Fat Girl, Teaching
Symbolize and summarize. —Saul Bass A lot of graphic design work is pretty specific in nature. Brochures have specific sizes and folding patterns. Direct mail has to meet postal regulations. Web design has to be flexible, legible, and accessible across many devices and browsers. But logo design? Well. Logo design is in its own category.…
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Today’s lesson in one of my graphic design classes covered moving from mind maps, notes, and sketches to Adobe Illustrator when creating a logo.
This particular class is preparing for their final portfolio review at the end of the semester, where they’ll be interviewing with 3 local design or marketing professionals each to review their work and talk about their future as designers. Part of their preparation for this involves creating a personal brand for themselves, from logo through to business cards, resumes, and a print portfolio.
I’ve been demonstrating what steps to take using my own name, and thought I’d share with the wider world at large.
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This week, my company has been working on a client’s website, making some slight design adjustments and choosing new photos for some of their pages. They’d expressed a desire to use this image as the header for their site:
The most glaring problem was the pole and myriad telephone lines distracting from the main subject of the photo. So they were the things I took care of first, creating a new layer entitled “clone stamp” and using the clone stamp, healing brush, and paintbrush tools to clean everything up. This was rather painstaking, taking about 40 minutes to do since some of what I was removing was in heavily detailed areas, like the white house on the right and the tiles on the main building.
Then I wanted to adjust the color and contrast a bit. I created two Hue/Saturation adjustment layers: one for the whole photo, and one with just a mask to target the main building. I also created a building-specific Color Balance layer to help it stand out just a little bit more. Finally, I created a Curves adjustment layer to adjust the contrast of the entire image. Here is the final result:
And just for funsies, here’s the before and after together.
Not too long ago, my partner and I discovered the joy that is Aaron Nace’s Phlearn Photoshop and Photography Tutorials. We spent hours almost every evening for a few weeks watching the tutorials, and it seemed like a whole new world had opened to me. I’ve always been competent in Photoshop, don’t get me wrong. But suddenly it seemed like I could move from mere competency into proficiency. In fact, I must heartily thank Phlearn for making their valuable resources so readily available, as even little tips and tricks I’ve picked up from the show have been so helpful to me in my job as a graphic designer.
Particularly when working with stock imagery that’s close to what a client wants, but not quite.
Read More<p>Not too long ago, my partner and I discovered the joy that is <a href=“https://twitter.com/aknacer” target=“_blank” rel=“noopener noreferrer”>Aaron Nace</a>‘s <a href=“https://www.youtube.com/user/PhlearnLLC” target=“_blank” rel=“noopener noreferrer”>Phlearn Photoshop and Photography Tutorials</a>. We spent hours almost every evening for a few weeks watching the tutorials, and it seemed like a whole new world had opened to me. I’ve always been competent in Photoshop, don’t get me wrong. But suddenly it seemed like I could move from mere competency into proficiency. In fact, I must heartily thank Phlearn for making their valuable resources so readily available, as even little tips and tricks I’ve picked up from the show have been so helpful to me in my job as a graphic designer.</p> <p>Particularly when working with stock imagery that’s close to what a client wants, but not quite.</p>
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A while ago, a friend asked me about my creative process for my artwork. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, mostly since I feel like I don’t really have a process. I was able to identify 8 things I typically do to stay creatively in shape, and share them here with you now, in case you want to be like me! (Or, you know, something.)
Read MoreWhen I received an email from one of their staff offering assistance to me at the end of my trial, I couldn’t just delete it as I normally would. I took the time to thank their staff member for reaching out to me and to let him know that my needs were being met with the free option but I loved the service enough to pay when the time comes.
Why did I do that? I could have just let the email pass. I’m busy, they’re busy — is it even profitable to take up someone’s time when I’m not ready to close a deal?
I think so.
Read MoreI’ve heard it said that there are two types of geniuses: the type whose work makes someone feel that they’ll never measure up, and the type whose work makes someone feel inspired to do better work.
But really, doesn’t that say more about the observer than it does about the genius?
Read MoreThe only design education that is of any importance is the education you give yourself — the education that you demand and steal wherever you can, whenever you can, as much as you can, as long as you can.
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