#22531
A Horse of a Different Color is Fine--Just be Accurate!
As much as the hardware and software manufacturers in the digital imaging world would like you to think that buying a digital camera and a photo quality printer will make you Ansel Adams, those of us that earn our living as pixel jockeys battle with color management in one way or another every day. Depending on your workflow and the final destination of your images, there are a number of ways to keep your colors accurate.
Dorgay, Jeff. Digital Output (2003). Design>Graphic Design>Prepress>Color
#21854
The elusive screen, captured at last.
Kvern, Olav Martin. Adobe Magazine (1998). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Screen Captures
#25187
I have a photo of a pearl necklace, which has one bright flash spot on each pearl. How do I reduce the brightness without making the pearls appear dull and gray?
Photoshop 911 (2004). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop
#14868
In order to understand diagrammatic reasoning with multiple diagrams, this study proposes a theoretical framework that focuses on the cognitive processes of perceptual and conceptual integration. The perceptual integration process involves establishing interdependence between relevant system elements that have been dispersed across multiple diagrams, while the conceptual integration process involves generating and refining hypotheses about a system by combining higher-level information inferred from the diagrams. This study applies a diagrammaticreasoning framework of a single diagram to assess the usability of multiple diagrams as an integral part of a system development methodology. Our experiment evaluated the effectiveness and usability of design guidelines to aid problem solving with multiple diagrams. The results of our experiment revealed that understanding a system represented by multiple diagrams involves a process of searching for related information and of developing hypotheses about the target system. The results also showed that these perceptual and conceptual integration processes were facilitated by incorporating visual cues and contextual information in the multiple diagrams as representation aids. Visual cues indicate which elements in a diagram are related to elements in other diagrams; the contextual information indicates how the individual datum in one diagram is related to the overall hypothesis about the entire system.
Kim, Jinwoo, Jungpil Hahn and Hyoungmee Hahn. Yonsei University (2000). Design>Graphic Design
#18525
How to Blur the Background Around an Object
Working in your new layer, and on the item you wish to keep in focus, find a starting point, click the mouse once and begin slowing tracing around the object. Once it has been entirely traced, return to your starting point and double-click to select your object. Under the SELECT menu choose INVERSE. Then under the FILTER menu choose BLUR » GAUSSIAN BLUR. When the Gaussian Blur window appears, use the radius slider bar to choose the amount of pixels to blur. I chose 4.5 for my example. When you are satisfied with the preview, click OK.
Hill, Julie. Presentations (2003). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop
#18366
How To Blur The Background Around An Object
Julie Hill shows you a quick and easy way to enhance a photograph's point of interest using Photoshop 7.0.
Hill, Julie. Presentations (2003). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop
#24087
The grid of a table can feel like a prison sometimes—too confining, dreary and dull. Important information just mopes inside the cells.
Valiulis, Dave. Adobe Magazine (1998). Design>Document Design>Graphic Design
#31768
How To Capture a Screen Shot of your Desktop or the Active Window in Windows
Have you ever pressed the PrtScn (print screen) key on your Windows keyboard and wondered why it was there since it never seemed to do anything? Well, it does do something! It copies an image of your screen onto the "clipboard," ready to paste into any graphics program. These steps show you how to use it along with Windows' standard image editor, Microsoft Paint, to save an image of your screen.
Chastain, Sue. About.com (2005). Articles>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Screen Captures
#30528
When your photo can't be changed, surround it with a cool color.
Before and After (2005). Design>Graphic Design>Image Editing
#14395
How to Design a Pocket Folder Brochure
Want to customize your brochure for a specific market or an individual customer? Ever wish you could magically add new products or services without reprinting? Searching for a big-dollar look on a shoestring budget? This design does it all and anyone can create it. It comes in the form of a mini-pocket folder and a series of inexpensive inserts--I call it a mix-and-match brochure. How do you use it? Picture this: a lawyer offers services for individuals and corporations--two completely different audiences. Instead of creating one generic brochure for both, she assembles a specific package for each type of prospect. Individuals get an insert that discusses the benefits of using the firm followed by one insert each for home closings, estate planning, and tax litigation. The corporate prospects get the same benefits page followed by a series of business-oriented inserts.
Chuck Green. Ideabook.com (2002). Design>Graphic Design
#25887
Electronic calendars are a great way to manage your calendars when what interests you is data. But to tell a story, present a product or stir a memory, you'll want a good, old-fashioned paper calendar. Eye-catching calendar designs for wallet and desktop.
#25888
Getting that just-right color is part art, part science. We'll show you.
Before and After. Design>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric>Color
#26006
Removing margins, extracting type from scanned digital images.
