Binding, the collective term given for the range of processes which hold and fasten a publication’s pages together, is essential for, well, holding and fastening your publications’ pages together. Whilst on the surface not as compelling a design component as, say, print finishes, a little closer inspection reveals a range of distinct processes which exist for different uses. These binding methods aid function; decisions on binding necessarily affect a printed piece’s robustness, longevity and form. Used creatively, they can even add an aesthetic finishing touch to a piece and help amplify messages and intentions. The closer inspection I mention above, and which binding merits, is what this article’s all about.

Author: Bradley Hotson for The Graphic Design School The Graphic Design School offers vocational training graphic design courses. Delivery is online, affordable and open to students all over the world to study in the comfort of their own home.

SUBSTRATES & FINISH, ARTICLE 1 OF 3: Diverse Binding Methods

Case Binding

Also known as edition binding, case binding is often used in the binding of hardback books, owing to the sturdy, robust qualities inherent in its process. As with perfect binding, pages are gathered and folded into sections, or signatures. These are then sewn together, the spine glued and the book block pressed and trimmed. Covers are prepared with buckram or other hardy material and, once dried, the book block is ‘cased in’ to the covers. If we rewind a few steps to just before the book block is glued and pressed, designers can embellish their books by specifying coloured headbands and ribbon bookmarks to creative effect (see images below).

A commission for four A3-sized, quarter-bound case bindings from London-based bookbinder © Simon Goode.

Japanese or Stab Stitch Binding

Interchangeably known as Japanese, stab and traditional Chinese binding, pages are here sewn together with a single, continuous thread. There are many variations, far too many to cover here, but in recent years Western designers have helped bring some of them back into people’s consciousness. Gift and children’s books are often to be found stab stitch bound, and increasingly design-conscious clients like Onitsuka Tiger, who produced a superb stab stitch-bound 2004–05 trade brochure (an image of which your normally resourceful writer was, alas, unable to obtain) are turning to the process. Best used to bind publications on the thinner side and when wishing to add a tactile dimension to a publication’s design, the effect can look pleasingly delicate, yet is a robust enough binding method.

A stab stitch-bound notebook and journal, both of which demonstrate the, by turns, innocent and intricate qualities of the method. Images courtesy of © Ruth Bleakley and © Michelle Clement.

Z-binds

The z-bind, so-called because of the distinctive ‘Z’ shape a z-bound piece forms when viewed from above, is a visually arresting method of binding two publications (or two parts of a single publication) together into one. This can be achieved either with permanence in mind by stitching the two together end-to-end, or as a temporary device, through the use of an elastic band or perforation. Lots of interactivity or ‘relational aesthetics’ as French art curator Nicolas Bourriaud has termed it, can ensue through an encounter with a z-bound project; the publication flipped and turned, separated and re-put back together.

Beautiful z-bound MA Project ‘Warnings From The Past’ by © Leanne Mallinder. She explains: “‘Warnings From The Past’ is a small collection of five purely typographic speeches each coming with a corresponding poster of a quote from that speech.”

Bellybands

A bellyband looks much like a portion or strip of a book’s dust jacket, and performs in much the same way. Reasonably versatile, the bellyband can be used functionally to hold a collection of loose leaf pages together or decoratively and as an added layer of protection. When used decoratively as part of a well-designed publication, bellybands seem to lend an air of importance to things and manage to connote the idea of a certain graphical luxury.

Two examples of well-designed and -integrated bellybands. Both carry important publication information, the first printed from handset type and the second featuring a subtle black spot varnish. Images supplied by (L>R) © Trip Print Press and © Oliver Rone-Clarke.

Elastic Bands

The humble elastic band is another innovative method of binding both loose leaf sheets (usually with notches die cut into their tops and bottoms) and for making more permanent binds. When not used for holding loose leaf sheet together they are best used for devices like flip-books, less good for binding thicker publications, as the elasticity makes for poor page fall. The intrinsically ephemeral nature of the elastic band can help signify a feel of happy ingenuity and immediacy.

Charming and intricately bound ‘album to store feathers in’ for a bird-watching friend of © Ruth Bleakley. An exposed spine is visible, over which diagonal, coptic stitching sits housed. Elastic bands at the opposite end act as a clasp to keep it all together.

Exposed Spine

A largely recent phenomenon driven by designers and more visionary patrons that has had traditional book binders scratching their heads in befuddlement, exposed spines have become an increasingly common sight on design bookshelves in recent years. Perhaps the most openly decorative entry in this article, an exposed spine is not a method of binding per se, as all that has happened is a publication has been produced, usually perfect-bound and as per usual, and then its covers (and hence spine) left out of things, permitting a view of the exposed signatures and stitching which would typically be hidden away. The effect can be both cheerful and utilitarian, cheerful in that colourful signatures are often used in order to wring the most out of the finish (see project below), and utilitarian in the same way Renzo Piano’s Centre George’s Pompidou in Paris is, with its “exoskeleton” of escalators and scaffolding.

As featured in these articles elsewhere, Typehigh and Lieselot Moed’s ‘Bodemweek book’ is a graphic banquet of format design and printed finish. In addition to containing gatefolds and perforations, the publication is also bound sans cover, revealing the colourful spine within.

Loose Leaf with Slipcase

There are several ways of collecting loose-leaf pages and holding them together (see ‘Bellybands’ and ‘Elastic Bands’ above) but few feel as luxurious as a bespoke slipcase. These die cut, quickly assembled gems can be designed to fit the pages within as snugly as a book’s covers. From a functional perspective, nothing can beat loose leaf for pages falling and staying open, as the whole point of them is that they aren’t bound, although the process does imply a certain artisanal decadence; a motorcycle maintenance manual, loose leaf, would be an inappropriate choice due to risks of pages becoming lost, discarded or rearranged out of order.

Stunning self-promotional piece by Leicestershire-based graphic design studio Six. Six, ‘Made by Six 08/09’ is composed of loose leaf sheets that feature credentials, recent client work and selected studio projects, all housed in a subtly embossed slipcase/box. Image courtesy of © SeptemberIndustry.

In Sum…

An important, and at times fascinating, design component then, no? As with print finishes and substrates, for best results a method of binding should be decided upon at the start of a project and not at the end. Functional considerations should always be heeded, as the diverse array of binding methods available offer up an equally diverse breadth of differences in longevity and robustness. How easily a publication’s pages fall open should be a prime consideration for the thoughtful graphic designer. From a formal and aesthetic perspective, the myriad materials and sundry levels of intricacy available mean that several of the binding methods covered above may be used as signifiers for all kinds of messages, and, as I hope has been demonstrated, even act as the distinct finishing touch to a project.

…and it’s not just paper-based substrates that can be bound in visually compelling ways! Image courtesy of © Kate Black.

Author: Bradley Hotson for The Graphic Design School The Graphic Design School offers vocational training graphic design courses. Delivery is online, affordable and open to students all over the world to study in the comfort of their own home.

Professional Design Practice Lesson 5: Invoicing Clients

First Things First

In•voice:: noun:: a list of goods sent or services provided, with a statement of the sum due for these; a bill

This week’s article is all about bills, no pun intended, honest… Platypus image © Jersey Shooter.

Detailed, ‘transparent’ and designed inbrand. Example of invoice © Hotson Studio.

Let’s get some basics out of the way. Your invoice’s list of services should correspond directly with the services you agreed to carry out at the start of the job. Additional good practice would be to include the original contract offer (in whatever shape or form) itemizing the services you’d agreed to for your client’s comparison. Your invoices should contain the name or studio name (if applicable) of the person providing services, which, for the freelancer, usually means himself. If you haven’t already provided your client with your bank details, include them somewhere on the invoice.

Be scrupulously transparent about costs, both forseen and extraneous, and leave nothing hidden when invoicing your clients. Image used with permission of © Jen Hamilton-Emery.

More than One Way to Skin a Cat…

It’s perfectly reasonable to design a billing template yourself using a package like Adobe InDesign, (see example above) then generate your invoices from this template whenever you need to bill someone. If you care about how your invoices look and work (you should do; they’re part of your suite of materials) then this method allows for the greatest creative control and freedom. If you feel this is the way to go then take as much time over it’s design as you would your letterhead or logotype.

