Method to the Mayhem

Brian Hoff, owner of The Design Cubicle recently joining the Twitter community. He's been introduced to a diverse range of creative and talented persons that share his same passion for graphic/web design, web development and blogging.

Brian asked Mayhem Studios along with twenty five other designers, developers and blogger friends on Twitter, if they would like their business cards featured on his next blog post, 26 Business Cards of Graphic & Web Designers on Twitter.

You can read the full article and discussion at The Design Cubicle.


Mayhem Studios also received a mention in the October issue of Flogged Magazine (pdf - 5.2 mb). As one of the featured Twitters of the month.

"Some exciting, beautiful and funny tweeples we’ve met on twitter ... you’ve made the past month exciting, thank you."

About The Design Cubicle
The Design Cubicle is run by Brian Hoff. A graphic/web designer and front-end web developer with 7 years of professional experience.

His experience and passion for graphic design has led him to start The Design Cubicle which focuses on graphic design, offering free tips, resources, articles on all subjects of print and web design. Topics range from, but not limited to, print and logo design, web design, typography, freelancing and marketing.

For more information about Brian Hoff, please visit www.brianhoff.net

About Flogged Magazine
Has a client rejected one of your designs recently? It was a great one too. You kept on looking at the design, it excited you! Well, send it off to Flogged Magazine, we celebrate good designs that have been flogged in a monthly magazine.

Labels: Blogger, Branding, Brian Hoff, Business Cards, Flogged Magazine, Graphic Design, Marketing, Promotion, The Design Cubicle, Twitter

Posted by Calvin Lee at Sunday, October 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

Niki Brown of Design O'Blog asked Calvin Lee of Mayhem Studios along with seven other top designers in the design field, what their favorite fonts are and why?

Among these top design professionals that contributed to the article included: Jeff Fisher, Jeff Fisher Logomotives, David Airey, Logodesignlove.com, Steph Adamo, StephAdamo.com, Liz Andrade, Cmd+Shift Design , Renee Rist, Ribbons of Red, Chris Coyier, CSS Tricks, and Adelle Charles, Fuel Your Creativity.

You can read the full article and discussion at Design O'Blog.

Calvin Lee, of Mayhem Studios, gives us a little preview of his thoughts on what his favorite font is and why?

"One of my favorite headline/sub headline fonts is Rosewood, which I used on a five-page article design for Create Magazine. I also used the font Imago, a san serif to balance and compliment Rosewood, a wilder font."

About Niki Brown
Niki Brown is the owner of the wildly popular Design O'Blog. Niki has be designing since she was a little kid - drawing cartoons, making fake newspapers, and planning a plot to take over the world. OK, maybe not. Niki's early interests in design were heightened when she got her first computer, it was love at first sight!

She made her first website in 1996, with the help of geocities and word-art. Now the rest is history. Fast forward to today - Niki is all grown up with a nifty degree that says "I know what I'm doing."

When Niki is not designing, eating, or sleeping you can usually find her blogging or running. She's been known to dress up in red flannel and run when its really cold outside. Niki's most recent accomplishment was completing the Dam to Dam 20k (half marathon).

Labels: Adelle Charles, Branding, Design, Design O'Blog, Fonts, Fuel Your Creativity, Jeff Fisher, Mayhem Studios, Niki Brown, Promotion

Posted by Calvin Lee at Tuesday, September 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

The past three months, I had a chance to work with two great interns. It was a pleasure walking them through the process of taking a project from the sketch/thumbnail stages to Photoshop mock-up, to print ready art/html/css.

Before their intership ended. I gave them a few tips on preparing for their interviews. I'm sharing the same tips here, in hopes, it may be helpful to other designers just starting out.

+ Be prepared for the interview - Wear your best clothes: dress, dress shirt, tie, shoes, etc. Be confident, if not, act like you're. Do research on the company before the interview, Google (what they specialize in, what they are about).

+ Brand yourself - Let employers see you as a brand/product, a total package. Everything should look similar: resume, business cards, leave behind and your portfolio pages.

+ Resume - Don't clutter your resume. It should be designed but not overly designed. Make sure it's simple and easy to access your information.

+ Portfolio - Your portfolio should have between 8-10 pieces of your best work. Putting too many pieces in your portfolio can bore the interviewer. Don't put pieces in you don't like. Make sure to have nice quality printouts. Try to include a wide range of designs in your portfolio. You can also tailor your portfolio to specific design positions like logo design or web design, only show those pieces.

+ Website - Make sure you have a website or a place to display your work with all your information. Also make sure to have different file formats of your resume for potential employers, so they can download: pdf, Microsoft Word document, text file.

If you're not comfortable with building a website yourself. There are many free online web galleries you can upload to, below are a few.

+ Carbon Made
+ Design Related
+ Coroflot
+ Designer ID
+ Flickr
+ Veer
+ Design Hide
+ Behance

Labels: Behance, Branding, Carbonmade, Coroflot, Design, Designerid, Designhide, Designrelated, Flickr, Intern, Interview, Student, Veer

Posted by Calvin Lee at Monday, September 22, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

Los Angeles, Calif. July 2, 2007 - Mayhem Studios, Award-Winning Los Angeles based design firm client, Fagerholm & Jefferson Law Corporation and the Studios' own identity will be featured in Jeff Fisher's next book Identity Crisis! 50 Redesigns That Transformed Stale Identities Into Successful Brands. Identity Crisis will be released by HOW Design Books in 2007.

Identity Crisis takes a fresh look at 50 before and after case studies by exploring the process of redesigning existing identities to help businesses refine their image, communicate with customers, and find success.

Readers will get an inside look at the challenges of redesigning identities. They'll see the creative and strategic thinking behind fresh design work as well as have a powerful tool to show clients what a difference a professional can make to their image.

For more information, please visit Identity Crisis Book

"It's a pleasure to include the crisp, contemporary design work of Mayhem Studios in 'Identity Crisis!' Calvin Lee's efforts are a great example of a one-person design firm being able to compete successfully with much larger design entities on the international creative playing field."

Jeff Fisher, LogoMotives, author of Identity Crisis! 50 Redesigns That Transformed Stale Identities Into Successful Brands.

Jeff Fisher, author of the "Savvy Designer's Guide to Success" is the Engineer of Creative Identity for Jeff Fisher LogoMotives. He has received over 550 regional, national and international design awards for his logo design efforts. His work is featured in over 85 books about logos, the business of design, and small business marketing. Fisher serves on the HOW Magazine Editorial Advisory Board, the UCDA Designer Magazine Editorial Advisory Board, and the HOW Design Conference Advisory Council. In addition, Fisher also writes for CreativeLatitude.com and HOW Magazine.

Labels: Award-Winning, Book, Branding, Corporate Identity, Graphic Design, HOW Design Books, Identity Crisis, Jeff Fisher, Marketing, Mayhems Studios, Promotion, Redesign

Posted by Calvin Lee at Monday, July 02, 2007 | Permalink | Comments