The Secret of Great Blog Designs

What is the purpose of a blog design ? There are no blog designs that doesn’t have any effect on its blog, its message, and its goals. A blog design is either helping you move forward with your blog or it is not only hindering you from moving forward, but actually pushing you backwards. There exists no stand still between the two, because a blog’s design acts as the frame that a reader uses to decide on what the message you are trying to say actually means.

So what is the purpose of a blog design? The purpose of a blog design is to support your goals, communicate your message, and make your branding memorable.

How does a blog design have so much purpose ? It has a lot to do with the ability of a blog design to evoke emotions, which in turn wakes up the thoughts and beliefs that are tied to it within our mind. These emotions, thoughts, and beliefs are all interconnected in our mind from previous experiences where we learned to connect them together. In psychology, they call this a schema. An example of an everyday schema is when people are driving and they see a police officer, the first thing everyone does is slow down, because the police officer brings up thoughts, emotions, and experiences that relate to getting a ticket. Schemas are very powerful and there is a way to prime a certain schema, by presenting a person with the correct stimulus.

Another reason blog designs have such a powerful effect is explained well by Barry Schwartz in his book “The Paradox of Choice,”

“Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues have shown that what we remember about the pleasurable quality of our past experience is almost entirely determined by two things: how the experiences felt when they were at their peak (best or worst), and how they felt when they ended. This “peak-end” rule of Kahneman’s is what we use to summarize the experience, and then we rely on that summary later to remind ourselves of how the experience felt.” (1)

The “peak-end” rule has a few important implications to blog designs. The main one is that it can help to create a pleasurable experience that is memorable, which helps your branding a lot and makes your message last longer in your reader’s mind. The other one is that it can also have the same effect in the reverse direction, and make displeasing blog designs more memorable as well, which will hurt your message and reputation. It is a double-sword effect, but if you learn to wield it, it will be an important arsenal in your collection of weapons.

The next article in this series will focus on how to use schemas to your advantage. Subscribe today for free and get updated when new articles are posted.

Previous article in the Blog Design 101 Series:

Now You Can Have a Blog and Quit Your Job

What Everybody Ought to Know About Usability and Web Design

Even people who have no idea about usability feel the need to write articles about it to tell other people what they themselves should be doing. Usability has become a hot topic and everyone wants a piece of it by writing their own list of guidelines. Most of which end up just repeating what the other guy said. Yet even with the endless amount of articles on usability, there are still a lot of web designs that overlook easy ways to improve the usability of their design.

While there are many worthwhile guidelines to follow about usability, it really boils down to only two rule of thumbs. Those two are to make it easy to read and make it easy to find stuff. No matter what you do with your design, as long as you follow those two rule of thumbs then your design will be usable. Don’t stop there though and be satisfied. Take it to the next step and make it as aesthetic as possible and make it better all while still making sure your design follows the two guidelines.

Make it easy to read

1. Keep distractions to a minimal. This is especially important in the content area as that is where your readers will spend most of their time when they are on your blog. But that doesn’t mean you should neglect taking out anything in other areas that doesn’t really serve a purpose in your blog design as well.

2. Build a hierarchy that establishes a flow where there is less emphasis as it goes down in the list. For example, headings should pop more than links and bold texts. The sidebar should be capable of attracting attention, but not too much that it overpowers the content. You get the idea.

3. Keep the design of each area consistent. This lets the reader know that they are reading information that are closely related to each other due to their similarity. This also lets people block off different areas in their mind that they don’t need at the moment so they can focus on reading a specific section without their eyes wandering around trying to figure where a specific area begins or ends.

Make it easy to find stuff

1. Identify what people are looking for or what you want them to find. Then make it ridiculously easy to find if it is that important to you or them. Don’t just have one pathway/entry for a reader to be able to find it. Make multiple pathways/entries to it so if they miss one there are other ways for them to find the important stuff.

For example, if getting more subscribers is important to you then make a rss button that pops, ask people to sign up at the bottom of a post and make a cool design so people will see it, and create a special subscribe page.