Increasingly though, people are using other means to generate their invoices. MacFreelance is a piece of invoice and billing software made especially for creative professionals, and can allow freelance designers to create very professional-looking templates. MacFreelance and its competitors all come with features for including your own logotype and allow some, limited control over the design of documents. Many are also laden with additional bells ‘n’ whistles for monitoring project developments and carrying out billing administration.

Subernova offers users a “simple and enjoyable way to create and send invoices and estimates.” I’ve used it in the past. It’s not half bad.

Subernova, ‘project management and team collaboration’ software gives users the chance to create ‘insert here’-style invoices super quickly and like MacFreelance comes with additional features for setting project milestones, tracking time, keeping tabs on late payments, setting deadlines and more. A recent development also worthy of note is that Subernova is now syncable with iCal.

For freelance designers who receive most of their money through PayPal, you can now create and save billing templates and store them within your Paypal account. These work in much the same expedient ‘insert here’ way as Subernova.

Extraneous & Unforseen Costs

Picked up any extraneous costs on your journey? Image © Tom Skinner.

Certain extraneous costs should be carefully listed, firstly in the original service offer or estimate, then relisted in the invoice. Extraneous costs, or ‘further expenses’ can include courier/delivery fees, model fees and proof purchasing expenses. To the extent that not all expenses are foreseeable, when embarking on a new project you should also try to negotiate that the client assume all responsibility to remunerate extraneous costs. You might word this line into your original service offer: “The client or commissioning party has to reimburse the commissioned party for all extraneous costs actually incurred.”

Setting Deadlines & Client Transgressions

Educate yourself as to your legal position, but treat late-paying clients with courtesy. Image © Mark Flisher.

The persisting problem of late payment is probably the largest non-creative cause for concern experienced by the freelance graphic designer. Freelancers are unlikely to take legal action against corporations for obvious time-based and financial reasons. The freelancer might also ask himself “why risk losing the potential repeat work by being litigious?” Safe in this knowledge, clients need not worry excessively over paying you on time and in accordance with the terms laid out on your invoice.

Exceeding payment deadlines can put a strain on a small freelance business, not to mention the strain placed on the client/designer relationship. Freelancers need cashflow to survive just like any other tradesperson and chasing after late payments is a regrettably guaranteed part of the freelancer’s lot.

A slow response to pay a freelancer’s fees from a seemingly lackadaisical client can leave many a designer stressed, frustrated and unsure of what action to take. But there is a system to follow. . ‘Lackadaisical client’ image used with permission of © Chelsea Steed

The time period you should allow to elapse before sending out your first reminder shouldn’t be all that long, between 2–4 weeks after the exceeding of your payment deadline is about right. It’s good to know where you stand from a legal perspective, though difficult for me to look into every country’s law practices. In Great Britain, one month after receiving an invoice and having not paid, a client goes into arrears and is obliged to pay the designer for damages caused by delay. Should a disagreement arise, the designer will have to prove the successful delivery of the invoice. The damages, with regard to defaulted payments, is the interest which the designer must pay to his bank throughout the duration of the late payment and for the amount owed. Legal counsel costs may also be charged for here.

It’s important to outline the legal implications above, but reaching a hostile legal situation can more often than not be averted, or wholly avoided. In ‘How to be a Graphic Designer without Losing your Soul’ Adrian Shaughnessy advises freelancer’s to handle the unfortunate chasing role not with aggression, but with courtesy and respect. “…Approach the individuals concerned with the utmost politeness; make friends with your clients’ finance departments, they are rarely the villains. When you get a cheque in the post call and thank them. Designers like to have their work praised, and so too do clerks in accounting offices.” His quote pertains to style over law, but both are worth paying attention to in equal measures.

Repeat: “courteous not agressive, courteous not agressive…” Image courtesy of © Keri Minard.

Summary

The more precarious position experienced by freelance designers over full-time employees, within the context of getting paid, is part and parcel of the life we have chosen for ourselves. For those who send out invoices, benefits include the ability to charge higher design fees and a sympathetic attitude from government tax departments with regard to our annual expenditure and investments. Impediments include a less predictable financial life and, the big fly in the ointment, the tiresome task of chasing late payments.

When it comes to billing your clients, project as professional an appearance as possible through the design of your invoice, include all your relevant terms & conditions and make it a rule to be wholly transparent about costs. Keep track of invoicing dates and deadlines, and should any late payment situations arise, remember to handle your clients in a well-mannered and friendly attitude. It’ll more than likely never happen, but you’ll have recourse to the law should you need it. Follow the advice above and you’ll be doing all you can to ensure a financially secure existence with good clients on board who pay on time, conditions necessary for producing great design and being a happy bunny!

Learning to invoice professionally whilst being aware of where you stand legally makes for happy freelancers! Image courtesy of © Flavita Valsani.

Author: Bradley Hotson for The Graphic Design School The Graphic Design School offers vocational training graphic design courses. Delivery is online, affordable and open to students all over the world to study in the comfort of their own home.

Professional Design Practice Lesson 4: Dealing with Clients

They come in all shapes and sizes, from all different professional backgrounds, and we rely on them to pay our fees. A large portion of the freelancer’s lot is spent looking for them, bagging them, and spending a considerable amount of our daily slog trying to work out what they want. I’m speaking of course about clients, and this article is all about working with them, retaining them, educating them and occasionally sacking them. Mention the word ‘client’ to a fellow designer and the response will quite often be one of a humourous tutting under the breath coupled with a rolling of the eyeballs, which you’ll be invited to join in with in a moment of good-natured designer-fellow feeling. This is all very well, though a little close examination reveals clients to be a generally good bunch, who, to state the obvious, we rely upon for our livelihoods. At their best they can push us beyond the safe confines of what we’ve become used to, and it’s an oft-quoted phrase out of the mouths of the wise that’s fast becoming a truism, that the very best design comes out of a collaborative endeavour between the designer and client. Let’s look at things here a little more closely…

The Good, The Bad & The Meddlesome. Image used with permission of Peter Lewandowski.

A Marriage, (of sorts…), the Designer/Client Relationship

A marriage, (of sorts…). Image courtesy of Wild Cakes.

“Without clients there is no graphic design and without demanding clients there is no great graphic design.” So says Adrian Shaughnessy. It’s a decent quote and should help pull into sharp focus the sometimes unfair nature of things whereby clients are looked upon unfavourably as this unknowable force, an irritating fact of life and a brake on our creativity. Certain ‘star’ designers are often cited, inaccurately, as having enjoyed unfair patronage by some über-benevolent client early on in their career, but the truth often turns out to be a little different, these well known designers having had to work just as hard as we all do for a certain amount of indulgence.

I’ve attempted to redress the balance here of how clients are viewed, but how should the designer act towards them? Along what lines should the relationship run? The best piece of advice I can give here, and this might strike you all as blindingly obvious, is to treat your clients with respect and attentiveness, in a similar way as you would your friends. This isn’t to say you should befriend your clients (a modicum of professional detatchment is always a good thing) but just as we all have to work at our friendships to prevent them from going stale, and an inconsiderate remark can damage a friendship beyond repair, so you should work on your client relationships to prevent a drift occurring.

They’re not all monsters (very few are) but the clients on your roster will all be as diverse as this bunch here, and will all want something different from the others. Image courtesy of Paxton Holley.

Designers should train themselves to be hyper-sensitive to their clients needs. It’s a mistake to assume that all clients want the same thing, or have the same expectations of you as a designer. No two clients are the same. Some will want to be highly involved in the design process, some will need lots of attention, some will be suspicious of the idea that graphic design has intrinsic value and can help their business. You’ll need to develop empathy and understanding in a bespoke way for each of your clients (no easy feat, but beneficial in the long run). By developing this understanding you’ll strike the right tone with them and be able to better glean what they want, which should be the main goal in any designer/client relationship. You’ll learn about each other and some sort of rapport may blossom. These are the conditions necessary for flourishing long-term relationships to develop.

Retaining Clients

The heights a design-conscious client (The British Guardian newspaper) and a reputable graphic design studio (Cartlidge Levene) can scale together. Guardian offices wayfinding system imagery used with permission of SeptemberIndustry.

