3 Survival Tips for Creatives

When I first stepped out into the real world as a creative professional, my college diploma and senior portfolio under my arm, I soon encountered the Client. We experienced some client interaction in school — mostly in the form of competing against classmates to have our logo chosen for a local non-profit — but nothing like the puppet-string-pulling, morale-killing, i’m-paying-you-that’s-why encounters that would soon drain me completely of my creative spirit. While there are some really great clients out there who will give us designers the freedom we require, we must still rely on the difficult clients to make ends meet, especially when starting out. Since graduating from design school ten years ago, I’ve developed a few useful methods for fighting off creative burnout.

1. Fill the tank

Graphic design is a form of output, taking client concepts and turning them into visual messages. This type of creative output requires fuel, from an infinite number of sources, and unless we are constantly filling our minds with images, words, and sounds, our creativity will run dry. A good designer will look outside of the design community for this inspiration — books, music, museums, speeches, travels; any person, place, or thing that stirs the creative soul. What does this look like in practice? Snap photos, save magazine clippings, copy inspiring passages from books, put on the headphones and close your eyes for an hour. Just soak it all in. My recent inspirations have come from reading fiction and bending down to see the world from the perspective of my one-year-old.

2. Always be ready

It is difficult for designers to ‘turn on’ creativity. The Muses simply refuse to be restrained (personally, I wouldn’t have it any other way). There is no steady stream of creative ideas bubbling out from some eternal spring. Instead, we have to settle for the highs and lows of inspiration, and be ready to capture the unexpected highs when they strike. The eight-hour workday can be problematic for the designer, for this very reason. A designer should have a flexible schedule, one that allows her to stay up all night after a concept gelled during desert. My personal tip: sleep with a pencil, sketchbook, and headlamp on the nightstand (yes, I’ve cranked out logo designs at 2am).

3. Pursue your passions

No matter how gracious the client, design projects will always be exercises in using your skills to represent someone else’s message. What about your message? We all have something we are passionate about. Keep your creativity alive by using it to pursue your personal interests. Drawing, painting, writing, any kind of creative work, without a client looking over your shoulder, gives you a creative outlet for countering the day-to-day professional work. Another way to release some creative steam is to align yourself with a local non-profit you believe in. They will be very thankful for the help and give you a lot of creative room; and your work will go to a good cause. On most evenings and lazy weekends, I find myself writing in my journal and designing shirts for non-profits.

What tips do you have on surviving as a creative?

Source : myintervals.com

The iDesk

The new iDesk offers ease of use for all your Apple© Products in a clean, wireless appearance. Created by the famous furniture designer Paul Bichler who already realized projects for Bentley, Estée Lauder and Bobbi Brown.

Nuance designed a clean, minimal, and light-weight web experience to help showcase his concept, the iDesk. Paul uses his expertise to produce a workspace that accentuates the clean design of Apple’s products while also reducing the clutter and hassles of wires that normally run on the surface of one’s desk.

To realize this project Nuance created 3-Dimensional renders of the iDesk and implemented a fully interactive real-time 3-D engine to help users explore the iDesk. This is all encased in a light, yet efficient Flash interface.

Source : Designyoucantrust

30 Fonts That ALL Designers Must Own

15 Serif Fonts

1. Adobe Caslon

Magazines, journals, text books, corporate communication.

2. Adobe Garamond

Textbooks and magazines

3. Bembo

Posters, packaging, textbooks.

4. Bodoni

Headlines, text, logos. (I couldn’t get big preview for this font.)

5. Clarendon

Dictionaries and headlines.

6. Courier

Tabular materials, technical documentation, word processing.

7. Excelsior

Newsletters, Reports, Proposals.

8. Lucida

Low resolution printing, small point sizes, reversed out half tones.

9. Minion

Limited edition books, newsletters, packaging.

10. Perpetua

For displays with fine lettering, long pages of text, chiseled text.

11. Sabon

Books and corporate communication.

12. Stempel Schneidler

For displays and fine publications that need a legible text type.

13. Times New Roman

Newspapers, magazines, corporate communication.

14. Trajan

Books, magazines, posters, billboards, anything to do with the ages or religion.

15. Walbaum

Magazines, journals, text books, corporate communication.

15 Sans-Serif Fonts

1. Akzidenz Grotesk

Large Signage, all purpose for print media.

2. Avenir

For books with large amounts of text

3. Bell Centennial

For listings and very poor printing conditions.

4. Bell Gothic

For very small amounts of text that contains large amounts of information.

5. DIN

For signage, posters and displays.

6. Franklin Gothic

Newspapers and where available space is limited.

7. Frutiger

Large signage, all purpose font for print media.

8. Futura

Large displays, small text in books.

9. Gill Sans

Signage, all purpose font for print media.

10. Helvetica

Large or small text, all purpose type figure.

11. Meta

Text, number, especially corporate communication.

12. Myriad

Large displays, all purpose media.

13. Trade Gothic

Newspapers and classified ads, advertising, multimedia.

14. Univers

Packaging, signage, text books.

15. Vag Rounded

Instruction manuals and print advertising.

Source: From the book “30 Essential Typefaces for a Lifetime” by Imin Pao and Joshya Berger. A history of typography is also found in this book as well as more information on each font and the designer.

