Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with designer

Who designed this dress?

Joe Beese — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:11:57 -0800

Who designed the gorgeous dress Anne-Sophie Mutter wears on the cover of her box of Mozart sonatas and related DVD?

Getting a Business Card Designed

14580 — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 05:10:53 -0800

My blog is starting to do well and I'd like to get to get some business cards to hand out at a trade show in a few months. I've looked into the do-it-yourself approach but I haven't been happy with the templates I've found or the designs I've made myself. Even though I don't really want to spend a lot of money, I'm thinking it might be worthwhile to invest in a professionally designed card. So, can anyone recommend a business card designer and give me some idea of what it might cost? I also want someone who can print the cards and do it right. I'm a little concerned about the copyright to the design. I don't even know if it will be an issue, but I would like to own the rights so I'm not forever trapped into having it printed by the same company.

BTW, my web site has a crisp, clean, minimalist design and I'll probably want the same kind of look for my card.

My friend would like to design a chair

urbanwhaleshark — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:47:05 -0800

Apprentice/work experience for London chair designers? I would like to help a friend find some apprentice or weekend-experience work for a London chair designer. I appreciate this is a very specific request. She has no prior experience in the field but is very passionate about it and I'd like to give her as much help as possible. She has habit of finding kicked-about antiques and refurbishing them if that's any help.

If the question is too narrow, please also include furniture restorers and the like.

Lego, my ego

dlugoczaj — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:16:18 -0800

CareerFilter: How do you become a Lego designer? We're worrying about my stepson, who is chronologically 16 but emotionally 12 and is going to need some clear guidance on a career path if we don't want him living with us when he's 30. The only thing that he's really expressed interest in to date is being a Lego designer, and I'm curious as to how someone might work towards that.

The kid in question has mid-severe ADHD and dysgraphia and is not particularly academically motivated, so I question whether or not he can make it through college even if he really wants to (he's never said much about that). He IS capable of focusing for long periods of time on something he enjoys, and Lego has always been one of those things. I think he is a kinesthetic learner and has some decent design skills, in Lego and otherwise. He may well be a good Lego designer, but I suspect that it's a "dream job" for MANY people and is probably not easy to secure. What kinds of skill sets/courses/contacts/otherwise might make this a real possibility?

I have found the perfect pair of jeans. And now I need your help getting more.

paultopia — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 23:40:34 -0800

Calling all fashionistas, shopaholics, people with better google-fu than I, etc. -- trying to find exactly the same pair of designer jeans I just bought, only online, in larger quantity, and cheap... also a novelty item... So I've bought my first pair of designer jeans, and I'm a convert. I bought them at Nordstrom, a pair of men's jeans in a brand called "Worn" (with an umlat over the o). I also bought a pair of pants by the same designer

This may well be the first pair of jeans that I've ever owned that fits me really well. It's also incredibly soft, well-made, etc. And $125.00. Ouch.

I'd really like to be able to hunt around on the internet and similar places to find this exact pair of jeans, hopefully cheaper, and then buy like five of them. Here's the problem: "Worn jeans" is completely un-googleable. I don't know what possessed those people to give their jeans a brand name that, when searched, will reveal EVERY SINGLE PAIR OF JEANS ON THE INTERNET. I can't even find the company website. (Is there one? It's not on the tag either.) Yes, I've tried "worn brand jeans" too. How do I find this thing and get a better price?

Also, how do I make sure I'm buying the exact same jeans? It's not like they have a model number or anything -- just a bunch of stuff on the label, and it's hard to tell which is the color, and which is the cut, and which is the name of the specific pair. I'm pretty clueless about all these various terms -- X cut and Y leg and Z stitch and so forth. And it's hard to tell which stuff on the label is marketing fluff and which is searchable description.

ALSO: I would like to buy the person who dragged me into Nordstrom and coaxed me into buying them a police-style badge that says "fashion police" on it. This will be very much appreciated. But my google-fu is failing me here, too... does anyone have any bright ideas?

Useful workspaces now that I have a huge extended desktop?

jtron — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:52:21 -0800

I scored a huge monitor for free! Tips for video editing/motion graphics workspace layout? So I scored one of those 21" CRT monitors that people used to pay thousands of dollars for and are now somewhat devalued. It's got a max res higher than I even use; I keep it around 1600x1200, and it sits next to my laptop.