Winning new clients is a challenge faced by all freelancers, and will never go away throughout your career. Once you’ve built a solid roster of clients, retaining them is another challenge you’ll have to face. But getting repeat work from an existing client is easier than winning new work from scratch. It won’t happen automatically, and you’ll have to make your client aware that you’re available and looking for more work. Added to this, if you train yourself in the empathy and understanding skills I’ve outlined above you’ll go some way to keeping existing clients on your books. Naturally, as a designer you’ll also have to keep delivering the goods, on time and within budget, to avoid your clients looking elsewhere. Conduct yourself with honesty when discussing problems and briefs with clients, defend your work when it’s questioned and admit to it when you’re wrong. Demonstrate that you care deeply about what you do and be attentive to your client’s wants and predilections. By conducting yourself in this manner and delivering the work you’ve agreed to carry out, you’ll be doing all you can to hold on to the clients you’ve won and get repeat work off them.

Educating Clients

It’s back to school for some clients to design education boot camp. Image courtesy of Alida Thorpe.

There are corporations and individuals out there, skilled in the argot of design practice, who regularly commission design and have a good track record for producing good work. These are often to be found at the top of many freelancers’ ‘wish lists’ of dream clients. They do exist but aren’t nearly so numerous as those clients unversed in professional design practice or language, and who require a little more help throughout the relationship. I hesitate to use the word ‘education’ here, but as formal as it sounds there really is no better term for the learning process which occurs between the inquisitive, receptive client and the articulate designer.

Smaller clients may be used to handing over design work to soulless ‘design and print’ facilities, or having a go at producing logotypes, advertisements, layouts and newsletters themselves. Contracting the services of a graphic designer can be a leap into the unknown for many businesses, who will all possess, at the least, a vague idea of what they want, but often little knowledge of the many aspects of design processes involved in their delivery. Assuming you have an open-minded and receptive client, it’ll be up to you to occasionally explain ‘why’ things work the way they do. This could involve any aspect of design practice, from colour theory and grid systems right through to conceptual-based matters. When called for, guide your clients through the tricky terrain of the design landscape with patience and understanding. Remember that you’re speaking to a client and not a fellow designer and adjust your language accordingly. In return, and by developing an inquisitive disposition (which should be mandatory for those looking for a career in the creative sector) you’ll likely learn lots from the varied types of businesses out there.

There’s No Easy Answer to this Age-old Question…

Look to form long-lasting, prosperous relationships based on equality with your clients (you’ll have to share the driver’s seat throughout your career at times). Image used with permission of Lino M.

Concerning clients, possibly the single most common question which preoccupies and occasionally distresses graphic designers is this: How do I stop my client from meddling with my work? An overly-meddlesome client can be a bane on a designer’s existence, and it irks us to have our work interfered with by non-professionals. We all wish, reasonably enough, for clients to defer to our better judgment regarding semiotics, aesthetics and the like, but, alas, this doesn’t always happen. Confronted with a situation like this you could flatly refuse to carry out the suggested amends, telling the client he’s plain wrong, or agree with him and set about implementing the suggestions with the minimum of fuss, keeping silent about your own concerns.

My own favoured, third way is to acknowledge what a client wants to do, tell him you’re happy to do as he asks but voice your concerns, and say that alongside what he’s asked you to do you’d like also to show him the concept you think would work best. Present several layouts/concepts to him and see what happens. As designers we aren’t always right and can’t win every battle, but by keeping in place a system for dealing with these kinds of situations we’ll more often get our work through than not. Be a warrior as opposed to a doormat.

If your client attempts to take control of a project and disregards your opinions entirely, don’t be a doormat…

…be a warrior, and find your voice as a designer to convince him —gently— of a better direction. Doormat image supplied by Rukiasan. Kit Fisto image used with permission of Ted Schwartz.

Sacking Clients

When to press the red button? Image supplied by Luke Robinson.

It’s possible that at some point in your career a client will prove himself to be troublesome enough for you to decide to let him go. Various things can happen to make you arrive at this decision. The client might be well-meaning but hopelessly disorganised to the extent that you start to lose money. Personal factors might make it difficult for you to maintain a working relationship. You may belatedly spot an out-and-out charlatan in your midst. A client might not be able to pay you. If this last thing happens, suspend all work immediately. Waste no more time or energy until your client has got his finances in order. If it’s a personal matter, and you decide that a particular client is simply not worth the trouble, then contact him to explain that you are severing your working relationship, politely but firmly, and provide reasons why. Make sure all loose ends are tied up before doing so (have you been paid up to date?) and then act on your decision!

Useful Top Tips

• Never tell clients what to think of your work
• When defending your work, always argue from the audience’s perspective, never your own
• Take an interest in your clients’ affairs

In Sum…

For better or worse, we as freelance designers are linked in symbiotic relationships with our clients. Good clients keep us on our toes and can provide a check on our egos. They exist as (or propose) puzzles which we as designers must decipher and provide solutions for. It can be a highly satisfying part of the freelancer’s job to seal and then develop a working relationship with a good client, unravelling, deciphering, deducing, reassessing and reappraising matters throughout each relationship. To take less able or design-conscious clients and gently bring them on takes what they called in Victorian times ‘character’. Getting into the habit of forming your own opinions, and defending your ideas will boost your communication and articulation skills like little else.

More than a necessary evil then, let’s hear it for the client!

Unique, diverse, and each with a puzzle for you to solve. Let’s hear it for the clients! Image courtesy of Judy Baxter.

Author: Paulywood for istockphoto

6 Things To Keep In Mind When Designing A Logo

It All Starts With a Great Idea

By clearly visualizing who your client is and with some forethought, research and planning, the end result should be an appropriate symbol that immediately identifies the company, and clearly communicates the product or service. This is absolutely key to a successful logo design and should always be foremost in your mind while conceptualizing your design.

When you have your concept, start sketching it out to quickly come up with ways you can execute the idea. Starting in black and white can help ensure that your design is clear, legible and reproducible without any distracting features. Adding great color, style characteristics, or subtle effects will help make your design unique to stand out amongst the competition. Add some type to bring some context to your design and choose a font that compliments the symbol and communicates clearly. To ensure a successful logo remember to keep your design, Simple, Memorable, Timeless, Versatile, and Appropriate.

Reproducibility

The excessive use of detail in this logo will seriously compromise its ability to be reproduced. Fine details like the sharp pointed tail and thin lines will disappear when printed at smaller sizes and the small white shapes will fill in losing their definition. Outlined type with extreme gradients will print poorly as well, making the type hard to read at any size. On the right, the elephant is drawn with bold shapes, leaving ample white space in between for definition. Just the right amount of detail is used to help convey the idea and the solid flat colors used will ensure that this design will reproduce great with pretty well any process. I wouldn’t recommend using multiple colors like this in the type all the time but in this case it works to make it fun and exciting.

Color Palette

The sample on the left is using far too many colors than is necessary, making it very busy and more difficult to define the individual objects. The use of fluorescent and uncomplimentary colors makes the overall composition unappealing and less attractive. Using default colors straight from the swatch palette and plain black for the type make the design much less sophisticated than it could be. The sample on the right utilizes a beautiful main palette of custom mixed complimentary colors of orange, green and brown. They all work together in harmony to bring the cute kitties to life while adding a warm and cozy feeling. The use of dark brown for the type keeps it complimentary to the graphic and maintains a good contrast necessary for legibility. Using the same orange that’s in the kitties for the “petcare” type offers additional visual interest and helps separate it from the main type. This helps give the eye a break and enhances legibility as well.

Simple is good right?

The left example is very simple in its execution, using only basic square and circle shapes. The placement of all of the objects has left the overall composition looking static and boring while the plain black type is under considered, effectively ensuring that this logo generates about as much excitement as flossing your teeth. The example on the right however, has cleverly used positive and negative space to create the plate. The entire logo is comprised of only four shapes by creating two simple arcs to help define the plate and by letting the cutlery bleed off the bottom edge. The combination of these design choices and using Tragan for the font, give it a simple, classic, stylish feel appropriate for this audience.

