I have been working on some CD and DVD packaging for a music creation software company. I love doing stuff to do with music and here I was asked to create some montages to express different musical genres. The montages will eventually go on large sierra boxes (a sierra box is a large cardboard box … [Read more...]
How to design sound waves in Illustrator
This is a nice little trick using Illustrator's Blend option. To create perfect sine-waves – or something very close – first of all, draw a line. Then go Filter > Distort > Zig Zag... and choose the number and height of waves you want (remembering to click the smooth radio button, otherwise … [Read more...]
How to make PowerPoint presentations and Word documents look beautiful
If your client hands you a .PPT from MS PowerPoint or and .DOC Word and says: "The presentation/print deadline is tomorrow, make this look nice", what are you going to do? The answer is to use other programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Quark, Premiere or Keynote and get … [Read more...]
Creating a country’s flag inside its map outline
Quite often I'm looking for a simple iconic device to represent a country without having to just reproduce the flag alone. So, as you can see above, why not put the flag inside the country's shape. Also, it's free! It's relatively easy to find a country's flag and shape on the internet and … [Read more...]
Freelance graphic designer’s picture quiz #4 – spot the logo
The above picture is made from 17 logos of the most famous brands in the world. The question is very simple: which letter comes from which logo? Please leave your answers in the comments section of this post. … [Read more...]
How to turn a photo into an illustration
Remember Adobe Streamline? Adobe stopped upgrading its vector conversion application some time ago. But with the advent of CS2, Illustrator's old Trace Tool became the new super Live Trace and opened up a new world of possibilities! As soon as you place or paste a photo into Illustrator a button … [Read more...]
What is an artworker?
Many people have asked me this question and, in the absence of a Wikipedia entry, here's my definition. The term pre-dates desktop publishing when "artwork" or "mechanical art" meant the material (photography, bromide, film, tranparency) or completed, camera-ready pages that could be photographed … [Read more...]
Choosing colours while designing
Choosing a group of colours can be a daunting exercise. OK, so there's some golden rules to follow, like "always choose from the same third of the colour wheel". Golden rules are made to be broken. Adobe has a colourful website to make this a bit easier. If you sign in you can download the … [Read more...]
Designing waves and wavey lines in Illustrator
You can use this tutorial to make weeds or grasses swaying in the wind as above. Or colour them orange, yellow and red and you've got flames. They are also a useful decorative feature that seems to be quite common these days. Start with a line... Go Filter > Distort > Zig Zag, or Effect … [Read more...]
Quark contacts this website!
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a short article entitled Things I love about designing in InDesign that I couldn,t do in Quark which, I,m afraid to say included a couple of mistakes. Then I got an email from Quark Inc.! Matthias Guenther, a Senior Product Manager at Quark,s offices in Hamburg, … [Read more...]
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