Ask the Graphic Designer

In My Humble Opinion
21

endswithani:

There is an easy way, but involves a software purchase.

  1. Upgrade to Illustrator 10. It contains extensinve envelope warp features that you can peruse here. The Quicktime movie they include makes it look kind of convoluted, but I’m certain that there is a circular warp preset. Plus: The type remains editable!!
  2. Use Freehand. Though I am an Adobe Illustrator loyalist, you can use FreeHand’s Envelope feature (in the Operations palette). It may take a little while. But it will get you there.
  3. Adobe Dimensions can create a sphere, onto which you can map your type. Doing so will add a perspective element to your art that you may not want. Moreover, I think it will be more difficult to get it perfect than either of the prior solutions.

Extensis used to sell a VectorTools set that is no longer supported by current versions of Illustrator and FreeHand. My suggestion is upgrade to Illustrator 10. It’s a solid product.

22

Since you seem to be well versed with software…

I am an illustrator, and generally I end up scanning my illustrations into Photoshop, so I can modify or add color. I use Adobe Streamline 4.0 to “clean up” lines and generally smooth things out- are you aware of a feature in Photoshop or Freehand that will do the same thing? Or is there another piece of software you’d recommend?

23

oceans_11

I don’t know of any software that has a more complete feature set of tracing scanned artwork than Streamline. Both programs you mention have some degree of capability in this area, though not quite as extensive:

In Photoshop, you can select the artwork in question; go to the “Path” palette; and select “Make Work Path” from the pop out menu or use the same feature via the “Make Work Path” button, third from the right at the bottom of that same “Path” palette.

In FreeHand, there is an autotrace tool, second from the bottom in the toolbar, that is like a built-in Streamline. Though not quite as full-featured, it’s still pretty good; but I don’t know of anything it has that Streamline doesn’t do. To access it’s options, double-click on the tool.

Ultimately, the type of artwork you do will probably determine which tool you use more than anything. Experiment with the options your various tools offer you and determine what gives you the best result.

I don’t use any of them, since the only thing I’ve used it for is the recreation of client logos, which needed more precision than a software package could provide. I ended up redrawing things from scratch with the plain old pen tool. Other designers would just scan the logo from a stat sheet, or worse yet, from another printed piece. *Disclaimer: This was in the days before every client had a copy of their logo available as a vector file. These days one should ALWAYS insist on the actual official client vector file and NOT redraw any logo. *

24

Thanks, Hey you!, I’ll definitely try your suggestions!

25

Hey You!,

Thanks for the info! I watched the Quicktime movie, then played with the envelope feature in Freehand, and I do think that is the easiest option available immediately.

I’d love to upgrade to v.10, and while I don’t think it’s in the cards for work, I’m saving up for a software purchase for my home computer.

Another question (kinda broad):

If you were job hunting, what would your portfolio consist of? How many pieces, how are the pieces displayed, what kind of thing do you carry it all around in, etc.?

I have about 6 years experience, mostly in print. It’s been a long time since I updated my portfolio, so I’ve gotta work on that soon. Among my peers, there’s a lot of difference of opinion on this subject.

26

So, having done some web design and having a minimally artistic backgound, I’ve done some stuff that I thought was pretty good.

And it was like pulling teeth.

Do you suffer from writer’s block? And how do you pour your heart and soul into something only to have the client (for the fourth time) go ‘Meh, try again. But give it more OOMPH!’

27

endswithani:

In theory, you should always be job hunting, especially in this economy. Not that you shouldn’t have any loyalty to the group you are currently with, but timing is everything, and no one is responsible for your career but you. In addition to all the criteria that most people choose jobs with (work environment, salary, benefits, etc.) there are at least two additional field-specific criteria designers look for: type of design the group specializes in (publishing, web, identity, collateral, etc.) and visual style. Most design shops are relatively small and are a cult of the principal’s personality. Forget good, bad or ugly, if you style doesn’t jibe with the boss’, it may not even make it out the door for the client to see.