Choosing a Typeface

Hard to read? It sure is! Skinny outlines, drop shadows and other effects used on type all work against keeping it clear and legible. The “Tiederhouse” text is too tightly kerned while the “Attorney ay law” type has far too much letter spacing. The type is placed too close to the graphic without enough breathing room and the tagline is much too small in proportion. The “Tiederhouse” text uses the font “Hobo” which is a 70′s style font not at all appropriate for a professional law office. The sample on the right uses a much more professional and appropriate looking serif font with spacing and shapes that seem to mimic the construction of the symbol. It’s clear, easy to read and is just the right amount of distance from the torch device. Making the line between the text gold colored would have been a nice touch.

To read the whole article and image credits please see istock

To feast your eyes on a collection of logo designs and galleries see HERE

Author: Bradley Hotson for The Graphic Design School The Graphic Design School offers vocational training graphic design courses. Delivery is online, affordable and open to students all over the world to study in the comfort of their own home.

Professional Practice: Self-promotion & Winning Work

In this climate of Olympian-sized competition, compounded, undoubtedly, by the worldwide recession, it’s imperative for us to do all we can to stand out from our peers, to make an impact on those we meet, to conduct ourselves with integrity when meeting new people and to start to cultivate a reputation, in order that we might be remembered by those commissioning design, and chosen over the competition.

The Lesser Bird of Paradise knows a thing or two about standing out. Image courtesy of Bluepeak Travel Photography bluepeakt

Great Expectations

Many children across Great Britain grow up hearing the oft-quoted phrase “from little acorns, large oak trees grow”. This is a worthwhile phrase to remember when starting out on the path to a career in graphic design. Many undergraduates, having spent years reading about star-designers and surfing the websites of their favourite studios, become stuffed to the gills on great work, and may face a rude awakening when, on graduating, they find that Nike aren’t banging at their door to insist on giving them their next international campaign to work on, or that Pentagram haven’t created a job position especially for them.

Starting out rarely involves working with clients of Nike’s calibre. More realistically, your first break might come through a small charity, a local acupuncturist or an acquaintance in need of an identity. These are the kinds of “little acorns” which, though not as glamourous as Nike and its ilk, offer young graphic designers an opportunity to cut their teeth, do some great work and begin to cultivate a reputation. In his best-selling book “It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be” Paul Arden writes “We are always waiting for the perfect brief from the perfect client. It almost never happens. You’re probably working on a job or project right now and saying ‘This is boring, let’s just deal with it and get it over with. We’ll make the next one good.’ Whatever is on your desk right now, that’s the one. Make it the best you possibly can.” Paul is right. By conducting yourself with integrity and doing your best on each job you’re commissioned you will be making moves toward building a good professional reputation.

Rather than pursue the big beasts…

…adjust your sights and go after those that need you most! Lioness picture used with permission of Laurent Geslin, photographer Laurent-Geslin Moggie picture supplied by Herbi Ditl www.flickr.com/photos/herbivore

A recent branding project for a newly-formed free church by Hotson Studio Hotson Studio

In any event, it’s a sure bet that the “dream clients” (Nike and, in Britain, perhaps Selfridges) will already have access to award-winning, highly reputable design studios. The evidence for this is there in the quality of their campaigns. Far better to look in the less exposed, more pedestrian corners of the High Street and business world, and to seek out those who could really do with your help. Adrian Shaughnessy in “How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul” puts it nicely when he says “There is more personal satisfaction in taking a client with no apparent potential and producing effective and resonant work for them than there is in working for so-called ‘cool brands’.”

With realistic expectations, and a personal business ethic in place, you can deploy the techniques explored below to help make things happen.

Word of Mouth

It occasionally frustrates me how many potential clients are going about their work unaware of just how much good graphic design could enhance the value of their business. These potential clients are everywhere. One of our jobs is to tap into this rich seam and pull some aboard, just as the brown bear scoops the salmon from the fast-flowing stream in the wilds of Canada.

There are various methods of finding clients at our disposal, and to maximise our chances of building a solid client base we need to exploit each of them as best we can.

As a freelance graphic designer you’re your own shop front. Image courtesy of Colin Turner

Even in this digital age one of the surest ways of making contacts and finding work remains plain old-fashioned word of mouth. Make sure family members and friends all know what you do and have at least some idea of what the profession entails. They will then be in a position to mention your name (and perhaps pass on a well-designed business card of yours that you’ll have supplied them with) should they hear of anything going. Between you and everybody you know, you probably know more people who commission design than you’d think.

There’s no reason why the same rule cannot apply to clients. If you have an existing client then ask him to keep his ear to the ground for you and recommend you to his associates. By ruthlessly exploiting every contact you can think of things can (at the best of times) develop for you in an exponential manner.

Your Online Presence

Some graphic designers still pride themselves on running a thriving business without the need for a website, but they are now a minority breed. In the digital age it pays to work at your online presence, through your own site and the larger, networking-based ones. At the bare minimum, a well-designed single webpage can act as a message board through which potential clients might email, telephone or write you. You can also supply a link to a website like Flickr, where you can keep an up-to-date online portfolio of your work. If you use Twitter, or run a blog, then leave the links on your webpage. If you’re a web-savvy designer then I won’t need to stress how beneficial and impacting a well-designed and planned website can be.

Letterpress printers Typoretum work hard at their online presence and have an integrated approach, each page giving links to the others, forming an intuitive whole www.typoretum.co.uk

I have found Twitter to be a useful tool for making contacts. Twitter seems to be like Marmite in that people either love it or hate it (or don’t “get” it), but through persevering with Twitter, winning followers and following the interesting Tweeters, advertising your work and leaving links to useful online stuff, you can gain a valuable network of online contacts, some of whom may contact you when they need creative services. With a copy & paste you can publish the same information you tweet through Facebook, LinkedIn and Bebo, your own blog or website. Once you get going this can take seconds, and it pays to disseminate your information as widely as possible.

There are dedicated businesses such as View Creatives in Britain where you can upload a cv and selection of work, which prospective clients can then download for a small fee and view respectively. Some of these sites, for a small monthly standing order, give the option of being a premium user which guarantees a place near the top of the list and offers more space to upload images of work. This too, parallel to a networking-based online presence, may be worth considering.

Link each account, blog and website back to the others. The more relentless you are at publicising yourself, informing your followers and friends of recent work and advertising your wares online the better your chances of making a successful go at gaining a substantial pool of contacts.

Self-promotional Material

Back in the real, tangible world of print and paper, you will also need to engage in the production of printed promotional literature. This too, when starting out, can be a useful tool in generating leads and contacts. Be prepared to work hard to make whatever you do visually arresting and distinctive. The world is awash with printed, moribund detritus and amongst all this you’ll want to get noticed. You might start with a postcard, displaying an image of a favourite piece of work on one side and your contact details on the reverse. The more ambitious-minded might want to experiment with an intricately folding piece displaying a choice selection of work. This adds a tactile element for the end user to experience.

Graphic design studio Turnbull Grey letterpress print their own greetings cards and frequently use them for self-promotional purposes Turnbull Grey

Your promotional piece should be used to leave behind at interviews and meetings, and to send out to people. Direct mail should be considered, and the same rules about making your piece visually compelling apply. Just as I’m advising you all to do here, I myself recently designed and had printed a 16pp A3 poster, which folds down to postcard size. One side contained a selection of imagery from my portfolio with explanatory text, and the reverse some typography and contact details. I sent this piece out, combined with a handwritten letter on my own letterhead, to existing and prospective clients and London-based studios whose businesses I admired. In two months I’ve been invited along to several portfolio reviews with design studios (advice and criticism given at these are invaluable) and pulled a new client on board who I am now working for. My database of contacts received a considerable boost through the endeavour.

I learned that details with this sort of thing matter. Be sure to have a well-designed, cohesive suite of stationery with which to use when writing to people. Find out your contact’s name and record it accurately to avoid the dreaded “Dear Sir/Madam” at the top of your letterhead. Another tip from Adrian Shaugnessy “…when you write a letter, especially a letter promoting you or your company, always write the address on the envelope by hand. It is so fare to get a letter with a handwritten address that most people instinctively open these first.”

