80 Works for Designers

80 Works Update: Finished Manuscript, Winter 2010 Class

I've been a little lax in updating this blog because I've been working on finishing up the 80 Works book. It's been delivered to HOW Design Press! Now I'll be focusing on rebooting this blog, with a focus on sharing a number of challenges that didn't make it into the manuscript, as well as highlighting work from around the web/on other websites regarding ways to come up with better design ideas faster.

I'm also considering teaching "80 Works for Designers" again in the Winter 2010 quarter, so if you're interested in participating, feel free to contact me at dksherwin at msn.com.

80 Works + HOW Design Press = Book!

I'm happy to announce that I've signed up with HOW Design Press to write a book!

80 Works for Designers will be a book consisting of 80 stretch exercises that can be undertaken by working designers seeking to expand their creative repertoire and gain a fuller understanding of the range of skills necessary for a well-rounded design professional.

Readers can attempt the exercises, view compelling visual solutions to the exercises, and read inspiring stories that inform their inclusion, all in the service of helping designers increase their capacity to innovate.

Exercises from the book will be geared towards:

1. Aiding designers in reaching a breadth of innovative design solutions, in various media, within a set time period.

2. Enabling designers to attempt projects along the full continuum of design disciplines, from the bread and butter of branding and collateral to the wild world of advertising and direct response to the user-centered practices of creating interactive projects, with brief forays into wayfinding, editorial design, video and motion graphics, and more.

The core audience for this book will be working and aspiring designers that are responsible for creating work that spans multiple media.

I'll keep posting updates on this blog about the evolution of the book!

Book, Class, and Blog Launch

Here's a quick update of what's going on with 80 Works for Designers...

The Book. I've signed up with HOW Design Press to write a book for working designers! The book will be based off the 80 Works classes I'm teaching these next few quarters. You can get the full story here.

The Class. The first 80 Works for Designers class starts this Thursday, and there's still space for one or two more designers. Read details about the class here and contact me at dksherwin at msn.com if you'd like to participate. Work on certain exercises in the class will be considered for inclusion on 80Works.com and in the book.

The Blog. There's now an 80 Works blog that will let you follow along with the class week by week. You can read it at http://www.80works.com/ and watch how things develop! I'll also frequently post questions for discussion and class exercises for the community to take part in, as well as calls for submission for contributing to the book.

To keep ChangeOrder's focus on business and design process, I will only include news about 80 Works for Designers here as stubs, while 80works.com will contain frequent postings about the class and the book.

Thanks to everyone who's helped support this idea since the very beginning... it's turning into quite a journey!