Last week I had the pleasure of attending a talk, entitled “Tall Tales From A Large Man,” given by designer and entrepreneur Aaron Draplin. Draplin is a Michigan native, but now resides in the Pacific Northwest where he runs his very successful design firm Draplin Design Co. I hate to admit it, but I was not  too familiar with Mr. Draplin’s amazing catalog of work until my buddy Nate clued me in. After watching this video and browsing through his portfolio, I knew this talk was something I could not miss.

The event was held at 1515 Broadway in Detroit and the setting was quite intimate (and a bit swampy). There was a little more than 100 people in attendance, including 17 members of the Draplin family! Before Aaron took the mic, he had his father come to the stage and tell some jokes. At this point, I knew we were in for something great. Aaron then loaded up his beautifully-designed (of course!) PDF presentation on the projector and he shared many interesting stories, discussed his work, and gave some great advice.

The two messages that really struck a chord with me were these: 1) Keep things simple. and 2) Do cool projects with your friends. I have no shortage of cool friend projects in my life, so I’m all set there, but I could not help but focus in on his simplicity message. He shared many photographs of his workspace where he had collected and organized many old samples of packaging and other objects that he had collected from yard sales and vintage shops across America. While digging through old stuff does not sound like my typical design process, one has to appreciate that simplicity that you find in old packaging designs and advertisements and how you can use those to inspire you.  Draplin has found a way to take the simplicity of the past and give it a creative, very modern edge in his designs, which would explain the great success he has had with Draplin Design Co. I learned a lot during the 90 minutes he spoke, and look forward to following Mr. Draplin’s work more closely in the future.

Thanks to AIGA Detroit and Team Detroit for putting on the event! And check out this sweet poster that he was selling at the show.

Has anyone seen any other websites integrating these fonts?

Resources:

Where to download the Google fonts to use in Photoshop comps

Mockingbird’s simple UI and library of web elements makes it easy to rapidly mock up your designs and outline the basic functionality of the site or application. The user’s ability to quickly update the mock ups make it an ideal tool for brainstorming and “sharing” your projects is a great way to collaborate and get feedback from clients. I would highly recommend using this tool to anyone!

Other wireframing tools worth checking out are Hot Gloo and Balsamiq. Are there any others worth checking out?

Check out the game for yourself!