graphicdesign

*I checked in the "resume" tags, but none really answered my question. Unless I missed a post*

I would like to apply for a couple of Summer or Fall internships, and all of them require a resume. The problem is, I don't know what to put in it because I really don't have anything that's related to Graphic Design.

I've worked in the Veterinary field for over 12 years; I majored in Studio Art during undergrad, and I just started my MFA in Graphic Design this past fall. Basically, this is a career change for me.

How would I go about doing this? I can list Education, Skills, but that's really it. Thanks for any help!

hey everyone!

i've been looking at where to go for my bachelors of design here in canada and NSCAD seems pretty neat so far.

where have any of you gone here in Canada?

i'm finishing up my third year degree at Sault College of Applied Arts & Technology here in Ontario, so ideally i'd only be taking one year more to get my bachelors, provided my credits were properly transferable.

thanks for any input you can offer!

-m.

Hi everyone,

I am going to be leading a workshop soon at work. I'm focusing this workshop on interesting lines. And I don't mean the lines that lead the eye, or lines of copy, I mean literally...wow that's a beautiful line. A stroke, a texture, it's movement, curvature, jerkiness, whatever...

So I'm reaching out to the group here, have you seen a line that you thought was just very well used/produced in a piece? If so, could you post a link, and state why? Could be good inspiration for many of us.

Also your line example can be a group of lines, or a single line. But still the focus on a rendered line.

At work, we use branding numbers to track all our documents - e.g., at the bottom-right corner of the page (or the back, in the case of multi-page documents), in small/light text, we'll put something like "0912-08-17" to indicate the job number and version number of the document.

To anyone else who uses a similar system: Do you put your branding numbers onto your advertisements? Or do you leave them off?

I've just produced one of our first ads using our new collateral system, and I can see reasons for doing it either way. It's entirely my decision, so I'm curious whether other organizations include the numbers, and why.

Thanks!

Interesting if you have the time!

I'm wanting to get some business cards printed and quite fancy doing them on uncoated stock because of the feel. I know uncoated generally means more ink is absorbed, and as a result I was thinking of printing using Pantone Hexachrome to try and improve the vibrancy of the colours that would possible be lost as a result.

So my questions are as follows:

1) Does uncoated stock feel like I'm imagining or does it just feel cheap.
2) Can anyone suggest a nice paper stock that doesn't just feel like glossy card (I appreciate this is a vague question, but I'm looking for a selection of options rather than a definite answer).
3) Does anyone have experience of using Hexachrome inks and do they make much appreciable difference?

OK! All you Art Directors out there, I need your help.

(Warning: I'm coming off of a year of 16hr days(that dont end until mid - february) and am stressed out the wazzoo so this may just be burnout/insecurity..... But I have to ask...)

As Art Director(AD) I've noticed that i'm even busier than I was, but I am not designing nearly as much. Is this normal? I am a work-aholic Graphic designer/illustrator and did everything from TV to ADS to Comics books for one company - No sleep for the wicked...!

I was promoted to Art Director with out much guidance and have done a lot of research on Art Direction but it all ends up open ended and vague. I've given myself deliverables and expectations and my boss has said that I did the work of an Art Director Before (storyboarding, concepting, designing, etc. - I am also a professor of design...)...

I feel like i'm not as valuable if I'm not literally designing but then again I've heard that doing less design is common with Art Direction - Did any of you go through this?

I am 'advising/directing' 2 designers in a team environment which is great and my guidance/direction has helped in creating a lot of award winning design and resulted in happy clients but I guess i'm feeling like they can do that...(Dont get me wrong I love it but I guess I'm just feeling like I'm missing something important that I should be doing(or that I should Know) because I'm not as slammed with design but everything else is packing on!)


I still do design and I'm the only illustrator we have with a lot of clients that rely on that but I feel like i need more guidance on being a good Art Director...

Only having a graphic design degree (A.S.) and years(8) of experience with design and Teaching design I feel like I have a good grasp but I think the lack of education I have is making me feel like I am missing something... Could just be insecurity eh?

Any Advice?

