pack·ag·ing [pak-uh-jing] - noun

1. an act or instance of packing or forming packages: At the end of the production line is a machine for packaging.
2. the package in which merchandise is sold or displayed: Attractive packaging can help sell a product.

To me, the feeling of opening a well designed package exemplifies good design. All the little nuances contribute to an individual experience. Kind of a lame example here, but when I first opened my Macbook Pro or iPhone, I got a feeling who apple is as a company and the standard they hold themselves at (not to mention the reaction to the product itself). This can all happen very naturally, but we as designers look to analyze that process and replicate it. Getting this kind of reaction to a product’s package before the consumer even reaches the actual ‘product’ itself is an accomplishment.

Plant a Seed

I understand that geeking out over unusual packaging is a strictly designer joy, but conveying more attention to detail is something that can be taken at face value, as well as scrutinized to the ‘enth’ degree. If a package grabs someone’s attention, your most likely to hear a “Huh, that’s kinda cool.” There’s no real revelation had by the average consumer. But what your doing is planting the seed that may stick in their mind making the product seem more relevant, or personal to them.

Beyond that, some people just flat out want to be better than their competition. So they look to inject quality into every aspect of their product. Design can convey that message in a very unique and personal way. Whether targeting a specific demographic, or an entire populace, we have the means to convey quality and individuality before the consumer even knows what the product is. Real world benefits are clear to see when a Design firm re-brands a product’s packaging and sales increase 35%. Product packaging is no joke, and serious companies look to designers for results. On the other hand, creatives in the movie and music industry recognize the opportunity for a more artistic approach to selling their products.

The Price Tag

The relevance of good packaging is present in both the corporate and creative ends of the client spectrum. I think most people would agree that a degree of custom packaging would never be a bad thing. One of the main hindering factors in pimping out clients packaging is the price tag. Many start ups or creatives dont have the cash to invest in something that isnt considered 100% necessary. But Im a firm believer in presenting yourself as serious as you want to be taken by others. Now that doesnt mean if your serious your going to automatically get a custom packaging job for your new album. In terms of taking that extra step in presenting yourself, or making sure your product’s utmost quality is preserved for a consumer, there are few better ways to impress than investing in custom work.

judge that book

I know most of you are waiting for the ‘judge a book’ metaphor to be flipped on its ear somewhere
in this article - “go ahead, judge that book by its cover!”… but no cliches here. Have you ever found yourself saying, ‘Psssh, that Limited Edition CD packaging is sooo cliche’. Probably not.

Odds are, the design speaks volumes about the musicians. Whether it’s Beck and his DIY sticker package, or Green Day providing a blank CD to allow customers to burn a copy for their friends. Different artist have different visions… Or at least a unique perspective. So, I think we’ll steer clear from cliches in this article in the spirit of good design.

First off… im a sucker for kits. Any sort of kit that contains a booklet, a t-shirt, and some random goodies has me at hello. I dont care how lame or irrelevant the actual stuff is. Below I picked out some cool pieces.

• Here’s a custom box Set for musician Ben Sidran.

• This is a very smart design by design hero Stefan Sagmeister. See it in action.

• MF Doom goes custom here with the foil wrap. Nice touch to a limited edition version.

• Heres a really cool book version of a CD package.

• This packaging comes from Switzerland. Migros is a chain of food retailers with a penchant for good design… check out more.

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Some Basics.

If your used to strictly working on a screen or are from a fine art background, you’re all too familiar with the training/development of your ‘eye’. This is obviously our creative intuition that dictates pouring over countless revisions until a layout looks just right. On the other hand (hehe), training yourself to think with your hands until something feels right (double pun) is a whole other animal. There are many connections to be made from the two however.

Texture, an element of design, can be literally translated from the eye to the hand. You can go down the line with that train of thought; Line, Scale, Balance…. all can be translated without much (if any) stretch of the imagination. Try shifting your production process from the eye to your hand. If an illustration your working on needs a little texture or weight added to it, don’t look online for a cool picture. Look around you. What makes something heavy in your hand might also apply to your illustration…make your lines and texture more dense…add perspective. Often times a different approach may shake up your design routine opening up new doors for exploration.

Every designer should work with their hands. Whether its sketching or mocking up your original CD package, training your hand allows you to tangibly realize your ideas. Packaging in it’s appeal and production, (here it comes….) is hands on (duh). This means that a customer isn’t only going to look at the cover, but they’re going to be swayed by how it feels and functions.

Packaging (and Design in general) is USEFUL ART. So the obligation to make the project different in form is also accompanied by the obligation for it to function appropriately. How is the package more than just elaborated wrapping paper? Does it do its job?

These ideas apply to every packaging job. This presents new and different challenges to every project. So really what this does is expand your creative tool set to include more ways to flesh out your designs. We’re talking:

• alternative papers (organic, synthetic, varying stocks…)

• alternative/custom casing (folds, shapes, varying functionality/different closures)

• alternative printing (inks, paints, dies, finishes)

and on and on it goes. If your goal in design is to convey a message, these additional tools can only amplify that message.

The more connections you make from one creative discipline to another, the stronger and more diverse your work will become.

One thing that is a necessity when trying to break into custom packaging jobs, is getting to know the production process. Printing posters is one thing, getting to how custom die-cut packages are made is a little more involved. Knowing what paper will work with a certain fold or how it will react with a special varnish you apply to it is a matter of research and experimentation. There are many resources out there that help to fill in the blanks.

Here are some choice books to check out:

• Mastering Materials, Bindings, and Finishes: The Art of Creative Production (Design Field Guide)
• Forms, Folds, and Sizes: All the Details Graphic Designers Need to Know but Can Never Find
• Materials, Process, Print: Creative Ideas for Graphic Design

Beyond reading up, start collecting and creating. If you read design magazines usually there are a ton of ads for paper and printing companies (most notably in HOW). I have quite a stash built up from collecting over the years. And if you’re feeling especially driven, send away for a swatch book from printers or paper suppliers… People have been know to make up companies to get their hands on the coveted ’source’ book from printers (…). But don’t wait on getting the ‘right’ paper or tools. Start with what you’ve got.

Start making your own mock ups. Get your self some nice blades and start constructing your own creations. You can find some decent paper to work with at art stores, but the important thing is you start thinking about your how your designs can be furthered using custom hand finishing. Remember, good is in the details.

Final words.

For the Hopefuls:

• Remember, spray paint, exacto knives, band-aids, patience, and paper stores are your friends! Get to know them!

For the Inspired:

• The Dieline is a great blog and there are lots of books out there. If youre feeling the love, let us know and we’ll keep the packaging articles coming.