Anyway, as to your question about the portfolio.

Quality/Quantity:
Think of it this way: ever get a greatest hits CD that has some songs on that everybody knows weren’t hits? The ones that you skip past every time? Your portfolio is your greatest hits. Don’t put mediocre stuff in there just to pad it. Let me stress that once more. Don’t put mediocre stuff in there just to pad it. Persons who review your book scan it quick and are left with an overall impression of consistency. You want to be percieved as consistently good. Actually you should be consistently good.

If you feel that you don’t have enough work of the right caliber to put in, start creating it. Easier said than done, you say. You’re right. One way to get it and add some interest to your presentation at the same time is to include rejected designs. This is particularly useful if you feel your client or Design Director is missing the boat and leads you down a road that is a detriment to your work. So as a result, instead of just showing a finished piece that may not even meet your standards, you get to show that you developed numerous solutions for a single project (read: not a one-trick pony), will definitely have something to talk about (read: you are a critical thinker and should be able to articulate your process).

Content:
I only put in the stuff I want to be doing more of. To this end, I’ll include as much non-produced work as produced work. Not everybody will agree with this point, but I stand by it. The people who don’t like your stuff are people you don’t want to work for anyway. The people who like what they see will value you for it.

It might not be your portfolio that gets you hired:
We designers have a reputation for being whiny prima-donnas. Whether this is a justified perception or not, a lot of that hiring decision is going to be made based on your disposition and personal energy. I was recently at an event featuring Luke Sullivan, one of the finest creative minds out there, and he said that he doesn’t hire based on portfolio… it’s all about people being in sync with one another. The best work comes when all the team members love each other’s company, respect one another’s ability and work & play well with one another.

28

Unintentionally Blank:

Part 1: Creative Block
Being creative on demand. Forget about waiting for inspiration, the client needs it yesterday!! There are a few things you can do to find inspiration:

Practice habits that make creativity flow. A Whack on the Side of the Head by Roger von Oech is my favorite book for this, but there are several books in that area. You can also subscribe to (and READ) How magazine; they always have articles on solving problems and being creative.

Find work that makes you think “Damn! I wish I did that!!” Every designer should be buying the design annuals from Graphis, Communication Arts, Typography (Type Director’s Club), Art Director’s Annual, AIGA Year in Design and the One Show. Find the stuff that really makes you salivate. Cut it out (Yes, I just said that) and keep a scrapbook of all the stuff you wish you did. This is your battery, your well, your energizer. You may choose to intersperse the pages with words of wisdom from “Whack…” At this point, the trick is to NOT copy them, but to isolate the elements, the solutions, the techniques that drew this piece to your attention and make a note of it.

Get smart. Be well-read. Read the History of Graphic Design (Phillip Meggs) and know who the experts in the field are. Go on your favorite e-commerce book site and do a search for author/editor Steven Heller. He’s one of the more prolific writers on design.

Part Two: Creating your masterpiece, your baby, and having some monkey-suited philistine tell you that you should use more green. He likes green. Oh, and make the logo bigger. And can we add a perforation? Can we get this by tomorrow morning?

The toughest thing about design is that it is where two diametrically opposite elements: art and commerce, collide. They didn’t teach me that in art school. Some clients hire a designer for their expertise and others hire a designer because they need a Mac-jocky. In either case, the problem is that design ain’t math. There is a creative, esoteric element to it that is subject to subjectivity. The best way to get around that is to agree up front on the priorities. Get them to tell you everything they can about the project. They may have preconcieved notions about what they want. Honor and respect these notions but don’t be limited by them. Get at the desire underneath what they are asking for. Get adjectives; all the things this thing should feel like. Help them get clear on their objectives and then make them prioritize them. Because, more often than not, they will want the piece to do everything under the sun, but it won’t be able to. Have them pick the top 3 important objectives. The top 3 important adjectives. Then write a summary of what you talked about (the creative brief) and send it to them to make sure you’re on the same page. If yes, then you can design against those criteria (plus any additional esoteric designy stuff to satisfy the inner muse – so long as it doesn’t counter the stuff in the creative brief. Then, when they come back with their subjective stuff, you can weigh their comments against what you agreed to up front. If it supports the brief, do it. If it doesn’t neccessarily counter the brief, but doesn’t neccessarily support it, pick your battles carefully. If it counters the brief, bring that point to their attention (diplomatically) and speak intelligently about your design decisions that were made to meet strategy.

