RGD Contest Winner EricCo.Design

Written By Guest User

The 2021 RGD Student Award Winners have been announced! We’re proud to sponsor the award for best portfolio website, and this year’s winner is EricCo.design!

Eric is a Toronto-based graphic designer who specializes in creative branding and visual storytelling. His style often incorporates modernist approaches, clean lines, and simple geometry. The clean, minimal design of his site reflects his forward-thinking style while allowing his colorful, detailed portfolio to take center stage.

Each example in his portfolio features helpful context and background information. It’s always enlightening to gain insight into a designer’s decision-making process, and Eric’s portfolio does a great job telling the story of each project.

Congratulations to Eric Co for winning the category!

Marrow.design

Written By Guest User

Marrow.design is the website of Portland, OR-based furniture designer Robert Rahm. Founded in 2014, Marrow is based in the desire to create graceful and elegant furniture with timeless appeal.

Just like the furniture, Marrow.design is a beautiful, minimal site. Rahm’s designs take center stage, with high-quality product photographs emphasised by generous whitespace. The subtle earth-tone of the Marrow brand name even mirrors the natural wood hues of the furniture.

Marrow.design shows the range of .design domains beyond the common disciplines of graphic design or UX/UI design. Even artisanal, handcrafted furniture benefits from a memorable domain name that connotes creativity and attention to detail.

Musho.design

Written By Guest User

Musho.design is the personal portfolio of Michal Simkovic, a digital designer focused on UI design for mobile and web apps.

“Design in general should be a solution to a problem,” says Michal. “Ideally the best design is ‘just enough’ design: like music in a movie, it perfectly matches the story, so you don’t even notice it’s there.”

With this in mind, buying the URL musho.design and redirecting all his other domains to it was a natural decision. As he explains: “It’s a great match with my profession. Compared to .com it’s longer, but more human.”

Indeed.design

Written By Guest User

Indeed is a leading website for job listings and recruiting. Their site at Indeed.design is an enlightening, comprehensive, and approachable overview of the entire brand’s design ethos.

Every design element, from Indeed’s logo, to the brand’s colors, shapes, typography, and voice, is explained and explored on its own page. Beyond technical explanations of how the design team created these bespoke design elements, each page also explains the psychology behind every decision.

For example, the custom typeface Indeed Sans was designed to embody the brand’s voice, with generous proportions and a mix of sharp and soft elements. The site even highlights the notable characters that most clearly express the typeface’s personality: the curves of the lowercase a’s and e’s express optimism, and the strokes of the b’s, d’s, and g’s lend a human, calligraphic feel.

RGDStudentAwards.design

The Association of Registered Graphic Designers is Canada’s largest professional Association for graphic design professionals, with 4,000 Members, including firm owners, freelancers, managers, in-house designers, educators and students.

RGD set up a splash site at RGDStudentAwards.design to promote this year’s call for entries. Over CAD$20,000 in prize money will be awarded across 21 categories:

  • .design Award for .design Website (Ed: Yes, that’s us!) – any website that is submitted on a .design URL (available free for RGD Student Members ) that promotes the individual entrant and/or a personal project, cause or initiative. Switch out your current .com or .ca domain to .design to qualify for this category! Just tell your hosting provider to ‘point’ to your new domain or contact  [email protected] for more information.

  • Context Creative Award for Storytelling Design – any project that communicates and engages with a strong sense of narrative and purpose, combining words, images, graphics and your choice of media. Examples include editorially-inspired design projects, such as long-form articles, reports, or feature articles that may include the integration of infographics, illustrations, videography and more.

  • Design de Plume Award for Indigenous Design – any project influences or inspired by indigenous design, art and culture.

  • Domtar Award for Print Design – any project designed to be presented in the print medium. 

  • Entro Award for Placemaking Design – any project that helps build community through design interventions. This might be a poster for an event, a website for a tourist destination, a wayfinding system for a university or the design of a retail space.

  • 52 Pick-up Award for Typography – any project that demonstrates the strategic and effective use of typography.

  • Forge Media + Design Award for Logo Design – any project that is intended to represent and identify a company, product, service or organization and its essence graphically to be applied consistently across all visual materials representing that company, product, service or organization.

  • Frontier Award for Editorial Design – any project designed as an article, magazine, newspaper or publication in print and/or digital formats.

  • Gravity Inc Award for Social Good Design – any project that demonstrates value to the community and how it solves local or global challenges.

  • Greenmelon Award for Packaging Design (Single) – any project designed to enclose, protect and promote a single product for sale. 