For the doubters:

• Really? Why are you reading this article?…did you not see those pics above? Go to bed.

I say mostly because it went through a series of transformations - one of which was an export to photoshop (for some wacom-esque highlighting) followed by a hi-res auto trace in Illustrator. So, some edges are slightly off, but the overall seamless effect is there. Go ahead and download it, but stick around for some behind the scene paparazzi shots of how it was made.

I’ll admit it - I had never made a seamless pattern before. I knew I wanted it to be swirly, so I pen-tooled some reference photos for ingredients as I brainstormed just how this was going to work.

By the time these ingredients were ready I had a plan for a workable but really laborious process to make a seamless pattern. In the screenshots below you’ll find an explanation of how it was done, but really, if you know of a better way please share in the comments!

EDITED: Track6 knows a much more accurate and quick way to accomplish these steps and was nice enough to share it with everybody in the comments. The idea is the same, but the process better. Thanks!

As you can see from the last screenshot, the pattern was still quite a mess at this stage. Filling out the middle took a little while of puzzle piecing everything together. By the end of the workday last Friday I had spent a little too much time on this thing, and still wasn’t happy. So over the weekend curves were smoothed and highlights added, and finally it was starting to look right. An anxious face showed up in the curves so I made a little preview image just for fun.

So that’s the story of this freebie! I hope if you embark on making your own custom seamless pattern you’ll share some shortcuts with me in the comments.

Catch up on the first four rules here

First, let me apologize for the long hiatus I took from this particular series of articles. It’s been really busy around here. I have to squeeze these articles into my spare time (and I don’t have much of that.) So, without further ado, let’s chat about depth.

Depth, ok, we’re not talking about pop-up books or holograms here. We’re talking about simulating depth (or dimension) in your 2D illustrations and designs. The first four principles in this series dealt mostly with what I would consider to be usability basics. Depth is the first design principle that I think gets into the “cool factor” – basically, what makes something look bad-ass. Adding depth to your art will help it bust off the page, or conversely, pull the viewer in.

There are a great number of techniques for adding some dimensionality to your designs. I’ll cover my favorites starting with the most obvious ones and then work my way to the more sophisticated ones.

Overlapping objects

Ok. This is just plain obvious. You probably learned this in kindergarten. If you made a nice crayon drawing of a bus and a house, and the bus overlaps the house, then it’s obviously in front of the house. But if the house overlaps the bus, then the house is in front. Duh.

So, why even discuss this? Well… just to remind you – you can overlap your design elements. It’s easy to get into a habit of just spacing out all of your design elements. If you put a nice thick margin of space between all your photos and all of your design elements, you’ll certainly have a clean design, but it may look a little flat. Sometimes I will even add in design elements just so I have something to put other elements on top of.

Let’s look at an example of how a simple overlap can add some depth to a design.

Here is a gig poster that Dave Tevenal and I are working on. Dave did the initial pencil sketch of the guy, then I added the water splashes around his feet, the koi on the wall behind him and inked it.

You’ll notice that in the lower right corner I have the venue’s logo (the Grog Shop) over top of a black bar. Now, I really didn’t even need a black bar there. All the copy in the bar could have been black and the logo could have just sat on the drawing. But I wanted to draw some attention to the copy on the bottom of the poster.

Here is the same poster without the black bar along the bottom.

Now compare it against one with the bar in place.

By adding this bar with the venue’s information and then over-lapping it with the logo, the depth I’ve created is as follows: Club Logo, then bar with info, then poster artwork. It also helps set up priority. The venue logo is the most important, then the club info, and finally the specific show artwork and details.

The illustration also has a great number of overlapping objects. The guy overlaps the koi (fish), the water splashes overlap the guy’s feet, etc.

Object Size – variability

I like to use variety in the size of the object in my design. This is particularly effective when you have several similar object that are only varied by their size. A good analogy for this is varying the distance you are from a person while shooting photography. It’s typical to shoot a picture of your friends from about 3-5 feet away. You’ll either capture most of their entire body or at least from the waist up. This is a fine picture, but if you shoot 30 pictures like this – they start to get boring. And since MOST pictures are shot like this – I consider them fairly common. Now, if you want to spice things up – shoot a super close-up. Maybe you only capture half of your friend’s face. Then maybe shoot some pictures with your friends way off in the distance. Or, best of all, a combination of all three. Have someone in the foreground, have someone in the middle ground and then have someone off in the distance. This will maximize the sense of depth in the picture. Or if you’re shooting nature pictures, I would suggest trying to capture as much depth as possible. For instance, maybe you can capture some leaves from a tree that is near you in the foreground, a beautiful lake in the middle ground and a snow capped mountain in the distance. Together they form a variety of depth in the image – because the relative size of the objects in the image varies. The leaves are relatively big -because they are close to the camera, the mountains are relatively small because they are in the distance.

Let’s take a look at some examples of how the size of the objects can create depth. This first example is very simple, just a bunch of circles. This example shows how varying something as simple as size can create depth.

Each is slightly smaller than the previous. See how their change in size creates a sense of depth. Which circle looks closest to you?

This next example is a bit more complex. This is a T-shirt Jeff Finley did for Paint the Stars. There are a number of depth inducing techniques being used here, but let’s focus on the object size variability.

In this example the skulls in the design each get slightly smaller as they get higher up on the shirt. Also, the rope-like tentacle that winds through the eye sockets gets smaller and smaller. Those combined with the previous technique (overlapping objects) creates a real nice sense of depth in this design.

Line thickness (weight)

Closely related to Object Size Variation is Line Thickness (weight) Variation. This is a particularly great technique for drawing, but whether it is the thickness of the lines you’re drawing or the thickness of the strokes you’re putting on your designs; weight matters.
The rule on line weight works just like object size. The thicker the weight of the lines, the closer it feels to you. The thinner the line weight, the further it is from you.

Let’s look at a great example of this in a drawing.

This is an inked comic book page by Art Adams (one of my all time favorite comic book artists). This is an excellent example of how weight of your lines helps create depth. If you look at the gladiator in the foreground and compare how thick the lines are that make up the shape of his body with the weight of the lines that make up the buildings way off in the distance – you’ll obviously see the dramatic difference. Thin lines in the distance, thick lines close-up.

Depth of field

Depth of field is the portion of a scene that appears sharp in an image. Depth of field is actually something that happens naturally in our own human eye, not just a camera lens. If you hold your hand up and focus on it, then, without losing focus on your hand – try to see the other things in your peripheral vision. Are the things behind your hand in focus? No. We have the perception that everything we see is always in focus. But in fact, what’s happening is the human eye is constantly adjusting the focus of your eye to exactly what you’re looking at. The truth is that only the objects at that correct depth are in focus – everything else is a blur.