Thanks in Advance.

hey graphicdesign !

so this past weekend i felt like procrastinating, and did what i usually end up doing when i'm bored: browsing designer portfolios and blogs.

in an hour or two of browsing various portfolios, i came across three or four sites where the designers had made, in my opinion, the same critical mistake on their sites. all of these sites belonged to young designers, and all of them had claimed to have had an unrealistic amount of experience for their age. for example, one particular site that i saw had listed 10 years of professional work experience for the designer. not knowing his age at that point, i felt as if the guy's work was decent, but the portfolio itself, the copy especially, was weak and made him come off as very amateur, so i looked at his "about me" section, and noticed that he was only 21 years old. if he has 10 years of professional experience, that would put the start of his career at 11. i won't say that 11 year olds can't be artistically talented, and i'm sure plenty of 11 year olds diddle around in photoshop from time to time and know what the buttons do, but to include it on his portfolio site as professional experience seemed pretty much like sealing his own fate.

naturally, this brought his credibility and assumed definition of "professional" to question in my mind. what got me thinking though is that he probably identified his young age as a possible deterrent for potential clients, and thought that telling his audience that he has a long history of experience was a good solution, not realizing that it may be a very negative thing to add, rather than positive. in my opinion, it would have been a lot better for him to explain that he is a design student who has been fascinated by good design all his life, and describe his passion for what he does.

so that brought to mind the question: what other common mistakes do people make when representing themselves without even realizing it? for those of you in hiring positions, are small miscalculations like this a big deal to you?

Hi all,

I'm looking for some inspiration on two things:

One:
I'm working on an interactive piece that will translate into kiosks, printed materials and other materials. My normal outlets are failing my search for inspiration. I'm looking for a modern looking typeface that is both youthful and clean.

The existing logo was done in Futura, so I've been primarily looking in that direction, however, they don't like that font for headings, call-outs etc, no matter what variant I use of Futura. The logo designer heavy modified the base font for the logo anyway.

I'm going to try Gotham for one sample - since its much like Futura, but wanted to know if anyone could recommend anything else?

Two:
Web body copy -- has anyone seen any good web sites lately for stellar use of body copy? Some of the pieces will have moderately large lengths of text and will be available on screens.


Thanks in advance. Everyone here is always so helpful! :)

I applied for a Graphic Designer/Art Director job ad at a young and small ad agency in my area.

I got an e-mail back saying to assist with their screening process, could they ask me more questions, one being "Would you be comfortable working as the sole Creative in the agency."

I'm guessing this means I'll be the only Designer/Art Director there, and I'm not really sure what to reply because I'm not really sure IF I am comfortable taking on that sort of responsibility. All my jobs in the past have had at least 1 other creative there, someone for me to bounce ideas off etc, which I like.

You guys are probably thinking "Well TELL them that then!", but at the same time, I feel torn with what to reply, because the job itself could be a really good opportunity and I feel like it might be unwise to pass up the chance for an interview to find out more, just based on the fact that I'd be the only "Creative" there.

So I really don't know what to reply. Advice anyone?

Hey everyone,

I'm at work researching a project with a team. We need examples of company names/logos that follow this format

____________ by ______________

so one example was "Courtyard by Marriott"

But we need others. Not aligned to any specific industry but I do need to be able to find proof for boards. So any links are welcome also...

So I'm working on a project for one of my design classes. And I have to do a multi-panel story-board type of thing. One of the things I am using for inspiration is A Softer World. I really like this comic, but I need more than one. (plus it good to look at other sources for research)

I am specifically looking for 'web-comics' that are photo based. But a Softer World is the only one that I know. So I turn to you.

Do you guys know of any other photo-based comic type sites that I can look to? Thanks!!!

Hi all, sorry if this is off-topic. I'm buying an Intuos3 and I've found one for a pretty good price but it's listed as "education single" and try as I might, I can't find what that means. I have managed to find references to "education editions" of the tablets though. Are they some kind of gimped student version where the driver can only be installed on one computer or something? Because I use my tablet everywhere and would be mighty pissed to discover I couldn't.

Hi everyone,
I'm revamping my resume to make it more suitable for a specific job I'm applying for and am stuck.
( Please help me out )

I've been seeing some logos (one belonging to a family member's company) that copy the general Citibank idea with the arch over the company name. But I'm having trouble remembering where else I've seen it.

http://www.pycomall.com/images/P/p-18881.jpg

Can anyone recall other companies that use this symbol in their logo in a similar way?

