Graphic Design Blog - An Ultimate Resource for Graphic Designers » Resources for Graphic Designers

GDB Comment Contest Results Announced – Congratulations Winners!

Charlie B. Johnson — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:13:46 +0000

Hey guys…the much anticipated results of the comment contest on GDB are finally out. I’m sure you all must be ecstatic to know who the winners are. But before I reveal the name of the 3 lucky winners, let us take a brief recap of the entire event. We started this contest on 24th January 2012 with an aim to increase useful discussions and gain healthy feedback about our blog. The contest ends today on 3rd February 2012. In this short span of time, we received over 200 valuable comments from our loyal readers.

The 3 Lucky Winners:

It was a close competition as several participants commented with a lot of enthusiasm and commitment. But in the end, 3 lucky winners were selected for the Grand Prize and will receive a FREE Text advertisement to their website/blog on GDB.

#	Name	Email	Website/Blog
1.	Joshua Parkhurst	office@creativedesignpark.com	http://parkhurstcreativedesign.com/
2.	New Web Templates	steven.decent@gmail.com	http://www.newwebtemplates.net/
3.	99designs Reviews	contact@logocontestreviews.com	http://www.logocontestreviews.com/

Many congratulations to our three lucky winners from the entire team at GDB. Stay tuned for the next edition of this comment contest as we plan on holding it on a regular basis. So, for all our readers who did not participate in this contest, be sure to enter next time around. J

10 Worst Mistakes Graphic Designers shouldn’t be Making!!

Charlie B. Johnson — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 11:15:00 +0000

The most common way for a graphic designer to learn is through trial and error. Especially for young and aspiring graphic designers, who keep on committing mistakes because of lack of experience. You must have heard of the old adage “To err is human”. So the next time you make a mistake, don’t fret over it…instead learn from your blunders.

Having learnt from my mistakes, which I encountered in my career, I wish to educate my fellow designers about some of the errors, which they should avoid in any case. Following are 10 of the most common mistakes that most graphic designers commit in their graphic design careers:

1. Working without a Design Brief:

In any graphic design project, the details are necessary to guide a designer through the entire process. Some graphic designers have a bad habit of being overly confident and start the project without acquiring a detailed design brief. A design brief helps you collect all the information about your clients’ design project. Without knowing your client’s requirements, you simply cannot work on a logo design project.

2. Ignoring the Target Audience:

The purpose of graphic design is to visually aid companies in expressing their message to their target market. Hence, if the graphic designers ignore the target audience, they will never be able to create the right design. In order to create relevant designs, you must first analyze the intended customers for which it is aimed at. Overlooking the target will lead to a weak and aimless design.

3. Not maintaining a Contract:

In a graphic designer’s career, salary and payments issues are frequent. When you don’t maintain a contract with your clients, you are likely to be swindled of your hard earned money. I don’t wish to imply that every client has ill-intentions. But some clients have a habit of getting the work done and running away with it without paying the designer.

4. Avoiding Contact with the Client:

Some graphic designers feel shy while some are completely ignorant when it comes to staying in touch with the client. One of the biggest mistakes you can make in your professional life is not communicating with your clients properly. By not staying in touch with clients during the project, you make them feel ignored and unwanted. You must take feedbacks from them to avoid any client criticisms in the end.

5. Procrastinating:

In any profession, deadlines are extremely crucial to meet. By completing your work on time, you exhibit your determination and sincerity to commitments. Some graphic designers tend to procrastinate on their projects. When they end up falling short of their deadline, they pass off a mediocre design as minimalism design trend. Procrastination will make your clients go away since they expect you to be efficient.

6. Not Staying up-to-date:

In this cut-throat competition, it is essential for graphic designers to stay up-to-date with the latest developments in the field of graphic design. As technology upgrades every day, newer and better ways of graphic designing are evolving. Those who fail to catch-up in graphic designing eventually lose the race.

7. Not Starting in Black and White:

Some graphic designers fail to understand the importance of starting in black and white. They directly create the colored version of the design. This is a big mistake as one should know how the design looks in black and white because some promotional mediums don’t allow for colors. Hence, what you create in color might not look good in black and white.

8. Pass off Plagiarism as Inspiration:

One of the prime qualities of a graphic designer is their ability to be original. Another big blunder you could make as designers is to copy others work. Some designers have a bad habit of passing off what they plagiarize as merely inspiration. While you may get away with it sometimes, but in the long run, your credibility as a genuine and original designer will be badly affected.

9. Neglecting the Power of Simplicity:

Some graphic designers believe that if they add more effects in design, it will become attractive. But the reality is otherwise. Adding too many elements to a design makes it complicated and messy to look at. They often neglect the power and significance of simplicity. Instead of making intricate and difficult to comprehend designs, designers must prefer simple concept that the target audience will remember.