We see examples of depth of field in photographs and our brain knows how to interpret the information. Item out of focus are at a different depth than objects in focus.

Here is a macro photo of a spider that one of our staff members (Dave Romsey) took.

In addition to just being one bomb-ass photo of a spider, you’ll notice that only the spider’s body is in perfect focus. But everything that is in front or behind the spider, like the leaf in the lower right corner is way out of focus. Even the legs of the spider shift from in focus (near the body) to out of focus as they extend forward or backward away from the body.

Japanese animation or “japanimation” has been taking advantage of this little trick for years. They will apply a blur to objects in the distance or foreground. I think it adds a really nice touch! Here is a single frame of animation that shows this technique in use.

Color

Colors can even help represent depth. This is mostly the case with great distances. The atmosphere is made up of trillions of little particles of vapor, dust and translucent molecules. And while the “air” seems 100% clear over short distances – it is not. It’s actually a milky film that becomes more opaque the greater the distance. So, when selecting colors for an exterior scene – objects in the foreground should have strong vibrant colors. Objects way off in the distance should have less saturated colors.

In this photo I found online of the Blue Mountains National Park you can see how the milky haze of the atmosphere affects colors. On the left, in the foreground, the color of the rock and hikers seems clear, at full saturation. Just to the right you can see how the forest in the distance has its colors washed out by a haze.

Effects – drop shadows

Ah, the most classic of all design effects – the drop shadow! Both Photoshop and Illustrator can quickly add a drop shadow to your design. They may be cliché at this point, but I still use them, and I still love them. I think most people don’t “see” them as an added effect. When used properly, they blend right in with the design while adding a nice touch of depth. Here are two examples of a design I did, one with drop shadows and one without.

Now, this is an example of subtle drop shadows. The design on the top does not have them, the one on the bottom does. First, just look at the title on the top of the ad. See how the drop shadow makes the text pop just a little bit more off the background. Now look at the fighter’s head where it slightly overlaps the title. Each case uses just a subtle drop shadow to assist the depth. You can also see it under most of the text and under his fist.

Perspective

Perspective is defined as a technique of depicting volumes and spatial relationships on a flat surface. Ok, that really didn’t do us any good at all did it? Let me try and explain perspective in laymen’s terms. Basically, as lines head into the distance, they converge on a vanishing point. A classic example of this is the image of a road that heads straight off to the horizon. The lines on the road converge to a single point. Maybe an image will help.

Here is that classic image of that road. You’ll notice that as the lines of the road head off into the distance, they converge on a single point.

You’ll notice that all the lines: the horizon lines, the rows of grass, the flowers, even the shades on the road converge to that same vanishing point.

The road in this scenario is essentially flat – so its lines converge to a single vanishing point. But object with multiple sides will converge on two vanishing points, not one. Let’s take a look at another example.

Here is a little box with a window. You can see how it’s two sides each have their own vanishing point.

Now, perspective is not something that can be summed up in a few paragraphs. So, I won’t get into any more detail on it in this tutorial. But suffice to say that it’s important enough that you should do some research and teach yourself about perspective!

Check out the rest of the posts in this series:

Become a Master Designer: Part 1
Become a Master Designer: Part 2
Become a Master Designer: Part 3
Become a Master Designer: Part 4

Ever since I first heard about Yahoo Pipes more than a year ago, I’ve been looking for reasons to put it to work for me. But for some reason or another, it always ended up in the “cool but of little use” category. Today I really hunkered down in the Pipe builder and set out to create the ultimate Design Resource RSS feed.

Here’s what’ll be happening in this post:
1. How the Pipe was built
2. How to customize the Pipe for yourself
3. I don’t care - just feed me design candy!

1. How the Pipe was Built

I was searching around for a hairy Illustrator art brush, and came to Deviant Art’s Illustrator Brush page. There were some cool brushes (and a lot of crap), but I made a mental note to visit the page more often to build my collection of Illustrator brushes. But really, let’s be honest, that was never going to happen. There are just two many squeaky wheels of coolness around the web these days for me to really have the time to check Deviant Art more often. Yahoo Pipes to the rescue!

So after many false starts, and a little help from from a fellow pipe builder, I was able to use the “Feed Auto Discover” module to fetch updates to a bunch of Deviant Art’s resource pages as RSS feeds with preview images. By default, Deviant Art’s RSS feed is text only, kinda defeating the purpose.

To add to Deviant Art’s resources I added another module, “Fetch Feed” and added design resource feeds from the Go Mediazine itself, Brusheezy, Vecteezy, and IHeartVector.

I piped all of these feeds into a “Union” module, then to a “Sort” module that sorted the resources by date published. Output to RSS and voila - a huge RSS feed of graphic design resources. Here’s what the final Pipe looked like:

And here’s what the output looked like in my trusty Google Reader:

The beauty of this feed is that I can stay up to date on new design resources published on all of these pages at once, and they come to me in one feed. That’s also the curse of it - too much to handle (and scrolling past a bunch of crap to get to the good stuff). That’s where customization comes in.

2. How to Customize the Pipe for Yourself

Well first you’re going to have to have a Yahoo account. If you have a Yahoo mail account or a Flickr account, you’ve got one already. So let’s get started and sign into Pipes:

Now, in the search box go ahead and type “Design Resource”. The Design Resource Megafeed should be the first result. Click “View Results”.

Now you should see a list of results returned from the Design Resource Megafeed. But you want to customize this, right? Then click on “Edit Source”.

Alright, we’re almost there. You should now see that mess of boxes and tubes like in the first screen shot in this guide. Here is where you’ll be editing the sources of the pipe so that it only outputs stuff you want to see. Don’t care about getting latest scoop of Illustrator Actions from Deviant Art? Then click the little ‘minus’ button to the left of the Illustrator Actions source.

Note: You’ll have to select the URL and scroll to the left to see the whole thing and figure out which is which.

Of course you don’t have to stop at removing sources. Add in your favorite sources not on this list to make it your own.

If you want to get real fancy you can set up a filter. In the left menu under Sources and and User Inputs, click Operators to unfold the modules. See ‘Filter’? That’s what we’ll use to further limit the list of design resources based on your preferences. Drag it into the editing space.

Personally, I don’t want to see any of the anime crap that Deviant Art is famous for (sorry anime fans). So, I set up my filter to block any posts that contain “anime” in the description.

Once I got the filter set up, I grabbed the output tube (Pipe) from the ‘Sort’ module and dragged it into the input circle of the ‘Filter’ module. Then, I connected the ‘Filter’ module to the ‘Output’ module in the same way.

