Graphic Design Articles & Features

A graphic designer, also often referred to as a graphic artist, wears many different hats while using an equally diverse number of media to create numerous types of designs. Graphic designers work to visually convey a particular message or idea that has noticeable appeal and the respected profession is highly sought out for promoting and displaying a wide variety of products, activities, ideas, and communications.
Graphic design is used every single day in the world of advertising, including everything from books and magazines, health and personal care, food products, automobiles, clothing, computers, and just about everything else you could think of in between. Product packaging is a huge part of any type of business and requires the expertise of a graphic designer who understands not only the general marketing aspect of business, but also the client's main objective.
Working closely alongside the client, a graphic designer begins expanding upon an initial concept, asks pertinent questions as to the end goal, discusses budgets and deadlines, then agrees on the finalised design, fee and due date. Many designers successfully juggle more than one project at a time, allocating a certain portion of their time to each. Some duties of a graphic designer may include:
- Meeting or communicating regularly with clients to discuss the aspects and goals of a project.
- Staying abreast of the latest technologies in terms of computerised media and common design programmes such as Dreamweaver, Flash, Adobe Photoshop, and Quark Xpress.
- Designing a product from rough drafts, sketches and vague ideas while still knowing how to reach just the right audience.
- Demonstrating excellent proofreading skills while also showing high attention to quality and detail.
- Working with other professionals in the industry such as copywriters, photographers, marketing specialists, web developers and printers.
- Effectively managing time in order to meet deadlines while staying within budget constraints.
An experienced and knowledgeable graphic designer has the uncanny ability to take a general idea and turn it into a visually compelling product that garners not only attention but favourable results as well. Somehow they instinctively know when to use clean lines and muted tones and when to instead use vibrant designs with bold hues that grab your attention.
Graphic designers may work for themselves on a freelance basis or may be employed full time by someone else, whether it be a small organisation or a large corporation. If self-employed, a graphic designer must work diligently to market themselves and their skills in order to build their portfolio and client base as well as making continued learning a large part of their career.
The CSD, the Chartered Society of Designers located in London, offers a number of programmes providing graphic designers with the opportunity to pursue continuous professional development, or CPD for short. Designers can learn the latest in illustration, typography, corporate identity and interactive media design for websites and computers.
When working for a design firm or similar entity, the opportunity for advancement is definitely there in this exciting and ever changing field. Within just a few short years, one may progress to senior designer, obtain a management position such as creative director, or even venture out on their own or create a partnership with another like-minded designer.

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50 Totally Free Lessons in Graphic Design Theory

While many of us can create something that looks good in Photoshop or attractive when spliced into CSS, but do we actually understand the design theory behind what we create? Theory is the missing link for many un-trained but otherwise talented designers. Here are 50 excellent graphic design theory lessons to help you understand the 'Whys', not just the 'Hows'.
Note: this article has been updated and dead links have been removed

Typography

 

• 2. Five simple steps to better typography

  "The kind of typography I'm talking about is not your typical "What font should I use" typography but rather your "knowing your hanging punctuation from your em-dash" typography."
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  3. Typography tips for graphic design students
  "What basic typographic advice would you give a third year graphic design student? I read the comments with great interest and here I’ve picked out a few of the most useful typography tips."
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  4. Typeface Terminology

  "An extensive collection of terms and definitions that relate to typography."
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  5. How do I choose paring fonts ?

  "It really does boil down to a judgment call. Usually, pairing type is done to create contrast, so, as DavidR points out, a good general rule is to not pick two fonts that are so similar they can be confused for each other at a glance."
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  6. Learning About Type

  "There are quite a few terms thrown around with regards to typography. Hopefully this article will help you understand more about the world of typography."
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  7. A Guide to Web Typography

  "Today we’re going to talk about web typography in terms of a recipe of four fundamental ingredients. If you’ve ever tried to cook a soufflé, you’ll know how important the recipe is. Follow this recipe and your typography will rise up like…that’s enough of the culinary metaphors, let’s cook."
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  8. On Choosing a Type

  "Fundamentally, the responsibility we bear is two-fold: first we owe it to the reader not to hinder their reading pleasure, but to aid it; second, we owe a responsibility to the typeface or typefaces we employ."
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  9. Who shot the serif?

