Tag: graphics

When creating design elements everyone, no matter who we are has their own opinion of what works and what doesn’t, what is beautiful and what is ugly. Visual cues and hierarchy feel different for different people but you will find that the majority of people will be biased to one way of thinking or another. When you are just working between yourself and a client it can be difficult to reach agreements on what is beautiful and thus you need a third party to help make final decisions, that is where Desinion comes in.
Continue “Desinion get others opinions about your design”

When I was doing a piece of design work recently I had a conversation with one of my colleagues who was adamant that you shouldn’t use more than one font per design. Now I respect the views of others greatly, in fact, the whole point of the design is to delight others whilst communicating key messaging. But this way of thinking, can be very rigid and lacks room for creative freedom which is important when designing anything. How many fonts can you use in your designs? I believe, sometimes, more than two!

Continue “How many fonts can you use in your designs?”

Thinking of a redesign of your website? For many people, their website is their love, their pride and joy, their baby and no one can give it a bad name or degrade it otherwise you’ll defend it to the hilt. Unfortunately, just like flairs and mullets design goes out of fashion and so do websites at a much quicker rate than most other things that are designed too! I decided the time had come to redevelop my website as it wasn’t reflecting my main skill ( which is probably my artistic and graphical training ) so wanted to bring that across in how I layout my pages and make the visit a more visually appealing treat and showing what I can do for you or a potential client. In this post, I explain 5 reasons it may be time to bin the loafers and put on some boots and get redesigning your website. Continue “Should you redesign your website and why I did”

I recently read an article on the web about 5 principles to making a good logo design one of which one was that it is important that a logo is timeless. To quote

“Nothing about your logo should be trendy or connected to the style of the time. The best logo designs are iconic …” Indelible Branding

In my opinion nothing could be further from the truth and here is why.

Continue “A timeless logo is not important”

When making new Photoshop imagery it is useful to know where to find some free images to use for your creations. In this blog post I will share ten of the best texture websites out there.

Continue “11 Free Texture Websites”

When creating graphics for print and web you must consider a few little basic rules. I know most graphic designers know this but incase you are trying to make the leap from web to print or print to web or you are still learning the ropes and self teaching yourself because you enjoy being creative here are some of the fundemental rules to follow.

Dpi is different

Dpi means dots per inch…if you are creating an image for web then 72dpi is sufficient, alternatively if you are designing for print you should set up your image at at least 250dpi. To do this in Photoshop you can either create a new file with the correct dimensions and then select resolution and enter either 72 if creating an image for web or 250 for print. The benefit of doing this is if you are creating for web you want your image file size to be small… im not talking about the dimensions here, I am talking about the bytes that make up that beautiful Mona Lisa you are going to create. Likewise if you are creating a file for print then you want more dots so that when it prints it looks like a very crisp and sharp image.

CMYK or RGB

CMYK or RGB. These are the two colour modes. CMYK is selected for print as these are the colours you find in a print cartridge where as RGB stands for Red Green & Blue ( how  a monitor displays colour through light). So yes you guessed it, select the appropriate colour for your file and it will be more accurately represented for the media you are designing for.

Bleeds

Any time you are creating an image for print whether it is a poster, banner or magazine advert it is more than likely your printers will ask you to add a bleed to your design which is usually a border that is around 3mm to 5mm with lines in the corners that represent the corners and are guides for the cutting of the design. Its pretty easy to do but if you require a guide please leave a comment and I will create one for you.

Saving your image correctly for its purpose

Once you have your masterpiece completed to perfection it is important to save your image in the correct way depending what it is you are trying to do.
Before you do anything, whether using GIMP or Photoshop make sure to save your file with a unique file name in way that you can easily change any layer of your design (psd file). These are the 3 most common file formats used.

.png

.jpg

.gif

GIFs are for webs that are usually animations ( you can find some usually to the right here in the adverts ). If you want to create a gif in photoshop use this tutorial of how to create a bouncing ball and it will give you the basics.

