The Design Cubicle -

Bento has become a major factor in keeping my freelance business more organized. I am able to easily keep track of when invoices are paid, if proposals were excepted, when payment was received or potentially any other bit of information on a client I would like to keep on record.

For those of you not familiar with Bento, it’s a personal database program (Mac only) from Filemaker that allows you to easily organize and manage contacts, emails (new in Bento 2), calendars, files, and create templates with personalized form information where you can store client information.

Here’s how I use Bento to benefit and organize my freelance design business:
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• Freelancing
• Software

After patiently awaiting the news for a new line of Apple notebooks to surface during its Tuesday’s special live event, Apple has finally released redesigned and revamped Macbooks and Macbook Pros. While at first glance the sexy exterior and pleasing performance increase seemed delightful, I am left to wonder (and complain) about one thing.

Why Apple has opted out on their matte (anti-glare) screen finish? I can understand the Macbook, but the Pro, being pushed towards the creative professionals, will not be the same anymore. Heres why:

Color accuracy! Plain and simply, the glossy glass display, which provides “more pop, increases color intensity and overall, gives a much more vivid display” is not what us designers need. We need accuracy and consistency and that’s what the matte screens provided us (in addition to not seeing ourselves and the world behind us by the annoyance of glare). And to top matters off, the only cinema display offered is now in glossy as well—ugh! The matte screens provides designers and photographers with a much truer representation from screen to print, while the new glass displays are aimed to enhance elements on the screen only. Matte does matter!

On the plus side, the Macbook’s now appear to have the stamina to provide enough performance to handle Pro applications. To those of you who want to save a bit of cash and still run the Adobe Creative Suite, go with the Macbooks.

So after all is said and done, will I be getting a new Macbook/Macbook Pro? Yes! Being the Apple nut that I am, I’m sure the complaining will quickly change to a new found love after I have my hands on one.

So what’s your opinion on the matte verse glossy debate from a designer/photographers point of view and who’s getting one?

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• Color
• Miscellaneous

Below is a list of 27 logos of various graphic and interactive design studios from around the world:

Asterik Studio | Seattle, Washington
http://www.asterikstudio.com/

David&Goliath | El Segundo, CA
http://www.dng.com/

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• Logo Design

Much like the right choice font can make or break a great design, not knowing proper punctuation can as well. The following post is a list of special characters and typographic keyboard shortcuts. Accents, dipthongs, ligatures, mathematical symbols— the whole nine yards.

NOTE: This list was completed using Apple keyboard shortcuts. Sorry PC guys and gals! For the most part though, most of these shortcuts will work for Windows users.
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• Resources

To me, design and music go hand-in-hand. I couldn’t design without it. A majority of my inspiration comes from music, especially discovering new artists or songs.

This post is to help other find “their inspiration” by spreading your LAST.FM love. Discover what people just like you are listening to while designing or blogging. 

It’s simple — Leave a comment on this post, with a link to your Last.fm profile and a sentence or two about what you do.

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• Miscellaneous