And there you have it - your own customized design resource feed! This is what my final customized Pipe looks like:

3. I Don’t Care - Just Feed me Design Candy!

Okay already! Click for the Design Resource Megafeed
Click the RSS Button shown in the screen shot below to add to your favorite reader (which of course is Google Reader, right?).

Hope you enjoyed this little guide to Yahoo Pipes. If you use this Pipe to make an even sweeter mashup, be sure to link it here in the comments!

As I was flipping through the Moleskine that sits on Jeff’s desk here at Go Media, I thought you might like a peek at it too! Read on for scans of the first few pages of the notebook, and Jeff’s comments on his sketches.

–

Hey it’s Jeff here, first thing I want to say is that the sticker on the front is from one of my favorite artists Aaron Horkey of Burlesque. I absolutely love his work. You could probably tell my work is influenced by him ever so slightly.

The first photo below was some lettering and typography studies. I had ideas for the Fest 7 shirt design I had planned on doing and started sketching around. That’s what I ended up with:

I sent the sketch to Tony at No Idea Records (the guy who puts on the Fest) to see if he would approve it and allow me to keep going. But he shot it down with one sentence: “Not feeling it, sorry.” Hah, so yeah, I was bummed but I didn’t really think it matched their style anyway. It was just a typography study that I happened to develop in the name of The Fest.

Note: I have since designed another tee for The Fest and I’m still waiting on Tony’s approval. I’ll keep you posted on that.

This following sketches were for Paint the Stars - a clothing company from the UK. I eventually took these sketches and finished some “candy lettering” in crisp vector form.

The next two images are sketches for the band the Human Abstract. They had asked me to develop some cool type driven shirt designs.

Those are just a few pages in my sketchbook. Maybe I’ll post more in the future for you to see if you’re interested.

Think about it: What if every time you wanted to jam to your Summer 2001 Playlist you had to re-construct it from your mess of mp3s in a folder called “downloads”? Well, you don’t, because iTunes doesn’t organize your tunes by folder, it organizes them by metadata: artist, album, genre, playlist.

Adobe bridge does the same thing - digital asset management. Basically it’s a supercharged file explorer. Adobe bridge is made to handle every digital file that any Adobe software could create. Besides the basic PSD, AI, EPS and INDD, this also includes RAW Camera files for photographers, Premier files for the video guys, and Audition files for recording engineers. But since this is a graphic design blog, we’re going to focus on managing vector and raster design files.

Why use Adobe Bridge?

Well, if you frequently find yourself hunting around for a design resource you KNOW is somewhere under C:\mystuff\downloads 2007\design stuff\ and then have to open every EPS file to find the right flourish - Adobe Bridge can come to the rescue and speed up your work flow. Especially if you’re designing on a Windows machine, Adobe Bridge will help you spend less time hunting around for the right file, and more time designing.

Note: For Mac users, many of the cooler features of bridge are part of OSX, and where OSX doesn’t cut it, here is a free EPS preview plug-in for quick look.

Pros:

1. Thumbnails and previews of every kind of Adobe file! Vector, PSD, etc
2. Powerful ways to get to your stuff using metadata and smart search
3. Tight Integration with CS3

Cons:

1. Eats RAM for breakfast
2. Teaching the old dog new tricks - to get any real benefit from Adobe Bridge you’re going to have to change your workflow and habits.

What it does (and doesn’t do)

Does:

Adobe Bridge can show thumbnails and previews of every kind of Adobe file - finally you can preview vector files without opening them! Additionally, Bridge reads and writes detailed metadata such as Keywords, Ratings, aspect ratio, file properties and more, has intuitive searching that behaves just like iTunes Smart Playlists. You can even save “Collections” which are essentially playlists of design files built from your keywords and other metadata. Adobe Bridge can also stack and group files, which is useful when you have saved five different variations of a design, or have a group of similar photographs. Adobe Bridge can save a lot of time by batch renaming files. Finally, Adobe Bridge can control and sync color settings across all Adobe CS3 Apps.

Don’t:

Design anything. Nope - you won’t find a pen tool or a marquee selection tool anywhere in Adobe Bridge.

Navigating the UI

Here is Adobe Bridge doing what it does best - helping you do the impossible: browse those EPS and AI files with hi-res previews. Now lets break down the interface.

There are seven panels in Adobe Bridge:

1.Content
2.Favorites
3.Folders
4.Preview
5.Filter*
6.Metadata
7.Keywords

Typically either the Content panel or the preview panel takes up most of the view.

*Hidden here in the filter menu is a tiny, and very useful, button. It flattens the view. So, if you have a folder with subfolders - for example: Stock Vector\ Go Media Stock Vector \Set1,Set2,Set3, etc - then clicking this button will show the contents of all subfolders in one view!

Organizing with Adobe Bridge

Stars
As another of the many comparisons to iTunes, star ratings in Adobe Bridge work just like you’d expect - they rate your design files just like iTunes rates your tunes. You’ve got 6 levels of rating: 0 through 5 stars. You can star files quickly without leaving the keyboard by using ctrl+1-5 while having a file selected. Another cool shortcut is ctrl+ , and ctrl+. to raise and lower the rating of an existing file.

Labels
Labels are similar to stars, except they don’t have a rank and are associated with a specific meaning and a color. You can use Adobe’s default labels or define exactly what you want each one to mean. Labels can be very useful for managing Client folders and designating files as “proof”, “revision” or “final”. You’ve got 5 spaces to create custom labels - go get organizing!

To customize your labels, hit ctrl+K to get to preferences, and then choose “labels” in the side panel.
Once you decide what labels will work best for you, speed up the labeling process by using ctrl+ 6-9 to apply your first 4 new custom labels. Strangely, the last label does not have a shortcut key.

You don’t have to stop at your files when labeling - labels work on folders too! I’ve used this feature to speed up browsing. I can mark a folder as “Final”, and not even have to open it up and examine the AI files inside.

Keywords
Keywords are a really powerful organizational feature inside of Bridge, but it will take a little effort on your part to really get any benefit from them. Keywords are like genres in iTunes since they describe the contents of the selected file with broad categories. They can be anything from “Birthday” to “Grunge” or “Cleveland”. Keywords can be nested in Bridge, making them even more powerful. Check out the screenshot of my keywords panel to see what I mean.

Here’s a trick on how to quickly get your keyword panel set up: stick your cursor in the search box at the bottom and type out your level 1 keywords separated by a semicolon. In my case it would look like this: Color ; Design Ingredients ; Events ; Objects ; People ; Places ; Source ; Style. When you’re done typing hit the plus (+) sign to the right to add your keywords. Use the same process to add sub keywords, only this time hit the button with the plus sign and the arrow.

