The Graphic Design Thread - Drop It Like a Hotkey - Creationism Corner

I could've sworn the artboard tool behaved the other way but I guess I remembered wrong. I have to run the illustrator demo on monday and my plan is to do what I described above but I can't think of any beginner exercises. The goal is to have the class create something they can use for the laser cutter. [img]http://i.imgur.com/R8WemOV.png[/img] here's what i came up with, it makes use of grids, simple commands, and the pathfinder. I also want to do something with the pen tool but at this point I think it's best to just make leaves or something, or trace a pic.

Honestly, I think introducing people to the pen tool as early as possible is good. I don't know how long your demo is, but if you can get past the straight-forward tools quickly I would recommend it. Grids is a good idea, and pathfinder is obviously a must, so that is good. Tracing something is a good way to get a feel for the pen tool though and making curves. Additionally I would suggest showing them the direct selection tool and how to use it in combination with pen tool and handles. Good luck. Be ready for obvious questions though haha.

Have to make a board game for Uni, I think it looks pretty cool so far [img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/tsAzXpT.jpg[/img_thumb]

2 meter tall poster to be placed infront of a museum, to promote the app my team is developing. I've never had to work with an actual design manual before, but boy does it make it all way more manageable [thumb]http://i.imgur.com/E9GAjcd.jpg[/thumb] The QR is a dummy btw, so don't bother. But it works, and I'm proud of it [QUOTE=Tacooo;51189267]Have to make a board game for Uni, I think it looks pretty cool so far [img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/tsAzXpT.jpg[/img_thumb][/QUOTE] I like it, but you may want to just add a stroke around the tiles instead of solid drop shadows. Or at least make sure the shadows all share the same light source. What are the rules for the game? Edit: The company I'm seeking internship at, asked me if I was able to put pig heads on the owners' bodies, so I sent them this in the mail: [thumb]http://i.imgur.com/J7bEyS0.jpg[/thumb] I'm an absolute madman :suicide:

I have been trying to convince my broker of the benefits of hiring a professional graphic designer to update our company branding. Our logo is very shoddy, and there is zero uniformity to our marketing materials. We are a real estate company, and send out a lot of mailers and such, but they are currently all different shapes and sizes, sporting different colors, different styles, layouts, and often include names of our lenders and other partners in addition to our own (and their more professional, eye catching logos overshadow ours, making us look like an odd afterthought). You would never know they were all from the same company unless you took the time to fully read them. And, let's be real, we can expect little more than a few good seconds of eye time for unsolicited mail. I think it critical that we revamp our mailing campaign with a selection of new and uniform mailers, complete with a new logo. If we only have a few seconds, we need to make sure that those few seconds are enough for the recipient to at least recognize who we are. She hired me to modernize and streamline our marketing efforts, and this was one of the first things I recognized as an immediate problem, so I'm not sure why she's fighting me on it. She's citing the costs as being too high, but this is a company that is on track to do $50m-60m in transactions this year, and the work I need wouldn't amount to more than $600 or so. Having a more professional brand is WELL worth the minor expense! I feel so strongly about this that I've even offered to personally cover half the costs, and I'm still getting hesitation! Very frustrating, to be sure. Y'all are a misunderstood breed. I'm trying to convince her of the benefits here, but she's never utilized a professional graphic designer, and is having trouble understanding why it's better than just having her daughter drag some text over clip art and calling it a day. How do y'all deal with these objections?

You could try showing her comparisons of her and other brands, to tell her how important a homogenous company aesthetic is. If you could find maybe two normal products with similar price, but different quality of packaging, you could ask her which product she thinks is better etc. I have a feeling that simple explanations like that would work. "Would you let a babysitter who markets herself by walking around with a piece of cardboard, take care of your kids?"

