Rejected to Accepted
If you are a graphic designer or part of a graphic design team, having your project bounced or turned down is never an easy situation to deal with. The design may have been good, but for whatever reasons it didn’t make the cut.

But now there is hope for your rejected projects - The Project Never Graphic Design Contest is calling for all graphic designers to submit any of their rejected work that was not published or used in a media campaign.
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According to the contest sponsors:

“Project Never is a free awards competition created by graphic designers for graphic designers. Thousands of effective designs die each day - often for good reason. At the same time, successful designers and agencies generate many worthy ideas for each project or campaign, only one of which gets chosen for wider audiences. Project Never honors the most creative design concept that never reached production.”
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Contest Details

• Submissions may be sent in from any country as long as the entry is presented in the English language.
• Describe what the project was created for and what it was intended to do in 50-200 words.
• All print and media is acceptable.
• Digital entries must be submitted in JPEG or PDF formats. File size limit is 5MB.
• Submitted entries must have been produced between the dates of January 1, 2009 and February 19, 2010.
• There are no entry fees.

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Judging
The entries that make it to the final stages of this contest will be judged according to the following standards:

• Presentation of submission
• Design quality
• How effective the project would have been if it had gone to press
• Creative concept
• Effectiveness of the project on the viewer

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Awards
The winner will be featured on projectnever.com with a link to the winner’s website along with a bio of the company or individual.

The judges’ commentary on the winning entry will be featured on projectnever.com. A Pantone Essentials Advance bundle will be awarded to the winner.

Other Information
The contest deadline is February 19, 2010. Winners will be announced on April 15, 2010. For complete details and guidelines, click here. To submit your entries, click here for the official form.

Job Interviews
If you are a student in graphic design, graphic arts or illustration, you’ve probably wondered about the interview process in applying for a job.

While job interviews can take on a variety of scenarios, you can still be prepared.

The tips presented in this series do not guarantee you a graphics job, but they can help you to organize, plan and possibly increase your chances for a successful job interview.
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How to Prepare Before the Interview
Preparation can play a significant role in the outcome of job interviews.

By doing your research and being aware of what is expected for the job position, you can enhance your credibility and professionalism in the eyes of the interviewer.

Prior to showing up for the job interview you can prepare yourself by going over the following suggestions and plans of action:
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• Portfolio. Assemble your portfolio in a conscious effort to meet the needs of the company or firm you are applying at.  Keep it concise and to the point. You don’t want to bore the interviewer with examples that don’t represent your best work.
• Background. Your interviewer will probably ask what you know about the company. Present a few detailed facts about the firm. This shows that you are interested in the company and have done your part to be informed.
• Dress the Part. Try to find out what sort of dress code the office has for its workers. You want to dress appropriately in order to fit in. Being neat and casual sometimes works better than wearing a suit. Check or ask before your interview appointment.
• Materials: In addition to your portfolio, bring along copies of your resume, a disc of your work examples, and a cover letter just in case the items were lost in processing. Also bring your driver’s license, social security card, and three references.

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• Groom. Personal hygiene should not be forgotten. Do all you can to appear fresh and clean.
• Be Punctual. Plan to arrive early–at least 20 minutes or sooner. This will take into account any time that you may loose by getting lost or other tie-ups. Arriving early also gives you a chance to catch your breath, scope out the area, and relax.

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The Primary Interview Formats
There are usually two types of job interview formats that employers choose to use:

* Traditional - In this method, the interviewer asks candidates about their strengths and weaknesses, why they want to work for the company, what their goals are for the next 3 to 5 years, and other standard questions that are quite common to this style of interview.
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Employers use this method to determine the applicant’s communication skills, experience, and suitability as a team player.

* Behavioral - More companies are adopting this interview approach because it probes the potential employee’s past performance as an indication of how well the candidate may perform in the work firm’s work environment.

Questions are asked about how the individual handled coworker conflicts, project challenges, ingenuity in problem solving and other questions related to on-the-job performance and actions.

Next Time…
In the following parts of this series, we’ll delve into the aspects of what to do during the interview process, how to avoid pitfalls during the interview and more so stayed tuned.

Pronounced “Paint DOT Net, this free image and photo editor is the brainchild of Rick Brewster. Paint.net started out as an undergraduate senior design project guided by Microsoft to be offered as a free replacement for its Windows paint program. But the project took on a life of its own and has advanced to a level where it compares very favorably with some of today’s leading photo/image editors.

Paint.net is a very user-friendly and powerful program that incorporates plugins you’d expect to see only from expensive software kits. Paint.net offers photo and image manipulation through gamma adjustments, color correction filters, special effects filters, alpha channels for overlays, paintbrush, magic wand functions, layering, and other plugins. Paint.net also has an avid user community that contributes add-ons on a consistent basis for the program. These accessories are downloadable through its official website.

While Paint.net isn’t a full-blown image editor when compared to high-end packages, it manages to incorporate many of the features that are most useful for graphic designers, photographers, and anyone who needs an easy to use program to quickly and efficiently edit photos or images. The program is constantly being revised to improve its performance, and it has gained a strong reputation as a solid graphics program.

If you are a college student, you may find that Paint.net bridges the gap between expensive photo editing programs and low end programs that fall short of usefulness and depth. The amazing thing about Paint.net is that it is not only free of charge, (contributions are always welcome, however, to help Paint.net development continue), but offers a great deal of functionality and features that all levels of designers, pro or amateur, can take advantage of.

While video game cover art is often as carefully designed as any movie poster, this area of graphic design rarely receives kudos. But, now you can view forty extreme examples of the most brilliant game art covers and an explanation about why they’re “so darn good.”

Start with #40 (Diablo) and work your way to #1 (not telling). Add your voice to the comments, and enjoy some great life-size artwork along the way. Thanks to pds tuts+ for this great display.

Aviary is on a mission to make creation accessible to artists of all genres, from graphic design to audio editing. They are a privately held company currently headquartered in Long Island, NY, with team members around the world. Their founders also created Worth1000.com, a talented community of 500,000 digital artists that participate in amazing daily contests.

Now, Aviary has released their online vector editor, Raven. Now you can create all kinds of awesome stuff directly from your browser:

• Logos
• Clip Art
• Complex vector art
• T-shirt designs

If you’re seeking a powerful path engine and equally powerful layers, Raven has it. Share and learn, import from popular photo-sharing sites and use their complementary suite of creation tools. Visit Aviary’s Raven to learn more.

DESIGN 21: Social Design Network - an online platform to promote design for the greater good - teamed up with The Nature Conservancy and the US chapter of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC-US) to create the Wood, Paper, Checkmark competition. Participating members were asked to create elements of a consumer call-to-action campaign including a design for online and print ads and a clever URL name for a website to educate consumers about FSC-certified products. After reviewing 127 original entries from 34 countries based on aesthetics, impact and originality, DESIGN 21 made its selection of the top finalists.

The winning entry was chosen by representatives of FSC-US and The Nature Conservancy to receive $5,000 in prize money. Another $5,000 was shared between the “Most Popular” design–decided by an online voting poll–and DESIGN 21 Advisory Board members’ “Judges’ Picks.” According to an FSC representative, “The exercise of judging gave FSC and its conservation partners much to consider as we work to increase market awareness of FSC and consumer intent to purchase.”

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