Tips, Tricks and Tutorials for Designers

HOW TO QUICKLY CREATE BAVARIAN STYLE GOLD LEAF TYPE

This quick little video shows you how to create a gold leaf typography effect in any graphic software program. Watch the video:

 Typography too! A typography resource blog.

EXTREME CROPPING OF PHOTOS

Have you ever had to design a web banner with a lot of information within a narrow space? This is a common problem so let's see how to do it. Watch the video:

 

SHOULD A BRAND EVER HAVE A SECOND LOGO?

I wanted to share this video because it makes a good case for having more than one version of your logo. W all know that the best designed logo are scalable and work at any size, but what if you encounter a job where the client is reluctant or downright refuses a redesign of a very complex logo that may work well at large sizes but falls apart at smaller sizes or in low resolution circumstances.This video offers a simple solution.

You can find more hundreds of design articles at Before and After Magazine.

HOW TO CREATE INTERACTIVE DOCUMENTS IN INDESIGN CS5

I love these new interactive features in INDesign. Don't give up your Flash handbook yet because this won't replace it, but it sure makes it easy to create ebooks, documents designed for you Ipad, interactive magazines, animation effects for your website and much more. Oh did I mention the cute little page curl /page turner feature? Check out the video.

 

HOW TO USE THE GAP TOOL AND LIVE CORNERS IN INDESIGN CS5

Adobe has made selecting, modifying the size and shape and affecting multiple images in InDesign even easier. Watch the video.

 

HOW TO ADD MOVIES AND SOUND FILES TO INDESIGN

Starting in the CS4 version of InDesign you can add movie and sound files to an InDesign CS4 project letting you build an Interactive document? In this Quick Tip brought to you by Vectortuts you’ll learn how to embed files and export your final work to Adobe PDF. Here is the link.

 

HUNDREDS OF FREE VECTOR BRUSHES AND A STEP BY STEP TUTORIAL

Below you will find links to free vector brushes from around the internet and a tutorial by Ryan Putnam on Vectortuts.

In this tutorial you will learn about the paintbrush tool and Illustrator's four tytp of brushes and how to control the settings for each.

Illustrator’s Paintbrush Tool (B) and Brush Panel are some of it’s most powerful tools. With the Paintbrush Tool (B) and Brush Panel you can dress up your vector paths into compelling flourishes, patterns, tapered edges, and more. In this tutorial, I will break down the basics of the Paintbrush Tool and Brush Panel and show you how to create your own brushes.

 

Here are the links to the brushes:

• Vectips Watercolor Brushes
• Vectips Sketch Brushes
• 28 Free Illustrator Brushes for making Swooshes and Swirls
• 35 Free Abstract Illustrator Brushes
• Free Illustrator Brushes: Ink/Watercolor
• Victorian Decoration Brushes
• 50 Ridiculous Retro-Style Broken Line Illustrator Brushes
• Illustrator Brushes
• Paint Brushes Set 1
• Illustrator Brushes

 

HOW TO BUILD THREE UNIQUE WEB INTERFACE DESIGNS

In this video Meagan Fisher will explain how to go through the process of building three unique web interface designs. Great example of the process of designing an interface for the web. She will talk about the milestones along the way, and review different solutions to common design problems.

Meagan Fisher - Conquer the Blank Canvas from Build on Vimeo.

 

NOBODY TELLS THIS TO BEGINNERS

I wish that someone would have pointed this out to me when I first started as a designer. Everyone expects that they must be brilliant from the get go. I really like this message and I think it applies to everyone attempting something new not just people beginning a new career Watch it and tell me what you think..

LESLIE CABARGA DOESN'T HOLD BACK!

I wanted to feature Leslie Cabarga who is a letterer and Illustrator and sometimes a typeface designer. He wrote several books but the one that I have read and used extensively and recommend to my students or anyone wanting to learn more about hand lettering and logo design is the Font, Logo and Lettering Bible. Mr Cabarga has been extremely generous in sharing what appears to be a whole lifetime of learning the ins and outs of how to design letters and he doesn't hold anything back.

Another book that I want to explore is called Learn Fontlab Fast. You may know that Font Lab is the industry standard software for typeface designers. Font Lab is for designers or anyone who want to create their own typefaces and bring them to a high level of perfection that is needed but often ignored by some type designers today. There is a light alternative to Font lab called Typetool. "For students, hobby typographers and creative professionals who occasionally need to create or customize fonts. US$99.00". Source: Font Lab Studios

Here is Leslie Cabarga's original font: Bad Typ:

Leslie Cabarga has been drawing pictures and pictures of letters all his life. In his own words — “Drawing requires an inherent feel for anatomy and proportion. Lettering does also, as I believe that our ancient letter forms are based upon human proportions. Inspired at first by comic book lettering, I began copying logos and display type out of magazines. At fifteen I stripped up film negatives to form a crude but serviceable typositor font. source: Font Bureau People Profiles

The single font of BadTyp combines all kinds of bad combinations, cap and lowercase, thick and thin, serif and sans, to create an intriguing style radiating perverse charm and love of the naive. BadTyp was let loose upon the world by Font Bureau; FB 1993.

