Before you hire a Graphic Artist…
There are many things to consider when looking for a Graphic Designer to take on your project. But before you start checking Designers off your list, you may want to check yourself. What I mean by this is that there are some points about yourself you’ll need to consider.
Ask yourself, “what are my needs?” “Well duh”, you may say, “that’s simple…I need a logo”. But that’s only the end product. Have you thought about the steps in between? Will you want to be involved in every aspect of the projects development, or are you just too busy to bother? The Designer you choose should have the flexibility to go either way.
Keep in mind that if you expect to be involved from start to finish, this may require more time and therefore more money. Make sure the price quoted reflects this. Case in point. I was hired to design a logo for a person that had this “vision” in their head and wanted to turn it into a logo for a website. After two meetings and many phone conversations explaining the details of my progress, we finally got a clear direction for the design and were well on our way to completion. I didn’t mind holding my clients hand through the process, that’s part of my job and they were willing to pay for it. But then it happened. (more…)
Hot logos coming through!
In this video I’m reviewing a cool little site that’s serving up delicious logos free of charge. For the artistically challenged this could be a God-send. But remember what your mama told you about it sounding too good to be true? Take that into consideration and judge for yourself.
Cost Cutting Tips that Won’t Hurt.
In these tough economic times you may be forced to cut down on your business’s expenses. This
can be a delicate matter depending on the number of expenses you have. Only you know where you should trim the fat. The knee jerk reaction of many establishments is to pull back on the things they think they don’t need or can do themselves like advertisement, marketing, or promotions. This usually turns out to be a big mistake, hurting the company more than helping. Without effective advertising, marketing and promotions businesses die.
Having been a Graphic Designer for a number of years I’ve seen my share of businesses struggle with choosing to bring in a freelance designer, hire someone full-time, or having someone from within, (who is unqualified,) tackle design projects. In light of these challenges, I’d like to help you through the process by sharing some tips you can follow that won’t bite you in the you know what later. (more…)
Posterize Your Pix
This is a 2 part video tutorial on how to posterize (also know as vector art) pictures. I’m sure many of you have seen the now popular image of President Obama done in a stylized red, white and blue posterization (if that’s a word). The image was done by L.A. artist Shepard Fairey. There are a lot of ways to posterize a picture, many of which can be complicated. I wanted to show you a fun and simple way to get a similar effect. Hope you like it. Please comment if you’d like to add to the subject of posterizing. I’m not an expert on the subject, but I know there are whole communities dedicated to this art-form.
Not an Artist? Being Handy May be Enough.
At the heart of this site is the goal of inspiration for the Do-It-Yourselfer. Right off the bat, one of the first things that comes to mind when I think about helping you complete your design project is that you must have a can do attitude.
I’ve always been the kind of person that will Find-A-Way regardless of the circumstances. I may not have the right tools for the job, but when I get through you’ll never know. Growing up in a household where we didn’t always have much, my brother and I learned to make do with what we had. We couldn’t get the real G.I. Joe action figures, so we settled for the cheap molded plastic army men and had just as much fun using our creativity to build forts and little vehicles for them. Dad couldn’t afford to buy us new bikes, but we watched him collect (more…)