Keywords are best used in conjunction with the filter panel. At first, the filter panel and the Keyword panel seem so similar that it could be confusing. (The Keyword panel writes keyword metadata to files. The Filter panel well, filters, by the clicked keyword and shows only matching files).

Smart Search
Again, I really like Bridge’s search feature because it feels like familiar old iTunes. Ctrl+F brings up the search box. You can define criteria from any piece of metadata, and then qualifies the search with familiar restraints such as “contains”, “does not contain”, and “starts with”. You can add as many criteria as you like and define how they interact; the search can return a query matching all criteria, or any criteria.

Collections
Collections are Playlists without the head banging. If you have a search that you find yourself doing over and over, just save it as a collection. A collection is a virtual folder that will execute the search when double clicked - pretty cool if you’ve made good use of star ratings, labels and keywords!

Stacks
Stacks are folders on the go - or for the sake of maintaining the analogy - albums. You can right click any number of similar files and choose Stack > Group as Stack. You can see what stacks look like in the screen shot - and notice the number in the upper left hand corner showing how many files are in the stack.

Tooling around in Bridge

Live Trace multiple files at once right from bridge
A useful tool, especially if you need to select from a bunch of different sketches to live trace at once. The only downside is that Illustrator needs to be running - but if you’re like us it’s always running in the background anyway.

Here’s how to do it:
Select the raster or PSD file that you want to live trace
Point to Tools > Illustrator > Live Trace

Place design ingredients into Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign right from bridge.
Select files that you want to drop into your design and point to File > Place. It’s an easy - and fast - way to put Flourishes and stock images into a file in a few clicks. Bridge will handle any number of files in different formats.

Syncing Color Management Across all Adobe Apps
Point to Edit > Creative Suite Color Settings. Select a color setting from the list, and click Apply. Now you can be sure that you’ve got the same settings in each program.

Bonus Round
Organizing and Rating Color Profiles
Here is a little Easter egg to wrap up the post: if you’ve spent any time on Adobe Kuler and downloaded a few color profiles, you might just find this tip handy. Adobe Bridge can preview color profiles and organize them using star ratings, labels, and keywords. Finally a way to find “Granny Smith Apple” when I need it!

Well, thanks for reading and I hope you found a reason to dust off Bridge for a spin. If you have any questions or frustrations about Bridge, let me know in the comments and I’ll try to find the answer! Of course if you have tips of your own, please, do share!

]]> http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/product-tip-review/adobe-bridge-is-itunes-for-designers/feed/ http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/13-ways-to-trick-your-client-into-happiness/ http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/13-ways-to-trick-your-client-into-happiness/#comments Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:49:37 +0000 Bill http://www.gomediazine.com/?p=649 The art of making your customers love the designs you create.

In an ideal world our clients would think like designers. In an ideal world our clients have a good knowledge of marketing. In an ideal world they think logically and…

]]> The art of making your customers love the designs you create.

In an ideal world our clients would think like designers. In an ideal world our clients have a good knowledge of marketing. In an ideal world they think logically and communicate clearly. Well folks, this is not an ideal world. And, unfortunately, our clients do not think like a designer. They don’t necessarily know the basics of marketing or branding. They are not designers. That’s why they’ve hired us.

Now, if we could just get them to trust us. Well, that’s not going to happen. So, what’s left? I’ve got It! We’ll TRICK them. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

I’ve developed a few techniques over the years that help me “trick” my customers. These tricks are for both of our benefit. I trick them into picking the best design and trick them into being happy. It’s a win-win.

1. Lower your customer’s expectations. Ok, I’m not suggesting you tell the customer: “Your design is going to suck.” But I AM suggesting that you set your customer up with realistic expectations. Don’t promise the world. And if they’re ASKING for the world… you need to be honest with them about what you can accomplish. Even at the risk of losing a project – I really hammer home exactly what we can accomplish so the customer knows what to expect.

2. Limit your concepts. It’s natural to think that giving your customer 8 logo concepts is better than giving them 4, but is it? First off, the customer is relying on you to give him or her the best options. You should be the one narrowing down the options to the best few. Whatever you decide to show your customer, be prepared for him or her to pick your LEAST favorite option – they always do. Secondly, too many options can be very confusing. There are too many possibilities, too many styles, too many choices to be made. In my experience 3-5 concepts is optimal. 3-5 concepts is just enough to let the customer feel like they have a good choice while still controlling the situation.

3. Clients like shiny color stuff better than black and white stuff. It’s unfortunate that clients are influenced by “bling” (color, gel, gloss, drop shadows and lens flares) but they are. If you have two concepts to pitching to a client and the first one is an AMAZING concept – that you’ve sketched out in pencil and the second concept is mediocre at best, but it’s polished, full color with gel effect and drop shadows, can you guess which concept the customer is going to pick? They’re going to pick the color one – every time. They can’t imagine how cool the pencil-sketched concept is going to look. They only see a pencil sketch. So, if you want to steer the client to a particular design – sell it; add that color, add the gel, whatever. Make sure the one you really want them to pick looks just a little bit better than the others.

4. Give bad news immediately and over the phone or in person if possible. If something bad happens don’t try to hide it. Just be honest immediately. A mistake that YOU point out is twenty times better than a mistake that THEY discover. Let’s say you designed a flyer and misspelled a word. Don’t quietly pray that they won’t find it, because THEY WILL. A hundred people will point it out to them. Bring it up, apologize and offer a solution. I will frequently offer free design services if I’ve made a mistake. This allows me to keep their money in my bank and simply “work-off” my mistakes. Also, clients can get really nasty through e-mail. If you’ve made a mistake – get them on the phone. They will always be much nicer if they’re actually on the phone or meeting with you in person.

5. Beware of “scope creep.” Some clients like to make changes as you go through the design process. Don’t let this slide without saying something! Every time a customer makes a change - you need to point it out, describe how the change will affect the design process and establish a new set of expectations. Now, I’m not talking about changes like: “Please add the word ‘From’ to the first sentence.” I’m talking about when a customer says: “Hey – I would like to add a photo gallery to my website.” In that scenario you need to say: “Ok, but we will miss our deadline if we are going to do that additional work. Also, it will cost $XXX.XX more dollars.”

6. Narrow down options. If, even after all these tricks, my customer is proving hard to please, I will try to narrow the design decisions down. For instance, can we settle on a color scheme? Can we focus on just picking a font? Can we decide on the principle image they want me to use? I might make them come to a decision on these item outside of the design itself. So, the next time I’m working on a concept, I’ll already know the colors, font and images to use. Then I only need to make the layout work.