COMPUTER TYPEFACES MAKE HISTORY

The article showcases the influence of computers on typeface design. I think you will find it interesting and possibly influential in your current work on this project.

In early January 2011, The Museum of Modern Art in New York made curatorial history when it acquired 23 digital typefaces for their Design and Architecture Collection. These milestone fonts are synonymous with the early days of the digital era. In their designs they exhibit the experimental exuberance and technical challenges and opportunities brought to type design as a result of the introduction of the Macintosh computer. Read the article about them and view the fonts here. Once on the page scroll down to view the typefaces in a slideshow.

TYPOGRAPHY TIPS AND TRICKS BLOG

Typography Too!

This site is a learning resource blog for my Typography Students. I use this site as a companion site for the class and post resources, tips and tricks, tutorials and student work.

I  update the handouts and resources frequently or whenever I find something related to typography design that I think will interest people.

The exercises and projects are a good resource for those who wish to learn more about using typography in their design work but don't have time to take classes. I will also be referencing the work and philosophy of some of the top typeface designers, and graphic designers, so stop by often.(Shown above left: custom lettering by Lindsey Baker).

MORE TUTORIALS ON CAMPAIGN BUILDING

How To Build An Integrated Communications Campaign

 In this series of blog posts I talk about the different considerations a designer must pay attention to when designing different elements of a media campaign, such as a web site, a trade show booth, packaging, etc.

I prepared this information for my students who are taking campaign classes with me and who has a choice of which components to create. It is an easy way to set guidelines and to explain why the steps I require to complete the project are necessary.

 

HAND LETTERING TECHNIQUES FOR WORDMARKS 

Assignment: In class exercise Create a Custom workmark for a band

For this week's new exercise that builds skills to be applied to the new project. For the exercise, you will design a custom lettered wordmark for a band from the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s. Select a band of choice from one of those eras and re-render the logo. We will work on this exercise for two weeks in class only.

The reason I chose those periods is because it was before computers. Now don't get me wrong, I use the computer in my hand lettering process, but I don't want this assignment to turn out to be a filter generated result; meaning I don't want you to just pick a typeface and creative outlines and then apply a filter for effect. This requires very little skill on your part. You can argue that cleaning it up and tweaking it requires the skill of seeing pleasing forms. But I want you to challenge yourself further than that. 

I posted some of the wordmarks that I have custom lettered on the homepage of the blog. Below I take your through three different approaches I use to design a custom lettered logo. If you read the blog post on the home page you will see one type of reference that I use. I find that old signs make great reference material.

Here are the steps I use to begin:

1) I start with reference - looking at type foundry sites like myfonts.com or House Industries. I look at signs and I look at type manuals, I look at photo lettering from the 1960's. I spend a lot of time looking.

2) I consider my target audience, the theme, etc.

3) Then I begin to sketch

Here is a sketch I did for an art show featuring handmade work:

In this case I would take it into Adobe Illustrator and trace it. This kind of sketch is pretty straight forward and would work best with the pen tool.

Below is another rough sketch. Here is what I would do next.

1. Trace with the pen tool in illustrator. Perhaps use the spiral tool or the primitive shapes tool to clean up some of the inside patterns.
2. If not happy wit the results, I would go back to the drawing board and trace over the next version. I find that this works better than trying to manipulate the anchor points in Illustrator.

More resources:

You can download the images I took in New Orleans for reference on the home page of this blog. Also there is a site that offers old sign images from many cities for the same purpose. Here is the urls for the signage:

http://www.balloontales.com/articles/sanfrancisco/index.html

http://www.balloontales.com/articles/neworleans/index.html

http://www.balloontales.com/articles/fair/index.html

http://www.balloontales.com/articles/graffiti/index.html

Here is the site of one of my favorite hand letterers, the very talented: Linzie Hunter

I would also like to refer you to a great site where there are videos and other resources related to  custom lettering. You can view a slide show of this project (pictured below) that took place  at Cranbrook Academy. Here is one of the slides showing the process for designing original type. As you can see unconventional "brushes" work very well.

The url for the site discussed above is: Typeculture.com

 

I  used the same technique as above for this type for the Blondie poster with Debbie Harry. The final type is pictured below. In this case I would scan in and live trace the type, since the bumps and irregularities add to the style.

MIDTERM CRITIQUE

I asked my students to critique the work of Ariel Breverman of Maryland Institute College of Art Baltimore, MD. Here was the challenge presented by her instructor:

The assignment was to select a common, household product that you actually use and enhance the visual design to make a product that is more appealing to college-age users. The process involved redesigning the logotype as well as the overall identity design. See sample of her work below.

Here is the link to the entire process and final work.