Your stationery needn’t be gorgeously foil-blocked like Build’s is, but put as much effort into its design as they did www.designbybuild.com

The Self-initiated Brief

“Self-initiated projects are often necessary for the individual’s … psychic health, and the urge to experiment and explore is perfectly reasonable”. So says Adrian Shaughnessy, who then goes on to make clear that we should be under no illusion that self-initiated projects impress in the same way that a real, commercial project will. He has a valid point, although there are no hard and fast rules to what works in graphic design. I have met people in studios who have politely leafed through my commercial work unconcernedly and only really displayed any interest when coming across my letterpress work, which is largely self-initiated. One past client even took me on for a summer on the strength of a student sketchbook.

Though rare, if good enough (and out there online) your work may be spotted by the editor of a design journal and images requested for inclusion, and this can happen for personal projects just as easily as commercial ones (see the record sleeves by Hector Pottie below). My own feelings on the matter are that self-initiated projects allow the designer to give full reign to his creative impulses, allowing any potential client a better insight into who the person he may commission really is.

These fictional, silk-screen printed record sleeves by Hector Pottie were deemed fit for inclusion in an issue of British-based Grafik magazine

Summary

By pouring sweat, blood and tears over the various means and methods described above, you will be laying the sound foundations of a healthy freelance life. Maintain realistic goals, be aware of the zeitgeist, of all that goes on around you, and try to act with originality and precision when working on self-promotional and -initiated work, and your online presence. Treat self-promotion as an ongoing process rather than a sequence of one-offs. By maintaining a critical, striving attitude to your own work and acting with integrity and professionalism in your dealings with people you’ll soon be on the front foot and cracking open the champagne!

*Pop!* “Whey!” *Splash* *Fizz* *Pour, pour, pour* *Clink* “Cheers!” *Glug, glug, glug&ellip;*. Image supplied by Alessandro Termignone

Next week in our series of Professional Design Practice…

Freelance Fee Structures & How to Quote

Author: The Graphic Design School

Reviews

“I’m going to buy a handful of copies and every time I start a new identity design I will supply the client with this book as a cornerstone of education and communication on the topic. If you like the idea of having a smoother client-designer relationship, you’d be smart to do the same.”

Christopher W. Taylor, Amazon.com

“A great read for both designers and clients, as it shares valuable insights and discusses the importance of brand identity all the way down to the process from start to finish.”

Brian Hoff, The Design Cubicle

“A very useful resource for designers who want to specialize in logo design.”

Fabio Sasso, Abduzeedo

“A must-read for anyone who wants to make their living in the graphic design industry, especially those who want to specialize in the fiercely competitive logo design niche.”

Steve Douglas, The Logo Factory

From Pencil to PDF: sub-headings

Read more comments and contributions on David Airey’s website

Download the free PDF from David Aireys site by clicking on the link below

To read more about the process of mind mapping in design see another super blog article HERE

Author: Bradley Hotson for The Graphic Design School The Graphic Design School offers vocational training graphic design courses. Delivery is online, affordable and open to students all over the world to study in the comfort of their own home.

Get off the Mac, roll up your sleeves and get making. Once a week.

Steve Jobs is nobody’s fool. The sleek, sexy and justifiably praised desktops and laptops that Apple make are now a staple —a necessity even— of any self-respecting graphic designer. We await the release of new iMacs and operating systems with impatience, queue up to purchase our copy, and coo over them once they’re installed as if they were newborn babies. We learn them inside out and gush, blog and tweet over new Photoshop filters. Graphic design, along with many other professions which used to require a certain amount of manual endeavour, has, with the rise of digital technology become nigh-on completely computer-based and desk-bound. The modern graphic designer need never sketch out a rough by hand or design a font on layout paper. Everything can now be done with the help of a computer.

The latest “big-cat-themed” operating system that you simply can’t live without and the best ever. Until the next one…

And yet there was a time when graphic design was a very hands-on profession, not at all centred around a magical-looking computer, and which involved all kinds of tactile and smelly materials, and which required actual physical effort to work with the various mediums associated with it. I’m talking drawing boards, airbrushes, magic markers, inks, layout pads, lightboxes, silk-screen printing, linocutting, collage and drawing. What is most fascinating here is that these analogue processes aren’t from some far-flung past. We aren’t talking William Morris’s Kelmscott Press here. No, many graphic designers and tutors in their fifties, forties and even thirties, will have some recollection of their professional life involving the making of things by hand.

Large-scale Voltron models made entirely of Lego, from Grand Admiral / Mark Sandlin www.flickr.com/people/grandadmiral/

Thankfully, most design schools still offer students the chance to get to grips with some, if not most, of the processes listed in the paragraph above. And this fact should be celebrated, as it provides those willing to learn with an anchoring in the distant and not-so-distant analogue past. One could view this advocation of older processes as a certain charming backwardness through lack of funds on the design schools’ part, although the well-planned and carefully thought out courses will have been designed with the same points that I describe here in mind. Good design schools, like many designers out there ‘in the field’, recognise that it’s highly beneficial for the young graphic designer to think outside the Mac. For students, the freedom and breadth of disciplines offered should be taken advantage of, as the opportunity to indulge these passions (in the quantities that design schools can offer) will hardly likely come round again once you’re out there in the working world.

During my own final year of education I decided I wanted to learn about letterpress printing, and planned to use it to print my major end-of-year project. In my pursuit I was fortunate enough to have a course head as enthusiastic as I was and who had valuable connections to a fine printing press in Wales. Within a month I had been packed off there for an intensive, hands-on introduction, and emerged two weeks’ later having learned to design, handset, compose and print using letterpress, and returned home with two posters to exhibit at my end-of-year show. On graduating I kept in touch with the staff at the press and continue to visit them each year. Two weeks is scarcely enough time to master the discipline, though I was at least given an initiation into letterpress printing which enabled me to continue to use it for personal projects. Clients and other designers seem to like the fact I include these handmade projects in my portfolio, and of all my work it is often these pieces, and not my commercial work, which is singled out for praise and which people are most easily able to recall when I speak to them.

Lovely commission for ilovetypography.com letterpress-printed by Typoretum www.typoretum.co.uk

Gorgeous 2010 handbound, accordion-fold letterpress-printed calendar by Campbell Raw Press www.campbellrawpress.com

Two tactile Christmas cards from Hand & Eye Letterpress both set in wood and metal type and printed on a metal-coated board www.handandeye.co.uk

As mentioned above, on completing your education, if you’re lucky enough to bag yourself a job either inhouse or within an independent studio, the chances are the prospect of long hours at the Mac beckons. You won’t mind this at all because within your studio, through all the graft, artworking and occasional tedium involved, you’ll glimpse moments of pure enchantment; when you get a job couriered over from the printers, or have an idea of yours passed for inclusion on a project. You’ll be trying very hard to make a positive contribution to your studio, to make the transition from someone who needs a lot of help and support to a genuinely productive member of the team.

A charming montage of greetings cards and the colourful back patterning from letterpress-printed stationery designed and printed by Smock www.smockpaper.com

Amidst all this though, try to maintain some link with the traditional processes you’ll have learned at some point during your education. It’ll be all too easy to let things slide when you’re strapped in to an iMac. Sketch out roughs with a pencil as opposed to on screen. Suggest using letterpress on that new album cover. Anything. Thankfully there is now more appreciation for the handmade than there was fifteen years ago. Back then the age of Mac had only just become prevalent and software like Photoshop had still to really catch on. Graphic designers (and their clients) were in thrall to what they could now accomplish with computer-aided design. Luckily, here at the end of the decade, you could say that disciplines such as letterpress and traditional drawing are enjoying something of a renaissance. People will always value the tactile and the handmade (if it’s any good that is) and by choosing to take this route where appropriate your professional life will be richer and more rewarding than it would be spent solely on the Mac.

The creative possibilities that computer-aided design brings is undoubtedly a Good Thing. Adrian Shaugnessy again “The computer has revolutionized the design process. It has made the act of designing easier, and in many ways it has improved the way we design things. Yet in other respects it has made design more formulaic, and it has standardized the act of designing.” These are words worth heeding. Traditional skills retain a charm and often present a usage which should always be remembered, celebrated and, wherever appropriate, used!

Impactful four and three-colour silkscreen prints by Waste Yourself www.wasteyourself.com

Author: CA Miles and Deborah Roberti for The Graphic Design School

Printing Pre Pres Do’s and Don’ts

Do create and edit your text in a word processing application such as Microsoft Word and then import the text to a desktop publishing application such as QuarkXPress, InDesign, Pagemaker or Corel Ventura where you can create your page layout, format the text with graphics, etc.

