # 8: Being leery of working for free. This section described Lauren’s experience as being very frustrating but great for gaining experience. I have also found it helpful that if you are a student and unsure about compensation, ask that your payment be to add your client’s design to your portfolio. # 5: Educating your clients is another tip that speaks. The author writes about the importance to use your skill set to inform the client to help them (easier said than done when starting out), rather than to let them make terrible design choices. I am in that boat right now with a client. One mistake I made that is painful is never show your clients ANY of your working files of their projects in their presence, even to make a few tweaks. They may see a design that you purposely moved on from and want it.

The website design of the page, with the white space, the simple colors and beautiful use of the sans-serif headers adds to the authors credibility of being a designer. Each tip is labeled nicely that adds to the aesthetic and has enough content to help the reader understand its importance, supported with personal examples and clickable resources (one being about working for free by Molly Jacques) or bold information for emphasis, without losing the reader too much. I appreciate that the blog has a date stamp and that Lauren welcomes input from her readers, so others can read the comments for more advice.

Overall, this blog is a nice resource to have and these tips are still in effect today. I also wanted to share additional insight from my experiences to better help others make better professional decisions in their freelancing work.  I hope this helps.

By: Maurissa Keller

Okay, so first off I would like to say that I did a lot of searching for a “professional” blog in this field of work. There are tons of blogs out there but not many are very professional. However, during my searches I would always be brought back to this one. It’s called “Stopmotion Explosion Blog“. Every blog post is both fun to read and very educational. Each post is accompanied with videos to visually explain what they are talking about.

Most of the blog posts I’ve clicked on and read over have helped me learn something new about the stop motion world. They’re all packed with information. For instance, I clicked on a post titled “Feature: Moleskine – Game of Thrones Intro”. In the beginning of the post it talks about how paper can be used as a tool for stop motion animation. Immediately following that is a YouTube video of the work that is being talked about. It is a stop motion version of the Game of Thrones (T.V. show) intro scene. After showing the stop motion they show the original to compare the two. The paragraph following the two videos talks about how they used different lighting and colors to achieve the look they were working towards. At the end of the post they leave us with a video made by the creators of the the stop motion titled “Moleskine – Game of Thrones – Making Of”. That video physically shows us how they built each piece of the stop motion.

In another post, this one titled “Is The LEGO Movie Stop Motion or CGI?”, the author gives us all a question that he intends on answering. Throughout the blog post the author presents their research and makes comments on their findings.

By the end of the post we are given a clear and detailed answer of the initial question.

This blog does not have a traditional comment interaction feature as most blogs have. Instead you are able to use Twitter to communicate with the blog author. As well as Twitter, most of the linked YouTube videos can be commented on and have interactions with the content creators in that way. This blog gives reader numerous different insights into the world of stop motion animation.

By: Tevin Goddard

the blog to see    http://www.chasejarvis.com

The Chase Jarvis Blog is one of the best business and motivational resources in the field of creativity, whether you are a graphic arts student, a photographer trying to get their work out there, or an entrepreneur truly trying to do something different. I discovered the photographer Mr. Jarvis through YouTube by recommendation from YouTuber, Evan Carmichael. The channel turned out to be a hub for great content, interviews with world-changing creatives, from Arianna Huffington of Huffington Post, Sir Richard Branson of Virgin, to Sir Mix-A-Lot! I chose this blog to present for other students because I think they can benefit from the advice of prolific and impactful creatives to speed up their journeys or answer creative questions they have. I am really underselling Chase Jarvis himself he is a groundbreaking creative person in his own right.

On the top of the page you will see tabs to explore the website – select “projects” – then select the “chase jarvis live” box – scroll down through the list of interviews until you find the series of interviews Chase hosts called “30 days of genius”. I know this lots of work, but trust me, when you see the fantastic work that he’s put into asking questions to his interviewees you will have a leg up I promise. I recommend the interview with award-winning designer and creative director, Sefan Sagmeister and Marie Forleo who is a life coach and host of MarieTV.

The website is produced very well, I really like the small details, such as the screen loading icon being a spinning camera aperture and the simplicity of exploring the website with many links appearing as icons. Its made to match our iPhoney sensibilities.

You’ll also see pictures from Mr. Jarvis’ career, a podcast, blog posts and a link to his company CreativeLive where you can take courses to learn to do things.

-Daniel Martinez, 10.15.2017

Erin Outdoors:  http://erinoutdoors.com

Erin Outdoor’s blog contains stories, advice, and inspiration, as well as tips on gear for traveling and photography. The young blogger/photographer graduated with a bachelors in Visual Arts and Environmental Studies, and hasn’t stopped working hard since. In many of her articles there is a recognizable pattern of optimism and empowerment that urges others to challenge themselves to “live life like they mean it”. It is my dream to incorporate my creativity into traveling and when I read her blog those dreams feel so close to reality. I hope that others might find some sort of motivation or encouragement from this blog, or at least get the chance to see some of her amazing photos.

One of my favorite things about this blog is that there is an option to join her and other guides on trips to different parts of the world. If someone decides to join her on a trip there is a page on her blog with all the tour details. The site is decorated with high resolution photos from the blogger’s travels giving it a very original and simplistic design. The quality of information on this blog is very helpful in many ways. Repeatedly she posts about not giving up. Just keep working and keep trying. She also gives reviews on gear, information on where to get it, and things to expect in different cultures, creating a well rounded inspirational travel/photography blog.

https://hub.uberflip.com/blog/storyboarding-content

This blog is about storyboarding and offers a good amount of information on the topic. It goes over what is storyboarding and how helpful it is to the creative process. It saves you time and energy having a plan in the production process of media. It goes over every topic with storyboarding and explains how to make them and even has a printable worksheet to even help you make story boards yourself. I picked this topic because I love to draw, and i eventually want to have a career in storyboarding. I love the production side of media arts and if I combine the two you get storyboarding. The blog itself looks very well done. There are many buttons to click on and direct you to other blogs and topics. There is also a comment section that is very active. This site was the best looking and somewhat new blog I could find on the topic of storyboarding. The others didn’t seem well put together and didn’t have the information I was looking for. If you’re interested in starboarding or need help understanding what and how to get into storyboarding, I highly recommend this blog post. Thanks for reading!

The site that I have chosen is called Unurth Street Art, which can be reached easily through this link:

http://www.unurth.com/

I have chosen Unurth Street Art because it is an incredible expose of Street and public art from around the globe featuring murals, installation pieces, mixed media, sculpture, video, photography, essays, and colorful individuals. I have always been fascinated by any form of public art that exists out of the confining showcase of the art gallery and is free to influence the social culture of all who view it.

The site is incredibly huge and have spent hours and hours pouring through the site’s  contents and have seen no apparent end to it. It is an incredible source of every type of visual information about most any subject one can think of: politics, society, religion, imagination, decoration and you name it. All types are represented from as many different cultures as possible. Many of the artists that have work shown in the blog have written included biographies and essays about their art posted with their images. Anyone who has an interest in street/public art would find inspiration and influence from imagination and talents of amazing artists from everywhere around the world.

At first glance the blog site appears to be simple, but it is far from that. The main focus of the site is entirely on the artists and it is extraordinarily well arranged with vast amounts of visual and textual information. The main routes through the site are a basic feed, an artist index, and quick links to observe the works of extremely popular street artists such as Banksy.  The site also provides easy access to be able to comment on individual artists and specific pieces, with direct links to both Facebook and Twitter. Subscribing to the site is super easy with the subscription link posted on every page.

By Jason Dallas