2. Take away anything unimportant and be ruthless about it. So what makes something important or unimportant anyways? In blog design, if you take away something and it decreases your blog’s ability to achieve your goal whatever that may be, then that something would be pretty important.

But if you take it out and it doesn’t hurt your blog’s performance, then by all means rip the sucker out. It will improve your blog design by decreasing the amount of unimportant stuff that can get in the way of a reader who should be looking at your most important stuff.

3. Label everything or at least make it clear what they are looking at. Don’t assume that people will be able to tell what they are looking at or that they will draw the same conclusion as you. A thousand people can look at the same thing and come up with different descriptions of what they saw so save them the trouble and just tell them what it is.

Conclusion

Don’t stop at following these two guidelines and being satisfied. Take your blog design to the next level by making it better.

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Creating a Graphic Design PDF Portfolio

These days, it seems like every designer has a website to showcase their work. While online portfolios certainly are effective, they are expensive to develop, require technical knowledge, and can be extremely time consuming to create and maintain. Additionally, they are not always the best option to showcase print work, and they may display differently from browser to browser and computer to computer.

An excellent alternative is a graphic design PDF portfolio. Many graphic software programs, such as InDesign and Illustrator, have the option of exporting a design as a PDF. This allows the designer to create a custom brochure-style piece showcasing their best work, which can be emailed to prospective clients or employers.

Selecting Work

As with any portfolio, perhaps the most important decision is what design work to include. Think about what types of projects you are looking for. If you have a specific focus, such as book design, select your best work in that area. If you are early in your career and don’t have a focus (or don’t want one), choose your best work across the board. It is ok if you only have design school projects or personal projects to showcase. The work itself, and not necessarily a client or publication name, can impress just as well. However, if you do have some “real-world” design experience you are proud of, include that as part of your portfolio.

Remember that the goal here is not to show everything you have ever done. Stick with a “less is more” philosophy, choosing a small selection of your favorite work. Each piece should serve a purpose, showcasing a particular style, technique or industry.

Content to Include

Before getting into the design, create an outline of what to include in your PDF portfolio. For each piece of design you have chosen, consider adding:

• Client name and industry
• A project description
• Your role in the project, such as designer or art director
• Where the work appeared
• Any awards, publications or recognition related to the project

Along with the project features, the portfolio can include:

• A cover letter, bio, mission statement or other background information
• Contact information
• Client or industry list
• Services offered by the designer or firm

Consider hiring or teaming up with a professional writer to help prepare your content, as it will be the voice of your portfolio. If you need your pieces photographed, also consider a professional. Once you have prepared the content, it is time to move on to the design phase.

The Design

Treat the design like you would any project for a client. Come up with several designs and tweak them until you are happy with the result. Create a consistent layout and style throughout. Using the may be helpful here. Remember that the design of the PDF itself is just as much a showcase of your talent as the work within it.

You can use your favorite graphics software to create the initial design, and turn it into a PDF later. InDesign and Quark are great options for creating a multi-page layout, and Illustrator would work well for graphic and text-heavy freeform layouts. Think of the flow of content…start with a quick overview, and then go into project examples with all of the content you came up with earlier. Try using several images per project, and be sure your contact info is very easy to find.

Creating the PDF

Once your design is complete, you can export it to PDF out of many programs. Be sure to save the original file so you can add and edit projects later. One thing to think about here is file size, as you will be emailing this often. Play around with the compression options in your software until you reach a happy medium between quality and file size. You can also use Adobe Acrobat Professional to piece together several pages of design (in many formats) and to reduce the size of the final PDF.

Using the PDF

Now that you have a portfolio in PDF format, use it! Potential employers and clients will want to see your work and you can email the PDF directly to them, skipping the need for them to visit a website. Since it is a standard supported file format, you don’t need to worry about people not being able to view it. You can also print the PDF and bring it to meetings, especially when you won’t have computer access. As long as you keep it up-to-date with your strongest work, a graphic design PDF portfolio is sure to be a powerful marketing tool for your design business and goals.

What is graphic design?

What is graphic design?