Do use QuarkXPress or Adobe InDesign for desktop publishing. QuarkXPress was the print industry standard page layout program for decades, designed and perfected for commercial print output. Adobe InDesign, however, has given Quark a run for its money. InDesign not only costs half as much as Quark, but it is fully-integrated with its sister apps, Photoshop and Illustrator. Another page layout program is Adobe Pagemaker—now discontinued but still around. However, I find that Pagemaker is nicknamed “Ragemaker” for a very good reason. It is fine for small projects—newsletters and whatnot—but for large projects, books in particular, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and trouble in the long run if you use Quark or InDesign. Also, if you are lucky enough to have a choice as to what platform you can use, go Macintosh. PC/Windows desktop publishing files are far more likely to cause problems when it comes to graphics, fonts and printing. If you do decide to stick with a PC/Windows platform, make sure that the commercial printer you select has ample experience with that platform.

Don’t use Microsoft Word as a desktop publishing application. Word does have many of the same layout features as desktop publishing apps such as Quark and InDesign (i.e., it can create columns, import graphics, create nice laser prints, etc.) but when it comes to commercial printing, Word is not going to get you very far. Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, etc. are word processing applications, NOT desktop publishing/layout programs. They handle font replacement differently and often cause reflow.

Don’t create your page layout for multi-page documents in draw programs such as Illustrator or Freehand. Use desktop publishing apps like Quark or InDesign.

Do provide the printer with a hard copy laser printout of your project, as well as all of your layout files (in Quark, InDesign, etc.), graphics and fonts. Inkjet printers are fine for initial proofing and printing, but always get a final printout (and proof it) from a PostScript laser printer.

Don’t assume that what you have printed out and submitted as hard copy or see on your monitor is what you will get. Take a good long look at proofs and bluelines supplied by the printer.

Do take your printer’s advice.

Don’t assume that you know more than the printer.

Fonts

Do supply the printer with ALL of the fonts used to create your project (even the symbol, fraction and dingbat fonts). Try not to use TrueType fonts, and for PostScript fonts, make sure you supply the printer with both the screen and the printer font parts. Remember to include fonts used to create EPS graphics, and fonts that the printer probably already has (i.e. like Helvetica, etc.). There are many different versions of some fonts and a “wrong” version can cause reflow/repagination problems.

Don’t use Bold or Italic in the style menu or hit the Bold or Italic button when you want to bold or italicize text in your page layout program. Use the actual font. For example, in Quark, if you want to create text that is Helvetica Bold, don’t select some Helvetica text and then bold it. Instead, select the text and change the font itself (not the style) from Helvetica to Helvetica Bold:

Do

Don’t

Don’t use TrueType fonts. Period. Always use PostScript or OpenType and Adobe fonts (Macintosh or PC/ Windows) are always a safe bet. TrueType is fine for printing to a laser or inkjet printer, but TrueType fonts can cause severe problems when it comes to commercial printing. Many commercial printers won’t even print a project that contains TrueType fonts. Often, they pop.

Don’t use 20 different fonts for a 4-page newsletter. It makes you look like you don’t know what you’re doing. In desktop publishing, consistency is everything. Use one font for your main body text, another for your main heads, another for photo captions, another for sidebars, etc., but don’t mix and match fonts for your main body text or make every headline a different font unless you’re trying to create some sort of chaotic effect and it is your intention to confuse the reader. Too many fonts is not only considered to be bad design, but it also slows printing to a crawl.

Graphics

Do supply ALL of the graphics used to create your project. Desktop publishing applications like Quark and InDesign link to your graphics; they do not embed them in the document. If you don’t supply the graphics along with your Quark or InDesign documents, the printer will get a missing picture error, and won’t be able to continue until you supply the graphics.

Do use TIFF and EPS graphic file formats:

Don’t use other graphic file formats like PICT, JPEG, GIF. Just because you can import them into your desktop publishing application doesn’t mean that you should. Stick with TIFF and EPS. If your graphics are in any other format, convert them. This is especially true of the PICT format. Quark hates PICTs; imagesetters hate PICTs. Steer clear of PICT.

Do most, if not all, of your image editing and graphic manipulation (i.e. lightening, darkening, resizing, etc.) in the original program that the graphic was first created or edited in, rather than the desktop publishing application. For instance, if a Photoshop TIFF needs to be lightened or darkened, lighten or darken it in Photoshop, not in Quark. Even though Quark will lighten or darken an image, adjust contrast, etc., you may get different results once you project goes to press and is printed.

Do name your graphics with the appropriate file extension: filename.tif, filename.eps.

Don’t rename graphics once you have placed them in your desktop publishing/page layout document(s). If you do, make sure to go back into your document and re-link the graphics

Do check your mode for color TIFFs. Save color TIFFs as CMYK (not RGB, never RGB). Save black & white TIFFs as Grayscale.

Do check with your printer to see if they charge extra for breaking any of these “rules.”

Design & Page Layout

Do use a document setup size (i.e. your page dimensions) that is the same as your trim size. For instance, if you are creating a 6 by 9-inch book, set up your initial page size in the document setup for 6 by 9-inches.

Don’t create 6 by 9-inch text frames in a 81/2 by 11-inch document setup and manually add registration marks.

Do make page elements that bleed extend at least 8th of an inch beyond the page boundary.

Don’t use your page layout/desktop publishing program’s predetermined “hairline” rule. The width varies from program to program, and prints out differently on a laser printer than on an imagesetter, if it prints at all. Don’t create rules that are less than .25 pt.

Do watch for widows, orphans, rivers, bad kerning and other desktop publishing no-nos that will make you look like an amateur. Get rid of double-spaces after periods, don’t use spaces to align columns (use tabs) or to create paragraph indents. Know your en dash (–) from your em dash (—).

Now on to some tips for editing and formatting those wonderful design and publications in Illustrator and Photoshop

Illustrator vs. Photoshop

This is not about what program is better but more of what program to use for what. You can not say that one is better than the other because they have completely different uses but work closely together.

Photoshop This program is great. It is the best application for editing images and works primarily with pixels. A limitation with pixels is that the pixel-based image is not to be scaled since all you are doing is enlarging the squares/pixels which lose quality and clarity.

If you are a web designer you will work very closely with Photoshop for different elements and graphics of your website… even for Flash. If you are working to produce print you will only use Photoshop to create images that will be imbedded into Illustrator or a layout program such as Quark. Photoshop should not be used to produce text for print.

Illustrator This is not about what program is better but more of what program to use for what. You can not say that one is better than the other because they have completely different uses but work closely together.

This program is also great but is not a pixel-based image editor. Illustrator works mostly with vector graphics. This allows the image to be able to be scaled to just about any size and keep its integrity. As a result logos should always be produced/finalised in Illustrator. You will be able to scale them to just about any size you like.

You can even produce graphics for the web using Illustrator and a lot of the time I have found myself doing this. Since you can output to many pixel-based files, you can make extremely smooth looking graphics and convert them to a JPEG or other raster files.

For print this can act as a layout program. You would take your images edited in Photoshop (most of the time high resolution TIFF files) and place/embed them inside your document. In Illustrator you would then create all your text and shape designs as well as add your logos and other things like that.

Just follow this simple rule: in print use Photoshop for your image editing and then do everything else in Illustrator.

Author: Carol Ann Miles for The Graphic Design School The Graphic Design School offers vocational training graphic design courses. Delivery is online, affordable and open to students all over the world to study in the comfort of their own home.

What Is Open Source & How Does It Relate To Graphic Design?

Open Source: What is it? How to use it?

Chances are you have heard of Open Source, and if you haven’t you will have used it in some form or another. But what does the term “open source” actually mean? An open source program is one who’s source code can be accessed, improved and redistributed by one and all. If many hands make light work, then many coders make open source programs possible. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) states ‘Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer.’ The FSF has some pretty tight criteria for what complies as open source and what doesn’t. You can check those out here. Many still think of it in terms of “Free Beer” (who doesn’t love free beer?), “Free Code” or the “Open sharing of Knowledge”. If we talk in terms of beer as a metaphor for Open Source. Open Source is essentially a worldwide community of brewers that can add their dose of yeast, sugar or water to the beer to better it’s final outcome, and unlike certain industry tycoons that we wont mention here (cough Bill Gates) no one has a claim, there is no ugly monopoly, licensing is shared and distribution to all mankind is advocated. Sounds like more beer for all.