Presentation is a skill all its own. Not only do you need to speak succinctly, you need to exude the impression that you are a world-class PhD in design that they would be fools to disagree with. Now do all that while not being arrogant and controlling, instead fostering a positive cooperative collaboration.

And you thought designing pretty graphics was tough. :wink:

29

How would you define Graphics Designer in relation to other types of illustrative art? I would like to understand the areas that you work in and on.

Thanks

30

sunstone

Basically everything you see and use gets designed. Whether it gets designed well is another matter. The 2-dimensional stuff that gets printed and put on the web falls into the realm of graphic designers.

In a nutshell, graphic designers are professionals in communicating an image or message to the masses. In fact, the new “name” in vogue for us is supposed to be “communication designer,” but personally that’s too much of a mouthful for me, though I suppose it’s more accurate.

To do this, graphic designers should be highly knowlegable (if not experts) in information architechture, language, layout, typography, illustration, photography and printing processes. With the surge of digital technology and the Internet as a new communication medium, a high facility with imaging software, video, audio, animation and programming has become crucial as well.

And of course you have to be creative and smart or you don’t go far.

But that doesn’t mean every designer does all those things. Most sane designers select their expertise and contract with other experts (photographers, programmers, writers) to collaborate on more complex projects.

The lead designer or creative director is charged with determining the most effective way to convey the image or message the client wants to communicate. Then you have to start asking questions like what kind of visual style is appropriate? How can we make our client distinctive? What language is appropriate? Does this call for photography or illustration or both? What kind of photography or illustration? What combination of typefaces? Of color? Of typography? What will resonate with our client’s audience? Should the copy be elaborate or brief? How do structure the client’s 27 messages into a single clear, understandable piece? Or should we create 27 individual pieces? How much will this cost to produce? How long will it take to produce?

Does that help describe what we do? It can be a challenge at times. It’s a running joke that our own mom’s don’t get what we do.

31

Thanks, Hey you!, for a fascinating thread. I’ve often wondered about what it’s like to be a graphic designer, and you’re giving me a clear and vivid picture of it. I’m learning a lot from reading this thread.

As for this:

I can definitely empathize, since very few people have any idea on earth of what a social psychologist does. Unfortunately, that includes most of my friends and relatives.

32

IAAGD, but I kind of invented the position from being an AA to start with and demonstrating that I could make better pictures than using MS Word drawing tools.

So now I’m enjoying Illustrator, Freehand, Corel, Photoshop, etc. I’ve either learned how to use them myself or took a beginning class. I use both Mac and PC. That said, there’s so many things I don’t know how to do, especially with Photoshop.

To start with, what are masks, how do you make them, and how do you use them? How the heck do you use the pen tool in Photoshop? It’s not the same as using Illustrator’s.

Also, please explain to me the difference between Truetype and Postscript fonts. From what I’ve researched, Postscript (Type i) fonts are a product of Adobe, and were used for only their products. Microsoft came along and invented their own brand, Truetype (Type II), which came into such common usage, Adobe had to get off their high horse and enable their software to use Truetype.

This for me has led to many a hair-pulling episode. My graphics software seems to only recognize Truetype fonts. I came to understand that this was because Postscript fonts are actually printer fonts, and Truetype becomes converted to Postscript when document gets sent to printer. Is this right?