I'm having issues with the Adobe Creative Suite (mostly ID and AI) where after awhile the keys are all of a sudden different (the entire keyboard -- none of the shortcuts work because it's like they've been remapped) and in order to reset them I have to close the entire program down and open it back up. It might be that I'm accidentally hitting something that causes this, but I don't know what. When I go into the mapping section of these programs it says "Adobe default".

It works fine when I first open it and there's no particular amount of time before it changes on me.

Anyone have any ideas??

Thank you in advance! I'm frantically searching and not finding anything out...

RESOLUTION: Mystery solved! Thank you all for your replies!  Found out that it's a Windows setting under Language in the Control Panel. There is a key combo that will swap between the languages. Mine was set to Shift+Ctrl so anytime I hit that it would swap to the other language. You can change those settings in the Control Panel! I just deleted the other language since I won't be using it. Thanks again!

love this.

Hello. I have a couple of things I wanted to probe you all for. I've read the rules and checked the memories and can't find exactly what I'm looking for. I hope my post is appropriate. First, let me introduce myself: Hi, I'm Kristen. I'm a workaholic with little time to figure out this freelance thing.

I work at a very small local newspaper and with the help of my production manager, ( because he can't give me a raise >.< ) I have received freelance publication work from some of their commercial customers. I've done two issues of one publication so far and my main concern is the taxes. I have searched, googled, etc and maybe its just me but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to formulate what I need to pay in taxes. I was just wondering how some of you handle the taxes; Do you pay it all at once? Do you make payments as you go? I am clueless.

Also, I graduated from a community college for my degree, a two year commercial art (assoc. in applied science) degree. So far I haven't had any trouble finding work, in fact my professor invited me to teach (in an adjunct position) the electronic prepress/printing applications class, I work in prepress and do ad design at the newspaper and I get freelance work, I wanted to poll you on two things #1 your secondary education opinions, how much do you think it has helped you, because its something I've considered but the economy is killing me, I can't imagine going back to school and trying to work full time, plus the teaching job, plus the freelance I do and #2 any suggestions for my class, I know there are things I wish I had learned from my prepress class that I didn't until I was in the field, Anything you've learned in the field that you wish you had learned in school?

..or maybe thats just for those of us who only went to school for two years ;)

Hello,

Here is the zillionth post concerning billing, but I checked the tags and couldn't find much so I hope someone will be able to answer.

I'm a student and I have been asked to design three double sided business cards (all for the same person). No real logo creation (even if one will probably need some extra work because it's from scratches ), mainly design.
How much should I ask for it, knowing I won't handle the printing part at all ? I'm balancing between 20£ to 50£ each, but I honestly have no idea of how much I should ask.
Every range of prices I have found so far include printing (I think my client plan to print through a very cheap web-based offer so he won't spend much if any at all on printing...)

Also, I just moved from France to UK. Is there some specifics I should know regarding freelancing here ?
Thank you for your answers !

Hi guys!

Do you know a website where I can upload my designs and order invitations and magnets? It doesn't matter if it's Canadian or American.

If not, are there any good printers or places that you tried, that would specialize in wedding stuff?

Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I am pretty new to this community so thought I'd introduce myself; I'm finishing up a Bachelor's degree in web development and management and starting to freelance as a web dev...and I'm discovering just how much I don't know about the graphic design end of things.

In my dreams I end up making enough money doing this to hire someone to be the graphic design portion of the team; you know, someone who's actually artistic but for now I need to muddle along doing the best I can. I certainly admire those of you who have the talent to truly design.

( And now on to my question... )

Hello,

I am designing a logo for a friend, it is a (ahr, the word is not in my dictionary) place where you bread horses. "Alma" is the name of the first horse, the ancestor. "Stofa" means living room, soul.
I got free hands - but I suck at this free hand stuff...so I am stuck in a black hole of creativity.
What comes to your mind when you think about the meaning of the name "Almastofa".

So. Is it crap or is there something here I can use, what do you think?



Thank you, any kind of input will help

I am just beginning my freelance career. I have a friend who referred a client to me, which is a good thing. The bad news is that she was only charging him $10.00 per hour for all of her work. For this particular job, he wants me to give him a quote for some basic changes to the text on a business card and a postcard that my friend had already done the graphics for. I know this is a small job and (if he doesn't ask for tons of revisions in the process) should only take me a few minutes.

