The previous packaging was certainly starting to show its age. The dated font choice, antiquated Photoshop effects around the Kraft logo as well as on background shapes, and even the tired looking salad photography have been replaced with a fresh, modern concept that seems to be attracting even the most dedicated meat-eaters towards entertaining leafy greens.

Another noticeable difference is the increased size of the Kraft logo, making it obvious that Kraft is trying to asset itself as a company looking to be on top in the salad dressing aisle.

The new bottles feature fresh, object oriented graphics, strong modern fonts, and a transparent label that lets the contents do the talking. The labels were printed in six colors via UV flexo on Fasson® clear-on-clear pressure-sensitive film labels. This change in labeling was in response to ACNielsen research which found that consumers prefer to see more of the actual product they are buying before bringing it home.

The new design approach that is working so well ascetically, is also influencing the bottom line. This reason for changing the look and feel for Kraft dressings was created by an unhealthy drop in market share of 4.7 percent and a continuation of sluggish sales figures. The new package design and reformulated salad dressings have resulted in sales of some Kraft salad dressing increasing 15.8 percent in the first year of sales. Adding to the positive numbers was a slimmer, lighter bottle design increasing shipping efficiencies by 18 percent.

Overall, Kraft is seeing a bigger piece of the pie at a table crowded with hungry competitors and graphic designers are seeing a better product design. It’s looks like we’re having a win-win for dinner.

Mozy

I personally cannot recommend this online back-up service to more people. Mozy is an easy to install program that syncs your computer or multiple computers to a remote server. With unlimited data transfer for $4.95/mo. and the unlimited peace of mind that comes with knowing all your artwork is safe from disaster is a deal you can’t refuse. And if you do refuse this deal, they have a FREE 2GB storage account as well. How can you refuse free?

Dropbox and Dropio

Both Dropbox and Dropio offer you the ability to share files with other people and users. Dropbox gives you the ability to sync files between multiple computers. I use the free 2GB account on a regular basis as I’m typically working between various work stations around the office. Both are easy to use and offer a great way to get your print ready files to the printer.

Firefox/ColorZilla/Measureit

I’m almost positive that you’ve heard of these extensions for Firefox. Measureit gives you the ability to size up any on-screen object that needs to outfitted with a specific graphic element. Just drag the ruler and take your dimensions to Photoshop. Colorzilla is another useful tool that picks a color off a website for you. Great for matching specific shades.

OpenX

Similar to Google Ad Planner, OpenX is built by a well supported community of open source developers who have created an awesome ad sever for the web environment. Host affiliate ads or paid ads on your site with full control over how often an advertisement displays and to whom it displays. OpenX has been configured to serve ads for our advertising purposes and it comes highly recommended.

Woopra and Click Density

In addition to the mainstay of Analytic world, that being Google Analytics, there are a variety of up and comers that offer stats and behavioral tracking for your websites. Woopra is a free option which offers WordPress implementation through a plug-in. Click Density is another that shows heat map overlays for your sites in an effort to help you discover what content you have is hot and which is not.

Hootsuite

If keeping in touch with tweeps is a priority, check out HootSuite. It’s a Twitter management application that gives you the flexibility to tweet to multiple accounts at once or at a time. You can also track the actions of your followers and create nice looking charts and graphs to put up on your filing cabinet.

TinyChat

Have you been looking for an easy way to video conference or chat with colleagues and clients in a private online environment? Well you’re reading the right post. TinyChat supplies the world with free, disposable online chatrooms. When used carefully, this can be a great tool for video conferencing with a number of people at once. Be forewarned however, that the public chat rooms are unsupervised and can contain some strange and perhaps disturbing behavior.

ProofHQ

Go green, save paper and impress your clients with this online proofing platform. ProofHQ can provide the tools you need to collaborate, revise and approve print proofs or online mock-ups. It’s full of a wide array of functionality that will make you wonder why you didn’t use this service sooner.

What the Font/Font Burner

Met your match with a font that will not be identified? Try uploading it to What the Font. It will detect its distinct characteristics and render a verdict. If this does not provide the desired result you can also post your mystery font to the forum where a number of font enthusiasts will solve the case before you can say “Arial Rounded MT Bold.” Another useful font site is FontBurner which is a service that embeds non web-friendly fonts for easy inclusion on your website.

Icon Finder

If you are on the hunt for an icon, start your search at IconFinder.com. Recently outfitted with a shiny new robot mascot, this site will locate the icon of your dreams in seconds.

Please feel free to make additions to this list in the comments!