Suppose you want to announce or sell something, amuse or persuade someone, explain a complicated system or demonstrate a process. In other words, you have a message you want to communicate. How do you “send” it? You could tell people one by one or broadcast by radio or loudspeaker. That’s verbal communication. But if you use any visual medium at all—if you make a poster; type a letter; create a business logo, a magazine ad, or an album cover; even make a computer printout—you are using a form of visual communication called graphic design.

Graphic designers work with drawn, painted, photographed, or computer-generated images (pictures), but they also design the letterforms that make up various typefaces found in movie credits and TV ads; in books, magazines, and menus; and even on computer screens. Designers create, choose, and organize these elements—typography, images, and the so-called “white space” around them—to communicate a message. Graphic design is a part of your daily life. From humble things like gum wrappers to huge things like billboards to the T-shirt you’re wearing, graphic design informs, persuades, organizes, stimulates, locates, identifies, attracts attention and provides pleasure.

Graphic design is a creative process that combines art and technology to communicate ideas. The designer works with a variety of communication tools in order to convey a message from a client to a particular audience. The main tools are image and typography.

Image-based design
Designers develop images to represent the ideas their clients want to communicate. Images can be incredibly powerful and compelling tools of communication, conveying not only information but also moods and emotions. People respond to images instinctively based on their personalities, associations, and previous experience. For example, you know that a chili pepper is hot, and this knowledge in combination with the image creates a visual pun.

In the case of image-based design, the images must carry the entire message; there are few if any words to help. These images may be photographic, painted, drawn, or graphically rendered in many different ways. Image-based design is employed when the designer determines that, in a particular case, a picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

Type-based design
In some cases, designers rely on words to convey a message, but they use words differently from the ways writers do. To designers, what the words look like is as important as their meaning. The visual forms, whether typography (communication designed by means of the printed word) or handmade lettering, perform many communication functions. They can arrest your attention on a poster, identify the product name on a package or a truck, and present running text as the typography in a book does. Designers are experts at presenting information in a visual form in print or on film, packaging, or signs.

When you look at an “ordinary” printed page of running text, what is involved in designing such a seemingly simple page? Think about what you would do if you were asked to redesign the page. Would you change the typeface or type size? Would you divide the text into two narrower columns? What about the margins and the spacing between the paragraphs and lines? Would you indent the paragraphs or begin them with decorative lettering? What other kinds of treatment might you give the page number? Would you change the boldface terms, perhaps using italic or underlining? What other changes might you consider, and how would they affect the way the reader reacts to the content? Designers evaluate the message and the audience for type-based design in order to make these kinds of decisions.

Image and type
Designers often combine images and typography to communicate a client’s message to an audience. They explore the creative possibilities presented by words (typography) and images (photography, illustration, and fine art). It is up to the designer not only to find or create appropriate letterforms and images but also to establish the best balance between them.

Designers are the link between the client and the audience. On the one hand, a client is often too close to the message to understand various ways in which it can be presented. The audience, on the other hand, is often too broad to have any direct impact on how a communication is presented. What’s more, it is usually difficult to make the audience a part of the creative process. Unlike client and audience, graphic designers learn how to construct a message and how to present it successfully. They work with the client to understand the content and the purpose of the message. They often collaborate with market researchers and other specialists to understand the nature of the audience. Once a design concept is chosen, the designers work with illustrators and photographers as well as with typesetters and printers or other production specialists to create the final design product.

Symbols, logos and logotypes
Symbols and logos are special, highly condensed information forms or identifiers. Symbols are abstract representation of a particular idea or identity. The CBS “eye” and the active “television” are symbolic forms, which we learn to recognize as representing a particular concept or company. Logotypes are corporate identifications based on a special typographical word treatment. Some identifiers are hybrid, or combinations of symbol and logotype. In order to create these identifiers, the designer must have a clear vision of the corporation or idea to be represented and of the audience to which the message is directed.

Start a Freelance Business With No Professional Examples

So you want to freelance? What should you do if you have no professional examples to place in your portfolio?