7. Only work with the decision maker. Frequently you’re not even working with the person making the decisions. You’re working with the lackey that’s between you and the decision maker. I really fight to try and work directly with the guy/gal that’s calling the shots. Otherwise you’ll be doing everything twice – once for the lackey, then again for the decision maker.

8. When working with groups; elect a leader. Similar to rule #7 is working with groups. Sometimes the group doesn’t even know who the leader is. So, you’ll be getting different feedback from different people in the group. I request any group to elect one person to do all the communicating with me. That way, when the leader collects the feedback from the five other people in the group, they will realize that it’s all different. Bob says change the color to blue. Susan says change the color to white. Matt says to change the color to yellow. This makes no sense.

9. Touch base if the project is running long or starting late. If I’m not moving real fast through a project, or if the start of a project has been delayed I’ll drop my client an e-mail. Basically I’ll say something like: “Hey Bob, I just wanted to let you know that I got swamped and will be starting your project on Thursday. Sorry for the delay. We should still meet your deadline, no problem.” This pro-active approach is always much better than having to answer their question: “What’s going on with my project?”

10. Educate your customers. I know this is a tough one, but you have to try anyway. When a customer asks me to do something that is not good design – I will take the time to explain why MY way is more effective that THEIR way. It takes some tact to communicate this without ruffling feathers, so be gentle.

11. Don’t fight with your customer. Sometimes you need to swallow your pride and just give the customer what they want – even if it’s a miserable design. If you’re asked to design something in a way that you know is terrible, you should make your case, try to teach them and give them better design options. But, at the end of the day, if they’ve got their heart set on something (even if it’s an ugly mess of a design) – Give it to them.

12. Give a little extra. If you just do one small little extra task – and let them know about it, they’ll be very grateful. It doesn’t have to be a lot of work. It can be something very small. But it should be outside of the work that was agreed upon. A quick note to the customer might read something like this: “Hey Bob, I noticed that the logo you provided me had a little scratch through it. I removed that and cleaned up the lines on it. This was not part of the project scope, but I can’t have you going around with a dirty logo! No charge for this additional service.”

13. Say Thank you. Amazing. All I need to know I really DID learn in kindergarten. They’ve done studies on the power of a “thank-you.” Disgruntled customers can be magically transformed into satisfied customers with the mere muttering of the words: “Thank You.” So, thank your customers for their business. Thank them when they make a payment. Thank them when they buy you a beer.

With that said, thank you for taking the time to read our blog. I hope this has been helpful to you in some way. If you have more helpful hints for keeping your customers happy – please add a comment.

]]> http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/13-ways-to-trick-your-client-into-happiness/feed/ http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/how-to-print-giant-designs-onto-shirts/ http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/how-to-print-giant-designs-onto-shirts/#comments Thu, 22 May 2008 05:59:16 +0000 Jeff Finley http://www.gomediazine.com/?p=638 I thought this was pretty cool. For those of you who wonder how this kind of printing is done, here is a good example. Just get a machine like this!

Demonstration video of the 12 color Workhorse Falcon E Duplex Automatic…

]]> I thought this was pretty cool. For those of you who wonder how this kind of printing is done, here is a good example. Just get a machine like this!

Demonstration video of the 12 color Workhorse Falcon E Duplex Automatic Textile Printer. Oversized 47″x40″ honeycomb pallets from Action Engineering (approx. $695 per pallet) are used on every other print station. The optional extended print stroke feature allows for true AOP-All Over Printing.

]]> http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/how-to-print-giant-designs-onto-shirts/feed/ http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/what-is-a-vector-pack/ http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/what-is-a-vector-pack/#comments Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:22:47 +0000 Jeff Finley http://www.gomediazine.com/?p=584 Ok, so it has come to my attention that some people who purchase stuff from Go Media’s Arsenal surprisingly have no idea what they’re buying. But they buy it anyway. Strange…

Vector Packs are NOT software

Some people call it software. Some people call…

]]> Ok, so it has come to my attention that some people who purchase stuff from Go Media’s Arsenal surprisingly have no idea what they’re buying. But they buy it anyway. Strange…

Vector Packs are NOT software

Some people call it software. Some people call them programs. Some even call them plugins or brushes. Well, truth is, they’re none of those! Some folks have called us asking how to install the design software or wondering why these magical things aren’t creating designs FOR them. Well, I’m here to explain this to all the n00bs. And don’t worry, we’ve all been a n00b before. I had no idea what vectors were until after 3 or 4 years of using Photoshop to do all my graphics. It was uncomfortable to learn vector software at first, but it was SO worth it once I wrapped my brain around the whole concept of vector graphics. So, if you would consider yourself a n00b, this article will whip you into shape. At least enough to feel confident that you can use some Vector Packs!

So what the heck IS a Vector Pack

All products listed in the “Vector Pack” category on the Arsenal are just that, packs of vectors. It’s just a collection of various vector shapes that you can copy and paste into your artwork or design. We organize the vector packs into themes such as Heraldry, Splatters, and Hooladanders (our word for flourishes). When we release new vector packs, we like to bundle a bunch of those themed packs into a Set and offer them at a discount. So you’ll find that a “Set” of vector packs contains 7 different “themed” packs which sell individually for about $15. Or you can just buy the entire Set and get all 7 themed packs for about $52.

Now some people aren’t sure what a vector is. I suggest if you really want to understand what a vector is, read the Wikipedia entry on Vector Graphics.

Open Vector Packs with Adobe Illustrator

The Novice Graphic Designer most likely uses Photoshop to do all their designs for print and web. Which I would say the majority of non-designers probably think Photoshop is how all designs are made. Not true. Photoshop is exellent for photo based design and web design. But it is NOT the optimal software to use Vectors in. Adobe made a special program just for that! It’s called Adobe Illustrator.

Adobe Illustrator is our software of choice. We feel that you should be using it if you are working with our Vector Packs. I will also recommend that you use version CS or above. They’re on CS3 right now and soon to have CS4 on the market.

A common complaint is from people who use old versions of software. Cranky VonClementine who uses Illustrator 8 (from way back in the 1990’s) calls us to complain that his vectors aren’t working the way he thought. However, Spanky McFadden who has the most up-to-date software calls us and gives us a pat on the back for making his life ten times easier.

So, make your life easier (and ours) by updating your version of Adobe Illustrator to the latest version.

There ARE other vector graphics applications that people are using. Corel Draw, Macromedia Freehand, Inkscape, Macromedia Fireworks. While these all have their use, we honestly don’t use them and can’t always offer our expertise and support on those programs. We try our best to make sure our Vector Packs work with ALL vector software, but I can’t stress enough that if you want a smooth ride with our products, you should use the same software we do.

