Graphics - Page 20

Inspiring advice, tips, and suggestions for improving your graphic design skills, logo design, working with templates, and more.

Graphics / 31 Jan 2012

Why Almost Is a Dirty Word in Design

Almost. It seems innocent enough right? Surely there’s no evil lurking in those six letters. You might even see this as a positive word. However, as a designer, you should always be on guard when this word can describe certain aspects of your work.

Read on to see why “almost” can be a dirty word and how it just might be bringing down the quality of your work. We’ll also take a look at two underlying foundations of good design that provide ready solutions to solve your “almost” design woes.

Graphics / 17 Jan 2012

New Logos for the Marlins, Orioles and Jays: Did They Get Better or Worse?

With a new year always comes new branding attempts. Organizations want a fresh face to signal progress and ongoing evolution and branding is the vehicle that designers use to achieve this goal.

As we all know quite well, this is a risky venture with large entities. If it goes well, your customers (or fans in this case) love you for it. If it doesn’t, you’re setting yourself up for plenty of public ridicule. Today we’re going to venture into the world of sports and check out three new Major League Baseball team logo designs. Which teams are updating their look for the new year? Were they successful or is the result a surefire embarrassment? Read on to find out!

Graphics / 12 Jan 2012

When the Photo Doesn’t Fit the Space: Tips and Tricks for Making It Work

You’ve been there a thousand times, staring at a big empty canvas that simply doesn’t seem to work with the photo that the client has provided. Perhaps you have a vertical space and a horizontal photo (or vice versa), or maybe the image is simply too small to resize without unacceptable quality loss. What now?

Today we’ll go over some tricks of the trade and teach you how to cope with images that don’t fit where you need them to. The next time you run into a problem, you’ll be ready!

Graphics / 26 Dec 2011

How to Use Synergy to Take Your Designs to the Next Level

“Synergy” – In business this is a term that has been so often abused that it has become a meaningless buzzword. Some of you may cringe just at the sound of it.

However, in design synergy is a powerful weapon that, when wielded properly, can make your designs much more interesting and creative. What is synergy? Where can we find some solid examples of synergy in design? How can you use synergy in your work? Read on to find out.

Graphics / 19 Dec 2011

Branding Lessons From the Guitar Gods: Taylor, Gibson, Fender and More

Today we’re going to discuss how design projects often require you to take a step back from who you are as a designer and forget your own personal taste while taking on the personality of a given brand.

The companies who hire you will have vastly different brands, strategies, and most importantly, customers. This principle is displayed quite prominently in the brands of major guitar manufacturers. Let’s dive in and see how Taylor, Fender, Dean, Gibson and more target the right customers through design.

Graphics / 22 Nov 2011

Three Quick Design Tricks: Break Out Screenshots, Easy Starbursts and Vector Grunge Textures

Today we have a small collection of completely random but very useful design tricks that you should keep in the back of your mind the next time you need a new idea.

I’ll show you a quick way to make a software screenshot more interesting, how to create awesome vector grunge textures and a super fast way to build a vector starburst.

Graphics / 20 Oct 2011

Tips for Designing Sleek iPhone App UI Layouts in Photoshop

Graphic design for the web has been a popular trend for ages. And with the invent of Apple’s iPhone back in 2007 the app store has grown a tremendous amount. Now we have iOS app designers and developers coming together to build some really fantastic conceptions into reality.

But if you’re not fond of learning Xcode and programming Objective-C, Photoshop may hold more interest. Below I’ll offer some of the tips I’ve picked up for designing killer iOS app mockups. And since there are always new trends emerging the design community is constantly redefining how to create apps. Think of this as more of a beginner’s resource guide to designing for Apple devices.

Graphics / 5 Oct 2011

Five Fascinating Things You Didn’t Know About Famous Car Logos

Automobile logos represent some of my favorite emblems. I recently became curious as to the origins of several of these popular icons and came across some incredibly interesting facts!

Join us as we look back at some of the most well known logos around and uncover some of their unbelievable secrets!

Graphics / 20 Sep 2011

10 Tips for Designing Better Infographics

Infographics have been around for ages but in recent years they’ve really come into the spotlight as an almost irresistible way to communicate complex scenarios and information. We can’t help it, when we see a link for an infographic, we almost have to check it out!

If you’re at all interested in infographic design, read along as we take a look at some of our favorite examples and discuss some important do’s and don’ts for creating compelling and effective graphics.

Graphics / 15 Sep 2011

Then and Now: The Evolution of Cereal Mascots

Today we’re going to have some good old nostalgic fun and take a walk through cereal box history to look at some beloved characters that have been with most of us since we could chew.

Keep reading to see what your favorite cereal box mascot looked like years ago versus today!

Graphics / 5 Sep 2011

An Easy Design Trick: Using a Photo’s Natural Lines

Today we’re going to explore a super easy design trick for combining text and photos in interesting ways. I’ll teach you four methods for using the directionality of a photograph to determine a corresponding design layout.

This one will be fun and is sure to challenge the way you think about images in your designs so sit back and come along for the ride!

Graphics / 26 Aug 2011

The Illusive Click: Structuring Designs to Influence Behavior

Click. That sound means you’ve done your job. The user has viewed your page and taken the action that you wanted them to.

How is this achieved? Should you be thinking about this goal more as you structure your designs? What mistakes should you be careful about avoiding? Read on to find out.