Need to show her solid facts of the reason why hiring someone is better than her daughter doing it. This is not easy in the design industry because the value is some what esoteric. That being said, graphic design goes hand in hand with marketing which has a lot of statistical research, etc. Could try to find some case studies of companies that improved business through rebrand / brand updates, etc. Nillor's idea is fairly good as well, though it may come across as patronizing. When marketing companies do rebrands, they will analyze the branding strategies of the competitors in the market in order to best differentiate their client. You could look at and show her the quality of your competitors. One thing I would say is don't use your own money. That is a bad thing to start doing. -- Some of the hesitation you are getting might be coming from the idea of a new logo. Businesses are often attached to their logo, if not emotionally, than psychologically (they believe changing it will jeopardize business). A new logo is arguably the biggest change you could make. Start from the bottom and work your way there. First show her what it would look like with uniform marketing materials, than show her what alternate logos could look like (possibly staying close to the original if possible). That was what I did at the company I worked at. They asked for a similar thing from me. I simply revamped the marketing materials and that alone made the logo work better.

[QUOTE=Smeetin;51202368]Some of the hesitation you are getting might be coming from the idea of a new logo. Businesses are often attached to their logo, if not emotionally, than psychologically (they believe changing it will jeopardize business). A new logo is arguably the biggest change you could make. Start from the bottom and work your way there. First show her what it would look like with uniform marketing materials, than show her what alternate logos could look like (possibly staying close to the original if possible). That was what I did at the company I worked at. They asked for a similar thing from me. I simply revamped the marketing materials and that alone made the logo work better.[/QUOTE] Oh yes, I definitely agree with that! [I]Changing[/I] your brand can be damaging, even if the final result is objectively better looking than the original. I'm reminded of a broker who always advertised himself with ugly lime green printouts that he typed up himself in a word processor. Hideous, poorly designed, etc. However, he had still built up a successful business. At a certain point, he decided to rebrand, and developed a bunch of professional looking materials using a great designer. Interestingly, his business actually [I]dropped[/I] for quite a while! When he started asking his clients why, it was because they were so accustomed to the ugly green flyers that when the new, professional looking marketing material came in, they didn't realize it from was from the same company and thought he had gone out of business! So, yeah, that's definitely a fair concern! [B]However,[/B] it's actually not the case in this particular instance. Our broker was already planning to change it! Our current logo has a city landmark in it, and she had planned on rebranding anyway so that we could expand to other cities or states. So, it's not that she doesn't want to rebrand, it's that she is having trouble seeing the value of hiring a graphic artist versus having her daughter whip something up on a template website. The thought that we wouldn't use this opportunity to create some really kickass marketing material kills me. Direct marketing is a huge part of our industry, and while we have been very successful up to now, our current materials are definitely creating a bottleneck as far as reaching new clients goes. As long as we are rebranding anyway, [I]why skimp on top notch designs?[/I] Don't get me wrong, her daughter is creative and engaged in the process, but she's not a professional graphic designer and she doesn't have access to any of the professional tools. I'm trying to explain that her daughter's work isn't on the same level as what we would see from a professional, but I don't want to offend her or her daughter! I have a lot of respect for them both, and I'm trying to choose my words [I]very carefully[/I] so as not to step on anybody's toes. Her daughter enjoys this work, and with a lot of practice might be able to take over our design aspects one day anyway. However, she's still an amateur, and just isn't capable of producing the same level of quality one would expect from a professional -- or even an experienced student. Even her daughter has said she'd prefer to see what a professional could put out, thankfully, so it's really just a matter of convincing/showing the bosslady.

Is this a thread for requests aswell? Because I am trying to start a small company which sells guitar pedals, and I need a logo, I am willing to pay.

[QUOTE=Staneh;51205506]Is this a thread for requests aswell? Because I am trying to start a small company which sells guitar pedals, and I need a logo, I am willing to pay.[/QUOTE] If it's a job offering, then I don't see why not. Got a brief?

[QUOTE=Nillor;51211174]If it's a job offering, then I don't see why not. Got a brief?[/QUOTE] Sent you a PM!

Do any of you want jobs as professional graphic designers?

In one way or the other. I'm in my second year of multimediadesign, and it's pretty clear to me, that that title won't get me anywhere. Multimediadesign is so broad, that being no more than "good" at every subject probably won't make me an attractive choice for a company. I plan on focusing more on graphic design and video editing, but hopefully it will net me a job where I'll be doing what I like.