  • Haft2 Award for Colour – any project that demonstrates the strategic and effective use of colour in the development of the design solution.

  • Intent Award for Accessible Design – any project that explores design that is accessible to the greatest number of people, to the largest extent possible, regardless of their age or ability, across all design disciplines. All projects will be judged based on the application of accessible design principles in the development of the design solution.

  • Nurun Award for User Experience Design – any project that offers an exceptional user experience through innovative design, personalized data experiences and useful functionality.

  • Pivot Award for Information Design  any project that involves the design of clear, concise and visually attractive materials that enhance how people read, understand and use complex and/or detailed information. 

  • Polyester Studio Award for Motion – any project designed to communicate complex data and content in a visually appealing way that is easier to understand and use.

  • Premise Award for Strategic Design – any project that clearly articulate goals and how these were achieved.

  • q30 Award for Brand Design – any project that involves a visual set of associations representing a company, product, service or organization.

  • Quake Award for Creative Innovation – any project that applies unique and visionary solutions to the design process, products or interactions. 

  • SLD  Award for Packaging Design (Series) – any project designed to enclose, protect and promote a series of products for sale. 

  • works design Award for Web Design – any website that communicates a company or organization’s mission, objectives, products and services.

  • Zulu Alpha Kilo Award for Advertising Design – any project created to promote a specific business, program, event or special offer. 

Any full- or part-time undergraduate student enrolled in (or a 2021 graduate of) either a College or University design or design-related program in Canada, or a Canadian student studying abroad may enter. Post-graduate students can enter the Accessibility, UX and Motion Awards only.

Automattic.design

Automattic is the company behind WordPress.com, Tumblr, Gravatar, Jetpack, WooCommerce, Longreads, Simplenote, and many more internet publishing and commerce solutions.

At automattic.design, the team shares the behind-the-scenes stories of what it’s like to build products at a remote-first technology company. Blog posts detail strategies for remote collaboration as much as deep-dives into technology and design issues.

automattic.design also highlights relevant job openings at Automattic and links to the company’s recruiting portal.

Throughout the site, they highlight their commitment to open-source values, diversity, and making the world a better place through the power of design.

Check out automattic.design for inspiring stories about collaboration, teamwork, and communication.

Lee

Lara Lee’s design work includes brand identity, logos, illustration, motion, print, and web design. 

www.LaraLee.design, which now showcases her refreshed personal branding, features in-depth case studies that show off not just her finished work, but the creative process that led up to it.

“My new look is less corporate and more personal so you see more of the real me,” says Lara. “I love the minimalist look and soft colors—these things really highlight my work instead.” 

Lara’s blog offers helpful tools and tricks on topics like motion graphics, design trends, her creative process, and creative ways to display your design work online!

With it’s clean design and it’s sharp focus, Lara’s website is a master class in creating an online portfolio.

#LaraLee #MotionGraphics #Illustration #WebDesign #BrandIdentity #GraphicDesign #Portfolio 

ProperHuman.design

Written By Guest User

ProperHuman.design, based in New York City, is a creative studio that helps brands find their unique voice. From overall strategy to product design to marketing, ProperHuman.design can do it all.

Headed by Daniel Palatnik, a UX/UI Designer and Front-End Developer with over 12 years of experience, ProperHuman.design‘s passion is clearly evident in their work. Their .design site is inventive and immersive, with navigation that is clear and intuitive. Their case studies show off the full spectrum of their work, which includes clients in health care, business consulting, interior design, and even educational tools for youth.

QueerRenaissance.design

Written By Guest User

Paint A. Fremmerlid is the multidisciplinary artist behind queerrenaissance. design. Their work involves visual art, poetry, and storytelling, and all of their art is influenced by their own lived experiences.

“I confront trauma in my work,” Paint told us, “and it is my ambition to let others know they are not alone, as well as craft a more hopeful future.”

In addition to presenting a portfolio of Paint’s work as an artist and writer, queerrenaissance.design also links to their online shop, where you can purchase apparel, accessories, and even a queer-centric tarot deck inspired by Paint’s own journey of healing.

FITPIXX.design

Written By Guest User

FITPIXX is an app developer based in Austria. Their main focus is creating fun apps with personality for fitness, gaming, and tools.

Their app Fit Math is a brain-training math game for mental fitness. The various game modes also test your coordination and concentration capabilities.

They are also working on app-based solutions for software development, project management, time management, documentation, and much more.

Visit fitpixx.design to learn more.