  "Well, what you will discover, is that learning just a little about the terminology will help you to have a greater appreciation for type; it will also help you to identify different typefaces and fonts — and that in turn will help you make better, more informed choices about the fonts you use."
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  10. Master Web Typography: 8 Detailed Typography Tips for the Web

  "One of the most under–rated elements of beautiful Web design is the subtle art of typography. Part of this, I know, is a lack of a solid font support for Web sites. But never fear! Today I’ll show you some quick things you can do to appear to be a type master."
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Grid Based Design

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  11. Designing With a Grid Based Approach

  "The main idea behind grid-based designs is a solid visual and structural balance of web-sites you can create with them."
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  12. Columns and Grids

  "One of the larger problems in working with grids in web pages is that you often can’t do much about vertical proportions. Often your content is dynamic, so the best you can do is approximate."
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  15. Grid Based Layouts

  "A grid is a technique that comes from print design but easily be applied to web design as well. In its strictest form a grid is literally a grid of X by Y pixels."
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  16. Five simple steps to designing grid systems

  "There are quite a few terms thrown around with regards to typography. Hopefully this article will help you understand more about the world of typography."
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  17. Grids: Order Out of Chaos

  "Many of the pages that you see everyday have a grid. You may not see it but it is there, holding up the design, establishing structure, guiding the page elements."
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  18. Grid Based Design 101

  "Designers of all types (web, print, etc.) are constantly facing issues involving the structure of their designs. Web designers are increasingly turning to grids to control the structure of web pages, and grids have long been used extensively in other design mediums."
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  19. Grid-Based Design: Six Creative Column Techniques

  "Grid systems bring visual structure and balance to site design. As a tool grids are useful for organizing and presenting information. Used properly, they can enhance the user experience by creating predictable patterns for users to follow."
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Color Theory

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  1. Color Theory

  "Color theory encompasses a multitude of definitions, concepts and design applications. All the information would fill several encyclopedias. As an introduction, here are a few basic concepts."
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  22. Color Theory: Overview

  "If you are involved in the creation or design of visual documents, an understanding of color will help when incorporating it into your own designs."
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  24. Basic color schemes - Introduction to Color Theory

  "With colors you can set a mood, attract attention, or make a statement. You can use color to energize, or to cool down. By selecting the right color scheme, you can create an ambiance of elegance, warmth or tranquility, or you can convey an image of playful youthfulness."
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  25. Color Wheel Pro - See Color Theory in Action

  "Color Theory is a set of principles used to create harmonious color combinations. Color relationships can be visually represented with a color wheel — the color spectrum wrapped onto a circle."
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  26. Color Psychology

  "Colors often have different meanings in various cultures. And even in Western societies, the meanings of various colors have changed over the years. But today in the U.S., researchers have generally found the following to be accurate."
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  27. How Colors Impact Moods, Feelings, and Behaviors

  "While perceptions of color are somewhat subjective, there are some color effects that have universal meaning."
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  28. Information Applied To Graphic Design: Color Psychology

  "Applied to web design, color psychology could offer a thermal map; an informative alternative to featureless blog calendars of archived entries."
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  29. How does color effect us?

  "Color is light and light is energy. Scientists have found that actual physiological changes take place in human beings when they are exposed to certain colors. Colors can stimulate, excite, depress, tranquilize, increase appetite and create a feeling of warmth or coolness."
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  30. Color Psychology in Marketing

  "Colors not only enhance the appearance of the item -- they also influence our behavior. You will do well to consider the impact that the colors you use will have on your target audience."
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Design Theory

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  31. Principles of Design

  "The principles of design suggest effective and pleasing ways to arrange text and graphics on the page as well as the arrangement of individual elements within illustration, logos, and the overall graphic design of a document."
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  32. Graphic Design Basics

  "Get a better understanding of the basics of graphic design by studying the elements and principles of graphic design that govern effective design and page layout."
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  34. Want to know how to design? Learn The Basics.