10. Lose Confidence:

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to continually fear you will make one. Be it graphic designing or any other profession, confidence is crucial in the success of your career. One of the gravest mistake you can make as a graphic designer is to lose hope in the middle of a project. There will be times when you will get tired of working on a project or be unsatisfied with the results. But never give up and carry on until you achieve your desired results.

Which of these above listed mistakes you believe to be most harmful and dangerous for a Graphic Design project?

10 People who revolutionized the Internet – The Unappreciated Heroes!!

Charlie B. Johnson — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 12:15:41 +0000

The internet, since its inception, has been a blessing for the world. We have grown so fond and addicted of the internet gizmos that literally our breath is dependent on it. Even for the field of graphic design, internet has played a significant role in progress and development of the industry. The tasks that graphic designers used to perform offline are now easily done online.

And who can forget the enormous impact that social media has made in our lives. There are many famous personalities that have contributed significantly to the transformation of internet. We often hear about the cream of the lot, people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. But there are some unsung heroes that you might never have heard of, people who changed the internet and also deserve the accolade for their significant contributions.

Unknown Personalities that revolutionized Internet:

Following are 10 people who played an enormous role in revolutionizing the way we work on the internet, but you might have not heard of them before.

1. Jon Postel – Request for Comment (RFC)

I’m sure most of you might not have heard of the name, but Jonathan Bruce Postel made significant contributions to the development of the Internet. He is the architect behind the “Request for Comment (RFC)” document series. Jon also worked on the early protocols and the creation of TCP/IP. He co-developed many of the key Internet standards, including TCP/IP (basic Internet protocols), SMTP (email transfer), and DNS (name servers).

2. Julian Assange – WikiLeaks
	We seldom get to know what the secret agencies like CIA and FBI are up to. Not anymore, now we do…courtesy Julian Assange. He was the man behind Wikileaks, a whistle-blowing website dedicated to publishing classified documents from around the world. Julian designed an advanced software for shielding the identities of the people who upload the documents.

3. Gary Thuerk – The first Email Spam

‘Spamming’ is a marketing technique of sending unsolicited e-mails to random people for promotional purposes. Albeit controversial in many aspects, it has revolutionized the e-marketing techniques. Gary Thuerk was the first person to send mass e-mailing to customers over the Arpanet for Digital’s new T-series of VAX systems. Consequently, this e-mail went on to become the world’s first spam.

4. Scott Fahlman - The First Emoticon
	We use smileys so often, but have we ever thought who invented this in the first place? Scott Fahlman is the man behind the “Smiling Face” emoticon that we use in our instant messaging. By inventing the first ASCII-based smiley emoticon, Scott wanted to help to differentiate between humorous and serious content.

5. Peter Thiel – Paypal
Online transactions have eased our lives to a vast extent. But do we know who to thank? Yes Paypal…but who was behind this great notion? It is Peter Thiel, a significant figure associated in the set-up of PayPal. Peter began giving a small group of developers the access to its code, letting them to work with its online transaction framework.

6. Pierre Morad Omidyar – EBay
	We buy so many things from home with a single click, but have we ever stopped for a second and thought…who to appreciate for this blessing? Pierre Omidyar is the man who set up an online marketplace, called eBay that connected buyers and sellers together. He revolutionized the concept of building trust on an anonymous user.

7. Robert Tappan Morris - First Worm Virus
One of the most notorious inventions of the internet is the “worm virus”. Ever wondered who is the culprit behind it? Robert Tappan Morris created the Morris Worm, one of the very first worm viruses to be sent out over the internet that inadvertently caused enormous financial damage when it was released in the late 80s.

8. Garrett Camp – StumbleUpon
	If you are looking for a website that gives you news and gossips regarding every genre, try StumbleUpon. As a graphic designer, I often use this social bookmarking site to get inspiration. Garrett Camp is person chief architect behind Stumbleupon. According to the website, StumbleUpon has over 6 million users to date and it keeps on increasing.

9. Bram Cohen -Bit Torrent
Another controversial but highly used concept on the internet is “torrent”. Bram Cohen changed the face of file sharing by developing BitTorrent that instantly shares files over internet. BitTorrent revolutionized file sharing by breaking them up into several little portions. This way, users upload and download files at the simultaneously.

10. Michael Hart – eBooks
	Education is the basic requirement to survive in today’s competitive world. But it is damn expensive. So hats off to Michael Hart for instituting the concept of eBooks and making education affordable and accessible to all. Project Gutenberg is the world’s first electronic library that changed the way we read and learn.

Do you know any other personality who contributed to the internet but hasn’t got due attention and acclaim?

20 Motivating Design Quotes for Graphic Designers – Words Visualized!

Charlie B. Johnson — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 07:18:58 +0000

“Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication.”

The maestro, Leoanardo Da Vinci, illuminates the beauty of simplicity in art and graphic design through such brilliant words.