Logitech Keyboard and Mouse

The Logitech diNovo Edge and the MX1000 Laser Cordless Mouse are both great peripherals that combine the convenience of wireless connectivity and a smooth user experience. The diNovo keyboard in addition to being sleek and modern in it’s design complete with touch sensitive navigation, is also equipped with bluetooth wireless technology and is fully rechargeable. The MX1000 is dependable, accurate and has a long battery life. I have two!

Another Logitech product that you might find helpful is the Logitech NuLOOQ Navigator which is not a mouse or a keyboard but simply a an ambidextrously alternative to the traditional navigation peripheral. It uses a navring that you push or pull in different directions and four customizable buttons for programmable functionality. It’s a non-dominant hand option for multitaskers.

Samsung SyncMaster Monitor

The Samsung Syncmaster 943SWX is a 18.5 inch monitor that provides the on screen space needed to run multiple windows and look good doing it. The screen’s matte finish is easy on the eyes and so is the glossy finish that surrounds it. It’s great for any design application and the price is attractive as well.

M-Audio Speakers

If you’re not rockin’ K-OS in itunes, you might not be taking full advantage of your music collection for the benefit of your portfolio. M-Audio Studiophile AV 30 is a set of highly rated compact powered speakers from a company that designed with the same critically acclaimed technology that has made M-Audio monitors popular in recording studios. These speakers are loud and clear when they need to be and small enough to stay out of the way in your office.

Wacom Bamboo

The Wacom Bamboo tablet turns your monitor into a notepad. Useful for designers and photographers alike, it’s a customizable and convenient way of touching up photos, bringing illustrations to life, and navigating between tools. It takes some time to get the hang of but those that acquire the required skills swear by it’s functionality.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H20

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H20 is an 10MB camera with a price tag that will make you smile. Combining Sony’s practical rechargeable battery and a 720p HD-quality movie capture with a 10x zoom lens, this camera is full of practical features and it’s easy to use.

Drobo Storage Robot

Data back-up is everything. Data Robotics Drobo makes redundancy new and exciting. We don’t have one but we want one. This storage robot is a fully automated, hot-swappable, RAID back-up system that can be modified for Network Attached Storage (NAS). It runs quietly and offers an informative dashboard and simple light notification system to provide data security.

Synology DS209

Comparable to the Drobo is the Synology DS209 Network Attached Storage. If the Drobo is a one trick pony, the DS209 is a thousand trick pony or a herd of a thousand ponies each with a unique trick. This unit does everything! Offering file sharing, scheduled back-up, a mail server, built-in PHP+MySQL, hosting with FTP access, itunes server, and even remote camera management, what’s not to love?

Western Digital External Hard drive

The Western Digital My Passport External Hard Drive is a great external drive for portability. It uses one foot-long USB connector that phantom powers the drive. The Passport comes in sizes up to 500GB and is competitively priced. From our perspective, it has no drawbacks.

D-Link DIR-655 Xtreme N Gigabit Router

Don’t forget the internet! The D-Link DIR-655 Xtreme N Gigabit Router is a super fast router that is easy to set-up, Gigabit LAN ports and the latest in wireless security. Dlink’s router interface is simple and straight-forward which makes it easy to get back to what you do best.

What do you use on a daily basis that you can’t imagine living without?

Millions of Screenshots

The first stop on our tour is at 456 Berea Street. This is the home of Roger Johansson, a Swedish web specialist and accessibility expert. His blog is always well stocked with cross browser compliance tips and CSS techniques. I found this topic on styling form controls particularly amazing and quite helpful. In this post, he’s coded and taken screen shots of over 200 different form elements in different browsers! Unbelievable!!

Digital Inspiration

If you are in the mood to be blown away, make sure you drop by Think Four’s blog. This post is is loaded with mouth-watering, juicy photo manipulation design, created by experts. Inspiration is just a click away.

Read Once, Print Twice

Next stop is Fuel Your Creativity, a source for ideas, inspiration, and helpful tips from your good friends and mine at Fuel Brand Group. This post, called 3 deadly sins of print design, although a bit more on the elementary side, is a great post for beginners in the print medium, or web developers who may be looking for some helpful advice.

Before you leave, make sure you check out this interesting post from Fuel on dual element logos. One of the most interesting and challenging aspects of identity design is the layers of meaning embedded into the design elements. When more than one idea plays across the logo, you know you’ve succeeded.

Be Good To Your Clients

The good folks at Vandelay Design seem to know what they are talking about when it comes to getting along with clients. In addressing the common problem designers seem to have with communicating well, this post outlines the right way to go about customer service. The emphasis on learning to respect your clients ideas and working collaboratively is a lesson many Graphic Designers could use to learn.

Be Good To Your Ideas

Eric Karjaluoto has difficult last name to pronounce. Don’t let that deter you from visiting this post at ideas on ideas. This is another post about being a better designer, but it’s more from a creative perspective. This is a great read on challenging yourself to take your work to the next level.