Motion design is a good thing to specialize in as well. I might do professional graphic design yet, right now I just do it on the side occasionally, but I almost have my architecture certificate so I'm gonna try that out first.

I'm shooting for a career in UI/UX

I'm going into a course studying graphic & digital design at uni with a foundation year - basically a sort of beginner year where you learn what you need to know before going into studying the actual course at uni, usually for people who don't know much like myself I was just wondering what you lot use in terms of software and peripherals, just got a new laptop so I'm wondering what kind of things I need [editline]20th October 2016[/editline] sorry if this is a really vague question :v:

Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, inDesign. Le pro gaming mouse and a 10 year old Bamboo pen tablet.

I'm in the same boat and they told us to buy a $2800 kit which included a macbook pro, the adobe creative suite, the office suite, warranties, an expensive hard drive, and some misc stuff. i'm running a hackintoshed thinkpad with 100% legit software which was like 1/8 the price of what they wanted me to shell out. I would recommend a portable mouse, maybe a small drawing tablet you can carry with you, and the software mentioned above. get familiar with the scanners and the printers and whatever else machines and shops they have, access to those resources is great. I got to use a laser printer yesterday and it was pretty darn neat. [video=youtube;QAbAGIrLuN0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAbAGIrLuN0[/video] Does anyone know how to animate stuff using illustrator? I'm not looking to animate inside of illustrator itself, I just want it involved in the process some how and the way I have it set up is pretty shitty. The vector tools in flash are terrible so it's a huge pain to get things working smoothly, and I should probably move away from flash entirely at this point. Would it be better to just import illustrator files into after effects and learn after effects? The only problem I have is that I don't think after effects was made for frame by frame animation.

Adobe suite is pretty much all you'll need at this stage. I was lucky to get in the door before they made everything subscription based, so I got a student package with virtually everything of CS5.5 for a couple hundred bucks. Used it so much already. Illustrator, photoshop, and indesign are definitely the big three. Some people then use After Effects, Premier, and some 3D programs for videos, motion design, and mixed media stuff. I find sketchup with the Visualizer renderer is good enough for any 3D stuff I want to incorporate, but I am pretty well versed in photoshop, so it works for me. Peripherals... I don't really use anything. Just a mouse and keyboard. I have a bamboo, but I never put the time in to get the hang of it, and I'm fairly good with the mouse for non-painting projects. Honestly, the most valuable peripheral I have would be a set of arts pencils, a sketchbook, some nice paper, some arts erasers, smudge sticks, and a good scanner. A scanner is HUGELY helpful. Often I can't get lines the way I want them in illustrator so I sketch it out by hand, scan it in, and trace over it.

thanks for the advice lads. much appreciated

[QUOTE=LaughingStock;51234265]I'm in the same boat and they told us to buy a $2800 kit which included a macbook pro, the adobe creative suite, the office suite, warranties, an expensive hard drive, and some misc stuff. i'm running a hackintoshed thinkpad with 100% legit software which was like 1/8 the price of what they wanted me to shell out. I would recommend a portable mouse, maybe a small drawing tablet you can carry with you, and the software mentioned above. get familiar with the scanners and the printers and whatever else machines and shops they have, access to those resources is great. I got to use a laser printer yesterday and it was pretty darn neat. [video=youtube;QAbAGIrLuN0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAbAGIrLuN0[/video] Does anyone know how to animate stuff using illustrator? I'm not looking to animate inside of illustrator itself, I just want it involved in the process some how and the way I have it set up is pretty shitty. The vector tools in flash are terrible so it's a huge pain to get things working smoothly, and I should probably move away from flash entirely at this point. Would it be better to just import illustrator files into after effects and learn after effects? The only problem I have is that I don't think after effects was made for frame by frame animation.[/QUOTE] You want to use Aftereffects. I have no idea how to make vectors squish like that, though. Here's a pretty useful tutorial for basic animations [video=youtube;R1_fnfwNhaw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1_fnfwNhaw[/video]

[vid]https://zippy.gfycat.com/QuestionableRemorsefulAnkole.webm[/vid] that's pretty neat (right click > loop!!!!!!!) I'm still not used to all of this but this makes it so much easier to work on what I've been planning on doing.