When I got out of college. I had an entire portfolio full of Bryce 3-D graphic images. Believe it or not, I was trying to get a graphic design job with these images. The problem was, it did not matter how good these images were, they were not "Graphic Design" images, they were "computer graphics" images. There is a big difference. No matter what type of freelancer you want to be, whether it is a graphic designer, web designer, writer, or whatever, find out what your niche is first.

I am going to use graphic design as an example, but this also goes for writers, programmers, etc. No matter what job you are applying for, only place examples in your portfolio that correspond with what job you are applying for. For example, if you decide that you want to apply for a graphic design position, place examples of brochures, newsletters, mailers, catalogs, and other examples that correspond with the job that you are applying for. You wouldn't want to fill your portfolio with illustrations, 3D renderings, sketches, etc. It is okay to have one example of your illustrative skills, and one of your 3D rendering skills, but that is all that I would add.

There are several ways that you can build up your portfolio:

Dummy Samples - Create fictitious examples of your work. Create dummy brochures, newsletters, logos, and other pieces to demonstrate your range of skills. Even though this seems such a waste of your time, you can use these documents as templates for real projects that you will have in the future.

Non-Profit Organizations - Volunteer your services for free to local community organizations where you live. This is a great way to build up your portfolio. Look in your phone book for religious, educational, social, and political organizations. Make sure that you inform the client that as payment you insist on having your business name and phone number on the finished piece (and if you have a website url, this should be printed on the finished product too). This is very fair. Hopefully you will reach potential clients with your first publication.

Friends - Surely you must have relatives or friends that have a small business. Volunteer your skills out to your friend or family member. Make sure not to get yourself into a situation where this friend expects you always to work for free. Explain up front that this is for free only with the first project. Again, insist that your business name, phone number, and website url are printed somewhere on the finished product.

Web Search - Do a search on the web for websites that you feel could use your service. Look for bad design layouts. If you consider yourself a web designer offer to redesign the website for free. If you are a graphic designer, offer to design this company's brochure or flyers. Don't offer your free services out to everyone until you get a "yes" or "no" response; otherwise you might get ten "yes" answers.

Place Your Profile on Freelance Sites - In another few weeks we are starting a service where we will place your profile on all of the freelance sites with one form .... keep your eye out for this. We also are going to launch a freelance jobs search engine so you can search all freelance job sites with one form. We will keep you posted.

Things to remember about freelancing

The most important thing to remember when freelancing is to be honest. If you are not honest in saying that you have the ability to do a job well, then your reputation could be tarnished. If you are in an interview for a freelance opportunity or "gig", do not tell your future contractor that you have no problem doing that project for them, when in reality you have never done this type of work before. Not only will you be putting your reputation and credibility as a freelancer on the line, but also you will be jeopardizing the credibility of the company that has hired you. If you provide false information or produce a project in an incorrect manner from which the company is accustomed to, then you could be causing some serious heartache down the road.

Another thing to keep in mind when freelancing is obtaining a stable client base. You must remain in constant contact with your clients. Always check with them even if you are not working on a project for them. "Get noticed", not so much that you become a nuisance and they won't want to hire you, but be there enough that they can never quite forget about you. Also, when special occasions come around, like birthdays or holidays, drop a little something in the mail to them. This will let them know that you are willing to go that extra mile to maintain a friendship and standing relationship with them.

Freelancing is a risky, yet exciting, industry to get into. You must have plenty of self-confidence that you are the best at what you do. But don't become over confident, always remember there is room for growth, learning and a better understanding of the industry. When you are working with a client, be sure to learn the accounts you are assigned inside and out, ask for any extra helpful materials that can boost your knowledge. If you are uncertain of how something is done, ask; never be afraid to ask questions. You want to get it done correctly the first time. Again this will be a great reflection on your reputation and your ability to do a good job. Freelancing is hard to get into, but once you have established yourself as knowledgeable and reliable in your area of expertise, then you will be the top name in the drawer every time.