This is the magnificence of inspirational quotes, providing us stimulation and motivation to achieve what others have accomplished. It supports our reasoning and gives us an encouragement to do what we believe in. As graphic designers, we thrive to seek inspiration and what better way is to learn from words of wisdom. Reading design quotes from prominent figures of the industry ignites the creativity of graphic designers and gives them the motivation they need.

But it gets even exciting to read when words transform into attractive visual graphics. After all “A picture is worth a thousand words”. So today I’ve amassed a collection of 20 beautifully visualized design quotes that will motivate graphic designers to spark new ideas and designs.

Make clever simple and simple clever

I reach for my revolver – Daniel Burka

Every child is an artist

Good Design is all about making

Choose a Job you love

Good artists copy, Great artists steal

Have no fear of perfection

The job of an artist

Designers are not meant to be understood

Creative Thinking – Davey Coleman

You don’t want to imitate?

Design must seduce

GIRLS really love Graphic Designers

Practice Safe Design:

Design is Intelligence made visible:

Logic is being Creative

Good Thing about Bad Taste

Math VS Design

The Best Forms of Art from a Broken Heart

The Difference between Art and Design

GDB’s Contribution to the Design Community – Graphic Design Forum!!

Charlie B. Johnson — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 06:46:13 +0000

Maintaining our commitment of being an “ultimate resource for graphic designers” GDB is proud to announce the launch of yet another initiative…our very own Graphic Design Forum. We came up with this idea to provide our visitors an online platform to hold discussions and ask questions related to all spheres of graphic designing.

The idea behind this initiative is two-folds.

Firstly, we have been receiving a lot of graphic design FAQs and are unable to cater all the queries, forum will enable multiple and rapid solutions of your problems.
Secondly, those who wish to hold discussions about graphic design can easily reach out to the community through our graphic design forum.

Categories to choose from:

Simply register yourself and join in the conversation community. Our graphic design forum hosts a variety of categories to hold discussions on. You can talk about:

**Don’t miss the “Off-Beat” Fun:**

For our general readers, we have a special category called “Off-beat” that caters discussions on everything besides graphic designing. Those who have queries and topics out of the graphic designing scope can talk about their favorite movies, posters, advertisements and games in this section.

Your Feedback:

The way you all have contributed in making GDB a success, we look up to you once again for your support and sincere feedback. Since, running a graphic design forum is a new thing to me; I will really appreciate your guidance in improving it in all ways./td>

So what are waiting for? Get registered to our Graphic Design Forum and contribute your wisdom.
Make your presence felt in the design community

What factors determine a graphic designer’s salary?

Charlie B. Johnson — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 08:35:59 +0000

How much to charge clients is every graphic designers concern. You charge excessively, they might not hire you. You bill them under-par, they might consider you as a cheap designer. For this reason, the perfect fee range should be determined beforehand.

There comes in every graphic designer’s mind a question…Are we truly valued and paid? This query ensue a series of questions like ‘How much a graphic designer should be paid?’ and ’On what criteria should he be paid?’ Although I have always advocated that the graphic design field is for the sheer pleasure and obsession of it. But then again, an individual has to make ends meet as well.

Factors that determine a graphic designer’s fee:

1) Experience and Creativity:

The first thing that clients see in a graphic designer is the level of experience he possesses in his particular field of work. Many corporate clients avoid hiring amateurs to do their graphic design projects. But clients with a low resource base also hire graphic designers with little experience and exposure. The magnitude of experience and the level of creativity of graphic designers really speak volumes for the money they charge.

2) Size of the Project:

Another important factor that evaluates your remuneration is the size and magnitude of the graphic design project. The type, scale and magnitude of the assignment you are working on are essential in determining how much you should be charging. Since, for graphic designers, time is money. Although there are some clients who value money over quality, a graphic designer should never compromise on his quality of work.

3) Area and location you work in:

The area, region and place you are working count a lot in determining how much you can charge your clients. Just to give you a rough idea of how graphic designer salaries fluctuate from state to state and within city, the designer working in Los Angeles CA is likely to earn dissimilar to a designer working in Detroit MI. Graphic Design Salary Calculator, where salary data is taken from the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) Survey Program. This is because client’s ability to pay varies from state to state.

4) Fixed or Flexible charges:

Another aspect of charging a client is whether you will be charging a fixed fee or charging on an hourly basis? This is usually imperative when you are deciding whether to work part-time or full-time. Normally graphic designers working part-time charge on an hourly basis since they do not have any fixed working timings. On the other extreme, full-time graphic designers who work 9-5 generally charge a fixed remuneration.

5)Miscellaneous expenditures incurred:

Apart from the standard expenditure and costs of a graphic design project, there are certain variable overhead expenditures incurred as well. For example the printing costs that incur when the client asks for numerous reruns of the design project. Then there is the travelling cost for clients who are reluctant to visit the designer and insist on calling them over. Hence a designer has to keep all variable expenditures in consideration before chargind their clients.

Being a graphic designer, do you think you are getting what you are worth?