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;51201183]I have been trying to convince my broker of the benefits of hiring a professional graphic designer to update our company branding. Our logo is very shoddy, and there is zero uniformity to our marketing materials. We are a real estate company, and send out a lot of mailers and such, but they are currently all different shapes and sizes, sporting different colors, different styles, layouts, and often include names of our lenders and other partners in addition to our own (and their more professional, eye catching logos overshadow ours, making us look like an odd afterthought). You would never know they were all from the same company unless you took the time to fully read them. And, let's be real, we can expect little more than a few good seconds of eye time for unsolicited mail. I think it critical that we revamp our mailing campaign with a selection of new and uniform mailers, complete with a new logo. If we only have a few seconds, we need to make sure that those few seconds are enough for the recipient to at least recognize who we are. She hired me to modernize and streamline our marketing efforts, and this was one of the first things I recognized as an immediate problem, so I'm not sure why she's fighting me on it. She's citing the costs as being too high, but this is a company that is on track to do $50m-60m in transactions this year, and the work I need wouldn't amount to more than $600 or so. Having a more professional brand is WELL worth the minor expense! I feel so strongly about this that I've even offered to personally cover half the costs, and I'm still getting hesitation! Very frustrating, to be sure. Y'all are a misunderstood breed. I'm trying to convince her of the benefits here, but she's never utilized a professional graphic designer, and is having trouble understanding why it's better than just having her daughter drag some text over clip art and calling it a day. How do y'all deal with these objections?[/QUOTE] Not that this is an answer, but I ended up quitting a job over this. Not only did they have issues with their current designs, but they also began trying to design through me. They were trying to produce terrible stuff with my name attached to it. They didn't want my input, they just didn't want to have to open up Illustrator themselves. I made mock-up logos and replacements completely for free, saying, "Hey, you could do something like this instead." But they have a lot of loyalty to their own branding even when it's proven to be ineffective, hard to reproduce, and available only in weird file formats without transparency because I'm pretty sure it was a screenshot of a design made in Microsoft Word. Of course, I'm no serious graphic designer or anything - it was more just helping a friend of a friend out with a temporary job since I've got some knowhow and was wliling to work for cheap - but I think what I'd consider is if they are simply trying to work through you and if they actually respect your intelligence or are just looking to use you with the same effect as a computer mouse.

I'm planning on getting a second monitor again, but I'm not sure what kind. Should I get an ultrawide or regular full hd monitor? I currently own a regular 1080p monitor. I assume the ultrawide monitor will make adobe programs feel less cluttered, but I'm not sure if it's worth it.

[T]https://i.imgur.com/oyORB2j.jpg[/T] Now that's how you design a video thumbnail; or an entire [URL="https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCYK0C3K9RYJIN0iKo8i8CIw"]YouTube channel[/URL] as a whole, for that matter. He makes graphic design tutorials too.

I wouldn't say that is the best thumbnail. Its a bit plain, the alignment, spacing, and colour choice of the fonts is a bit strange as well.

But it does stand out & speak, which is its sole purpose. Besides, they guy is still a beginner, and the channel is only four months old. There's a lot to come.

I don't see the point of a shadow behind the black font, or any shadow at all. But it's clean and tells what it is: Approved

In other news, does anyone else think that eye symbols are sinister af? [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/0V8XnlG.png[/IMG]

Sauron is what I always think of. [editline]14th November 2016[/editline] Some sketch renderings I did today for a project concept I'm developing for my thesis. My thesis is essentially about creating "blended" environments. Real environments which mix in virtuality. This square is made out of physical pixels which record the motion and position of people on the square and then the square adjusts (pushing upwards or receding downwards) to create different spaces that encourage encounters between people or between people and the surrounding buildings / trees, etc. (Or honestly, it will sometimes just make interesting shapes and shit haha) [t]http://imgur.com/uJCiM4I.jpg[/t] [t]http://imgur.com/nbclL3e.jpg[/t] [t]http://imgur.com/pq7jQVv.jpg[/t]