Graphic design occupations

Production artist

A production artist is a technical and often considered an entry level job position in a creative profession. The job title originated at advertising agencies, assigning what was known as paste-up work (now prepress production) to the position. It's often assumed to be a graphic designer or art director in training position, similar to an apprenticeship. Production artists work closely with the designer and art director to execute the design. What distinguishes "production art" from design is the lack of opportunities to utilize creativity and design training in the work involved. Although the position may be treated as low-skilled labor, the degree of technical knowledge required for some production art work may be comparable to higher skilled engineering, especially with computers.

Art director

The art director serves a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games.

Creative director

The creative director is generally the person in charge of a creative department in an advertising agency. They are in charge of leading the creative direction of a campaign.

Advertising & Marketing

Art directors in advertising aren't necessarily the head of an art department although the title may suggest it. In modern advertising practice, they typically work in tandem with a copywriter. Together, or the art director and copywriter work on a concept for commercials, print advertisements, and any other advertising medium. Individually, the art director is mostly responsible for the visual look and feel of the creative product, and the copywriter has ultimate responsibility for the product's verbal and textual content. Both are responsible for coming up with big, effective and persuasive ideas.

Film

An art director, in the hierarchical structure of a film art department, works directly below the production designer, in collaboration with the set decorator, and above the set designer. A large part of their duties include the administrative aspects of the art department. They are responsible for assigning tasks to personnel, keeping track of the art department budget and scheduling, as well as overall quality control. They are often also a liaison to other departments; especially the construction department. In the past, the art director title was used to denote the head of the art department (hence the Academy Award for Best Art Direction).

Publishing

Art directors in publishing typically work with the publications editors. Together they work on a concept for sections and pages of a publication. Individually, the art director is mostly responsible for the visual look and feel of the publication, and the editor has ultimate responsibility for the publications verbal and textual content.

Gigposter Design: The New Sex

Tutorial Introduction:

A lot of people are making them. A lot of people suck. We don’t suck, and neither do you. This tutorial requires NO drawing talent… so don’t trip folks. You will however need Adobe Photoshop 7.0 or higher and Illustrator CS2 or higher. My name’s Dave, and this is my first ever solo tutorial. I’m very unorthodox and direct… so forgive me if I lose you guys during any part of this. I’ll do what I can to answer questions for people who think my tutorial is too confusing.

So we’re going to make a gig poster! Subject matter: Deftones and The Fall of Troy in Cleveland, Ohio at the House of Blues on May 30th. Why are the Deftones not first, you ask? Because I like The Fall of Troy better… and this is an unofficial poster, so who cares?

Let’s get to business.

So what to make? Hmmm… something fierce. Maybe something militaristic? Considering the legendary event of the fall of Troy… we’ll go that route. After searching through some public domain photos from WWII, I found a picture of Dwight D. (Ike) Eisenhower on D-day lecturing some troops.

We’re going to use this as the base of our initial illustration… but the hand, it lacks emotion. It’s ok. We’re all designers and we can fix this, right guys?

Istockphoto.com (a lifesaver for all stock photo needs) will be our resource. If you do not have an account, get one. If you would rather go the free route – www.sxc.hu, better known as Stock Exchange, has a slick selection of free stock photos. You’ll still need an account, but it’s free.

I found this chick holding a gun on istock. We’re gonna get the cheapest one because the resolution doesn’t matter so much in this tutorial yet. Her hand will become Ike’s hand… holding a gun.

Next we have to cut out Ike and the girl’s gun so we can combine these different pieces into the same image. We’re going to use the pen tool to cut these out. I trust we can all accomplish this through knowledge gained in previous tutorials. WARNING: Using the pen tool in Photoshop is tricky… to keep your anchor points from drifting off into oblivion, you have to alt+click them (The same way you would click your anchor points in Illustrator). Make sure your shapes fill color is an obnoxious color so you don’t lose it in the photo.

Once you have the shapes made to cut them out (and it’s ok if it took 3000 shapes and layers to make it) you’re going to merge them all to one layer. Ctrl+click your “shape layer” to make a selection and then click the actual image’s layer. Press Ctrl+C to copy and then press Ctrl+V to paste it into it’s own layer. Do the same for the girl’s gun. Save your PSD’s in case you fumble up. The hardest part is over.