Does anyone have useful tips on how they arrange windows, timelines, palettes, etc? I use Final Cut Studio and Adobe After Effects and Photoshop the most often.

If there're any other tips for living with a new ginormo-tron on one's desk, I'd appreciate those as well.

If it matters, I'm running OS X 10.5.7 on a first-gen MacBook Pro with 2 gigs of RAM and an octopus tangle of hard drives.

Identify my jewelry

jeather — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:32:18 -0800

I own two pieces of jewelry. I want more jewelry like them, and I don't know who designed either of them. The pendant was bought in the summer of 1992 or 1993, at Compliments in Kennebunkport, ME. It's silver with an amethyst, two pieces of tourmaline, a moonstone (I think) and a piece of quartz. I was told that the designer did some kind of crystal therapy in California. The owners of the store have no idea who designed it, nor do they remember the piece. They had a few by this same artist at the time, and I believe it cost about $150 then. It is not signed.

Photo of the pendant. Another photo of the pendant. Picture of the back of the pendant, plus gratuitous shot of cat who likes the camera.

The set of necklace and earrings was bought in the early 80s, at Salamandra Glass in Portsmouth, NH. The store later closed. It has since reopened in a different location (same city), and I believe it is shutting again; as before, the owners do not know the manufacturer, though they remember the pieces. It's made of a number of very thin pieces of dichroic glass, much unlike the dichroic glass available now, in various triangle, rectangle, square and diamond shapes. There is no pattern on the glass. The pieces tend towards different colours, though it's quite subtle when worn. I think it was done by a glass manufacturer more than a designer.

Photo of set. Another photo of set. On white instead A set of photos because I am not good at photographing glass.

I would like to know the actual name of the designer of the first piece, and either the name of the designer/manufacturer of the glass or any way I could find very similar pieces for the glass jewelry.

Do Prismacolor pencils ever go bad?

aquafortis — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 15:11:43 -0800

Do Prismacolor pencils ever go bad? I came across a stash of over 200 Prismacolor pencils that are about twenty years old. They seem fine so far, but are there any drawbacks I should expect from using them? Another mystery: I also have quite a few identical-looking pencils that say "Eaglecolor" instead of "Prismacolor". (e.g. "Berol Eaglecolor Sand 940; Berol Eaglecolor Copenhagen Blue 906.") Any info on what I've got would be appreciated. Thanks!

What designer/brand of shirt has one odd orange coloured button?

paul003 — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:37:42 -0800

What designer/brand of men's dress shirt features one odd colored orange button, at the bottom, on the front? I was at a conference today, and noticed a guy wearing a dress shirt that featured one odd orange button at the bottom of the shirt. I almost made a joke of it, but later noticed 2 other guys wearing similar shirts with the strange odd orange button. And by odd I mean that all the other buttons on the shirt were of a color matching the shirt, whilst this one button at the bottom was orange. The shirts also featured a pattern that was noticeable on the inside of the collar and cuffs.

Gallery of Web Apps?

jacobjacobs — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:15:32 -0800

Is there a gallery like cssmania.com for web applications? Not marketing websites, web application UIs similar to this list from Jakob Nielsen? As an UI designer, I'd love to see a regularly updated blog of well designed applications.

Dress me up, dress me down

minervous — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 07:11:50 -0800

New York-area dressmaker and/or designer recommendations, please. I need a formal gown. Dressmaker, designer, whatever - I just need help and guidance. I have ideas about silhouette, fabric and style, but they're vague enough for me to want a dressmaker with a really great eye, a stylebook, and a sharp, opinionated tongue.

Budget-ish is better than high-end, five boroughs better than the suburbs, but all recommendations gratefully taken.

Soviet Cowboy Fonts?

ITheCosmos — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:51:55 -0800

I'm looking for the website of an Eastern-European, I think, designer & typographer who designed some cool-looking Western (cowboy-style) fonts with a former-Soviet-satellite flair. The site had scans of some of his sketchbooks. Anyone?