What to Read Before You Die

The Die Line claims to be the world’s #1 packaging design website and who’s going to argue with that? My favourite part of the site to visit is the redesign category of their blog for fresh new takes on product packaging.

Enforce Your Design Rights

In closing, here are some helpful templates from the Design Police you can use to vandalize critique other people’s work when you just can’t stand bad design.

Thanks for reading. If you’ve got any other sweet links you’d like to share, please leave a comment!

In 1991, the very first web browser was released. Named ‘Nexus’, it had very basic capabilities, and could not display much more than the most simple stylesheet.

Thankfully, technology has evolved a long way and there are now many options depending on your surfing preferences. Browsers are now able to display everything from a spreadsheet to a feature-length movie. While evolution brings choice, this is not necessarily a good thing. Now, we are faced with the problem of choosing and recommending a browser which is intuitive for both developers and users. Firefox or Internet Explorer? Chrome or Safari? Opera or Netscape? Flock? Camino? Sea Monkey? It certainly is a difficult choice. However, this article should help you to weigh out the Pros and Cons of each browser.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome was released by Google in December 2008, with promises that it would load websites significantly faster, and only one tab would crash, not the entire window.

One largely significant downfall to the browser, however, is the fact that it has no built in RSS reader. If you are rely a lot on your RSS for daily information, be warned that Chrome may not be for you. For example, when reading an RSS feed, the user is presented with many lines of text in a single block, with no spaces, which makes for a rather unpleasant reading experience.

Security is obviously paramount to any developer. Chrome regularly downloads blacklists of malicious websites, to protect the user from viruses and malware.

The user interface is very plain and simple, and there is currently no possibility to expand Chrome with plugins.
In conclusion, Google Chrome should be recommended to users of a website, but I would not recommend it for use by developers.

Development Tools: 2/10
Security: 6/10
Speed: 8/10
Reliability: 7/10
Interface: 5/10

This means that Google Chrome has scored 28/50, but how will it fare against Firefox and Internet Explorer?

Firefox

Firefox is a development-focused browser which was created by Mozilla. The browser is open source, which means users and developers had a say in how it was made. The best thing about Firefox is that it has many development tools built in, such as an expanded page source viewer, a javascript debugging tool and a real-time DOM inspector/editor. However, if the standard tools do not quench your development thirst, then Firefox has literally hundreds of “add-ons” which can be installed to your requirement.

The security for Firefox is standard for most browsers, but again, there are many plugins which can be downloaded to enhance the security of the browser. Firefox is well laid out, but the top quarter of the screen is dominated with toolbars and such, but these can easily be removed.
All in all, Firefox is a useful tool for the developer, and comes with some great stuff as standard.

Development Tools: 8/10
Security: 5/10
Speed: 6/10
Reliability: 7/10
Interface: 6/10

This means that Firefox has scored 32/50. How will Internet Explorer fare against this score?

Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer is the default browser packaged with Microsoft Operating System. It is certainly not renowned for its development tools, and offers only a ‘developer toolbar’ download. The developer toolbar includes the tools which Firefox has generically. Many security vulnerabilities have been associated with Internet Explorer. The main way that hackers exploit the browser is through the ActiveX controls that it routinely uses. All a hacker has to do is write a malicious ActiveX control and then they can access all of your files.

Internet Explorer also includes a tool called the ‘Favorites Center’, which is a glorified version of the favorites toolbar.
The browser is typically very slow to load, and with security vulnerabilities, it’s not the ideal developers browser.

Development Tools: 6/10
Security: 3/10
Speed: 5/10
Reliability: 7/10
Interface: 7/10

Internet Explorer has scored 28/50, meaning that Firefox is most likely the best browser to use as a web developer or a graphic designer.

We’ve talked about Firefox tools before on Elbowruminations but if you are looking for more, check out this post by Speckyboy.

If you’re looking for an easy way to make sure your page looks good across all browsers or platforms, check out Browsershots.

And finally, for an exhaustive list of browsers and their history, wikipedia is the place to go.

“I have an idea,” Neil was saying. I was in Vancouver when Neil called from Calgary. We were getting ready for my year-long stint with Elbowroom, and Neil was pitching me one of our first collaborative projects. “Whether it’s a newsletter or a website, I don’t know, but we need to figure out a way to talk design with our clients on a regular basis.”

“When you get to Calgary,” he continued, “Let’s figure this out.”

Neil’s idea to transmit design-related content to our clients, suppliers and friends eventually transformed into a widely-read graphic design blog covering everything from new technology to corporate re-brands. Two years later, Elbowruminations has now published a total of 140 posts, which have garnered 105 comments from our readers. Today is our two-year anniversary of the first post on Elbowruminations, and we thought it would be fitting to mention a few highlights of our first couple years.

