

Ask HN: Who designed the graphics for your web app, and where did you find them? - RKlophaus

I want my web app to look less like Google and more like Vimeo.<p>Have you been able to pull good talent from local colleges, Craigslist, or other websites, and how did you narrow down the field? (I am reluctantly moving forward with eLance, but I'd rather find someone local.)
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tlrobinson
We've done pieces ourselves, and...

<http://www.madebysofa.com/> \- Cappuccino logo at <http://cappuccino.org>

<http://metalabdesign.com/> \- splash page for <http://280slides.com> and
<http://280north.com>

<http://cocoagrove.com/> \- 280 Slides logo and some of the graphical elements
in 280 Slides

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comatose_kid
I was going to ask you who did the icon for cappucino. It looks great. Thanks
for sharing.

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RKlophaus
I agree, the Cappucino logo is hot. (Couldn't resist.)

Seriously, though, the 280 North website looks great.

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davidw
Actually, I'm going to dissent and say I'm not wild about the Cappuccino logo:
it's too complex. Look at the small version:

<http://cappuccino.org/images/cappuccino-small.png>

It loses any sense of what it is, unless you already know. The larger version
on the site is quite pretty, but I'm just not sure it works great as a logo.
Logos should still be very clear and recognizable even when degraded a lot
(size, lack of colors, etc...).

~~~
dc2k08
the cappuccino one fails all of my criteria for being a good logo also. nice
graphic but not a logo or an icon at the size it is used at.

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tdonia
typography. it's not the only thing a good designer knows, but it's a basic
skill that the good ones respect.

there are 2 schools of design that a savage like me can comprehend: systemic
and emotional. i'm sure that many can argue for the many gradations, but these
are the important distinctions/extremes to recognize. that said, it's not
either or - successful designers evoke (that's an important word- what does
your potential designer's portfolio evoke) their ideas in a consistent/lasting
manner. this requires both schools of thought - powerful ideas that can be
repeated/propagated.

emotional design is provocation. vimeo is better at this than google - compare
the persistent vimeo login page with the occasional google holiday logo. that
said, there's a much wider range of emotions that neither of these places
touch. good emotional graphic designers will understand how to communicate
your product evoking a positive emotional response.

systemic graphic design is the ability to maintain an identity, consistently,
and create familiarity. most of us feel that if we were hired as a brand
manager for google, we'd have a pretty good sense of whether or not a page put
in front of us meets their identity's requirements. that's a test to remember.
more than any one event in your brand's lifecycle, systemic graphic design
will be there to give you a (relatively) easy solution in any situation, once
your voice has been defined. best example in a typeface: helvetica. these
designers demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of systems design. look at
Paul Rand's work & Josef Müller-Brockmann to see evidence of a system that's
designed to be familiar, even when it's radical.

ideally, you need both. an easy metric that would hold up against the best
ones i know (and no, i won't release their names, they're busy ;) - they love
to talk about their art and they will not hesitate to tackle a new challenge,
especially if it seems hard. even at the expense of dayjobs & prior
commitments. then, give them space. when ideas seem ethereal, be very clear on
your business requirements, but let them solve the problem/bring it back to
earth.

hope this helps. graphic design is half of how i discovered (social) hacking
and i can't stress its importance enough - it's a useful field to learn about,
not just depend on.

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Harkins
I'm using the free Silk icons from <http://famfamfam.com/> \-- they're pretty
popular, a lot of apps use them.

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unalone
Silk is a solid set, but it's becoming extremely noticeable when it's used.
Now it really seems jarring when I see it on a site: it looks skimpy.

It's great for placeholders, but if you can get professional design work done,
do it. Don't skip on expenses if it means looking more unique.

~~~
RKlophaus
For icons I've been using the Crystal set by Everaldo, released under LGPL.

<http://www.everaldo.com/crystal/>

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karmaVS
I have a particular dislike for that icon set. Things that are shiny are too
shiny and things that aren’t shiny look flat. It also has a bad case of Apple
envy; but is nowhere near up to the OS X icons’ standard.

~~~
SwellJoe
Agreed. There are better LGPL sets. We mostly use Nuvola by David Vignoni,
though I've grown a little tired of its cartoonish looks, and David has since
done better work (but none as complete as Nuvola...we paid for development of
a couple dozen of the Nuvola set, so it's complete in ways that no other is
for our purposes).

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tocomment
Do you know of any more sets like this?

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jah
Well, I can tell you where NOT to go:

When I first setup <http://chesstr.com> I tried one of the larger, "get a logo
for only $150" firms. Needless to say, I was tremendously disappointed. First,
my website name was misspelled in a few of the mockups - seriously, how do you
manage to misspell 'chess'?

I also felt very pressured to select my logo from a handful of rather bland
options ("make your selection so we can wrap things up"). They made some claim
about 100% satisfaction, but I was so frustrated and displeased I just walked
away - $150 bucks down the drain.

I ended up just doing it myself with gimp. It's certainly not very good - but
it was better than the alternatives. B latent plug, anyone have any good logo
ideas for a chess website? :)

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dc2k08
I could design one if you're serious. would you like to stay with the knight
theme? or could you go in other directions. i dont think your current is
horrible though.

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radley
Can you find someone from a local college or Craigslist to build Google?
Prolly not. Same goes for Vimeo's design. It may seem really simple and easy
in appearance, but that's the result of clever design, not chance.

It's really hard to hire a talented creative director if you know nothing
about design. You may want to consider working with a design studio for now,
just to learn the ropes and gain a higher appreciation. Poke around design
award websites or places like deviantart.com to find one.