How is it Applied?

Commonly Open Source is applied to software, however, open source is spanning across other products and services. You can find open source hardware, books, products, journalism and films such as the now infamous Big Buck Bunny. You can even find the recipe to cola through OpenCola. In an age where we seem less and less divided by geographic and economic barriers the cyber age has gone all ‘hippy’ on us and more and more we are sharing code, ideas, music, words, inspiration and most importantly all working towards a common goal.
If you would like to read a bit more about how it all got started (quite a scandalous story) see at the end of the article.

So enough of the ideals! How does it apply to design students and what can I get for free?

Many Open Source software projects were either started in colleges or started by recent college graduates. Whether it’s a coincidence or not, a lot of the available open source software is ideal for college students.

Free and Open Source Software Tools for Students

With the widespread use of the Internet and the growth of web-based applications, there are also a lot of hybrid forms of software available – free software with APIs (Application Programmer Interfaces) but not truly open source. The following list covers some of the best free and open source software from an average student’s perspective. Note: The list is arranged by software category, with recommended applications and the occasional short list of alternative or supplemental apps.

Visualisation, Graphics, Photo editing and Diagramming Tools

This is a fairly broad category that includes vector and raster graphics editors, 3D graphics programs, and diagramming tools.
Recommendations for Design Work

Inkscape a graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

Gimp, an Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring with capabilities similar to Photoshop.

Scribus professional page layout program. with capabilities similar to InDesign.

Blender, a 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.

Gliffy a diagram creation software, you can easily create professional-quality flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, technical drawings, and more.
At The Graphic Design School students have the choice of learning in Adobe and Open Source softwares in our online course. Not because we believe that tomorrows Graphic Design industry will suddenly dump Adobe as software standards, but because we believe in affordable access to creativity and education for all.

Web Browsers

So you need a good browser. TGDS recommends: Mozilla Firefox. This is hands down one of the best web browsers available regardless of what your major is. There are many hundreds of useful add-ons for writing, researching as well web development and design. Alternatives: Google Chrome, Opera, Safari.

Research

There’s no one software tool that will satisfy all your research needs, but start with some of the following

Ottobib for research paper bibliographies.

Google Reader for subscribing to your favourite web feeds.

Spreeder to help you do all your reading faster.

Dictionary.com to look up definitions.

SpellJax to make sure you’re spelling is spot on.

Google Video, YouTube and Vimeofor some learning via web video.

Learning and Brainstorming

Research is useless if you’re not actually learning anything. An ideal way to learn new material is by using concept mapping or mind mapping – which are similar but not exactly the same.
TGDS recommended: XMind and FreeMind. Alternatives: Mindomo, Mindmeister, Cmap, Comapping. (Comapping offers real-time mind map editing from multiple users, which is ideal for virtual team brainstorming.)

Document Editing and Management

There probably aren’t many students who don’t have to write a term paper or essay. This is pretty much a given for most students. When it’s time to aggregate all that research you’ve done in the library (or online), you have numerous software options for writing and producing a finished paper. OpenOffice suite, includes a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation tool, which it’s also compatible with MS Office. Get all your assignments completed in no time. And it even converts documents to Adobe PDF format for when you have to submit term papers. Alternatives: Google Docs + Spreadsheets, Zoho. Supplemental: PDF Creator to produce a finished document that you can email or upload to your TGDS tutor.

Presentation Tools

If you need alternatives to MS PowerPoint, pick from either OpenOffice, Google or ZohoShow presentation tools, or you could embed your presentations into a web page with SlideShare.

FTP/ File Transfer/ File Storage

Need to share those documents and presentations with your study/ project team? You can FTP (upload) to a team website or use a filesharing service. TGDS recommended FTP: FileZilla. Alternatives: FireFTP (runs in the Firefox browser as an addon). Filesharing: There are far too many services to make a recommendation. However, if you have a Google Mail (GMail) account, you can save files online by attaching them to a draft email.

Programming/ Coding/ Web Development

If you don’t already know it, the Linux operating system is the breeding ground of an immense number of open source projects – having taken the mantle from its predecessor UNIX. If you want to take full advantage of the numerous open source coding tools, you might have to install Linux on your computer. (Or you can install the cygwin environment for MS Windows, but you miss out on a lot of true Linux features.) Even if you don’t want to/ can’t use Linux, you have a number of options for coding and web development: Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby and Ruby on Rails – all of which are good for relatively fast prototyping of code. If you need an open source IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for code development and testing, try Eclipse, which has components that cover Java and many of the languages above. If you’re using Java only, you can also try Ingres Cafe. If you want a multi-platform web authoring tool comparable to FrontPage or Dreamweaver, try NVu. Finally, Microsoft’s Dreamspark program also allows students to download and use their developer and design tools for no charge.

Forums/ Social Networks

Need a custom social network for team/ class/ department projects? BuddyPress gives you that ability by installing over a WordPress Multi-User (WPMU) installation. Alternative: BBPress or Vanilla forums.

A Word on Donations

It’s good practise and great karma to donate to an open source project. You can often find a Paypal donation symbol on Open Source websites. There is a lot of blood, sweat and tears that go into Open Source projects by the individuals that inspire and run them. If you are using an Open Source program that you couldn’t live without, then show your gratitude by donating some short change. A few bucks a piece makes a big difference to the life blood of an Open Source collaborative. Perhaps you can consider that it’s your turn to shout the ‘free beer’.

The early days

The story begins in the 1970s, when software invariably came supplied (or bundled) with purchased hardware. Vendors made their money from hardware purchases, and the software was seen as a low value item that would need to be customised by the individual user. Consequently, when the software was supplied to customers it was accompanied by its source code and a licence that permitted modifications. This all took place before the arrival of the personal computer and free and open source licensing model.

In February 1976, Bill Gates, then a 20-year-old founding partner of Microsoft, wrote an open letter to early personal computer hobbyists, taking issue with the ‘theft’ of personal computer software within the hobbyist community. He asked: ‘Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share [...] Is this fair?’ Although many hundreds of people had used his Altair BASIC software, Gates estimated that only 10 per cent had actually paid for it. He was of the opinion that software should be sold, regardless of whether it was bundled with hardware. Reaction to the Gates’ open letter was strong and varied, with many arguing for alternatives. For example, Jim Warren, then editor of Dr. Dobb’s Journal, wrote in the July 1976 ACM Programming Language newsletter “There is a viable alternative to the problems raised by Bill Gates in his irate letter to computer hobbyists concerning ‘ripping off’ software. When software is free, or so inexpensive that it’s easier to pay for it than to duplicate it, then it won’t be ‘stolen’.”

The birth of FOSS (Free Open Source Software)

Almost a decade later, 1984 saw the start of GNU Emacs , a project created by Richard Stallman. This was the first free software application. Shortly afterwards, in 1985, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) was founded. The foundation is committed to the freedom of software users. The FSF outlines and maintains the Free Software Definition : ‘Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer.’ The definition also refers to four kinds of freedom; if users have all of these freedoms, a program is free software.

Some years later, in the late 1990s, Eric Raymond presented and published ‘The Cathedral and the Bazaar’ , an essay based on his experiences managing an open source project, fetchmail . Two distinct models of software development are presented and compared: the ‘cathedral’ model and the ‘bazaar’ model. In the cathedral model software is developed by a restricted group of software developers while source code is not made generally available between releases. In the bazzaar model software is developed via the Internet in view of the public who have access to the source code in development. Raymond credits Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux Kernel project, as the inventor of the bazaar model.

In 1998 Netscape, the most widely used browser before the browser wars of the 1990s, was released as free software. It later became Firefox, the key product of the Mozilla Foundation, which is also responsible for the Thunderbird email client, and many other web related technologies and products.

References Used

If you’re looking for more Open Source desktop software, visit the Sourceforge repository. Just search with a suitable keyword, and browse through the options. You can also check the following references, which were used in building the list of free and open source tools above.

