Bad signage is easy to come across when so many people take the cheap way out and don’t hire a professional. The first time I came across this sign I just laughed. It reminded me of the one time my grandma was trying to tell me the name of this website, she proudly said, “It was www-dot-com!” I just burst into laughter. I tried to explain to her the middle of the domain was the most important part.

With this car dealership, their hierarchy is completely off and I think they have the fear of negative space. A major flaw is the smallest part is the name of the shop. One of my pet peeves is when a telephone number has a word in it, who regularly dials a phone number with letters?! I could easily make his sign look better in under an hour, I wonder if I should contact him?

Bank of North Carolina’s sign just has one major flaw, you can’t read it! The black cast iron on the dark brick makes it really hard to read. Other than that I have nothing against the sign. But isn’t the importance of the sign legibility? A sign can be designed perfectly, but if you can’t read it, what good is it?

topsecretrecipes.com - Ever wonder what the recipes from some of your favorite dishes at chain restaurants? They have recipes from Burger King to Olive garden. Although, you have to pay a small fee to view most of them, there is also a good amount viewable for FREE!

thesurfacestore.com - Interior wall removable vinyl graphics. My favorite, that I’m thinking about purchasing is under garden > Magic Tree.

photojojo.com/timecapsule- With a Flickr account you can setup to get emails of pictures from a year ago. A great, easy way to view those pictures you forgot about.

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My design education in primarily in print and identity design, but I have had a strong interest in web design. Having a website on your business card is almost more important than having a phone number, in my opinion. Landing my exciting new job as a web designer, I am getting to challenge myself in becoming a more creative web designer. Among my first projects, was to redesign three websites for waterfront communities. The print materials were previously outsourced to great graphic design firms in the area. So I had a lot of inspiration to pull from, I was basically transferring the identity that was created into web. I have actually surprised myself in how good things are turning out, and I’m getting great feedback.

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First, I looked in housing magazines to find development’s ads for the web addresses. As I was bookmarking my favorite developments’ websites, I started noticing some trends and items that interested me. These websites are selling expensive waterfront communities, with the general audience being well-off and over 50. So they need to look the part.

I wanted each website to be distinct, but have general similarities. My ideas were for all of the websites to have an area for large interchanging pictures, add a favicon (icon beside the web address, that shows up in your bookmarks), texture/depth/transparencies/patterns, match their print materials, show a forecast for the location, and have a more user-friendly site infrastructure.

I can’t wait to make these sites live! Here are the existing websites: Water Ridge, Summerhouse, Cutter Bay. You can be the judge if they need updated by my new designs.

Does a believable handwritten font exist? I’m on the search. The problem is when you actually write something out, no two letters are exactly the same, like they are with a font. The pressure points and thickness of the writing utensil also varies.

If it’s not that much type, I will find a font I am happy with, type out the text, print it out, trace or write over it on tracing paper, and then scan it in. Tracing the text allows me to keep a fairly uniform size, write in a straight line, and not misspell; while giving it enough inconsistency to make it believable. It makes me laugh when someone asks what font I used.

But in this particular case, there are 10,000 envelopes that need addressed, and I cannot write out all those addresses. So I am sorting through thousands of fonts to find the best handwritten font I can find.

Do you have a believable handwritten font you would like to share?

After searching for two months, I landed a perfect new job. I was starting to feel a little hopeless, and then all the sudden I had four interviews and two offers in one week. I was very excited to accept the offer from Waterfront Communities, Inc. to be their Graphic/Web Designer.

Waterfront Communities has developed and marketed 36 luxury waterfront communities in the southern United States. My primary job will be to redesign/update some of the websites for the communities that they are currently marketing, here is one: http://summerhousenc.com/. They are currently outsourcing all of their print material to design firms, but the hope is to bring it in-house, which I think is a great idea.