A few months ago I got myself some sweet new business cards. So far, every person whom I’ve given one to has complimented me on it’s quality and awesomeness. I love them. As you can see in my photo, they have my name in large bold lettering with my contact info on one side, and my logo reversed in white on the other.

The wow factor is that on the side with the logo, there is a spot UV layer added so that when the card is held at a certain angle, the light allows you to see a pattern of my logo. I also had them printed on heavy 16pt stock with rounded corners, resulting in some very cool cards.

If you live in Calgary, you must be wondering where I had them printed. “Not in Calgary”, is my general answer when people ask me.

I ordered these cards from a printing company in Vancouver called JukeBox Printing after noticing a card that a friend of mine had printed by them. They were very impressive cards; far more impressive looking than anything I had ever seen come out of a print shop here in Calgary. They had the ‘wow factor’ that I wanted, so I was eager to get my own cards done by them. Having a graphic design background and being as attentive to detail as I am, I can admit that 99.9% of the time when getting business cards printed, they never come back 100% how I want them. I always seem to find a flaw.

Well, two weeks after submitting my order to JukeBox, I had the new cards in my hand… with no flaws. It was the first time I had ever received business cards back from a printer that were exactly how I wanted them. I was very impressed with JukeBox and would definitely recommend checking out their website, jukeboxprint.com, to see what else they have to offer.

The Monster Friends poster series consists of four wonderful illustrations. “The Kraken” by Alex Pearson, “Yeti” by Jeff Kandefer, “The Lochness Monster” by Andy Young, and “The Sasquatch” by Julian Baker. Only a limited run of 100 of the 12″ x 18″ 2-color screen print posters were created at Kangaroo Press. They are printed on 100lb matte poster paper and each set has its number (77/100 for mine) written on the front. The original set of 100 sold out so quickly, they released a second set with a slight colour variation. That second set is also now sold out.

The very second I saw the Monster Friends poster series over at familytreedesign.net, I wanted them and instantly ordered the whole set. I am happy to say that they arrived safely and are now on display in my living room.

After over a year of research, hard work, preparation, and dedication, I am able to say that iStockphoto v9.0 has finally launched. This is iStock’s first major site design update since back in 2006 and I am proud to say that I am part of the design team that helped make it happen. We’re all very excited about it and can’t wait to see the new design progress into the future.

The new site still has some of the old iStock touches, but overall, things have changed in a pretty large way. We’ve been slowly introducing customers and contributors to the new look with an F5 Article and some videos on Vimeo. Now that the site is live, we’re hoping everyone can help us out by reporting any bugs and issues to us.

Kelly Thompson, COO of iStockphoto, introduced the new design to everyone on August 7th.

“At the heart, what we’ve done is separate the actual content – the photographs, illustrations, video, audio and Flash – and put it directly in front of the people who want it. The home page and the new file landing pages are all about showing content to our customers. There’s way more featured content than we’ve ever had before, and we think the new look helps that content stand out more.”

Check out the new iStockphoto.com

If you’re on Twitter, you might enjoy following the iStockphoto creative team. We tend to have pretty interesting things to say.

• @iStock

• @SoCoAddict (me)
• @jameslv
• @poploser
• @nightcommittee
• @MikaelLindh
• @troydangerous
• @Seventytw0dpi
• @limnen

Five years. FIVE YEARS! That is unfortunately how long I went without having an up-to-date personal website.

I know, in today’s world, that is five years too long. As a design professional today, it is essential that you have an online presence. However, I blame two things for my lack of abiding by this fact. 1) There are so many social websites out there that I am a part of already, I’d say its pretty easy to figure out who I am, what I do, and to see what I’ve done and am doing at any given time. 2) When I was in school, large portfolios containing your best design works, printed on high-end paper, was what you hauled around to interviews when job hunting. Today, people just say, “Go visit my website!”, and for the longest time, I viewed a personal website as a tool related to job hunting. So I only ever updated my site when I was in fact job hunting.

Not so anymore. As a graphic designer working for iStockphoto.com who has developed a passion for photography, it was simply about I got off of my ass and designed something for myself again.

So here it is and here I am. Ian Harding, branded and ready… and with a blog. First, I realize that my logo is quite cliche, and I know what you’re thinking. “Hey, he simply merged the first letters of his first and last names together. Thats lame. Everyone does that.” Yeah, well, not every “logo” (if thats what people call them) that are created that way look good and function properly. Even though it has been done a million times over, I did not simply type the letters I and H into Photoshop and then overlap them. In fact, mine is actually quite well designed, strong, and very functional, which is why I really like it. I have posted an image of my development and staging process to show you how I went about constructing the final version.

Anyways, the blog. Five years ago when I first moved from Kingston to Calgary, I swore that I would never start a blog. I disliked the thought of sharing my displeasures (and sometimes pleasures, I guess) to all of internetland. Well, yes, I do now have a blog, but I will not be posting personal rants, poems, or stories about why the really cute brunette never called me back. No, I plan to use this blog as a means of sharing new design and photography related work, sharing great accomplishments like summitting mountains, world travel stories, and possibly posting the occasional “retweet” of really cool articles that I may come across in my daily travels around the web. Essentially, as recommended by photographer Scott Bourne in one of his helpful Photofocus blog posts, I plan to show my work and show it often.

And thats it. A new era in my life has begun. I have some work showcased in both my design and photography sections, so check those out. Will I be able to manage keeping a blog up to date? Lets just say, if you continue seeing new information being posted a month or two from now, there is a good chance I’ll continue to keep at it.

This is… Ian Harding.