~~~
pragmatic
Must be why it doesn't load correctly in FireFox?

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jsvaughan
We got the <http://www.bionicbooks.com> logo by posting a project on
<http://www.crowdspring.com>

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vaksel
Some simple stuff I do myself. For the more complicated stuff I started out
with using digital point...but then I switched to <http://99designs.com/> and
haven't looked back. You get way more submissions so you have a much higher
chance of getting something truly good.

~~~
jlw253
We used 99designs just recently for logo work for www.neighborex.com. Was a
great experience. Designers were easy to work with. Process was simple and
painless.

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FreeKill
How much did a logo like that cost you at 99? If you don't mind me asking...

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SwellJoe
We've done two logos at 99designs now. I blogged about the experience in a
couple of places...with the winning entry being discussed here:

<http://inthebox.webmin.com/the-new-face-of-webmin>

We used a prize of $500 for each logo. In both cases, it was the highest
paying contest on the site when started. In the second case, a $750 contest
started soon after, but it didn't seem to impact our results negatively. The
cost of running a contest is $39 (it was only $30 when we first used them).

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lyime
This is a great question and there is no easy answer. I was also on the same
page as to having a really amazing design for our app/start (Mugasha.com). I
am not a designer myself, I am developer/UI/UX guy although, I have an
appreciation for good design ethics. There are two ways to go about it, One is
what 280North did and hire these mini-studios. They are great, focused and
quite talented. Make sure its a mini one, big ones are not very focused. The
second is the path I choose and found a designer in our local are through
networking and events and made him a partner. This is tough, I am giving away
a quarter of my company to a designer who I trust. I am also making him
responsible and take ownership of the design and UI. Its a collaborative
effort in the end but the best thing to do would be to hire someone who is
good and who you can trust.

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sidsavara
I do a lot of development in Java, Java Server Faces specifically. We used
RichFaces which comes with some slick templates and modules. We added
FamFamFam silk icons, used JFreeChart for charts and some scriptaculous for
transitions and effects, and the whole thing came out looking great.

This may be off topic, but I think part of is it the graphics, and part of it
is the AJAX "feel". By that I mean, even though Google Reader and GMail are
AJAX apps, they don't "look" like it. I think that is kind of the point
though: they're functional, and they don't get in the way. We used lightbox
type effects, loading buttons and drop downs sparingly, to really enhance the
user's experience.

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jadence
I tried local colleges (<http://www.academyart.edu/>) but found the rates the
students want to charge as much as the more experienced designers though they
had much thinner portfolios.

So far all the designers I've hired have been through recommendations of
friends and they've worked out well so far.

For logo design (yes, I realize a bit off topic) I recommend
<http://www.designoutpost.com>

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symptic
I've been designing since I had to pack up my art supplies when I moved at 14.
<http://sicret.net> has some of my work, though less of my recent stuff which
is more based on typography and establishing a well-constructed grid.grid.

While I am working on my own startups, I'm also a university student and need
to pay the bills through freelancing.

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STHayden
I still think it's best to hire full time designers then going to an outside
firm. I am biased because I am a user interface designer for startups. But I
think working on something full time lets you understand the application much
better.

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satyajit
Probably getting a designer from eLance/Craigslist may be relatively easier,
but finding a guy to do overall UX design may be hard to find. I am looking
for one myself, without any luck.

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timcederman
Find people on smashingmagazine.com (their gigs section)

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tjweir
You could run a design competition at 99designs.com.

You would then follow-up with the winner if you needed any extra work.

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mstefff
Myself. Photoshop is extremely easy to learn - mainly for regular web
sites/graphics. Spend some time and read some tutorials. Get yourself very
familiar with CSS. And begin scanning through CSS galleries to get
inspiration. Sites like Vimeo are extremely easy to design. Don't waste your
money.

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bkbleikamp
Understanding how Photoshop works and being able to make some graphics does
not mean you will be able to design a usable web app. It takes practice - just
like programming.

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randallsquared
Not only that, it takes talent. I've been doing HTML/CSS for years, and I
still have no idea how to design something great, because I can't visualize
what I want -- I only know what I like or don't like after I see it.

~~~
RossM
That's how I seem to be:- I can create nice elements of a design, but it
always comes together to look out of place. The group I work with have a
designer in our team who handles design for all our web apps.

