In honor of March being International Women’s Month, here are 5 influential females working in the design field. These trail blazing ladies deserve some recognition.

Marian Bantjes:

It would be more accurate to label Marian Bantjes as a graphic artist than a graphic designer. Her work of intricate illustrations and patterns has gained her respect across many industries. Originally a book typesetter, she began gaining recognition as a graphic designer from 1994-2003 when she became a partner and senior designer at Digitopolis. Today, she works in a style combing design, illustration, and typography from her home on Bowen Island off the west coast of Canada, near Vancouver, BC. She is known for her detailed vector art, patterning and highly ornamental style. For more information about Marian, visit her personal website.


Kristen Nikosey:

Kristen Nikosey is a designer and illustrator whose work is influenced by textile design and impressionistic paintings. She creates detailed patterns using acrylic on canvas as well as digital software. Nikosey uses vivid colors and line techniques that mimic the early impressionistic painters such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. She does everything from illustrations for books, to packaging designs, corporate identify, and cd covers. To find out more about Kristen Nikosey and view her work visit www.kristennikosey.com/


Janet Allinger:

Janet Allinger’s work will entertain and wow you. Somewhat tongue and cheek, she’ll impress you with her witty comic-style designs and social commentary. Janet’s designs are fun, funky and edgy, and I adore her willingness to push our comfort levels. For more about Janet Allinger’s work, visit Janet online.


Louise Fili:

Louise Fili is what we call established. She has won awards from about every major design competition that exists, she has designed over 2000 book covers, her art dominates the New York City restaurant scene, she is featured in museums, she lectures about design and typography, and she writes books. Her delicate illustrations and hand-lettered typefaces stand out in a digital world. Her designs are ornate and feminine. To lean more about Louise, visit her website.


Paula Scher:

Paula Scher is currently a principal at the New York office of the Pentagram Design Consultancy. Her work is contemporary and takes inspiration from classic and pop iconography. Her use of typography has influenced a slew of younger designers. Big, bold, and strong, Paula’s designs will immediately catch your attention. Paula is a member of the Art Directors Hall of Fame, a past recipient of the Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design, winner of the AIGA Medal, the profession’s highest honor, among many other awards. She holds honorary doctorates from the Corcoran College of Art and Design and the Maryland Institute College of Art. To learn more about Paula’s work and career, visit www.pentagram.com/en/partners/paula-scher.php.

This post was written using the following sources:

http://www.designrelated.com/inspiration/view/Karen/entry/2851

http://justcreativedesign.com/2008/07/10/7-female-graphic-designers-thatll-rock-your-socks-off/

www.wikipedia.org

as well as the designers personal websites.

It's no secret that Twitter has made a huge splash in our world, recently jumping from tech community darling to full blown mainstream awareness. Since it first began to gain popularity, supporters and critics alike have debated as to the use of this new tool.

While it is foolish to simply write off Twitter as a growing number of people both inside and out of the tech community have, the proliferation of useless 'what I'm doing" tweets that are at best borderline narcissistic do raise serious questions as to just what Twitter is good for. But is Twitter simply getting the wave of fallout that anything that reaches critical mass receives, is there a real value to the service it provides?

The glut of "OMG, I am still waiting for my latte" type tweets have certainly taken center stage as the biggest complaint levied against Twitter, but it seems that it shouldn't be so much of an argument against using Twitter, but rather a point at which Twitter loses its usefulness. At its core, Twitter is simply a communications tool; a way for people to transmit information to a filtered group of people. To argue that that kind of tool isn't useful seems shaky at best. What really needs to happen is to look not at whether or not Twitter should be used, but what Twitter should be used for.

This leads to a very informative article over at Harvard Business.org. During a study, they uncovered several interesting trends, such as that 80% of the userbase follows or is followed by at least one person, and that men typically have more followers the women, something that is counter to almost every other social networking community in which you find that women typically have more followers, both male and female, then men.

Perhaps most interesting, however, is that the 10% most prolific "Tweeters" account for over 90% of all tweets, which begs the question: Is Twitter a means for everyone to communicate, or is it instead a "many-to-one" publishing network, more akin to a blog? It is a very interesting article, and a highly recommended read.

We have the pleasure of working Engineered Compost Systems of Seattle, Washington to manage their web marketing, and overall online presence. Engineered Compost Systems (ECS) designs and manufactures equipment and provides technical support for a wide range of composting operations.

We have recently developed and launched the CompBlog which will allow ECS to share their expertise on composting, as well as offer insights into current composting technologies. Additionally we have integrated some lead generation tools into their web design and are managing a search engine optimization strategy for ECS.

We wanted to highlight an exciting design project here in Portland, OR. Eric Ludlum and Laurence Sarrazin spawned the Los Osos design project creating an inspiring array of products and a very well documentented account of their own inspirations and processes. Using materials ranging from glass to paper to sugar to felt, they have really captured the natural features of the Pacific Northwest.

Outlier Solutions is pleased to announce the launch of the SHEL LAB
eCommerce store. The SHEL LAB brand of laboratory equipment is manufactured by Sheldon Manufacturing Inc. of Cornelius, OR. Sheldon
partnered with Outlier to develop a multi-phase strategy for launching an eCommerce store.

We created an online catalog with over 250 items. Outlier was responsible for the entire web design project including photography, copy writing, and search engine optimization. The store was also integrated with their MAX Enterprise Manufacturing Software, from EXACT SOFTWARE NORTH AMERICA using XML forms.

Sheldon was one of the first manufacturers in the laboratory equipment industry to launch an online store and it has been very well received.