Should I match her hourly rate for this and all of his future projects in order to keep him as a client? My normal hourly rate would be, lets just say, double her's. In the future, I would like to make an income without low balling my prices and giving in to cheapskate clients who don't want to pay the money that design is normally worth. Any suggestions and advice would be helpful. Thank you.

Since there's been a few posts about resumes recently I thought I'd share a project I've been working on in regards to that subject.

( Read more... )

So I am working on my mom's company's logo and it's about Historical reenactors... thus creating "Historical Entertainments" which is the most pain in the ass name I ever worked with. It's bland, cliche and is so vague it makes me want to shoot myself... anyway, I came up with the idea of using a colonial horse for the company. However, my mom has this problem that the logo is "Too Masculine looking" wtf mate? Seriously, I'm working with what your company gives me, H.E as the letters of the company (which is mostly made of up MALE reenactors) and she said make it something like Paul Revere on a horse... UM. TA DA this is what I give you...

I don't understand and I said before the name is long and difficult to work with without making it cliche which I really don't want to end up doing because the name is so cliche already... *headdesl* Ideas?

<- Revision

*Updated thanks to some feedback.  Let me know if it helped!

Looking for some quick feedback on site and logo.

http://www.comeseeart.com/cookie/index
Only have home and cookie up right now.  Would love some feedback if possible.

Thanks!

First, I just want to say that I've been lurking here for over a year I think, and it's been fantastic. I feel like I've definitely learned a lot reading about all your experiences.

Secondly, I've finally managed to finish my resume, and I'd really appreciate any feedback you might have on both design and content (PDF here, .jpg under cut). I'm a junior in college, and I'm really hoping to find some sort of internship this summer. I desperately need more design experience.

( Read more... )

And on that note, internships! I'm a little out of my depth here. One of my friends went to Scotland last summer for a chemistry internship, which really got me thinking. I've never traveled out of the country before, and I feel like doing that would be a phenomenal experience for me on a personal level. On the other hand, chemistry majors seem to have websites that just list a ton of internship possibilities, a lot of them are with universities, and a lot of them are paid. I'm thinking the design field isn't quite so lucky? I've been trying to find internships somewhere in the U.K., but the only options I've been able to find are focused on actually going to the country, and just insist that they can find you an internship in your particular field. I think that sounds pretty iffy. Should I just abandon that idea completely and focus on something closer to home?

I've also done a little looking around my home in Ohio and I think I'm going to have issues on that note as well. I haven't been able to find anything remotely design related too close to home, and long commutes will be difficult since we only have one good car right now and I'm not in a position to be buying one any time soon. Is it feasible to try for something far away and just get an apartment for 3 months? Is there much of a chance these days of finding a paid internship? And any suggests for places to look?

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm feeling pretty clueless (and yep, I've been going through the tags. Love this comm!).

Hi Everyone!

I was the one who posted the resume resources last time. I finally finished my new resume. First, I created a really ugly, simplistic one. Then I realized that .. 'hey! I'm a filmmaker, graphic designer and illustrator..' I need something bright and bold and fun. Guys, it took me a really long time realize this. I don't know why.

I have two resume versions: one that has bullet point descriptions and the other has a short paragraph for each work place. What do you think about this? I have been told by high school counselors and strictly people from school that resumes SHOULD be bullet pointed. However, I have heard from many industry people that sometimes a short paragraph is more engaging and easier to read. I don't know... opinions?

I need help on..
-design (typography and layout, basically everything in the white space) The characters on the top are pretty set. I don't want any feedback on those.
-content and typos ( Am I being unclear or vague? What is a better way to say something? and just grammar stuff would be awesome.)

Thanks everyone! I really enjoy this group :D
( Read more... )

Does anyone have a profile/account at Behance.net? If so how useful do you find it? I'm thinking of joining, and wanted to know what others thought about the site.

Some of you may remember I posted up a site a while back for critique. I've taken onboard what you all said (or what I could remember) and come up with this.

Obvious things to sort would be some letter spacing, especially on the contact info page. Telephone numbers on the samples page would either need to be randomised or obfuscated (unless anyone wants to say otherwise). Finally I do need to shorten the height of the bar at the bottom or put something else there to justify the height.

Apart from that, what opinions do you guys have?

Thanks.

