I was asked to come up with a visual to portray a corporate bank's image. This was one of the largest banks in the world, one that prided itself on coming up with intelligent solutions and, whilst it wanted to evoke reliability and gravity, it also wanted to be known as innovative. The tag line … [Read more...]
How to design a 3D crystal ball in Illustrator
This starts, as most tutorials start, with something very easy: draw a circle. So, select your circle tool and drag diagonally to preferred size, not forgetting to hold down the shift key. Fill the circle white, with no stroke. Next, select the Gradient Mesh Tool (U) and click four points … [Read more...]
Montage design for music DVDs
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...]
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...]
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...]
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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