One more thing…my company is not a publishing company, but we are having to move into that area because of the extent of the material we are developing. A problem we’re having is making sure our electronic material can be used by the company that does our printing. When this company began, they used Microsoft Word, and nothing will ever cause that to change. Our printers want us to send PDFs to them, but when we do, we occasionally get from them the “You used True Type when we need Postscript” whammy. We’ve made sure our Distiller settings match theirs, but this still comes up. I guess what I’m asking is, if True Type does convert to Postscript when printed (in this case printed to PDF), doesn’t this process take care of itself?

Do I make any sense? :slight_smile:

33

Knowed Out:

Type
You make sense, it’s type technology that doesn’t make sense. Please refer to the current (February 2002) issue of How for a complete story about these formats, plus a new format called OpenType; The font issue is such a convoluted one, it’s hard to distill it down to something I have the energy to post here. The trainwreck of type formats and whether one converts to another with what process is a bit out of my area of expertise.

In the end, no matter what is going on with the technology, if your printer has limitations of the formats they can accept, (1) you need to supply formats per their constraints, (2) they need to add capability, or (3) you need to find a different printer. For the record, I’ve been working with printers since '87, and I have ALWAYS used Type 1 fonts. Every printer I have worked with either prefers or insists on Type 1.

If you are using Type 1 and it is not working with your graphics software, you may not have your ATM (Adobe Type Manager) extension installed properly. You say that you have graphics programs (Illustrator, FreeHand, Corel, Photoshop, etc.) and you are publishing with Word?! Word’s a great program for word processing, but the fact of the matter is, it’s code is not written to be a publishing program. It might do the job if forced (or not), but that’s like hammering in a nail with a crescent wrench. Use the proper tool for the job. That means Quark, PageMaker or InDesign. CorelDraw and (ugh) MS Publisher might be appropriate, though I don’t have experience with those programs and can’t vouch for them.

I’m assuming your working in Windows, given the background you’ve offered. The funny thing is that this is one instance where a Windows user finds themselves a minority in a world of Mac systems.

Photoshop Masks
Masks are an extra feature that you can use with a layer. And they mask off areas that you want hidden for that layer without removing the pixels. Using masks are referred to as a non-destructive way of image editing because you keep the pixels intact in case you have to revise back to an earlier version. This is an alternative for deleting and erasing pixels. For instance (dumb example ensues):

You have a blue background. You have an image of a guy on a 2nd layer. You are charged with removing his head. Instead of using the Eraser tool, you add a mask to the layer and use the black & white paint tools to specify which areas you want visible.

  1. Make sure you have the “Layers” palette visible. Select the layer to which you want to add a mask.
  2. A blank thumbnail will appear to the right of the layer thumbnail.
  3. You can paint in black&white to specify which areas should be masked. NOTE: there will be a double outline around whichever thumbnail you are affecting: If the double outline is on the left, you will be affecting the layer image; if the double outline is on the right, you will be affecting the mask.
34

This is just the thread I’ve been looking for! Thanks for all the priceless info Hey You! and Enigma42.

I’m heading into the city (Melbourne) tomorrow to purchase a portfolio for my work. Do you think it’s better to be a generalist or a specialist? I’ve tried to include a wide range of my best pieces such as press ads, magazine covers, DVD title screens, logo and package designs, annual reports, brochures, etc… Is that the way to go?

Also, I’m not sure if I have enough work, probably about 15 pieces of my absolute best that I want to include.

35

Alpha Wolf

It probably depends on what stage of your career you’re at. Young designers DEFINITELY need to be generalists. There will be agencies who themselves specialize in a particular aspect of design, who are looking for designers who are experts in a particular area. The larger and more corporate the agency is, the more you can expect this type of skill-set pigeonholing.

However…

I’m the type of guy that wants to do everything before my spin is over. Currently, I have experience with web sites, identity systems, branding, packaging, product concepts, ephemera, direct mail, advertising, point-of-purchase, sign systems, motion graphics, trade show booths, type design, book design, desktop icons, posters, music packaging, product branding. Let’s see, am I forgetting anything… oh yeah, I designed wraparound graphics that went on an airliner. Clearly, I’m a guy that takes a lot of pride in what I like to think of as versatility. This extends into drawing, writing and photography as well.