Summary

Now, to sum up what you’ve read so far. You know that Go Media sells radical collections of “themed” vector artwork that are bundled together into Sets. They are to be used with Adobe Illustrator. Not Photoshop! Sure, you CAN use our vector packs in Photoshop to some extent, and pro users will understand how to work around the software’s limitations. But if you’re a total n00b at design and have been designing things in Microsoft Word, then you should avoid mixing vectors and Photoshop all together. Do yourself a favor and download the trial of Illustrator if you don’t have it already.

And just a reminder, the Vector Packs are NOT software. You don’t download the Vector Packs and install them. No copying them to your plugin or presets folder either. It’s simply just a file you OPEN with Adobe Illustrator. The whole pack is laid out in front of you like a buffet table and you just take your pick. Select one, copy it (Edit > Copy) and then go into your design and paste it (Edit > Paste). See the awesome image below:

Vector File Types - EPS, AI, etc.

Also, the files that are usually associated with vector are .eps, .ai, and in some cases .pdf. Go Media uses .eps files because we believe they are the most widely supported file for vector graphics.

But my file is a ZIP!!1

Now some people have called us with complaints saying that their software won’t open the file - after further investigation, the customer was trying to open the ZIP file with Adobe Illustrator. This is not going to get you anywhere. If you’re trying to open a ZIP file with your design software, you would be considered an ultra n00b and should consider taking some basic computer classes. But to help the ultra n00bs of this world, as there seem to be quite a few that purchase our products, let me brief you really quick on what a ZIP file is.

A ZIP file is kind of like a folder. Any file with a .zip extension means that a bunch of smaller files were “zipped up” into a neat little bundle. So when you buy a Complete Set from us, you’ll download ONE file. Something like gomedia-completeset10.zip. You will need to “unzip” this file in order to “extract” the 7 individual vector .eps files inside. Kind of like a birthday present! The purpose of a ZIP file is to provide customers with a smaller, more convenient way of getting multiple files. It’s faster!

Your operating system (Windows XP, Vista, Mac) should be able to “unzip” these files for you. If not, you’ll need a program like Winzip, 7-Zip, WinRAR, or Power Archiver. If you would like to further understand ZIP files, go ahead and read this article.

There you have it. A basic schooling on Vector Packs, and how they relate to Go Media. If you still need help with the vector packs, check this article below. It gets a bit more detailed on how to open them and start working with them!

Step By Step: Using the Vector Packs

Have fun!

]]> http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/what-is-a-vector-pack/feed/ http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/12-sources-of-inspiration-for-creating-your-own-lettering-or-typeface-designs/ http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/12-sources-of-inspiration-for-creating-your-own-lettering-or-typeface-designs/#comments Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:00:46 +0000 sean http://www.gomediazine.com/site-news/12-sources-of-inspiration-for-creating-your-own-lettering-or-typeface-designs/ This is an article written by guest author Sean Hodge from AiBURN, a blog about design, creativity, inspiration, tutorials, and vector graphics.

Introduction

Lettering and Typeface design is a creative endeavor that requires constant sources of motivation, influence, and inspiration. If you dream…

]]> This is an article written by guest author Sean Hodge from AiBURN, a blog about design, creativity, inspiration, tutorials, and vector graphics.

Introduction

Lettering and Typeface design is a creative endeavor that requires constant sources of motivation, influence, and inspiration. If you dream of painstakingly designing the next amazing Open Type Font, desire to craft beautiful Hand Drawn Lettering, or feel the urge to create original Typeface Designs then this article is for you.

1. Bring Your Analysis to the Process

Learn how letters function alone, as typefaces, and in real world design systems. Logic can take you a reasonable way when analyzing. Though more formal tests are tools that can be used as well. Analyze letter-forms for functionality. Looks for faults in typefaces and ways of improving them. This will develop your visual eye, appreciation for the details of letters, and understanding of the totality of a typeface design.

Platelet is a font released by Emigre. This typeface design was inspired by California license plate systems. The font solution gave greater legibility to a monospace typeface design.

Consider how the letters work within the typeface itself. What isn’t working? Try analyzing a free font. The time it takes to design a polished font is remarkable. So, download a free font and you’re likely to find inconsistencies in kerning, visual style, and logic of the letter-forms. This is a good way to start with analyzing typefaces.

You could certainly bring this same kind of critique to professional grade fonts as well. Or one of the higher quality free fonts. There is a critique on the Alphabet itself by Marian Bantjes in the freely available PDF Fontshop Magazine Issue #5.

2. Study Typeface and Lettering Design History

Since the dawn of the machine age type has evolved into the creation of repeatable designs. Craftsman create the letter designs and then technology provides the tools to mass produce them. Compare the process of Letterpress font creation to that of Digital font creation. Develop your appreciation of the threads of time.

Learn the terminology of the craft of typeface design. The deeper you go into typography design the more interested you’ll become in knowing what terms like: Bracketed slab serifs, X-Height, or Descenders mean.

There are eras and movements within type design that are overflowing with an abundance of ideas waiting for you to discover. This is a big step to becoming a typo aficionado.

Over at Typophile there is a flash based tutorial on Type 101. It covers the history of typeface styles. It also presents information on revivals of these styles. The interactive presentation has the ability to zoom in and see the typefaces up close as well.

3. Learn the Process of Lettering and Typeface Design

Study the workflow in creating a typeface design. While every typeface designer has their own methodologies, the creation of typefaces for any particular technology will develop common best practices and workflows. While studying this process historically is interesting consider looking at the process of designing typefaces today.

In the article Newzald: From Moleskine to Market on the blog I Love Typography the process of professional font creation is reviewed. The article shows the initial conceptual sketches of the typeface and then continues to show every step in the process with great detail. Don’t let this process intimidate you though. Certainly, to make a professional font takes an insane amount of time and effort. Though you can get going with sketching out new typeface designs and decide to use them as is in your work.

Or focus your efforts on learning professional lettering. Jeff here at GoMedia has written some great lettering tutorials. They are based on his style inspired by classic signage and hand drawn lettering. Check out the tutorial here on GoMediaZine Ornate Lettering Process or download the freely available PDF tutorial at Computer Arts on Ornate Lettering.

4. Solve Market Needs

Yes, the market can be a source of inspiration. It can lead you in new artistic directions. Or you can attempt to pull the market toward your interests. Keep in mind to make a living with lettering or typeface design you’ll have to fuse your work with the needs of the market.

When new technology arrives review if it may be a source for typographic advancement. Zuzana Licko was an early adopter of digital font design. In the 80s working on early Macs she created some of the first quality digital fonts. She formed the font foundry Emigre and is one of the innovators of the digital font industry. She was successful partly because she was one of the first professionals in a new technical niche. Her work is interesting. Here is a link to an interview she did with Eye magazine.