Now take both shapes and tastefully combine them on a fresh canvas. Some airbrushing or cutting may be needed to make it look real. It’s up to you. The rotating of the hand will be needed to make it fit on Ike’s arm. Make your image 300 dpi (image>image size) and don’t worry about the image quality. Merge the hand layer with the Ike layer and make it gray scale.

You now have Ike pissed off and holding a gun.

Here is where it gets a little interesting and it might be hard to follow here. Create three files in Photoshop that overcompensate in size for the Ike-shape - you don’t have to save them or anything. They’re there for copying purposes only. Throw a copy of Ike into each of them. Make sure they all remain on their own layers. We’ll be playing with the contrast next.

Above are the setting you’re going to make Ike the first two files. The third will be -100% on both Brightness and Contrast. It will result in just a shape of him in solid black. Now open Illustrator and make a new file at 11×17 portrait orientation.

Size down the Photoshop window and drag over each of the layers that have been brightness/contrast-adjusted into Illustrator. Line them up horizontally and start Live Tracing them one-by-one using the “Black and White logo” option. The option is located on the top tool bar once your photo is selected. Copy these attributes in the photo below.

Live Trace is basically Illustrator’s tool for deciphering and creating graphics into vector art automatically. It was a new feature in CS2 and it’s way cool, but can have some backlashes. Like all automated solutions to things done best by hand, there are sacrifices made with the result. A lot of times, your Live Traced images get lossy. Having them at a high resolution most times solves this but not always. In our case though… the dirtier, the better.

Now make sure each image is expanded. Use your magic wand tool and select the white areas that Illustrator assumed when you dragged in the Photoshop layer. They’re there, trust me. Once all selected – delete them. They’re not needed. Now’s your time to start figuring out a color scheme for this big project. Here’s what I chose.

Having 1 dark color, 1 to 3 medium tones, a light color, and a wild-card color is pretty mandatory when making 4 to 6 color prints. They work better. Although this wouldn’t be a silk screened poster, following this limited color rule assists in giving it an authentic gig poster appearance.

Doodads are always the hot ish in your designs, so we’re using some from our arsenal, the Go Media Vectorpacks. Along with a few we’ll be making from scratch. Below is what we’ll be using from the packs. (side note: we’ll be using a bunch of stuff from Go Media’s Arsenal. If you haven’t any cash to purchase some of the packs, we’ve got some samples here).

We’re using 5 splatters from the various Splatter packs and one wheel-type doodad from Set 5’s Decorative Ornaments pack. Now we’re going to get all these shapes ready and drag em over into our Illustrator file. Mind you we have not touched Ike yet… don’t worry about him or the colors. Let’s get trendy.

Make a long, skinny rectangle and duplicate it about 80 times (alt+click and drag it to copy it once, and then press Ctrl+D over and over again until you get a lot of bars) or more depending on your preference. Align them to the center and space them evenly. Now use the add function in your pathfinder box and expand the selection. Now that it’s own shape – rotate it 45 degrees (holding shift + rotate will rotate the shape in increments of 45 degrees). Duplicate that shape about 3 or 4 times.

Now duplicate/take a splatter from the vector art we’ll be using and place it on top of that shape you made. Select both objects and intersect them (it’s an option in the pathfinder box as well). Expand the appearance of your object.

You now have a distressted pattern of diagonally running lines. It’s a pretty neat trick to add some organized distress to your designs. Do this a few times with different splatters. That is why I’m encouraging duplicating your objects and not just dragging and dropping. A lot of these shapes need to be kept preserved because they’ll be used over and over again throughout this project.

Now make sure your actual poster area is clear of any objects. Moving them to the sides of the artboard and separated is always a good thing to do so you can just drag in what you need when you need it. Make a rectangle in the 11×17 area. Bleed of the edges a little bit for good measure. Now fill it with a gradient of color 1 and 2. Throw a medium color in there if you want it to blend smoother (I added some earthy-red in the middle). It might help, or it might not, who knows. Experiment and be different.

