What is good design? I'll tell you. Good design is whatever your client wants. Good design is whatever rich people like. Good design conforms to the zeitgeist. I'll never forget my first paid assignment in the world of design. I gingerly handed a print out to a relaxed Creative Director who's … [Read more...]
Price quotes and estimates for graphic design
One of the most asked questions on graphic design forums is: "How much I should charge?" Well, the answer is, I don't know! But here is a list of my most recent price quotes. These design estimates include image sourcing and copy editing but assume images and most text have already been supplied or … [Read more...]
Designing logos – the future
There are three types of logo – text, symbol and a combination of the two. A text logo is used when the client's name is long (Marks and Spencers) or unique (Yahoo!, below right). A symbol logo is the opposite. An example of this is Nike's "Swoosh" (right) which, by-the-way, originally cost … [Read more...]
What is a graphic designer?
Websites, posters, business cards, detergent boxes, DVD artwork, movie credits and dog food cans – graphic designers do them. Within just about every conceivable employment sector, a graphic designer brands, advertises and communicates. He works under time and money constraints and, to varying … [Read more...]
Designing web icons
Here are some icons I designed for a friend's website. He asked me to make them at three sizes: 20 pixels wide, 80 pixels wide and 300 pixels wide. There's a real skill to designing icons. You have to make them simple enough to be understandable at small sizes but interesting enough to be beautiful … [Read more...]
Designing screen PDF newsletters – Why and How?
Question: How can you disseminate a graphically interesting, beautifully designed small book to a large number of people cheaply? Answer: Email a PDF. Almost every computer has Adobe Reader (formerly called Acrobat Reader) and PDFs are widely used as a way to present information with a fixed … [Read more...]
Designing PDF newsletters
The first rule of making PDFs is easy... do it in InDesign, don't even think of doing it in Quark. Navigation, linking to the web and even playing movies can be sorted out in InDesign first before the PDF is made. This way when the client has added his changes these elements don't have to be re-done … [Read more...]
Designing at Tate
I have been doing some work at Tate Britain recently. As you can imagine, designing a booklet on contemporary and modern British art compares favourably to some of the more corporate work I've been doing. I've also been very impressed with their design guidelines, typeface and logos that were set … [Read more...]
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