Jaimie Knapp

Design Director

Sometimes you don’t have to look very far for inspiring design. The trend around here that I’ve been loving lately has been the two-toned illustration and simple animation stylings of our very own Nat. I have enjoyed the quirkiness and individuality of each piece, while also the continuity that has given the GD brand a new twist and a new feel that is very authentic to who we are here. For some examples, check out our Instagram and blog posts!

Nathaniel Parker Raymond

Designer/Illustrator

Brutalist web design. It’s the kinda awkward space between high design and oversimplification. Some of it is bonkers and borderline unusable, lots of it is like a strange bad-trip throwback to early web/UI styling, and some of it is purely plain text on a white background. Although many of the sites I’ve seen have been … challenging … to process visually, it does make me glad to see that people are breaking out of the mold of standard  website structure and trying different things. http://brutalistwebsites.com/

Brenda Riddell

Owner, Creative Director

Sharp gradients. For the past few years, you may have noticed designers using bold colored gradients to bring mood and depth to their art. I’ve enjoyed seeing that trend evolve from duotone gradients to bright, saturated hues. Now, I’m inspired by sharp gradients. You’ll see them popping up in web designs such as https://sketchapp.com/ and https://stripe.com/, adding a bit of texture and and even geometric pattern to modernize the effect.

Rachel Pantazis

Content Management Associate

I have been doing a lot of research on social media storytelling lately. My biggest inspiration are the ladies at BuzzFeed Ladylike. These young women of all different races, backgrounds, and body types share their stories to BuzzFeed followers every week. They challenge social norms by analyzing beauty products, clothing, and health and lifestyle trends. Not only are they web revolutionists, but they’re also extremely cool and well dressed. My BuzzFeed adoration has made me ask myself about best practices in media storytelling, but it ultimately made me wonder about how I look posting cat photos on my personal account everyday…

Alex Bahl

Web Developer

I recently discovered a web development process called Atomic Design that promotes an opinionated approach to how code could be organized in a project or company wide. Atomic Design is made up of five levels, Atoms, Molecules, Organisms, Templates and Pages with each level made up of the level under it. Using these levels to breakout your code creates a clear separation of responsibilities and fosters an environment that would allow developers to easily reuse all the code that is created. I have always been striving to make my code as reusable as possible and figuring out a set system to support that will make that goal easier to achieve. http://bradfrost.com/blog/post/atomic-web-design