A powerful argument to folks like me is the old “jack of all trades, master of none,” claim. In a sense, it’s true that someone who has designed nothing but consumer packaging all their life knows it far better than I. That they know how to get from point A to point B quicker and is more familar with the limitations and possibilites of production for such a discipline. And a client will definitely feel confident with an agency that has a proven track record with that one thing they need done. But I counter that the more a person narrows the scope of their discipline, that they cease to look outside their field for inspiration, that they know the routine by heart so well, that their process becomes formulaic.

Ultimately, I feel that the trade I seek to master is that of creative problem solving. I believe that the mastery of that process can be applied not only to all the sub-sets of the graphic design field, but in everything else in life as well.

Whoa. Okay, I’m back from the clouds. Sorry about that. Where was I? Oh, yeah, a simple answer to your question. Right.

There are arguments for and against both paths. You need to listen and trust your instincts. What’s right for some other designer doesn’t stipulate what’s right for you. Follow your bliss.

36

I know that, you know that, and everybody else who’s worked in the preprinting industry knows that. I curse MS Word and Bill Gates daily, as does my whole department.

Let me explain: I work for a testing company. They were originally a basement start-up that worked for cheap and produced tests using MS Word and Corel 4. Now we are test development and scoring and have moved into the big time. So, we are not a publishing company, but we have to do publishing company things. Our founding fathers are old school, as well as the former principles and educators we employ. They want to be able to look at our stuff from their desktop. So do our clients. MS Word is the industry standard for this so that’s what we’re stuck with.

I have Quark. Another coworker has Pagemaker. What do we use it for? To convert old Quark and Pagemaker documents into MS Word.

When I was hired, one of the first things I had to do was crash learn how to use Quark and convert our MS Word Item bank into Quark documents for the next contractor. I struggled so much with it (and outsourcing it to Kinko’s wound up being a disaster) that my senior project director makes absolutely sure we don’t have anything to do with Quark in new contracts. I’m at the stage where I’m confident in my use of Quark now, but it’s rare that we get to produce purely Quark documents.

Since we have AAs, editors, and project managers all needing access to the material we produce, it’s not likely that I’ll be able to convince the powers that be that every machine in R&D should have individually licensed (IE $$$) desktop publishing software installed.

I also have a Mac which is used for guess what? Converting Mac documents to PC. I love my job, but I feel like I’m losing out on so much potential in the Graphic Arts.

Thanks for explaining masks and Type 1 fonts to me. Can you go over Photoshop’s pen tool? :smiley:

37

Knowed Out

Hearing about your workflow, all I can say is that you are

What is it about Photoshop’s pen tool has you stumped? It works just as Illustrator’s does for me (I’m using Photoshop 7).

38

Knowed Out

Hearing about your workflow, all I can say is that you are a better man than I… I wouldn’t last a day in your group.

What is it about Photoshop’s pen tool has you stumped? It works just as Illustrator’s does for me (I’m using Photoshop 7).

39

I guess it’s not so much how you use it, but when. Can you actually make the paths visible on the artwork? Can the paths be used like a selection tool? The manual doesn’t describe how it’s used, just how to use it.

40

Knowed Out

Prior to Photoshop 7, Paths were used as another means to save a selection. Let’s say you had a star shape that you were going to use frequently in your design. Draw the star in Illustrator, copy & paste it into Photoshop as a path. Now you have that art to use. You can select the path and fill it, stroke it, or use it to specify a selection of pixels.

In addition to that official use, I’ve always found vector paths incredibly useful as guides. If I have a moderate to complex layout in my layout program that my Photoshop image has to align with, I’ll copy the vectors from the layout program into the Photoshop paths palette. Now I can manipulate my Photoshop art and layers knowing exactly how it will fit into the layout once it’s re-linked.

Since Photoshop 7, vectors have taken on an all new dimension. There is a new type of layer that can now contain vector shapes. So yes: now you can use the pen and shape tools to create vector art within Photoshop.