An Online Graphic Design Blog About Graphics, Layout and Design, Graphics Software, DTP, and Graphic Design Resources on the Net.

Color Psychology and Graphic Design
by Bharat Bista

Colors have psychological impacts, they are attributes of eyes, but are the chemistry of the mind. Colors are perceived though pupils and its effects are produced with associated nerves to the brain neurons.

Light reflecting through objects in different wavelengths and frequency stimulates different “cones” or color receptor cells of the retina in the eyes and makes perception possible for different colors.

Colors influence people through psychological changes and are associated with certain feelings and meanings. Colors exist everywhere else, it is omnipresent. Colors represent cultural, social customs and emotional values and its use in arts, printing, designing, websites, graphics, etc. - these days are unavoidable.

Choosing proper color is an essential constituent for your website and its graphics; as visitors to your website first encounters colors and graphics before they read your textual descriptions.

Colors are used in website design and graphic design for various forms; use of colors can be for backgrounds, navigation, logos, and navigation buttons to emphasize, highlight, symbolize your text description and outlining your site.

Despite the fact that your website is enhanced and fabricated with textual and graphical design, if you are using the wrong color combinations, then you are annoying your own visitors rather appealing them. As a result, to attract your customers, it is important to understand psychological behavior of your customers to your websites chromatics. The use of wrong colors results in the wrong impression.

Below are the details for color interpreted through different professions, culture, and physiology science;

Red: Red is a color of intensity, stimulants, love, gaudiness, blood, war, excitement, speed, heat, leadership, masculinity, power, passion, strength, energy, financial loss, Danger, fire, radicalism, aggression, stop, anger, and revolution.

Blue: Blue is a color of peace, unity, harmony, depression, coldness, ice, tackiness, winter tranquility, calmness, coolness, confidence, water, ice, loyalty, conservatism, dependability, cleanliness, technology, winter, idealism, and obscenity.

White: White a color of peace, innocence, cleanliness, simplicity, security, humility, sterility, winter, reverence, purity, coldness, surrender, cowardice, and fearfulness. Black: Black is a color of power, sophistication, Evil, death, fear, anonymity, anger, sadness, mystery, formality, elegance, wealth, style, remorse, mourning, and unhappiness.

Green: Green is a color of nature, spring, good luck, illness, greed, vigor, generosity, go, grass, wealth, money, fertility, youth, environment, envy, misfortune, jealousy, aggression, and inexperience.

Purple: Purple is a color of spirituality, royalty, nobility, enlightenment, sensuality, creativity, wealth, gaudiness, ceremony, mystery, wisdom, mourning, profanity, exaggeration, confusion, arrogance, and flamboyance.

Brown: Brown is a color of richness, stability, anachronism, dirt, dullness, filth, heaviness, poverty, roughness tradition, calm, depth, natural organisms, and nature.

Yellow: Yellow is the color of joy, happiness, optimism, idealism, gold, summer, hope, air, sunlight, hazards, dishonesty, avarice, weakness, cowardice, and illness.

Orange: Orange is a color of energy, flamboyance, playfulness, balance, heat, fire, enthusiasm, overemotional, warning, danger, fire, aggression, arrogance, flamboyance, and gaudiness.

Even choosing color is a professional skill in graphic design business, as it is not only just the colors, but are the color that stimulates the mind of your viewers. Graphic designs inevitably comes with colors, and selecting the best ones for your business is an expertise.

Author: Bharat Bista

Resources and References: Graphic Design - Custom Web Site Design - Silk Flowers

Bharat Bista may be contacted at bharatbista@gmail.com.

Comments(0)

Creditable Graphic Design
by Carla San Gaspar

Everywhere you go you can see numerous paintings and printed materials graphically designed and accurately printed.
With the artistic skillful hands of graphic designers you can merely achieve the kind of design that you want for your projects. Graphic design had been noted to be an exemplary feature that makes any material more good-looking and appealing. On the other hand businesses make use of them in developing attractive promotional tools.

Graphic Design Application Mainly graphic design is not only applicable for printed materials they can also be applied and utilized for web development projects. The vast changes made in technology had paved more businesses to have their services extended online. However bringing up a web page of your own is not as easy as selling hot potatoes. You have to be creative and wise enough in choosing for the right designs and a right content for a perfect presentation.

Getting started with the designs that you want for your project graphic design San Diego can help you out to deliver an effective design performance. This graphic design company crafts an efficient design workflow of professionalism and accuracy.

Web development companies had simply aided to create a good marketing strategy that had resulted to have:

1. Good branding image – a good image is vital in promoting your companies and services. It would also support to market your service efficiently.

2. Visitor friendly site – it simply pertains in gaining more customers and turning them out to be potential customers and ending up with more sales and profit.

Essentially graphic designs are vital in every material made. Let’s say you wanted to make a design that will stand out. Creating a logo for instance, if you want them to be more attractive, appealing and colorful you have to rightfully choose for the right company suited for your job.