Consider creating work to fill niche markets. It took time before small bitmap fonts where created in mass by font houses. There was a market need long before type designers were filling it. These are the type of gaps in the market you should look for.

Solve specialized client needs. If you have a talent for drawing ornate or calligraphic letterforms you can find clients that appreciate that style. Take the example of Eduardo Recife. View his Portfolio. For his font designs visit Misprinted Type. He has hand draw and engraved style roughed up typefaces that fit great with his collage style illustrations. He sells typefaces and uses them in his work.

5. Choose Your Heroes

Search out typeface designers, lettering experts, or specialists you admire. Learn as much as you can about their approach, body of work, process, and where they get inspiration from. Who you admire will naturally have a positive effect on your typographic work.

Thomas Huot-Marchand was inspired by a 19th century ophthalmologist named Dr. Emile Javal when creating Miniscule. Its a typeface for extremely small sizes, which was designed for use below the normal threshold of legibility.

6. Open Up to the World Around You

Where I live in Barcelona Venezuela there are hand painted signs on most shops. The construction of small buildings, walls, and houses uses concrete. There are worn murals, painted advertisements, and graffiti all over. They city is filled with either tremendous inspiration or clutter depending on how you look at it. What are your surroundings like and how are you looking at them?

One assignment in a college writing class I took was called “Be a Tourist in Your Own Backyard.” We were asked to take a fresh look at our surroundings. Ask questions like, “What would a traveler find interesting here?” People can become desensitized from their everyday world. But there is an enormous amount of inspiration anywhere you look. Start using a camera to record some of the lettering you see. Dig deep into your everyday world.

Travel often. If you travel frequently its easier to develop and keep the “visitor mentality” wherever you happen to be, at home or abroad. No matter where you are your eyes will be open and taking things in freshly. Take the font Carlos Segura created called Pintor as an example. He created it based on a hand painted sign he saw while traveling in Sao Paulo.

7. Set Limitation to Work Within

Client projects will always have limitations. Also print project have different technical limitations than projects destined for screen. Deadlines are looming. Though when creating your own work these limitations may be less defined. It may be hard to set boundary lines for your personal projects. You might drift from one interesting thing to the next. Consider that typeface design can be focused by setting artificial limitations as well. You can choose to impose constraints. By doing so you will target your typeface designs and stimulate new ideas. Much like a poet choosing to work in Haiku.

Identikal has a slew of geometric typeface designs. They are masters of creating fonts that are limited based on grids and angles. The font Angol is an excellent sample of their work.

8. Subscribe to Typeface Design Catalogues, Feeds, and Magazines

You will find articles on typography, typeface design, and font creation in just about any design publication. Though if you become a typophile you’ll search out regular sources of type ideas. You can buy books on many aspects of typeface and lettering design. Or you can subscribe to a magazine. There are also some excellent free resources.

Some free resources: Font foundry catalogs like Catalog By T26, articles like The History of Linear, Sans Serif Typefaces, tutorials like Create a Classic Typeface, magazines like Font Magazine, and blogs like Typographica.

Typographica reviews fonts on a regular basis. Each year they release a respectable list of new typeface designs released that year. Check out the latest article Our Favorite Typefaces of 2007. Its cool to see Arno Pro on the list. As it came with my purchase of Adobe Creative Suite 3. There are many more fonts reviewed than those shown below.

9. Utilize Your Tools

You can harness your tools. Bend them to your will. Make them create anything you can imagine. Though the tools you use themselves can become a source of inspiration in creating typefaces. You may find that drawing a font with a brush achieves a unique design. Or cut some metal letters out with a blowtorch. Or you may be inspired by the limits of what your tools can produce.

Zuzana Licko of Emigre designed a font called Modula based on a redesign of an early typeface she created when font technology tools were limited.

10. Hunt & Gather

Head to the library and find some old type specimens. You might find some vintage signage books. Illuminated manuscripts are wild - incredibly detailed. See what your local library has or try getting permission to look at rare book collections at a university near you. Historical societies have impressive resources, like old hand written letters. If you have a good digital camera with a zoom feature that may be the only way you’ll be bringing these old samples back to your studio.

Rummage through some items at flea markets or used stores and you might stumble upon a classic collection of typeface usage on old products. Look at old buildings, signs, or gravestones. Most of all have your eyes open and a camera ready.

Hunt the net for inspiration. Flickr is a great place to find inspiration. The photo group First-Name Basis Signage Project is a lot of fun. Photographers submit photos of business signs that are principally run by one person. A good example is the photo below.

11. Experiment

Play with making letters. Try drawing fifty of the same character different ways. Or use different mediums. Draw letters in the sand. Buy a notebook lined with graph paper and create geometric letter designs. Discover a new visual rhythm. Draw variations of letters from your favorite fonts or sketch with ink on napkins. Contemplate the language of cracks running through the sidewalk or visualize letters floating by in the clouds.

Katie Major is a recent addition to the staff here at Go Media. Since coming on board one of her focuses has been designing new typefaces for release through the Arsenal. With the font Diffraction she experimented with how light and type interact. She was inspired by writing with the light of a flashlight in a dark room. Her font Celest is also available.

Katie has offered some first hand advice to aspiring font creators with her article Katie’s 5 Tips for Typeface Development. Give that a quick read when you can.

When was the last time you wrote with toothpaste? I know its been at least a week for me. Fresh Fonts are a cool experiment in using unusual tools for creating typefaces.

12. Follow Your Interests

Michael Doret is a well know logo designer and illustrator that uses letterforms in his work reminiscent of popular vintage Americana design. He released an open type font through Veer called Metroscript. The font is reminiscent of popular hand lettered styles of the early part of the twentieth century. A quote from Veer, “Mertroscript is suggestive of vintage sports ephemera — especially when tails are added to words — but is also appropriate in virtually any context.” You gotta love that tail.

Fiodor Sumkin found his interests with hand drawn lettering and illustration fuse. Here is a quote from his fabricated self interview: “Although his typographical work belies the influence of Gothic, Art Nouveau, Wes Wilson and others, Mr. Sumkin remains deliciously unique. One would be hard pressed to chose between his exquisitely designed type and his fresh style of editorial and advertising illustration.”

Conclusion

This article has given you multiple points of entry into creating your own lettering and typeface designs. Review some of the resources above. Grab a sketchbook and start scribbling. Keep your eye open for type usage around you. Work with the details of lettering and train your typeface eye. Spend the next couple of months making typography your new found passionate hobby. You never know it just might turn into your career.

]]> http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/12-sources-of-inspiration-for-creating-your-own-lettering-or-typeface-designs/feed/