Sometimes people think that designers just come up with ideas…have you ever encountered a person or prospective client that throws a project/idea at you and immediately says…so what do you think? do you have any ideas? It has happened to me…and it is just funny because at that point you can say so many things, have so many ideas…and all of them can be so far away from reality.

The reality is that every designer has a process, my process lives in Moleskine notebooks.

Another funny question I have been asked is ‘and how do you use a Moleskine’ and the answer is there is not right or wrong way, depends on how you feel comfortable working, anyhow, I will share my way…

ï To-dos: It is important to know what you have to do. This is key for me, every email I get, Basecamp message, phone call, etc. I erase and write it in my Moleskine. Why? Because if you only had one thing to do every I am sure you will not forget about it, but when you have several things to do, you will forget something. Anyhow, the secret of productivity relies on not leaving anything to your memory. Treat your mind, like you treat your computer, try to have it as free as possible so it can work faster on the tasks you need it to work on.

ï MITS: Most Important Tasks. So, out of those 029472393409274 to-dos you need to know what your priority is, some to-dos might need to be done ASAP, and some others might be done in a more relaxed way. Your MITS will let you know if there is something of urgency you need to do.

ï Briefs: A new project will always be briefed, what is the concept? target? keywords? tone? so many things to think about, that if you do not have all this information in one place so that you can organize your ideas, the quality and effectiveness of your project might suffer because you missed something.

ï Research: Gather information, nowadays that we live in an overload information world, it is a sin for you to not study your brand. Research the industry, who are the competitors, learn from them.

ï Unleash your thoughts: Create roughs, very very roughs, nothing pretty, nothing like the final product…just ideas. This will be your base so that you know what direction you are going.

“Moleskine was created as a brand in 1997, bringing back to life the legendary notebook used by artists and thinkers over the past two century: among them Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Bruce Chatwin.”? www.moleskine.com

Playing is a big part of any living organism life. To let go of yourself, of your mind and just interact how your body wants to. We see animals all the time playing, and it does not matter how old they are they love to play.

Human beings are the ‘most intelligent’ creatures on earth, yet we are the ones that have forgotten about playing. We were all once kids, remember that feeling? of just not wanting to do anything else but play. This is a very healthy feeling, it is a feeling of happiness, freedom.

So, the question now is, do you play with your process? You being a designer or developer, should be able to have fun with what you do. For the creative minds the process is a bit harder, why? because you need to let go, most professions do not let you or want you to let go, but hey! we have the advantage, the great advantage that ours encourages us to let go!

Tips to play with your process:

? Start your project by brainstorming, but do not do a formal aligned to the parallel? brainstorm. Get yourself a big piece of paper, board anything big! some markers and start to scramble thoughts, the messier the better!

? Mess around with your project. Once you are prepared for doing something in the computer, do it your way, present innovative ideas, ideas of your own. Now, off course there are always sticky clients with big ego trips, that want things done their way, hey! save different versions or use a great tool called github. That way you can have both versions, the one your client will approve just because it is done the way he/she wanted. And the other version which let you play.

? Have projects of your own. This is the best way to really play. You are your own decision maker and you have total freedom of what to do and what direction to take.

Conclusion: Get yourself out of any type of routine, and play!

Creativity, imagination, the notion of just knowing how to combine elements, and color palettes. Pieces of work that you just wonder, wao! how do they do that?

Creativity is a mental and social process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts. An alternative conception of creativness is that it is simply the act of making something new.

In this opportunity I want to present some pieces of an awesome illustrator and designer called Alexandre Efimov.

This is just a preview of awesome pieces. Go to portfolio

We often run into the post-flash-intro clients looking to build a flashy site. They argue that people will bite if we have some anoying music and flashy effects. Most of the times the flashy effects are just fade in and out… nothing too fancy. As good web designers, we tell them we can acomplish that with javascript and we go ahead an explain the SEO trade off about flash.

I discovered some site that use wisely JavaScript in their design; consequently, a clean user experience is accomplish.

• NewsMilk What a clever way to present the news
• The solar System by Will Jessup
• Templetica by Alen Grakalic