Urging to have a prompt response from your graphic design companies’ graphic design San Diego would more likely to answer immediately customer’s questions. Similarly, providing an abrupt response would impinge on the way customers look at your company.

With the many services that are sprouting at present more businesses are aiming to deal with right company. Achieving to have the right company on hand graphic design San Diego professional designer will develop an idea and end it up with a remarkable design.

Sequentially a well designed web site, web page or promotional material can be a key for a more successful business.

Please visit Graphic Designs Unlimited site at http://www.graphicdesignsunlimited.com/ for comments and inquiries regarding this article. Carla San Gaspar may be contacted at http://www.rushprintingservices.com

Comments(0)

Designing a graphic design portfolio
by Vincent Platania

Graphic design is the art of combining design principles, technology and ingenuity to arrive at solutions for a variety of visual communication needs. It is used in making business cards, logos, movie title graphics, websites, user manuals and signage. An attractive graphic design enhances visibility of the product and generates revenue for the client. Therefore, the graphic designer is an important member of the core team working on the campaign.

Most clients would need proof of one’s designing abilities. It is not as much about the list of former clients or award-winning work done before. It is about what the designer is capable of. Hence, every designer needs to compile his design solutions into a portfolio. The portfolio should be put together with care. It is like the business card for a designer.

The potential client is more interested in knowing whether you have the skill to translate his design needs into an effective campaign rather than your list of qualifications. The portfolio should, therefore, reflect the type of work you are comfortable in doing. A beginner or a person who does not work with many clients may not have much to show. In such a case, it is better to include most of the designs, which the person has done in the past.

The most important aspect of compiling the portfolio is to decide the pieces that would go into it. If you do not have many products to show, then it is better to include work, which you had done for friends. As we said before, clients are not concerned about who hired you before. They are just interested in knowing what kind of design capabilities you possess. For a newcomer or a freelancer, there could be possibilities of work done for close family, community organizations and friends. It is wise to accommodate such pieces in your portfolio. They reveal the ability to come up with acceptable solutions within budgetary constraints.

The portfolio should contain actual samples. For example, include brochures, fliers, book covers etc. On every project, obtain one or two copies for sample or portfolio use. File it away neatly. If your work was part of a larger design, such as illustrations in a book, include only those pages, by tearing them off. In case, you are not able to obtain originals, take printouts from your digital files or photocopies. More and more designers work in the area of web design. Include screen shots and high-resolution print outs from the website.

Once the pieces are chosen, one has to assemble them in a portfolio case. The case should accentuate the work rather than distract from it. Size of the case depends on the size of the materials. Place your best work at the beginning and at the end. You can also arrange according to clients or skill types. Always update your portfolio as you complete new projects.

A well-thought out and neatly presented portfolio is the first step towards establishing your business credentials. It indicates your methodical approach and makes you dependable in the eyes of prospective clients.

Vincent Platania
We have a professional team of graphic designers that possess artistic ability and creative thinking for designing eye catching graphic design. Visit http://www.graphic-design.in

Comments(0)

Here is a list of the biggest design mistakes that a graphic designer should try to avoid at all costs. If you make these mistakes your printed materials will turn out ruined. Good luck and make sure to save this article.

1. Using web graphics on printed material. With many young designers coming from a pre-dominantly web design background the transfer over from web design to traditional design for print can bring with it a multitude of design sins. Images supplied at 72dpi and crunched down to load fast on a website are going to reproduce very badly in print you can get away with small thumbnails but blowing things up to any appreciable size is going to be pushing your luck. There are a number of online sites offering free or very cheap quality hi resolution images which are a good source for suitable imagery.

2. Forgetting about or not allowing enough bleed. A very common error is to send to print a document or flattened image that has no bleed at all. Generally speaking you should allow at least 3mm around every cut off edge. Failing to do so will give the printers no leeway and will either crop off the side of the page or give you a white border. It is always a good idea when supplying image files to save layered psd files then if things need extending or cropping you can do this on the background layer and hopefully cut down your work.

3. Using obscure fonts and not embedding or outlining them for output. We’ve all been guilty of this at some point and things are generally fine if you are going to be the only person accessing your artwork or documents. However if someone else needs to amend the files or use your vector logo on one of there publications. Unless you package up the used fonts, they are not going to be able to open the files correctly and some software programs may replace any unknown fonts with a default. This is a particular problem when you need to dig out stuff that was created several years previously and you no longer have your old fonts installed.

4. Supplying print ready artwork using spot colours or rgb There are valid reasons for using spot colours in artwork, logos that need to reference particular pantone colours for example. In general design work however most print is sent through on 4 colour presses CMYK with occasional 5th colour for luminoius or metallic colour or for spot UV varnish. It is very common for lazy designers to just place rgb images into files and expect the vibrant colours seen on screen to reproduce in print.