Tighten the loop between the copyeditor and the layout designer

Wild_Eep — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:25:11 -0800

Other than Quark's own CopyDesk, what "story editors" exist out there that dovetail nicely with XPress 7? We have the need to reduce the round-trip time from designer to copyeditor, and are looking for software titles, be they stand-alone apps or XTensions that would allow us to have a copy-editor be able to make changes to copy instead of marking up a printout of a layout for the designer to re-key.

I found CopyDesk, but are there others?

How much is a fair price for a vintage Fendi bag?

prunes — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:43:21 -0800

What is a fair price for a vintage Fendi bag? My girlfriend fell in love with a vintage Fendi bag in a consignment shop the other day. I have no guarantee whether or not it is counterfeit; it does not appear to be. It is in good/new condition.

What is a fair price for this bag? I believe the tag said $140. I do not know whether this is negotiable.

I am an Audio/Video/Graphics designer looking for the proper machine for multi-media production. Please help me find the right components I need. ANYTHING BUT DELL!

bostonhill — Wed, 21 May 2008 08:39:45 -0800

I am an Audio/Video/Graphics designer looking for the proper machine for multi-media production. Please help me find the right components I need. ANYTHING BUT DELL please! My second Dell machine recently crapped out on me (XPS 600) so needless to say I'd like to battle Michael Dell till death but I'll spare you with my hatred for anything Dell related.

These are my primary tools I use on daily basis for various productions:

Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Audition
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Lightroom
Propellerheads Reason 4.0

As you can see, I spend a lot of time rendering various footage material from my clients along with Premiere and After Effects along with audio creation which requires a high-quality audio card intended for musicians.

I don't know much about customizing machines and which brand to trust but I do know that I need at least 4 gigs of memory, a fast processor and a high quality audio card for music production. (I also know that I have to get Vista whether I want to or not, and since most programs I use only support 32-bit, I can't really go for a 64 bit Vista)

Given the programs I listed and my desire for fast rendering and high quality audio production, which audio cards/processors would you recommend?

I am leaning toward HP m9200t series

Much thanks in advance to all!

Reasonable store cut on artwork sale?

exolstice — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 06:03:44 -0800

What is a fair percentage of the final sale amount that a store (not a gallery) should get on a piece of art? I entered a custom toy in a show at a designer toy store. When I brought it in the owner asked me if I wanted to sell it, and for how much. I just replied with "let them make an offer" not really expecting anyone to buy it. No terms of sale were discussed.

Now it's been about two weeks and someone has made him an offer for $100. He claims he should get 50% of that amount. I understand that galleries usually split 50/50 with the artist, but this isn't a gallery, it's a store. The show was to promote the store and bring in new customers. All (or most) of the DIY toys were purchased from his store. His profits come mainly from the sale of toys.

Am I being unreasonable here to think that in this particular case 50/50 is excessive?

If not, any suggestions on how I should approach this issue?

secrets of the fine d-i-y

phoeniciansailor — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:11:16 -0800

what's the secret handshake that gets me access to the interesting/unusual materials that designers and contractors can get ahold of? i'm talking about things like double-walled stainless steel tubing. pvc "boards" that you can use outside in wet conditions. a specialty tree that i've started seeing around town, parkinsonia 'desert museum'. sheets of perforated corrugated steel for a fence we're building. cobblestones for the driveway. strips of "cor-ten" steel to edge our garden beds. and so on.

these are all materials that i've seen around town here in austin, but usually in commercial applications. unfortunately, it's hard to walk up to the girl behind the counter at crate & barrel and ask her where her contractor got the limestone for the building facade. :) and the materials are not at home depot or lowe's -- which may, at best, carry less specialized (and less interesting) versions. if i'm lucky, i can find something that might be what i need, online (hard to tell from a picture), but these places are never local, and shipping would be crazy.

is there simply an inpenetrable barrier between materials suppliers for designers and contractors and those for the general public? i want in, without having to hire an expensive go-between guy. possible?

