Graphic design practice embraces a range of cognitive skills, aesthetics and crafts, including typography, visual arts and page layout. Like other forms of design, graphic design often refers to both the process (designing) by which the communication is created and the products (designs) which are generated. It is usually viewed as a superset of technical illustration.
#38103
30 Beautiful Photo-Centric Web Designs for Inspiration
There’s something about photographs that manages to attract the attention of web users. Indeed, photos can be excellent design elements in a web design. Watch the file sizes of your web pages though; you have to strike a balance between aesthetics and page response times. From images of scenic landscapes to photos of people, the sites in this collection demonstrate the inspiring and visually tantalizing use of photos as chief elements in a web design.
Gube, Jacob. Design Instruct (2011). Design>Web Design>Graphic Design
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Three-dimensional illusion effects are powerful devices that can achieve excellent results. They can also add significantly to overall page filesize, and can reduce usability if overused, so should be used deliberately and with care (unlike the title image above, see cooltext.com if you want one).
Hunt, Ben. Web Design From Scratch (2005). Design>Web Design>Graphic Design>3D
#20668
3D: A Better Way to Produce High Quality? 
Going three-dimensional in graphics has many advantages – at least in theory. Everyone knows how tired you will become of the same graphic element, however nicely drawn, when used over and over. Someone at the department has taken the time to get good reference-material and draws an airplane, a train or something else rather complicated, and of course the drawing gets stored for further use. The next time you need such an illustration you simply copy-paste the element into the new graphic.
VisualJournalism (2002). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
#21913
If you ever create shadows in your designs or illustrations, check out these tips for making them richer and more realistic.
Campbell, J. Scott. Adobe Magazine (1997). Design>Graphic Design>Image Editing
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Accentuation in Technical Illustration
There are various ways to accentuate a specific part in its installation position. However in order to keep the printing cost as low as possible, it is recommended to opt for stylistic devices that are all in black and white.
ITEDO Software. Articles>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Color
#31101
Accessible Data Visualization with Web Standards
When designing interfaces for browsing data-driven sites, creating navigation elements that are also visualization tools helps the user make better decisions. Wilson Miner demonstrates three techniques for incorporating data visualization into standards-based navigation patterns.
Minor, Wilson. List Apart, A (2008). Design>Web Design>Graphic Design>Charts and Graphs
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Accurate Image Manipulation for Desktop Publishing
Devoted to the best possible quality in the desktop publishing workflow. This calls for accurate calibration and correct choice for the working space.
#36240
Acrobat 9: Grayscale PDF: A Smaller PDF
If you've designed a flyer or newsletter and are distributing the document in PDF format, the color is likely a critical aspect of the document. If, however, your PDF file is part of a workflow in a law office, the color may be incidental, and may actually add nothing to the document's purpose other than bloating the document's file size.
Mankin, David R. I Came, I Saw, I Learned (2010). Articles>Document Design>Graphic Design>Adobe Acrobat
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Shows how to create a stroke layer style in Photoshop CS2 to quickly add a custom border to your photos.
Kloskowski, Matt. Planet Photoshop (2006). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop
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Now you can add drop shadows automatically in Adobe InDesign. Sandee Cohen shows how to feather shadow edges and adjust transparency to get the results you want.
Cohen, Sandee. Adobe (2004). Design>Document Design>Graphic Design
#22665
Add Inspiration With Illustrations
Which comes first, the concept or the artwork? The assumption has always been that you first figure out the concept, then find the art to fit. But even if we leave many things in our life unquestioned--design shouldn't be one of them.
Will-Harris, Daniel. Typofile (2003). Design>Web Design>Graphic Design
#25891
Adding Reflections to Water in Photoshop
Denny Tang shows how to add sparkle to your images of water in this Photoshop tutorial.
Tang, Denny. Graphics.com (2005). Design>Graphic Design>Image Editing>Adobe Photoshop
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Adobe Photoshop CS Layer Effects
In this topic, you will apply Bevel and Emboss and Outer Glow effects to an Adobe Photoshop CS type layer.
Adobe (2004). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop
#22311
Adobe Photoshop CS Type Layers
In this topic, you will create a Photoshop CS type layer in which you will add and format type.