Now we turn to the Go Media Texture Packs. I want a concrete-looking surface to start this off with. We’re going to use Concrete8.jpg. It’s a nice and has lots of good grainy tones. Place it into your file (file>place).

Stretch the image to fit the poster size. Now go to your transparency settings and choose the multiply setting. All the dark ridged areas of the texture are now accented onto the gradient. Drop the opacity down to like 30% or so. Lock these two objects in place at the very bottom and we’re onto designing the focal piece of the poster.

So now back to good ole’ Ike. Make the Solid shape of his body Color 3, The medium-detailed shape Color 4, and the least detailed shape Color 2. Align them in this order – Color 3, Color 4, Color 2. You have your focal image almost intact. Add a stroke of the same color to Color 3’s shape to bring it all in. Expand the stroke if you need to, in case we do any abnormal sizing to the figure. Group the three objects, and there you have Ike.

Take the wheel object we chose from Set 5’s Decorative Elements pack and place it right in the middle of the poster (above the gradient/texture combo). Size it up huge if you have to. It will accentuate Ike’s figure in the design. Fill it with Color 1 and drop the opacity down to 30%. We’re done with that.

Grab all those crazy diagonal line objects we made and fill them with color 3 or 4′ (your call, color 3 was too strong for my liking – I chose 4). I duplicated them and threw them in the middle-area of the poster, kinda outlining where Ike will be. Grab Ike and throw him in the mix. Make sure he’s the top layer. We’re almost there.

Let’s play with our text options. I want something nice and organized, but already beaten up with some grunge. I don’t want it a grungy impact font because those are way too common for post-hardcore bands nowadays… Luckily we created the Affliction font (located at our Arsenal site). It’s styled well and beat up tastefully. We’re using it!

So we’re gonna play with the font and sizing. After a few options, I think stacking the text all the same size by breaking up “THE FALL” and “OF TROY”and adjusting the tracking and leading should do it. Check out the settings I used below.

Duplicate that in case it gets messed up and right click the text and create outlines. Color it with color 3 and place it right above Ike in the poster. Add the Deftones with a larger tracking size and smaller font size and we’re in business.

I added a rectangle at the bottom for the venue information. I applied a stroke to the rectangle, broke up Ike’s group, and wedged it between the Color 4 object of him and the Color 2. Since we won’t be moving Ike at this point, we’ll leave him ungrouped, but the effect just created makes Ike’s figure look almost like a part of the rectangle; eliminating the look of the area being an afterthought. Now add your venue’s information and all that good stuff. Adjust your bleeds, save it out… and you are DONE!

Thanks for reading my first tutorial, I hope you learned something. I’m now going to go eat a hot dog.

Photoshop Tutorial: Design Tiger / Leopard Style Character

Few readers were asking if I’ll release a guide on creating the furly tiger / leopard skinned "X"Leopard wallpaper. Well, if you want it I’ll try my best to illustrate the guide on creating them. But first, I’d like to declare that this isn’t an original idea of mine, rather a design I pickup when browsing through a Photoshop book in some store couple of months back. The steps should be similar, although I can’t remember much of the details in the book. Full tutorial after jump. I’ve used in the

Step 1

Create a new document at your preferred size and create an alphabet in the middle. For your reference, I’m using a canvas at the size of 500 x 400 pixels, Adobe Garamond font.

Step 2

Change the alphabet’s color to orange color [#ffa70e]. Choose Lasso Tool, hold SHIFT key, and randomly highlighting small portions within the alphabet.

Step 3

Create a new layer on top of your alphabet, name it spots. Select black color [#000000] and fill up the highlighted parts. Your design should look something like this image below.

Step 4

We are going to get rid of the black spots outside the alphabet. Select the alphabet’s outline by holding Control key (mac - command key) + left click alphabet’s layer thumbnail. With the outline selected, do a Control Shift + I (mac - Command Shift + I) to reverse the selection. Select spotsdelete to remove the outter parts. layer, hit

Step 5

Select both alphabet and spots layer, merge them using Layer -> Merge Layers. Then duplicate another copy of the layer by selecting the layer, right click -> Duplicate layer.