Please address the following questions:

1. How well did she describe the reason for the redesign?
2. How indepth was her process work?
3. Did you find her work humorous? Do you think it might offend some people?
4. What about the final design - does it work for the intended audience?
5. What do you think of the application of the logo to products. etc?

They posted their answers here and be sure to title you comment Manischewitz logo redesign.

MORE WORK TO CRITIQUE

I would like to discuss the work of at three students who redesigned  a corporate logo based on a real company. The three I picked were been selected by the jury on the Brand New Classroom site.

Let's discuss the work (final logo and process) work of Astra Sodarsono, who attends Academy of Art University  San Francisco, CA did on the Colt logo. Her process work and final design are here.

 

Also let's discuss the work of Bruno Zalum of School of Visual Arts New York and his redesign of the MEA logo.

And finally let's discuss the work of Lazlo Naske on the Bagaboo logo redesign posted here.

Please click on the links and review their process, critera for changing the logo and the final design.

Post your comments here

LOGO EXERCISE - MINIMALISM WITH MEANING

Man has used symbols throughout history to convey messages about his emotions, to alert his tribesman of food, shelter or danger, and for identification and ownership.A good logo should indicate what a company stands for and what they want the target audience to remember about them through beautiful, smart design. This is easier said than done in many cases; particularly when the designer has to navigate the wild rapids of the corporate world with the many levels of management and the sometimes mind-numbingly, slow approval process. Example: it took over three years for the Citi logo to be approved.

But design school has it's advantages and we can create our best work without having to worry about it being nixed by the VP's wife who "has a good eye" or whose kid studies graphic arts in high school.  So this week we are going to do a quick exercise by creating a simple symbol to represent the more complex meaning of -- of all things -- a tarot card. Here is how it works.

East Meet West Symbols Exercise

exercise developed by Lindsey Baker ©2001

 In this exercise, we seek inspiration from both the East by observing to Kanji (Japanese character design) and the West (the symbolism of the Tarot). Kanji is the core of the Japanese writing system. Elements of Japanese culture are embedded in these Kanji characters through their forms and images. Kanji has become a popular choice for tattoo enthusiasts; many people get tattoos based on Kanji. In Kanji an idea such as the fashion of a front crossing dress (kimono) or the idea of a pregnant woman (baby in house) are simplified down to one symbol (see below).

Another example (below) are the drawings (two images left) used to inspire the logo (image right) for www.tattoosymbol.com. The artist drew these two illustrations and then based the logo for the site by blending the elements of the two drawings together and simplifying them.

 

You should visit the Tattoo Symbol web site in order to do the exercise, You can locate images and descriptions of the Tarot deck there and research the meaning of each of the cards.

Since Tarot cards are loaded with symbolism, we will use the cards as a starting point.  Select one of the Tarot cards from the deck. Go to: www.tattoosymbol.com  I selected the Magician card and have highlighted what I thought were the key words in the first one (the Magician) as an example of how to begin:

Here are the steps:

1. Select a Tarot card
2. Make a list of the keywords that you think convey the meaning of the card.
3. Create a series of quick little sketches of images that come to mind based on the keywords
4. Start to combine the images into one cohesive symbol to represents one cohesive concept
5. Create at least 5 completely unique thumbnail sketches of the symbol.
6. You are representing the meaning of the card while creating aesthetically pleasing symbol.
7. You can work sketching by hand drawing or in Adobe Illustrator
8. Come up with as many ideas (comps) as possible in the time allotted (shoot for 5)
We will complete the exercise in class next week.

Next week we will complete the exercise by rendering one final logo design. Exercise should be rendered in black and white only.

Here is an example of the finished exercise for the Star Card.





WE KICK OFF THE QUARTER WITH STARBUCKS

Welcome to the blogspot for our Corporate Communications class. Please check in each week for the articles, weekly activities and tutorials that I will be posting here. I look forward to reading your comments.

To kick this quarter off I have posted the new identity that Starbucks has just launched. There has been a lot of discussion about it throughout the design community and in the consumer market as well.

Below are the various revisions of the logo over time. Observe the differences and pay attention to the dates as they provide relevant insight to why the changes occured. Please post a comment answering the questions I have posted below the images of the new Starbucks' logo.


1) In your opinion what does the redesign of the Starbucks' logo indicate about the company?
    Things to consider are: (a) changes to the business; (b) changes to how media is delivered
    (the advent of the internet and mobile devices); (c) growth from a local market to offering
    the product in a global marketplace.

2) Starbucks' new logo doesn't display the name; is this a good move?

3) What is the meaning behind the development of of the original logo? Is the meaning still clear?

4) Is this logo relevant/appropriate for a global marketplace?

To research answers to the questions click on the links below and read the posts:

Landor blog post 1

Landor blog post 2

Landor blog post 3

Post your answers below in the comment area on the home page of this blog as part of the homework for week 1. Please identify yourself with your full name so I can give you credit for the post.