1. THE LIBRARY DEFENDERS

I think one of the most exciting times to be a design blog like us is when the people responsible for the design piece you just critiqued end up stopping by to defend themselves. Case-in-point is the Calgary Public Library.

Neil posted a piece dressing-down the Library’s mystifying transit ads, labeling the ad “a few letters short of a bad first novel.” Library representative Grant Kaiser was quick to visit the comments section. “Libraries face 200 years of stereotyping,” wrote Grant. “With a $100 million advertising budget perhaps we could begin to fight it.”

We’re not looking to make people angry or hurt their feelings, but we’re excited when they start thinking more about good design. Out of this post and its comments came a design contract and a great relationship with the Calgary Public Library. What more could we ask for? Kudos to the Library for keeping an eye on their web reputation. It demonstrates a progressive, evolving institution – which ends up reflecting very well on the Library after all.

2. LONDON CALLING

Next stop is London. When the logo for the London 2012 Olympics hit the web, Elbowruminations was one of the first design blogs to cover the craziness. It was a zoo of activity around here, with a flurry of comments and inbound links helping to bring graphic design perspectives to a globe of Olympic spectators. While our thoughts on the London logo have evolved a bit, the initial eruption of discussion and noise was a joy to be in the middle of.

3. SASKATOON BLADES

On my favourite posts put together by Neil is his review of the Saskatoon Blades logo. I’d asked Neil to supply his “favourite design contribution of 2007” for our year-end round-up post, and Neil’s submission was a review of a logo for a hockey team in the middle of the Canadian prairies.

To this day, I’m still not certain if he was serious or joking, but regardless of its angle, it accomplished a couple of things. First, it was a glowing, honest and humble tribute to small-town Canada – you never get those get of adjectives on a design blog. Second, it served as an ironic roast of the design industry: in the midst of a post peppered with poise and pretense where people were gesturing grandly about global issues, Neil went in the exact opposite direction and headed to the hockey rink.

4. THE BRANDING OF CANADA

Speaking of Canadiana, Neil mentioned over email that the Branding of Canada post was one of his favourites from the past couple years. A thorough look at the visual identity of our country, this post took a tour of the stamps, passports, flag, currency, signage, and typeface of Canada. The tour led us to the conclusion that Canada’s visual brand was consistent, strong and visually appealing. Interestingly, this assessment of Canada’s awesomeness was recently affirmed by Future Brand, a New York consulting firm, which surveyed travelers and discovered that Canada’s brand is second in the world, second only to Australia.

5. THE SECOND YEAR

In 2008, we started trying out a few new things on this blog: first, we decided to get personal. With the recent site redesign, we dropped the corporate facade, showed our faces, and brandished our opinions. The design industry has always benfitted from candor and honesty, and we realized there was no point in pretending to be a huge design blog.

Second, we decided to narrow our focus. Our new tagline is “graphic design trends, tips and reviews” which is a big step away from the old tagline, “Graphic design thinking for everyone.” The thing we realized was, this blog ISN’T for everyone: it’s for small business owners and people interested in design. By making our focus and audience clear, we’re already seeing a sense of ease in the comments, and a renewed sense of clarity in our posts.

We hope you like the new approach. Our intent is to continue to bring you well-informed perspectives on the graphic design industry, in a way that makes you think, laugh, or at least come back again later. Tell us how we’re doing — if you’ve got thoughts about how we can do this better, some tips for stories we should cover, or even if you just want to share reactions to our two-year commemorative post, please leave a comment below. You’ll be richly rewarded with a lingering sense of satisfaction.

When I consider trying to explain the place, importance and nature of designers, it often doesn’t translate well. This 6-minute video from the UK Design Council provides a bite-sized explanation of what design is all about, and does a fantastic job. Best quote: “If engineering can be summarized as the relationship between nuts and bolts, between two man-made things, then design is about the relationship between man-made things and people.”

Thanks Olivelife!

Top 5 Designer Traits
1. Solid knowledge of the printing industry
2. A good sense of layout, balance and how to display information
3. Business savvy (strategy, branding, budgets and corporate-speak)
4. Broad knowledge of current design trends and art history
5. An inquisitive, curious, creative mind

I left out “can draw really well,” because ironically, I think you can still be a great designer without having that skill. Also amicably absent is “knowledge of the software” — I figure you wouldn’t be in the biz if you couldn’t click around the programs properly.

What do you think, dear reader? What would you add or remove from the list? Leave a comment below to state your case about what your Top 5 Designer Traits list would look like.