For the most talented designers, creating a palette of complementary colors comes easy. For the rest of us, not so much.

Enter Material Palette, a site launched this week by European coder Matt Aussaguel. What's especially nice is that the clean, user-friendly resource is actually helpful for anyone who ever finds themselves in need of a quick array of colors for a digital design (or a kitchen remodel, in my case).

There are lots of color palette creators out there, but most involve sliders and rainbow wheels and all manner of intricacy I'd rather not deal with. With Material Palette, you click two colors you want to use, and boom—you get eight colors that work and play well together. The colors use traditional hex codes, too, so you can use them just about anywhere, from Photoshop to your site's CSS.

Try it for yourself here.

Concurso de ideas para la creación del Logomarca y Nombre del Centro para la Innovación de la Formación Profesional de Aragón (CIFPA )

Participantes: Estudiantes de Aragón de FP Artes Gráficas, Escuela Superior de Diseño y Escuela de Artes
Premio 600 euros
Plazo: Hasta 30 de enero de 2015

CONVOCATORIA Y BASES: http://fp.educaragon.org/files/concurso%20logomarca.pdf

Web del Centro http://moodle.cifpa.aragon.es/joomla1/

If you've ever wondered how logos get made, who makes them, and where the people making them draw their inspiration—here's a great little glimpse into that world. 

Aaron Draplin, a freelance designer in Portland, Ore., accepted a logo design challenge from Lynda.com to create a mark for slab concrete company and made this short tutorial. Draplin, a bearded, burly 40-year-old veteran design dude with a canon of really diverse work, makes it look easy. But his ease and demeanor are the result of years of experience.

In the video below, we get a rare glimpse into the process of the artist—from concept to execution, through sketching to prototyping and every iteration in between. It's truly fascinating to watch him sketch out his ideas in his Field Notes notepad all while calmly but emphatically waxing philosophical about design and his career. 

A note to clients who see this and think they'll get a new logo in 15 minutes: In a word, no.

Back in 2012, now-former Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coats tweeted a series of pearls of narrative wisdom she had picked up from working at the studio over the years. Pixar is responsible for some of the most compelling and engaging stories to hit theaters in the past several years, from Toy Story to Finding Nemo to Wall-E.

This week, Imgur user DrClaww reimagined Coats' 22 rules for perfect storytelling accompanied with signature characters from Pixar's portfolio of powerful animated features. If you're a writer or filmmaker, print these out and stick them on your desk

Presentation: LINK

Videos: