Graphic Design

Everything about graphic design and visual communication, from the best in the business.

Graphic Design
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  • InDesign Tutorial: Menus and Windows for Beginners
    Design

    InDesign Tutorial: Menus and Windows for Beginners

    Discover the basics tools of Adobe InDesign that will allow you to manipulate a document and change its design elements with Jamie Sanchez Hearn Adobe InDesign is a program that allows you to create efficient and versatile designs for countless visual formats, such as typography, editorial design, and branding projects across a variety of different media. Understanding your workspace and adjusting it accordingly will help you work efficiently. Graphic designer Jamie Sanchez Hearn (@jamiesanchezhearn) has worked for visual design firms such as Pentagram and Johnson Banks and teaches at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. InDesign is a staple of his day to day work as a designer. In this tutorial, he will give you a tour of a typical InDesign workspace, the functions of each section, and shows you how to adjust them to your needs and preferences so that you can begin confidently with the software. Watch the video below:

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  • What Is a UX Writer?
    Design

    What Is a UX Writer?

    Mario Ferrer sheds some light on this role and how UX writers are key to creating an excellent interface UX Writing consists of creating, developing, and designing an interface’s content in an app using user experience design methodologies applied to words. UX designer Mario Ferrer (@marioferrer), the creator of the UX Writers España group, has worked on various mobile app games like Candy Crush Saga, Farm Heroes Saga, Bubble Witch 3, and is part of the product team at Skyscanner. In his own words, he ‘uses words as a design tool’ to collaborate with production teams to find solutions that deliver the best possible user experience. Yes, a person who is dedicated to UX Writing also designs. Read on as Mario defines the role of a UX writer, how it differs from other roles that also use writing as one of their main tools, and how a UX writer works within a product team.

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  • 5 Ways to Find New Ideas
    Teacher Design

    5 Ways to Find New Ideas

    Alejandro Flores explains the methods he uses in his design studio to turn his team's ideas into workable concepts Creativity is not an exact science, and that means there is no single way to achieve it. Each person, each designer, will find their favorite method to make ideas flow. They may even want to try several of them, and choose one or the other depending on the type of project you have in hand, the team they work with, the deadlines, or the means at their disposal. Alejandro Flores, founder and creative director of the Mexican design studio Human (@human_), has 5 methods for conceptualizing ideas that his team uses to create groundbreaking designs. Mind mapping This is one of the most well-known methods. Starting from a central idea, you start making ramifications using related concepts that will help new ideas flourish. It is especially useful to discover new avenues that seemed unrelated to the original idea at first.

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  • Why did all pirates use the same flag?
    Design

    Why did all pirates use the same flag?

    Discover the history of the Jolly Roger flag, the powerful image of the pirate brand Imagine riding the ocean waves in a merchant navy ship when, on the horizon, a boat raises a flag: it's black and bears a white skull and crossbones. Just by seeing it, you know that a pirate ship is approach. The classic pirate flag is called the Jolly Roger. It was used in the 18th century and rapidly became the symbol of choice for pirates across the oceans. Why did that design go viral? The response is simultaneously simple and complicated: the power of branding and design over people. Learn its history in the video below:

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  • 6 Books to Inspire Graphic Designers
    Teacher Design

    6 Books to Inspire Graphic Designers

    These graphic design books will inspire you and help you learn about the history of this discipline Daniel Barba López, graphic designer and director of Monotypo Studio (@monotypo_studio)–a studio dedicated to offering graphic and communication solutions to brands, in everything from small adjustments to a logo to fresh reworks of company stationery, packaging, and other avenues for providing vision and personality–shares his favorite graphic design books. History of Graphic Design, by Philip B. Meggs Learning the history of graphic design is an excellent way to grow as a designer. This book, written by Philip B. Meggs, offers an inexhaustible source of knowledge and inspiration, as it shows us the most relevant paradigms of graphic design from its origins to the present.

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  • What Is an Art Director in a Design Studio?
    Design

    What Is an Art Director in a Design Studio?

    Understand the role of an art director and what part they play within a creative team Art directors have a significant role in the design industry. Linus Lohoff (@linus_lohoff), a freelance art director for clients like Adobe, Nike, and Comme des Garçons, helps us explore this role and tells us how an art director translates ideas into visual communication tools. In his Domestika course, he reveals a few secrets he gained from his career, working in different environments and industries.

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  • Turn Your Designs Into Products You Can Sell
    Illustration

    Turn Your Designs Into Products You Can Sell

    Mike Sandoval shares some tips that will help you turn your designs into products people want to buy Whether you are thinking of creating a line of T-shirts with your illustrations or just want your designs to flood the streets as stickers, these tips are for you. Mexican illustrator and graphic designer Mike Sandoval (@mike_sandoval_) has transformed his work into silkscreen prints, T-shirts, prints, bags, pins, skateboards, stickers and any other product you can imagine. These years of experience have helped him realize what any creative should consider if he wants to turn his designs into successful merchandising. Define your style We are not talking only in terms of aesthetics, but also about the themes you focus on, as well as the causes you support with your designs or illustrations. In order to market products with your design in them, it is highly recommended that potential buyers recognize your work as yours. Having a clearly defined style is essential.

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  • Blue Note: Where Jazz and Design Met
    Design

    Blue Note: Where Jazz and Design Met

    Learn the history of the jazz record label that has been defining jazz’s aesthetic and sound since 1939 Imagine a classic jazz record sleeve. Chances are you’re imagining a smartly cropped photo of a sharply dressed black man with his instrument. The photography gives off a sense of action; maybe there is more than one image from the same moment, giving a sense of illusion. The cover isn’t a black and white photo but two-tone, the darker parts of the image contrasting with a blue, green, or orange maybe. A compact and creatively placed typography tells you who the artists are. The final touch: the simple and elegant logo of Blue Note records, the finest in jazz since 1939. Blue Note was founded by two Jewish German immigrants who came over to America, saw this new movement that African Americans were pioneering, and realized they needed to document it. Those two men were photographer Francis Wolff and Alfred Lion. The record label would set the tone for jazz, specifically hard bop, it’s aesthetic, and it’s development, for what is now approaching eight decades. The label was one of a flurry of others, including HRS the year before and Commodore the year before that. Those behind the companies were initially hobbyists but the labels that stuck were the work of people who quickly got wise to the challenges of the record industry.

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  • Why is the Peace Symbol Three Lines and a Circle?
    Design

    Why is the Peace Symbol Three Lines and a Circle?

    Discover the true history and meaning of the peace symbol You have seen it on banners, in demonstrations, on T-shirts, and on necklaces. It’s just three lines and a circle but there’s no doubt you know what it means: peace. Today, the peace symbol is a part of global culture. It is used to stand up for all kinds of causes, and we perfectly understand its meaning regardless of where we come from. However, did you know that it is only six decades old? Its original meaning was much more specific but why did it end up being used universally to represent peace? Find out in the following video:

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  • Web Design Tutorial: 6 Writing Tips That Designers Need to Know
    Design

    Web Design Tutorial: 6 Writing Tips That Designers Need to Know

    Learn how users read a page and why it’s important that designers understand copywriting, with James Eccleston Though you might not realize it, copywriting is an essential skill in the toolkit of a successful web designer. Understanding the basic principles of copywriting, and how it informs how people interact with a page, offers great insights that can be applied to design. This can improve SEO, increase conversion, and also make your website more aesthetically pleasing. As brand and UX specialist James Eccleston (@james80) explains, web designers don’t need to replace copywriters, but by having a greater understanding of how copywriting works they can enrich their designs and coordinate more effectively with their teams. In the video below, he explains the six writing tips that designers need to know in order to create interesting and engaging web pages.

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  • Oculus Quill: A Tool for Creating VR Universes
    Design

    Oculus Quill: A Tool for Creating VR Universes

    Get to know this design program and learn to paint within a virtual world Federico Moreno Breser (@jackmcfly) is a digital artist and animation director with more than 20 years of experience in the industry. In 2005, he founded Mcfly Studio, one of the most well-known animation studios in Argentina, where he is from. In 2012, he launched a magazine called Moushon! and, three years later, he created Luty Art Studio–an art department dedicated to developing art and concept art for the film, animation, and video game industries.

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  • These Are the Design Apps the Domestika Community Loves
    Design

    These Are the Design Apps the Domestika Community Loves

    We asked the Domestika community on Instagram what their favorite design apps are, and here are the results A good app can inspire you to start a new project, deal with those little repetitive tasks that take the fun out of your creative process, or encourage you to explore new techniques. With this in mind, we asked the Domestika community on Instagram what their favorite design apps are; what programs help them to be more productive or creative. These are your favorites. Mojo Stories have become one of the main features of Instagram and a valuable tool to share creative projects. Fast-paced, fun to watch, and highly addictive, these snippets can be used to tell stories or show a technique. But it can feel a little bit constrained sometimes. Creating attractive designs requires time and effort. Mojo solves this by giving the user hundreds of stunning templates to choose that create eye-catching animated slides, unlock new narrative avenues, and take stories to the next level. A great tool to boost engagement in all of your social posts.

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  • Tutorial Illustration: How to Use Shapes to Create Vector Drawings
    Illustration

    Tutorial Illustration: How to Use Shapes to Create Vector Drawings

    Learn the basics of how to draw over your original sketch using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator, with Nathan Jurevicius Making the jump from a sketch to a digital illustration doesn’t have to be as daunting, or require as many tools, as you might think. Using just a mouse and the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator, multidisciplinary artist Nathan Jurevicius (@nathanjurevicius) demonstrates how to create shapes which will serve as the building blocks for your vector drawings. In this video, learn how to add detail to your illustration using the pen tool, how to keep your workflow organized, and how to build on your original reference sketch.

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  • What is Fabric Marbling?
    Craft

    What is Fabric Marbling?

    Discover the secrets to this traditional technique that combines painting and design Fabric marbling is a process that involves floating paints on top of a thick solution. The paints are manipulated into patterns that are later transferred to an object. You can use this craft to dye fabrics and paper, while some people also use it to dye leather and ceramic pieces.

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  • Illustration Tutorial: How to Export Your Artwork Step by Step
    Design

    Illustration Tutorial: How to Export Your Artwork Step by Step

    Learn the basic steps to export a finished illustration project with Silvio Díaz Labrador in three different ways Exporting a piece of artwork correctly is a vital step in any graphic design or digital illustration project. There is no point in spending hours preparing and polishing a piece in Adobe Illustrator, if afterwards its print or the resulting file loses quality and detracts from your work. That is why graphic designer and art director Silvio Díaz Labrador gives us these key tips to create our projects' final artworks in three different ways according to our needs. Learn how to do it without sacrificing the quality of your work with the following tutorial:

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  • Dieter Rams’ 10 Principles of Good Design
    Design

    Dieter Rams’ 10 Principles of Good Design

    Delima pays tribute to the work of Dieter Rams with an illustration series Dieter Rams (Germany, 1932) is a universal reference in the world of industrial designers. A key representative of the functionalist movement, his work stands out for its minimalism and adherence to the philosophy, “less, but better”.

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  • Branding Tutorial: How to Design a Logo
    Design

    Branding Tutorial: How to Design a Logo

    Basic tips for approaching a logo design from The Negra A logo can be the icing on the cake in a graphic project. Or its starting point. Either way, it must be distinguishable, unique and memorable. And that's where the fixed rules end, because even one of the most intuitive imperatives–legibility–does not always apply, it depends on what the brand is looking for. This is what the three partners of the Argentine studio The Negra (@thenegra), designers Diego, Lio and Pancho, teach us. In this tutorial, we learn basic premises to create a good logo, taking into account the message we want to convey, the brand to which it is applied, and the graphic options we have.

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  • Adobe XD Tutorial: Basic Design Functions
    Design

    Adobe XD Tutorial: Basic Design Functions

    Learn with Ethan Parry how to draw shapes, edit colors, and add text using UX design software Adobe XD. User experience has become an increasingly important part of design—bringing together designers, developers, and other stakeholders to create websites and digital products that users can easily and intuitively navigate. Implementing a successful UX design can result in more sales, improved branding, and better conversion, making it a necessary design principle regardless of the industry or audience being targeted. That’s why Adobe XD is such an important tool. A leading vector-based UX design software for web and mobile apps, it can be used to design and prototype wireframes and layouts that can then be implemented and tested. Ethan Parry (@ethanparry) is a service designer and UX research consultant who regularly uses Adobe XD in his own work. In this tutorial, he explains the software’s basic design functions, which are the building blocks you’ll need before you can begin building your own app.

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  • Domestika Maestros: Chip Kidd
    Design

    Domestika Maestros: Chip Kidd

    We talked to American writer, editor, and graphic designer Chip Kidd, one of the most famous and influential book cover designers in history It's hard not to find a book on your shelf that carries one of his designs. Chip Kidd (Pennsylvania, 1964) has worked on over 3000 book covers of all genres, styles, and authors. From Cormac McCarthy to Haruki Murakami, his images have illustrated stories for over three decades. His cover of the mythical novel "Jurassic Park", the skeleton silhouette of a T-Rex, has become part of our cultural imaginary. Chip Kidd opens the doors of his studio in New York and shares with his reflections from his extensive career.

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  • Photoshop Tutorial: How to Scan or Import Your Character Sketch
    Illustration

    Photoshop Tutorial: How to Scan or Import Your Character Sketch

    Learn different ways you can digitally import your sketch with Joel Santana It probably sounds obvious, but it bears repeating: how you handle the first steps of any creative project will make a huge difference, not just in the outcome but also in terms of how easy or difficult your process is. From preparing your canvas (either digital or physical) to putting together a mood board that will serve as your guide once you begin to paint, these steps are crucial and, thankfully, they don’t have to be complicated. In this tutorial, character designer Joel Santana (@themaddhattr) explains the best ways to import your sketches into Adobe Photoshop so that you can begin working on them.

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  • Typography Tutorial: Tips for Choosing the Perfect Font
    Teacher Typography, Calligraphy and Lettering

    Typography Tutorial: Tips for Choosing the Perfect Font

    Discover the keys to choosing the most suitable typography for your editorial project with Violeta Hernández Choosing the ideal typography for a project is, for many, the most complicated aspect of editorial design. There is no one perfect typography that can do everything, or universal rules that limit the options available to us, which can make our work very complicated. That's why Violeta Hernández (@soyvioleta), graphic designer, artist, and illustrator, has given us a series of tips to help make this important decision and choose a typography that fits and contributes to our projects. Learn these keys in the following tutorial:

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