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...]
Designing with keyboard shortcuts in Quark and Creative Suite
Remember you can choose the keystrokes of InDesign to those of Quark by going Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts... The table below is for the default shortcuts. Action Quark InDesign Illustrator Photoshop Show/Hide guides F7 Cmd(Mac)/ Ctrl(PC)-; (Cmd(Mac)/ Ctrl(PC)-H for boxes) Cmd(Mac)/ … [Read more...]
Charging companies interest on late payments
This post only relates to the UK, I'm afraid. It's a fact of life in this country (and probably all over the world) that many companies try to save themselves a little money by paying small businesses late. This has happened to me recently and it's not nice. Always at the back of your mind is the … [Read more...]
What is good design?
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...]
Working with large files in Photoshop
Preparing artwork for huge exhibition spaces or large point-of-sale displays in Photoshop can be a nightmare and can use up precious processing time on your computer. And this is even if you have a Dual 2 GHz G5 Mac with 3 GB of RAM! But there's no need to keep the high resolution you would for … [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...]
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