Where can I find an inexpensive graphic designer?

special-k — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 13:53:06 -0800

Where can I find a graphic designer that would work on a sliding scale? I need 2-3 small images designed for an academic presentation [non-commercial and will not go in print]. I have basic sketches but I need them to look polished. Here is an excellent example (the logo at the top) of the kind of final product I am looking for.

a) Can anyone help me find a designer/(s) that would work on a sliding scale? We're on a very tight budget. (we = me; tight budget = my grad student salary). I do understand that artists need to feed themselves too but I am looking for some middle ground where both artist and I are happy.

b) If this sort of thing is way too expensive, can you suggest websites/tutorials/photoshop techniques that I can learn from?

I've got some good tips from this question but I need more help. Thanks!

Need to find a "personable" web developer who won't steal my ideas.

creative — Wed, 23 May 2007 18:37:21 -0800

How do I find the web developer/programmer of my dreams? And in the process, how do I not get my ideas stolen? This is really a two part question, so I'll go one at a time.

1:
First, how do I find the web developer and/or programmer of my dreams? I'm still not sure what the difference is between the two, but I know I need at least one of them. Someone with knowledge and experience with PHP, MySQL, AJAX and other such things.

I'm not looking to hire someone as an employee or anything like that, I'm just looking for someone to whom I can say "I am making a web site that would require me to do X. I lack the skills required for me to do X myself, so I need you to do it." And they'll reply "Sure. I can do X. It will cost you Y and probably take around Z amount of time."

These requirements have lead me to a bunch of those freelance type sites where you post your job and people bid. I don't like those places. Nothing personal, and I'm sure each one of these people are highly skilled and capable, but when I get a reply in broken English, it lessens my confidence in our ability to accurately communicate with each other.

Not to mention, it's too business-y for me around those sites.

See, when I say "web developer/programmer of my dreams," here's what I mean. If the number 1 most important trait is skill and knowledge, and number 2 is a fair price, then number 1A would be personality.

I want someone with a sense of humor. Someone fun to work with. Someone who will do their job and do it right, but doesn't mind joking around and communicating like regular friendly people do. I keep saying "someone" because I'd much rather just work with one person than a company.

Does this person even exist? If so, how do I find this person? Where do I find this person? I'm honestly sitting here completely out of ideas on how to even begin to find such a person.

2:
My second question is, assuming it is possible to find the above person, how do I do it without my ideas getting stolen in the process? For example, let's say I come across someone I'd like to hire. I send them an email and we start talking. At some point I have to go into detail about what it is that I need them to do. As far as I can tell, there is absolutely nothing I can do that would prevent this person from thinking "Hmmm. Screw this guy, I'll do this for myself."

It's not like these are huge million dollar ideas or anything even close to that. It's just little stuff that certainly does not warrant me copyrighting/trademarking anything.

But still, is there any way around this, or am I just supposed to contact these complete strangers on blind faith alone?

Thanks in advance for any help.

How much should I charge for my freelance design services?

othersomethings — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 14:51:35 -0800

How much should I charge for my freelance design services? Have to give a quote by tomorrow, and I don't know how to determine what my time/my skills/the job/etc. is worth in order to quote them fairly. I've been approached by a lot of people who have seen my work in the organization I work for, offering me freelance jobs. I'm entertaining an exclusive yacht club right now for some advertising jobs, starting with a newspaper ad they want me to design, and moving on to more projects. Here's the thing, I've always done this for family, friends etc. for free or a meal or whatever, and now that I'm getting approached a lot I'd like to know what I should be charging. I want to be competitive and fair, and I don't want to cheat myself or my client. I've researched Google and my local area for other companies, designers, etc. but haven't found much information on standard rates or on how to come up with pricing, or how to determine what my time and skills are worth.

Any insight would be helpful. Thanks.

I swear, this is the last revision... (famous last words)

cior — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 14:48:45 -0800

My creative coworkers aren't famous, yet deserve some recognition for their efforts on a tough project with an impossible client. Internally, I'm singing their praises and making their successes known to management. Additionally, I'd like to get them a treat. Here's where you come in: They are both art directors, one at a senior level. They are both men. They work at an office on the other side of the country from ours and I've never met them. All of our conversations have revolved around work and neither seem the type to share much of their personality on the job.

I'd like to spend around $50/each for two different gifts of equal perceived value.

Any ideas?

Job Identity Crisis!

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 07:45:32 -0800

What am I? (Job title question) I want to request my job title be changed to something more appropriate. My current title is something both obscure and generic because when I started, the company didn't know what I would be doing.