.jpg

jpgs are lossy files but can be used for both print and web. Usually used for photographs and images that don’t need to be altered due to the  fact if you enlarge it it will look granuallar due to the fact that when you enlarge the image you are actually enlarging each and every dot that makes up the image.

.png

png files can have a transparent background and are really useful for good quality clear images for web. Especially logos and such like..the last thing you want is a white background with a website that is mainly green…man! That’d just look plain uuuuuuuuuuugly!

Saving for web

If you are creating the image for a website or device then make sure to select File > Save for web… and then follow the instructions to try and reduce your file size to a small a size as possible without loosing  the quality of the image.

I realise this is pretty straightforward for most graphic/web designers that most of you may know but we are all at different stages of learning so for some this information will be very useful so that is why I decided to include it today as a blog post. If you need any more help regarding designing for print or web please feel free to contact me and I will do what I can to help you.

Related articles across the web

• How to Reduce the File Size of Your Photoshop PSD Files
• 29 Free Photoshop Designs for Mobile App User Interface
• Fantastic Adobe video spotlights 25 years of Photoshop artistry
• MotoCMS Design Digest: 31 Best Articles for February 2015
• The morning newspaper by Caras Ionut

As an employed graphic & web designer I am always looking for inspiration and avenues to increase my creative juices and for this reason have collated 6 useful websites for freelance designers. I feel very fortunate to be working with a team of people that are very down to earth and are easy to get along with but for some, especially at the moment, getting that job is a little more difficult with the current economic climate. If this is your case ( or even if you are just after a little bit more work to boost your CV or keep you afloat ) here are a few useful websites for freelance designers that might help you to increase your sales as well as build your brand awareness.

Hexi Design

Hexi Design is an online community of talented designers from around the world thriving in one creative hive – Providing small and large businesses with logo, stationery and website design! When I visited this site it seemed that there were not many jobs available, plus, I think as a designer because you have to design something to compete the emphasis is on the client rather than the hard work of the designer so use only if wanting to improve your cv or have a bit of a creative rush.

Freelancer

Freelancer connect over 7,160,499 employers and freelancers globally from over 234 countries & regions. Through their website, employers can hire freelancers to do work in areas such as software, writing, data entry and design right through to engineering and the sciences, sales and marketing, and accounting & legal services. The Problem with this site is that jobs can charge very little in wages ( due to the Indian market being very competitive, but if you are Indian then no problemo! ). Saying that though, just because the currency is a little different over there doesn’t guarantee them the work, lower rates doesn’t always mean better solution to the job. The old saying you get what you pay for is still very true…

TalentHouse

Finding the right platform to express yourself as a designer and to meet the right people to work with are essential elements of every artist’s success story. Talenthouse is the bridge between emerging talent and established professionals, and helps you get your own projects off the ground. This is not just for artists and designers but all variety’s of arts.
Build a following, find new collaborators and earn amazing rewards by taking part in our life-changing opportunities!

Etsy

Etsy is the marketplace for artists and crafters to sell art works. Its a place where buyers value craftsmanship in all we make. Sometimes its difficult finding the customer basis for your products and setting up your own e-commerce site can be expensive or quite difficult to learn how to do it, Etsy is simply a type of e-commerces site for artists.

LinkedIn

A great way to network with people you have worked with, join groups and share your knowledge with people in your industry. A great way to improve your reputation. Not only this but Linkedin will tell you of jobs coming up in your area that are suitable for your skills. You may never need to go the job centre ever again!

Learnable

Good Designers always advance themselves. Its a never ending quest to learn more, improve skills & keep ahead. When it comes to web and app design new coding languages are always being created. Learnable aims to make learning web design and development easy and fun. They want students to gain practical and usable skills on topics they are passionate about. Or alternatively if you feel you are a guru in an area you can deliver training that you believe in. Helping others is surely the best thing we can do with our time?

If you know of any other useful sites please feel free to share and I will add it to the list.