Adobe (2004). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop
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Adobe Photoshop Power Shortcuts 
In Photoshop CS2, many of the shortcuts for the application menus, palette menus and tools can be customized using the Keyboard Shortcuts editor. Although this document mentions some of the more common editable shortcuts, it also provides additional functionality only accessible through using keyboard modifiers which can't be changed through the Keyboard Shortcut editor. Although this is not a completely comprehensive list of all of the keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop CS2, it is my goal to present the shortcuts and additional functionality that enable me to use Photoshop CS2 both more freely and efficiently.
Kost, Julieanne and Daniel Brown. Adobe Evangelists (2006). (Italian) Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop
#22492
AIGA Design Forum: Professional Practices
As a champion of creativity, quality and a strong sense of community, AIGA is a valuable resource for designers seeking support for the work we do. Professional Practices focuses on important issues designers face daily, from the pragmatic matters of management to the pursuit of design excellence and integrity. Sometimes our work can be magical, other times our work can be mundane, and on any given day we believe this forum is the place to seek best practices, share success stories, and address the challenges of our profession.
Shelton, Sam. AIGA. Design>Graphic Design>Professionalism>Community
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Airbrush Tutorial: Basic Painting Technique
Airbrush is a much less forgiving endeavor than digital illustration. The first use of the airbrush started in the 1890s and was accomplished by blowing air through a tube with your mouth. With airbrush there is no command>undo. Mistakes are costly as they usually result in the need to do a separate piece of work as a patch or fix and have a printer strip it into the main image.
Hulsey, Kevin. Kevin Hulsey Illustration (2006). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
#11814
American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA)
The purpose of AIGA is to further excellence in communication design as a broadly defined discipline, strategic tool for business and cultural force. AIGA is the place design professionals turn to first to exchange ideas and information, participate in critical analysis and research and advance education and ethical practice.
AIGA (2001). Organizations>Graphic Design
#35483
Ampersands have long been the character in a typeface with which typographers can indulge themselves. Sweeping curves, flirtatious finishes and bold statements – these are the things that make ampersands an exciting character to use and, better still, to design. There are, however, two problems.
Smashing (2008). Articles>Typography>Graphic Design>Fonts
#35451
Analysis of Team Design Review
Every other team meeting, three team members get 30 minutes each to talk about projects they are working on, and they get to demonstrate some of the cool things they are integrating into the project. As a team, we look at the project and both learn from what they’ve done, and make suggestions on how they might improve the project.
Pehrson, Paul. Technically Speaking (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Graphic Design>Assessment
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ANTI Magazine aims to showcase outstanding visual content as an online magazine and also through future exhibitions all around the world. We are interested in showcasing all styles of visual media, including: illustration, graphic design, photography, drawing, painting, etc.
#20674
Antialiasing Examples from Real Applications
Different graphical software applications have different abilities at antialiasing: some software is very good at it, while other software is not. Here are some examples for comparison.
IsoCalc. Design>Graphic Design>Typography>Technical Illustration
#20675
Antialiasing is a method of representing perfect, continuous vectors on imperfect, discontinuous display devices so that they look as perfect as possible.
IsoCalc. Design>Graphic Design>Typography>Technical Illustration
#21497
Applicability of CGM Versus SVG for Technical Graphics
As certain traditional technical and engineering applications become established on the Web, they bring with them information resources that mix text and data with significant technical graphics components. Technical graphics for such applications as aircraft maintenance manuals are characterized by high volume and complexity, stringent fidelity and interoperability constraints, and long life cycle. W3C has two standards for Web based graphics, WebCGM and SVG. WebCGM was specifically standardized for technical applications. SVG has much broader applicability. In a nutshell, the usual formula is 'WebCGM for Web-based technical graphics, SVG for graphic arts and creative graphics.' Still, the questions continue to arise. why there are two formats, and isn't it possible to use the one for the other application? When one takes a careful and detailed look at the two formats, in the context of the particular requirements of technical illustration, then specific differences emerge. This session will present such a comparison, from both the theoretical, functional perspective, as well a practical real-world (implemenations and interoperability) perspective. The comparison is based on an ongoing study that has been conducted within the CGM Open consortium and the Graphics Working Group of the Air Transport Association.
CGMopen (2003). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Online
#33756
Applying Techniques of Textual Reuse to Graphics Using SVG and XML
Structured data techniques are typically applied to text-based data. Technologies like SGML and XML have allowed text-based publishing to constrain and control the creation of text-based information, increasing the usefulness, accuracy, and reuse of information.
Williams, Jim. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>SVG
