I love kawaii! THE BOOK, originally uploaded by charuca.

We all became aware of the japanese cuteness obsession when we first saw Hello Kitty. Stores are now flooded with products with this cute little character that represents everything you need to know about cute in Japan.

Maybe it’s hard to understand cute, pink, happy and colourfull for Europeans and Americans, but cuteness is kind of mainstream in Japan. Products, packages, people, they way they act… it’s all cute, cuter and the cutest. ^_^

Cute (japanese ‘kawaii’) once became global and Hello Kitty inspired designers and illustrators all over the world to try to create an alternative that would become at least half that recognizable as Hello Kitty is today.

There is one specific designer/illustrator that I’d like to mention because of her hard work, volume, type and wideness of work she has done to promote her own cute characters. She attracted my attention because of the refined style, vector drawing technique, colour combinations and variety of design outputs she has made over the past few years. Her characters are named Charuca and have everything (if not more) that Hello Kitty had when she went global.

The author of Charuca is a woman in is not japanese, she comes from Barcelona, Spain. Recently she licensed her characters and made a brand, transformed her blog into a shopping website and managed to sell her characters in various forms in stores.

Charuca is a proof that everyone can make it, even the smallest designer with a talent from anywhere in the world.

And remember: not everyone wants cute, sometimes ‘emotional’ or ‘likeable’ is just enough

Steklarstvo Bistrica logo design, originally uploaded by Ajda Gregorčič.

This logo was made for slovenian company that distributes glass for personal and industrial purposes. The client wanted a simple and clean logo that would distinguish its identity from other glazier companies in the same city or nearby.

I decided to use serif font to present the historic importance of glazier activity in general and substantiate it with the logo initials ‘S’ and ‘B’, which are distinguished only by colour and are carefully placed left from the typographic part of the logo.

The colours were kind of the client’s wish, but they were also chosen for the recognition and differentiation factor that was very important for this company to really stand out in the crowd.

The company has already started using the logo, which is a big (first) step in the company’s new identity.

Bringler igre website redesign, originally uploaded by Ajda Gregorčič.

A few months ago we redesigned the Bringler igre website, a slovenian website with free online flash games that is owned by the game development company Motiviti (www.motiviti.com).

I redesigned the menu, the frames, buttons and links, colour combinations, changed the fonts and logo a bit and voila! (Took me two months to get to ‘voila’, but ok

The thing I’m the most proud of is the menu (default, active, mouse-over), but the hardest thing was to minimize the design elements so that game categories wouldn’t get overlooked because of the constantly changing game thumbnails.

We made quite a change to the design layout but stayed consistent to the previous one so the frequent users wouldn’t have to learn the new layout all over again. We also made it easier to the users to navigate through categories and add a new menu tab ‘Igre za punce’ (Games for girls) where girls can find games they like the most.

Every now and then we change the background picture on Bringler so you can have something nice to watch while waiting for games to load

Playdome’s Social city game for Facebook is currently one of the most popular Facebook games on the web not only because of the addictive gameplay but also because of great design elements, illustrations and user interface design that makes this game look fantastic.

During my last few weeks of playing Social city I realized that having my Facebook friends for my neighbours and being able to see their ‘city’ and how they’ve decorated it was one of the main reasons for really loving this game. Since the screenshot maker still doesn’t work with this game, the users are unable to save pictures of their own city and show them to friends on Facebook. So I decided to make some screenshots myself and give you some tips to make your city look even more beautiful.

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Having a small sketchbook and a few pencils in your bag is a must-have if you’re an illustrator, character designer, logo designer or any kind of artist.

I’ve been carrying my sketchbooks around with me since I can remember but I always kind of encounter the same problems; the lack of the right drawing equipment, becoming nervous when attracting attention from people who start asking me what I am drawing or just ran out of empty space on the paper. I think a common problem with sketchbooks is also that you never really sketch without thinking that this book is your portfolio and everything has to be perfect; from composition to shading. This videos helped me understand how was I supposed to use my sketchbook, how much money should I spend for it and how to carry it around. I’ve also shared a few fantastic sketchbooks.

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Easter, originally uploaded by Ajda Gregorčič.

My interpretation of Easter; insted of colouring eggs, why not colour chickens?

Finally I can announce that on February the 26th I got my diploma on Faculty for eletrotechnics, computer science and informatics, University of Maribor, Slovenia.

I am now a B.Sc. of Media Communications.

After my last year of studying Media communications (Interactive graphic design) I decided to explore the field of web usability, specifically usability assessment of social networking websites. My diploma research was based on evaluation of Facebook usability with techniques that were accessible during my research. My diploma research work is available here* in slovene language. Here is a short abstract:

The emergence of the World Wide Web has allowed users access to large amounts of information that can be found on the Internet.User interfaces have a major role in human-computer communication. Web content must be presented in a way that most users can understand and use. Because of varying levels of experience, knowledge and individual characteristics of web users, the design of web interfaces is subject to debates by psychology specialists, human-computer interaction specialists, graphic designers, sociologists and specialists in related sciences. They tend to define  universal standards for website usefulness in order to ensure the most universal and positive user experience. Since social networking sites are currently the most popular online communications medium, it is necessary to develop user interfaces with a keen consideration for the expectations and requirements of typical users. A positive user experience can only be created by analyzing the usefulness of websites in various aspects and offering  the best possible solutions.

* Since the document is only available in slovene language at this moment you are free to translate it with Google translator or any other translation tool to see the results.