Photoshop 911 (2000). Design>Graphic Design>Scanning
#25892
How to Grow as a Graphic Designer
Catherine Fishel examines the philosophical foundations on which every creative business is based.
Fishel, Catherine. Graphics.com (2005). Careers>Graphic Design
#12925
Each year during May and June we get hundreds of calls, letters and emails from young graduates who would like to work for Showker Graphic Arts & Design or any of the Graphic Design Network web sites. This year, since we had a specific letter from a potential employer, we thought it would be cool to show graduates how we approach reviewing candidates for employment.
Showker, Fred. Design, Typography and Graphics (2001). Careers>Management>Graphic Design
#22258
How to Put a Web Browser on a PowerPoint Slide 
A procedural guide for incorporating a web interface into PowerPoint slides.
William Horton Consulting (2001). Presentations>Graphic Design>Software>Microsoft PowerPoint
#31953
How to Recreate Silverback’s Parallax Effect
When I was a lad, I remember being wowed by an effect in Sonic the Hedgehog known as parallax scrolling. Moving my little spiky friend to the right caused the foreground to move past the camera to the left faster than the background, creating a faux-3D view of Green Hill Zone.
Annett, Paul. Vitamin (2008). Design>Graphic Design
#23711
How to Use Images to Convey Themes
Advances in technology have democratized the process of illustrating documents such as brochures, reports, and websites. With digital cameras, scanners, and a wide variety of stock illustrations available, technical communicators need not rely on graphic designers to choose images for their documents. However, conveying a theme or concept through a series of images can be a difficult task, and literature says little about choosing images to convey a theme. This paper synthesizes results of available literature and looks to theories of visual rhetoric to fill in the gaps regarding images and themes. Results of a survey show that readers of more easily identify themes when connections between words and images are clear
Willerton, Russell. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric
#25750
These out-there colors won't come alone, or even in pairs... they'll be seen in packs. Designers, desperately searching for something fresh and new, will go balls out, applying this palette to tripped out patterns of stripes, polka dots, and plaids to create looks similar to those seen on the streets of Tokyo.
Polselli, Adam. AdamPolselli.com (2005). Design>Graphic Design>Web Design>Color
#13378
Humanistic Virtues in Information Graphics
The media, in confronting the challenge of presenting heartrending information and the overwhelming amount of bereavement on 9/11, relied on a quantifiable approach to designing such statistics for mass consumption. Evidently, production inserts keyed in on the bottom of television screens displayed scrolling numbers, sound-byte tracks of seemingly instantaneous gratification in coping with the economy of airtime and awesome amount of news. One could imagine information “tickers” of human tragedy—where numbers surmount, anxiety and anticipation cultivates. Quantitative virtues portrayed in these information graphics argued for numerical clarity in its message; whereby in the days following, the world could have been changed forever, and these momentary glances at numbers assuage how humanity stood frozen at that very moment in time. Nonetheless, today the tickers are gone; numbers are no longer news; families are left bereft; and a war is well underway. The media has retreated to capture screen shots of “Ground-Zero” as it stands in recovery, and the news, while still overpopulated with information, may perhaps be apologetic for the dispassionate exhibit it proposed soon after the catastrophe.
Fukumoto, Dane K.T. Orange Journal, The (2001). Design>Graphic Design>Information Design
#22527
ICC Color Management for Print Production
An introduction to device-independent solutions for color management.
International Color Consortium. Presentations>Graphic Design>Prepress
#30276
Icon Design Through Collaboration
A Motorola technical communications team and a University of Illinois writing class collaborated to research and develop a set of icons to use in manuals and in an online information retrieval system. This paper describes this joint venture, reporting on icon design criteria (list of criteria and how they were derived); design testing; design proposals and rationale; and the results.
Harr, Robert G. STC Proceedings (1994). Design>Collaboration>Graphic Design
#19783
Icon Development at SAS Institute from a Designer’s Perspective
The process of developing icons is a complex activity requiring thought, planning and creativity. Through collaboration and well thought out style guidelines, icons can be developed that meet the needs both of the software developer and the end user and that also have visual appeal.
Pezzoni, Michael J. and Jesse C. Chavis. STC Proceedings (1996). Design>Graphic Design
#21960
Stuck for design ideas? Try messing around with plug-in filters for Illustrator.
Kvern, Olav Martin. Adobe Magazine (1995). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Illustrator
#25423
For the same reason a doctor uses different types of scissors or scalpels for specific cases, or a handyman carries different types of screwdrivers, a smart designer will have the tools that are necessary to complete any design task that might arise. In many ways Photoshop and Illustrator seem to be exactly alike, but they aren't.
Golding, Mordy. Illustrator World (2005). Articles>Graphic Design>Software