  "The basic elements of design include colour, line, shape, scale, space, texture and value and these are the fundamental pieces that make up any piece of work."
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  38. Graphic Fundamentals, 1. The Big Punch

  "Many of the underlying principles behind graphic design have been bypassed and the results are not as potent as they could be. In this short series, I want to help to fill-in some of those gaps and provide a better understanding of what it's all about."
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  39. The History of Graphic Design and Its Audiences

  "To insist that, or to prescribe how, the history of graphic design need be taught in any particular way is to unnecessarily limit the field in both methodology and pedagogy."
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  40. In Search of Ethics in Graphic Design

  "I envision this text as an addition to the AIGA’s existing publication on ethics, which currently includes sections concerning our responsibilities to the profession and our clients."
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UI & Usability

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  41. Call to Action Buttons

  "The call-to-action button is an important tool in the user experience designer’s box of tricks. In this article I’ll give you a few pointers on providing effective ones."
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  42. Complete Beginner’s Guide to Information Architecture

  "The kind of typography I'm talking about is not your typical "What font should I use" typography but rather your "knowing your hanging punctuation from your em-dash" typography."
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  43. A Few Lessons From Real World Usability

  "We interact with so many objects during our day that we often don’t notice that someone actually stopped to thing about how we were going to use items."
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  44. 12 Useful Techniques For Good User Interface Design

  "Among other things, we highlighted embedded video blocks, specialized controls and context-sensitive navigation. We also encouraged designers to disable pressed buttons, use shadows around modal windows and link to the sign-up page from the log-in page."
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  45. 10 Useful Techniques To Improve Your User Interface Designs

  "Web design consists, for the most part, of interface design. There are many techniques involved in crafting beautiful and functional interfaces."
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  48. Evangelizing UX Across an Entire Organization

  "This edition of Ask UXmatters discusses how to communicate and sell the UX message across all levels of an organization. Our experts share what strategies and tactics for evangelizing UX have worked for them."
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  49. Closing the Usability Age Gap

  "In this post, we discuss some of the things the separate Generation Y from older generations, and how we can create a great user experience for both demographics."
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  50. Increasing Usability with User Feedback

  "This post suggests some ways to improve your site's usability based off of user feedback. These methods and programs will help you gather and act on user feedback."
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Final Cut Pro X 10.1: the features video pros want

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We know that Apple is working on an update to Final Cut Pro X – Apple's head of worldwide marketing Phil Shiller admitted as much in the WWDC keynote back in June - we just don't know what kind of update. There are some who expect that it will just be another point update, a free update to existing users. Others think that the next update could be FinalCut Pro 11. While others expect that the next update to Final Cut Pro will follow the same pattern as updates to OS X; this update being Final Cut Pro X 10.1, with a cost associated with it, as is the case with Mavericks. Perhaps, as with Mavericks, the upgrade cost will be small.

People are hoping for a significant upgrade, however.  With Final Cut Pro X at 10.0.9, it looks promising that the next upgrade will be a big one.

We asked contacts in the professional video world, and members of a Facebook group about Final Cut Pro to share their thoughts with us.

For more information read our regularly updated Final Cut Pro release date and rumour round up article. 

The problem with Final Cut Pro X

When Final Cut Pro X was launched by Apple back in June 2011 it was met with criticism.Apple's complete re-write of Final Cut Pro, which bought a number of new features wasn't appreciated by everyone. Message boards and Twitter filled up with complaints about the software, with many dismissively calling FCP X nothing more than iMovie Pro.