So I'm working on my own studio's design and we're a sustainable design studio. There are two possible logos
( Read more... )
1 2

I was also curious if a company could sport two logos? 

1. is the T.F.H.F (initials) made into a figure (should I add spaces to indicate each letter?)
2. Is described above

Hey everyone. I was hoping someone could shed some light on a freelance contract I've been sent regarding a logo. It's a standard "work made for hire" agreement that basically says that I relinquish creative rights to the work I produce for the company. What the agreement states is that my work is a contribution to a larger project (i.e. the game it's being created for).

According to the contract, I am still credited, and am allowed to display it in my portfolio. I guess my question is, is this common practice for freelance logo design? Is it normal for the company to take all copyrights and creative ownership?

Any tips would be appreciated. This is my first major freelance project, so I'm a little new to all the legalese. Thanks!

I'll be taking my Graduate Thesis Orientation class in the Fall 2010 semester, and I'm curious to see some examples of written and visual projects (a few people in my class just finished the class and it sounded nightmarish. I'm hoping they're just being dramatic!).

Can anyone provide links (personal or otherwise) to Graphic Design Thesis projects? I did a search, but couldn't really find much. Thanks!

A friend of mine is a full time freelancer and I told her while she is away on vacation in Ireland that her customers could contact me with anything they need...
So I got an email from a customer (he's a printer) who sent me a .tif my friend had designed for a business card and told me he'd like it on an 8 1/2 x 11 PDF 12 up. Now I am not so great with the terminology but I'm pretty sure 12 up means 12 to a page right? Am I crazy or does that not work-it just doesn't add up to me how I can fit 12 business cards on 8 1/2 x 11 and include bleed and everything? They are standard size business cards by the way.

So sorry if this is a dumb question but does anyone have any suggestions for me as to what I need to do here? My freelancer friend is unreachable and I don't want to look bad for her customer.

Thanks in advance-I'm desperate!

( Business Card image )

I was asked by a friend to create something simple for her waxing-salon. She wants it to be gender neutral and clean and simple. I've gone through a couple ideas of trying to incorporate silhouettes of bodies but it seemed impossible to represent a man's hip in such a way that made sense.

Anyway, this is the new design that I've started. I created the letter forms in Illustrator and kinda wanna keep with that feel, but not sure about a color palette. She likes greens and, as previously mentioned, wants it to be gender neutral. 

Any other suggestions/ideas, totally welcome! Thanks!!!

ps, happy holidays! :)

A very happy holiday to all whom celebrate the festive December 25. And a Happy Friday to all else.

http://robotmonsterghost.com/christmas/09/

So, my freelancing book is en-route, but I have a billing question I just thought of that I'd appreciate any advice..

I am billing a nonprofit, which I know means I can't charge them sales tax. I do get charged income tax on this though.. Is it customary to work a proportionate amount of your tax estimates into your billing somehow? Sorry if this is a stupid question, just curious how other people deal with this.

But for my other clients, should I be charging them tax? Am I going to get taxed for this somehow that I don't know about? I've only ever worked with nonprofits so this hasn't ever come up before, but I've had a few this year now. I will be charged taxes on my income..should I be adding this future charge to my statements, or figuring it into my charges in the first place? What do other people do?

Thanks!

I'm sure most of you have done some kind of 'free' design work, whether it be for a friend or a cause. My question is, have you ever had one of those jobs become so demanding that it seems you're being used? If so, what's the best way to go about cutting ties without offending anyone and burning bridges?

I've done a lot of work recently for someone who is very, very indecisive and manic in what they want. I've had to do many different versions of things and I've even brought a photographer friend of mine into it. Now, we're just too weary of the whole situation to continue. I need to know how to excuse myself without making any enemies.

I don't have InDesign, just to get that out of the way ;)

So I need to use a table in Illustrator. I'll need to edit the text and edit the table (margins etc). I found a webpage that sais you can copy/paste tables from Word into Illustrator but it definitely is not working - what it pastes is rows of this:
I@C'"%L"(.$;;%D+#:%/@:.%M@3"
etc.

Is there a way to make an editable table in Illustrator, or another program that's not InDesign (I KNOW I should be using InDesign but it's not installed on this computer. Either is PageMaker) - or a way to do in Illustrator? Or just tell me what I'm doing wrong copy/pasting with Word.

Thank you!!