15 Signs You’re A Bad Graphic Designer

Yes, this is a controversial topic, however I hope to raise awareness of some mistakes you may be making in your graphic design pieces that are making you look amateurish, but please keep in mind that none of these are hard and fast rules, this is only a general guide of things you should be aware of.

Please forgive me for the graphic and bad grammar in the picture above as I’m sure you can see it is a joke (Rainbow gradients, Comic Sans, Bevel Emboss, Bad Grammar, Off centred type - Yuk)

Anyway, I have compiled 13 15 tell tale signs that you may still be considered a (don’t quote me) bad graphic designer. Some of these have been taken from Robin Williams great book “The Non-Designers Type Book” that I recommended in the top 5 typography resources of all time.

Give yourself a point for each that you still currently do. If you score above 3, sorry you lose.

1. Helvetica

Do you use Helvetica in everything?

Ok, yes I know, it is the most popular font of all time - but that is the downfall of Helvetica. Just because it is there, it doesn’t mean you have to use it. Try something else next time and try break out of your habit. Just for some suggestions, maybe Trade Gothic, Formata, Futura, Antique Olive, Eurostile? And yes I know this website uses Helvetica Also check out our post 30 fonts to last you a lifetime.

2. Straight Quotes & Wrong Quotes

Do you use straight quotes still?

Straight quotes were for typewriters, times have changed! Look at the difference between the quotes above.

1. The quotations are not hanging over the edge.
2. Straight quotes have been used instead of true quotation marks.
3. Quotation marks have been used instead of prime marks after the 7 and 3.
4. An apostrophe has been left out in between it’s.

Learn the keystrokes to ‘real’ quotes in every application you use. Learn the MAC & PC keyboard shortcuts here.

Don’t type curly quotes when you need inch and foot marks (prime marks).

3. Quotations Not Hung

Do you NOT hang your quotation marks?

See in the picture in number 2, how the quote marks are hanging off the side of the quote, compared to the other one. Hang your quotation marks. Read your software manual (check their help files) to read how to do this or you can do it manually.

4. Double Returns.

Do you hit the ‘return’ or the ‘enter’ key twice between paragraphs or after headlines?

Using two spaces makes it possible to end up with a blank line at the top of a column plus it leaves way to much space between each paragraph - it looks disconnected.

5. Two Spaces After Punctuation

Do you add two spaces after each sentence?

This is a very bad practice and is not correct - Using only one space is the correct way.

6. Using Boxes Behind Text

Do you use plain boxes of colour behind your text?

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you have to. Try something else, use a dramatic headline, use your white space, use a different font, reverse your type, use pull quotes, etc. Can you see in the above picture how the surrounding white space makes the text stand out on its own? You can use these in the correct places however be careful not to over use it.

7. Centred Layouts

Do you use a centred layout in your graphic design pieces?

Using centred layouts is usually bad practice as it creates a deadly dull look. See how much more effective the two green verses are, they are more dynamic (one is centred & one is left aligned). Using flush left or right gives strength to your entire page and usually is a better option unless of course there are reasons to use centred text. eg. creating a formal wedding invitation.

8. Borders

Do you use borders around everything?

This often indicates a beginner who feels unsafe with type that is uncontained. Use your white space. You can let it be there. Seriously.

9. Indents

Do you use half inch indents?

This is bad practice and is the old way (back in typewriter days). The standard is one em space which is a space as wide as the point size of the type. (what?) This is approximately two spaces, not five.

10. Hyphens For Bullets

Do you use bullets for hyphens?

This is a typewriter habit and is unprofessional. Try using dots or dingbats.

11. Embossing & Drop Shadowed Type

Do you use the nifty little drop shadow or emboss tools that comes with your software?

PLEASE STOP. This is the biggest dead give away of an amateur. This goes a long with forbidden; rainbow gradients, reflections, comic sans. Just don’t use them, plain simple.

12. 12 Point Type

Do use the default 12 point type with auto leading?

For most typefaces, 12 point is a tiny bit too large for body copy. Compare a 10, 11 and 12 point passage of text and tell me which one looks more professional. Try adding an extra 1 or 1.5 line spacing or leading as well. Notice the difference in the two examples above. The red is the default 12 auto leading and the green is size 11 with 2 points of leading.

13. Underline

Do you underline?

Never use the underline feature, it is a law. Only for hyper links on the web is this allowed. Underlining was a way for typewriters back in the day to Italicize text because they couldn’t set italics. Underlining and italicizing text at the same time is the most redundant thing you can do in life but rules can be broken

14. ALL CAPS

DO YOU USE ALL CAPS?

All caps is more difficult to read and this is because we recognise a word not by its letters, but by the shape of the whole word. When text is in all caps, every word has the same shape so we have to read every letter by itself. All caps is fine sometimes but when you are conscious of using it and why. Try using bold, using a different typeface or using reverse text.

15. Bad Gramma & Speling

Not spell checking your work and not using the right grammar. One of the hardest aspects designers seem to face.

Your Score? If you scored above 3 points, don’t worry. Creating professional level type and design is mainly a matter of becoming more aware of details and practice. If you scored less than 3, then congratulations and consider it your obligation to teach others the things you know. (Hint: Link to this post )

For more information on graphic design and typography and the things listed above check out The Top 27 Mistakes Graphic Designers Make or refer to Robin Williams book “The Non-Designers Type Book”.

What do you believe are some other signs you are a bad graphic designer?

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Source : JCD