5. Allowing design illiterate clients to lead you round the houses The customer is always right, goes the old adage. However it is often said with gritted teeth and a sense of patience that recognizes that these morons will at some stage be handing over a fat cheque for your troubles. It is often a good idea when first submitting visuals to throw in a couple of stinkers to hopefully get them to appreciate the design you would like them to accept. There is the very real danger of course of them loving the piece of absolute arsewipe that you knocked up in five minutes to make them think you’ve been earning your money. Still it’s a living.

horatio farquaar may be contacted at http://www.mindtap.co.uk Mindtap Graphic Design Resources is your single point entry into brochure design. A unique site where you can access information on UK graphic design, logo design, leaflet design, catalog design and web design

Comments(0)

Brief History of Graphic Design
by Bharat Bista

The very first written word of mankind was the beginning of Graphic Design! And its native land was none other then ancient caves and caverns! The very first symbol they had sketched through cave drawings, paintings, markings on boulders, bone, and ivory are the foremost indication and evidence where graphic design was born, nursed, nourished and grown! Nevertheless, the term Graphic Design was named by William Addison Dwiggins in the early 20th Century.

Anthropologists studying prehistoric periods on cave paintings leads us earlier than the Upper Paleolithic period from 40,000 - 10,000 B.C., where our ancestors were learning how to design signs and symbols that could be communicated visually; moreover they were successful on leaving their marks. The pioneers of graphic design are non other then our own ancestors, who had lived in the caves and sketched their drawing on rocks. History of graphics design roots to our own ancestors of ancient era where civilization was cultured in caves, and left their drawings and sketches for us on their canvas of cave walls and ceilings.

The earliest drawings known today are from 6,000 years ago, are that of carved stone and pottery containers. Drawings contained in Egyptian pyramids with signs, symbols and letters are known to all and it leads us back 5000 years.

Furthermore, from 600-250 BC evolution on geometrical shape and structures in Europe played a major role for the development of designing and sketching. As an applied art of arranging images and text for an attempt of visual communication; the hand written copy of the Christian Bible “The Book of Kells”, created by Irish monks in 9th century AD with rich illustrations is a good example of the evolution of graphic design.

Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg, a German metal-worker and an inventor, introduced a printing technology allowing the re-use of individual letters. The first book produced by Gutenberg press was “The Incunabula”. This book became the standard in the history of book printing and publishing and was a giant leap for printing and publication; though, block stamping on sheets of paper with text and signs carved, was in use in Europe and Asia long before 14th century; however, Graphic design of this era was formatting and we today have named it Old Style graphic design.

Guttenberg era of graphic design evolution was sluggish, until the 19th century, in Britain the division created between fine art and applied art boosted this evolution, and they successfully published some of the most major graphic design products through the Arts movement. William Morris made a great deal of business of publishing books with stylish printings and contributed a significant role to attract the potential market as well as commercializing graphic design; in addition he was the pioneer for the separation of commercial design and fine arts.

…nbsp;Another painter from the19th century was Piet Mondrian whose innovation has greatly influenced today’s modern graphic designer. Though he was not a graphic designer, his uses of grids was the origin of modern day advertisement known as the grid system; widely used by graphic designer of our century today.

With the decadence of classical style, modern graphic design engrossed in the early 20th century with designs influenced by fine arts. The trademark of early modern fonts is the sans-serif typeface. In 1928, the book “New Typography” written by Jan Tschichold systemized the philosophy of modern typography.

Furthermore, the fathers of modern graphic design are still considered to be typographers such as Herbert Bayer, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and El Lissitzky as they broke new ground on typography building techniques and stylizing. Modern computer technology has changed typography production altogether, but for the experimental and evolutionary approach their contribution was highly recognizable.

The booming and flourishing period for graphic design was after World War II; as the American economy thrived, the demand of graphic design, particularly on advertisement and packaging sectors blossomed.

I Love NY ad campaign (1973) and a famous Bob Dylan poster (1968) designed by Milton Glaser are examples of applied graphic design culture and its influence. Progressions in graphic design in the early 20th Century were mostly enthused by technological expansion in printing and also in photography. But at the mid of this century, the raising of the computer era in graphic design has faced little backwards as early computers were far weaker and computer memory was limited. However, within the end of this century with the immense development of computers and its corresponding technologies, modern graphic design has evolved into a business that is done almost entirely on computers.

In mid 1980, the arrival of desktop publishing and the launching of software applications like Illustrator and PageMaker introduced an era of designers to computer image manipulation and 3D image creation. Computer graphic design facilitates instantaneous effects of layout or typography changes.

Today, graphic design the visual communication, is yielded in the rich soil of computer ground, fertilized with latest hardware and software technologies. Graphic designers worldwide plough through computers loaded with the latest gadgets and gizmos, software and hardware, academic and technology, information and communication, and are generating the new history of graphic design in their design laboratories.

With express elevation of the hi-tech industry, the future assures more and today’s designer are contributing their name and effort through their creativity for the next generation. History yet has to write all of her pages for new innovation and invention in this field.

Author: Bharat Bista

Bharat Bista may be contacted at bharatbista@gmail.com.

Comments(0)