Free College Software Guide.

Students : Top Web Tools for College Students.

50 Awesome Open Source Resources for Writers and Writing Majors.

Web Tools for Students.

100 Terrific Web Tools for Meeting Your Personal and Career Goals.
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The most difficult part of being a creative of any kind is idea generation. Why do you think there are so many copy-cats out there? There are several methods available to brainstorm.

Mind mapping has been around since the 70′s, it’s uses and attraction is snowballing. So what is it? And how does it apply to Graphic Design?


Author: The Graphic Design School
In between tutoring students in The Graphic Design School’s Online Course and making multitudes of coffees, we thought that we would whip up this little blog entry simply for your viewing pleasure….
Ahhh no sleep for the wicked! Enjoy!

What is a Mind Map?

A mind map is an intricate web of thoughts, ideas, names, words and images that all stem from one central idea or word in diagram form.

Many designers use Mind Mapping to brainstorm and generate ideas. The loose and visual manner in which a mind map is created is not only a fantastic tool to ‘free up’ creativity, its a great way to communicate to clients, team members and professors while in a design’s concept phase.



Mind Mapping: A Crash Course

Lets look at a mind map that has a topic that we are all familiar with before looking at a mind map in terms of a design tool.

One can see in the Mind Map above, the author has started with a central topic ‘Solving Global Warming’. The main points then radiate outward from the centre. These represent the main points of the Mind Map. Each one of these points sprouts its own branches and twigs. This star-like pattern of ideas is referred to as ‘Radiant Thinking’.

Getting the Creative Juices Flowing

Mind mapping expert Paul Foreman has dedicated an enormous amount of time to the study of mind mapping, in his e-book entitled “Idea Creation”, he shares his philosophy on opening up your mind to the creation of ideas through mind mapping:

• Everything stems from a thought
• Every thought is a word
• Every idea is a thought
• Every word is a potential idea
• Every image is a potential idea
• Every thought is a potential idea
• Good thoughts come when bad thoughts stop
• Good ideas come when bad ideas go
• You flick your brains switch to ‘on’ when you stop over-thinking
• Once you still the mind ideas come
• Patience allows time for ideas to evolve
• Preconceived notions only breed preconceived ideas
• Stressing for answers brings stressful results
• Stretching your mind is effortless and simple
• Saying: “I can’t think of anything” Really means: “I think I can’t think of anything”
• Ideas don’t dry up – thoughts do

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Mind Mapping in Graphic Design

So, now that you know a little of how mind mapping works. How can you use a mind map while generating design ideas?

We contacted Damien Horan. Renowned graphic designer for international surf brands, Mambo, Volcom, Insight and a successful Freelance graphic designer in his own right.

Damien recently designed the logo and branding for hip new restaurant/bar “Little Avalon” (named after the local surf break). Damien, having lived and surfed in the area for years knew all there was to know about the local surf culture.

Damien worked in conjunction with infamous Mambo graphic designer and artist Jim Mitchel, in developing the concepts and ideas for the bar. Damien knew that the bar had to appeal to the surf culture in order to ‘make it’ in the Avalon scene.

Owner operator Shane Clinton, wanted the ambience of a chic inner city bar, with the familial feeling of local surf shops. It was important that the branding of Little Avalon, combine the culture of city and surf. Not an easy task.



Damien had received his client brief and used these to define the map’s main branches. The results of his research and images were then applied to the outer branches/twigs. Applying these words and images to a mind map helped create visuals, with relevant connections between the maps branches as well as between the twigs. Creating a somewhat intricate, yet easy to read, visual embodiment of all design aspects that the logo needed to encompass.

Points realised throughout the process:

• Typeface must have serifs that represent the organic shape of a wave.
• Inspired by a B&W photo of the area the color palette became very dark. Keeping it crisp, black and white were chosen.
• Exploring the available typefaces with curved serifs, he was inspired to create his own font.
• An abbreviated version of ‘Little Avalon’… ‘LA’ was the locals appelation of the surf break, therefore essential to feature it in the branding.
• The ‘LA’ and ‘Little Avalon’ where to remain independent of each other.

Below are few of Damien’s working sketches.

Hand Drawn Sketches



Computer Comps



Final Logos



Application






One can imagine easily from this example how you may use a mind map in your career as a designer or during your studies as a student. Although idea generation is only one step of a much more involved design process. It is a recommendable practice to adopt at any level.

Unlike many methods of brainstorming that encourage refining the concept for an idea. A mind map does the opposite, it helps us think holistically about a problem and tackle it from all sides. Although most designers employ more than one method to brainstorm, we find mind mapping a very successful way to get those creative juices flowing.

Mind Mapping Spreading its Wings

David Kelley, founder of IDEO one of the planet’s most innovative design firms, uses mind maps to foster creativity. IDEO designed the Apple mouse, the first laptop computer, and the Palm V.

Mind maps are a popular thinking tool in Silicon Valley. Kelley says:

When I want to do something analytical, I make a list. When I’m trying to come up with ideas or strategize, I make a mind map. Mind maps are organic and allow me to free associate. They are great for asking questions and revealing connections between seemingly unrelated ideas. I start in the center with the issue or problem I am working on and then as I move farther away I get better and better ideas as I force myself to follow the branches on the map and in my mind. The cool thing is that you allow yourself to follow your inner thoughts, which is different than making a list where you are trying to be complete and deal with data.

Oprah magazine featured an article The Mind Map: “Six Steps to Get Your Creativity Flowing” on the role of mind mapping and idea generation techniques. In this article Oprah states:

Forget Making a List! Lists often come from the organized, analytical left side of your brain, and to solve an intractable problem, you want to engage the right, the creative side. Make a mind map instead. Get a big piece of paper and start in the center with a circle that contains the original problem. Write different solutions, and follow paths outward on the page, limb by limb, pushing beyond the obvious. To plan a party, for example, I put “A great dinner party for friends” in the middle, and among the many branches, one went: “Make your own sundaes → mashed potatoes → have dessert first → sit on floor → indoor picnic.” Another branch went: “Progressive dinner → go to a different restaurant for dessert(s) → show up at friends’ houses uninvited → scavenger hunt to find food.” A third: “Teach something → learn something → juggling → magic trick → expert invitee on food/wine.” Your to-do list will just get you from point A to B.

Other Fun Stuff, Extra Reading and Free Mind Map Templates

At The Graphic Design School, we are Mac lovers. We are now also iphone freaks, keeping in touch with the student forum when on the go is important for staff and tutors. We found this groovy new free iphone app ZeptoPad Brainstorming App that allows you to mind map on the run!



A great mind mapping application for blackberry also available from MindBerry

Free Mind Map Templates Ebook

Paul Foreman from Mindmap Inspiration, has generously donated readers an e-book with 22 mind map templates. Download the Free Template Ebook here.

Articles

“A Mind Map From IDEO’s David Kelley», Business Week

“The Mind Map: Six Steps to Get Your Creativity Flowing», The Oprah Magazine

Galleries

Mind Map Art Website

Tony Buzan

John Clapp’s Sketchbook

NovaMind’s Website

mappio.com

The Mindjet Blog

Blogs

Mind Map Insiration

Mind Tools

mind-mapping.org

mindmapsearch.org

IQmatrix Blog

Austin Kleon Blog

The Mindmap Blog

Books

How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day

Mind Maps at Work: How to Be the Best at Your Job and Still Have Time to Play


Featured Artist: Damien Horan
Sydney Artist/Designer & Tea drinking procrastinator Damien began his creative journey as a Dazed 70′s child absorbed by the music, diversity & extreme lifestyles of the era.
This pathed the way for a dreamy high school experience followed by an even dreamier Art School education spent surfing twin fins.
Since then, after many broken pencils & command z’s he has nurtured his wiry frame into a High Profile Artist/Designer with talents compared to Picasso & Magritte.
He has worked with many international companies including Mambo, Volcom and Insight and is currently designing his own fresh blend of cotton called ‘The Astral Plane’.
The Astral Plane
The Astral Plane’s Blog

“Share Your Graphic Design Process Group” on Flickr

We have started a group on flickr for Graphic Designers and students who wish to share their Graphic Design Process.

Share Your Graphic Design Process, on flickr

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