Here is the problem though, I still don't know what I am. Though this time its because my job is sort of a mixture of two jobs. I am the company's web designer, but that's not all I do. My job also requires print layout and heavy image editing for print. I'd say I do 75% web related work and 25% other graphic related work.

What I'm stumbling on is would a title like Web Designer be appropriate, or Graphic Designer. Web Designer seems to leave out the other stuff I do, and Graphic Designer leaves out the web stuff. My personal goal is to lean more towards graphic designer (yes, part of the reason I'm looking at this is because I really want to be able to put a good title on my resume when I decide its time to look for a new job)

Here is the breakdown on the web side of my job:
Site design/Layout
HTML & CSS coding
Light programming, (php & javascript)
basic flash animations.
updating/changing content

The "other stuff"
Print layout for things like instruction sheets and brochures
image manipulation for my projects as well as when our other branch needs items for print. This could be making composite images or just simply things like sharpening and color correcting
creating new artwork using illustration programs
helping other employees fix their own images or fixing them for them for things like presentations.
ocassionally take photographs of product. (not sure how relivant that is since it really is occassional)

So I'm stuck. What title would be appropriate for me?

designer clothes on ebay

comatose — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 17:13:38 -0800

Does anyone have any experience with buying designer clothes on ebay? My sugar mamma, i mean girlfriend, recently bought me a dolce and gabbana track jacket (no shit). It fits extremely well on my slender yet sexy frame. She said all designer clothes fit like that. So when I went to look at designer clothes online I had a good laugh over how much they cost. Then I checked ebay and saw that they (like diesel and dolce and gabbana) were more than reasonably priced. ($400 jacket for $50) I really don't give a dump if they are knockoffs, 3 years out of style, or stolen as long as they fit well.

Can a consignment shop get away with selling fake designer purses?

anjamu — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 21:18:05 -0800

Is it legal to knowingly sell counterfeit handbags at a consignment shop? Is there a reasonable expectation of authenticity that the consumer has? I recently visited a resale store that touted itself as offering designer and name-brand items.

While I was browsing, I noticed a wide selection of Louis Vuitton bags and a few Chanel ones. All were originally priced at either $60 or $40, depending on size, and all had since been marked down 50%. When I asked the owner whether the bags were real, she said without hesitation that they were all fake, and that "some lady had brought them from New York." She went on to tell me that she sold everything at 30% of retail price, and that a Chanel bag would cost several hundred dollars in her store were it real.

Obviously, "caveat emptor," "if it's too good to be true, it probably is," and all that. But does the consumer have a reasonable expectation of authenticity? If her price had been more in line with what I expected, like $300-400, could she still justify selling fake ones? Does it matter that she was selling other pieces by well-known "names" at far below 30% of their retail (ex. a Theory button-down for probably <5 % of its retail price)? and further, is this legal? lvmh obviously a href="http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/jun2006/pi20060613_187965.htm?chan=topStories_ssi_5">felt very strongly about Sam's Club selling fake Fendi. Does a consignment shop have the same obligations toward authenticity? The bags were not marked as fake, nor were they obvious fakes like, say, this one.

For what it's worth, I ended up deciding not to buy anything at the store, because I just didn't feel comfortable supporting a place that knowingly sold fake bags while boasting of its selection of designer apparel. I'm pretty confident that the girl who tipped me off to the store didn't know that she'd bought a Chanel fake, and it bothered me.

Buying three of everything and the fine art of imposing permanence on the fashion world

Smegoid — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:10:12 -0800

Any stores that specialize in designer fashion from 1-2-3-4 years ago? (shoes, jeans, all of it!). I've grown attached to certain shoe styles and certain pant styles over recent years and am always dissapointed when they wear out and am unable to repurchase the same model. I could go for novelty, and I do, but all the same, would love to find: circa 2002 grey futuristic Royal Elastic shoes. Green leather Gravis shoes from 2004. Dark brown cargo pants with lots of zipper pockets from 55DSL (2004). Grey pocketless button up shirts from Diesel (2002). Energie jeans from 2001. Etc.

Oh yeah and before anyone says it: Ebay is no help!!! It tends towards current season and a bit of last season.