The creative pro who started the We want a new Mac Pro Facebook group, Lou Borella, explained to us why he thinks that the reaction to Final Cut Pro X was so devastating for Apple. "I don't think FCP X ever had a chance to succeed, " he said, admitting that he was one of those who didn't give it a chance. Borella added:  "I believe that the entire community was ready to jump ship. Apple had neglected the space for far too long up until that point. Updates to the Mac Pro were becoming further apart. All the talk from Apple at the time was iPhone and iOS. Final Cut Pro was basically six years old at the time of X's release and it was really showing its age. The expectations for the successor to 7 were reaching a fever pitch. Rightly so, or not, FCP X needed to be a product that rewarded the trust that the professional community had placed in Apple."

He continued: "Because of those expectations (and the fact that Apple had brazenly tried to change an entire industry with one piece of software that really didn't seem ready for prime time) FCP X failed in its introduction."

"FCP X was missing too many features. My clients wouldn't make the jump to X. Many of them had too much money invested in their hardware infrastructure and X seemed to ignore all of that," Borella said.

"I'm realizing now that X was ahead of its time. I've heard talk that Apple didn't want X to be the first product released under Tim Cook's reign. I've heard that Apple wanted to release X during Jobs' tenure so Cook wouldn't be blamed if the drastic change in approach wasn't widely accepted'" he added.

"It was obviously released before it was finished," concluded Borella.

Three years on and the debate is still raging, with critics and fans battling it out on message boards and in Facebook groups.

However, since it was launched there have been multiple updates to Final Cut Pro X, and over the various iterations Apple's video editing solution has improved. Video editor and Apple Certified Trainer Richard Taylor, who maintains an All Things Final Cut Pro X blog" admitted: "When Final Cut Pro X first launched it had missing features that professionals required. But Final Cut Pro X introduced unique forward-looking features like the magnetic timeline and live playhead skimming. And it has added many features since its initial release."

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Final Cut pro

01) Where are my Projects?

Don't worry. You can still have Projects. They are no longer stored in a Project Library in the Timeline window area, but are now part of an Event. Click on an Event in the Libraries panel and your Projects will be at the top of the browser window.

02) Projects can no longer be scrubbed with the skimmer.

03) If you import a clip from your iPhone that was recorded at 120 fps slo-mo and you wanted it to play slo-mo at 30 frames per second, you used to be able to select the clip in the timeline and go to the Retime drop down menu and choose "Conform". Now you select "Automatic Speed". That will conform the clip to the frame rate of the timeline.

04) You can now import photos from your iPhone via the unified Import window.

05) To see what's inside of your Library, find it in the finder, right click on it and choose "Show Package Contents".This procedure should be for viewing only! Do not modify anything inside of the Library at the finder level or your Library could become corrupt. This will reveal at least one Event with its associated media and any Projects you have made. Each Project file is stored in its own folder inside an Event folder. 10 Projects = 10 folders.

Hierarchal view in Final Cut Pro X and the corresponding Library, Event, and Project in the finder.

06) There is no longer a separate camera archive section in the unified Import window. Camera archives used to have to be saved at the top level of your hard drive. They now can be saved anywhere, even inside a folder. You now navigate to wherever your camera archive is on your hard drive and then import from there.

You can select to have your camera archive show up in your Import window Favorites section by selecting the checkbox when you make the archive.

07) You can update previous versions of events and projects, to the new Library structure, via the File menu.

08) The new command to join a through edit is found in the Trim menu. It's called "Join Clips". Select a through edit and this item will be available.

09) Under the View menu we have the new command "Show Used Media Ranges".

10) To switch between Proxy or Optimized/Original media and to choose between Better Quality or Better Performance, you now visit the Display lightswitch in the Viewer. It used to be in FCPX's preferences.

11) If no clips are selected in the Timeline, the playhead has a white dot.
This indicates which clip's attributes are shown in the Inspector.

12) For some odd reason, the Project Properties are located in the Window menu. You can also use the shorcut Cmd-J.

Or with a Project selected in an Event, go to the Info pane of the Inspector to see the Project Properties. There you will have the ability to modify the Project Settings. You can also use the Inspector to modify a compound clip's settings.

13) The Fit to fill edit has returned with a new name "Replace with Retime to Fit". Drag a clip from the browser and drop it on a timeline clip as a replace edit and this new option will be there.

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