Step 6

Hold Control key (mac - Command key), select the first layer to highlight the outline. Select Lasso Tool, hold Alt key (mac - Option key) and draw away the top right and bottom left portion of the alphabet.

Step 7

With the selection still highlighted, go to Filter -> Noise -> Add Noise. Insert these following settings:

• Amount: 50%
• Distribution: Gaussian
• Monochromatic checked.

Step 8

Maintaining the selection, now go to Filter -> Blur -> Motion Blur. Insert the following settings:

• Angle: -53
• Distance: 10

Step 9

Now on the same layer, repeat Step 6,7 and 8 for the other side of the alphabet. Just make sure that on Step 8, you have the Angle set to 43 or any angles you feel right. Your image should look something like this.

Step 10

Select the furly "X" layer, right click -> Blending Options and insert the following styles.

1. In Bevel and Emboss, set Size to 13px

Hold Control key (mac - Command), left click to highlight the selection. Go to Select -> Modify -> Contract, insert 1 pixel, then Control Shift + I (mac - Command Shift + I) to invert. Hit Delete key.

Step 11

Swap both alphabet "X" layers, bottom to up, and up to bottom. On the new top layer, change the layer setting to Soft Light and opacity to 70%.

Step 12

Your output should look like something below. An alphabet tiger / leopard skin style.

Systematic Problem-Solving Techniques

Challenge your assumptions. For example, if you aren't making enough money and you assume you need another job, ask "do I really need a better job?" Maybe you can get a raise, or you can make the job that you already have better. A business on the side might be another option. Don't let your assumptions limit your possible solutions.

Break big problems down into smaller ones. Buying a house is a big move that is really a bunch of small steps. This is true of many problems. Start by addressing all of the components of a problem individually, and it may not seem so overwhelming. This makes it easier to motivate yourself.

Ask three people for their opinions and/or advice. They may have good ideas, but in any case this helps you be sure that you are not overlooking anything obvious.

Write down the problem. Then find another way to express it and write that down. Continue with all the possible solutions and any ideas that come to mind. Write EVERYTHING, then come back to it later to pick the diamonds out of the dirt.

Change your perspective. Pretend you are very rich, very poor, a child, a visitor from another planet. How would you see the problem from this new perspective. Einstein imagined riding on a beam of light to come up with his theory of relativity, so this technique has been known to work.

Kisah Di Balik Desain Sebuah Logo

Logo itu harus mencerminkan banyak hal yang berkaitan dengan institusi yang diwakilinya. Berikut sedikit trik sederhana mendesain logo yang gampang-gampang susah itu.

Membuat logo perusahaan atau institusi seringkali menjadi satu permasalahan yang cukup pelik, karena begitu banyak kepentingan dan konten yang harus diwakili dalam desain logo tersebut.

Ada beberapa hal penting yang harus diperhatikan saat kita menentukan desain logo tersebut layak atau tidak:

• Filosofi, visi dan misi perusahaan atau institusi

• Brand Image yang ingin dibangun

• Brand color

• Bidang usaha corporate dan anak usahanya, bila yang didesain adalah anak usaha.

Setelah ide mengkristal dan mulai ada beberapa desain, step selanjutnya adalah membuat beberapa contoh desain dengan mode full color, black and white, serta one color. Apabila komposisi warna menggunakan mode gradasi, ada baiknya dibuat juga mode tanpa gradasi. Tujuannya adalah untuk melihat tingkat visibility logo saat diletakkan di berbagai tempat dan latar belakang.

Beginilah Nasib Kalo Jadi Anak Seorang Desainer Grafis…

foto anaknya dijadikan bahan untuk berkreasi….

Dijadiin HULKDijadiin HITLER
Dijadiin TENTARA
Dijadiin seperti HANTU
Dijadiin SHREK
Dijadiin MASTER KUNGFU
Dijadiin BILL GATES
Dijadiin BATMAN