How to Cool a Hot Photo  

When your photo can't be changed, surround it with a cool color.

Before and After (2005). Design>Graphic Design>Image Editing

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

How to Design Small Calendars  

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.

Before and After. Design>Graphic Design

How to Find the Perfect Color  

Getting that just-right color is part art, part science. We'll show you.

Before and After. Design>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric>Color

How to Get Better Scans

Removing margins, extracting type from scanned digital images.

Photoshop 911 (2000). Design>Graphic Design>Scanning

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

How to Hire a Designer

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

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

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

ICC Color Management for Print Production  

An introduction to device-independent solutions for color management.

International Color Consortium. Presentations>Graphic Design>Prepress

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

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

Idea Generators  

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

Identical Twins?

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

Identity in Sheep's Clothing  

Can an identity exude moral or ethical attitudes? In the past, product and business identities that functioned well were bound to a person or family that over long periods delivered quality and dependable goods or services. However, in these times of runaway and rollover mergers, restructuring, and reengineering, there is no time for anyone to assess the real characteristics that make up these newly emerging companies and conglomerates. What are they? Who is behind them? Corporate wolves or sheep in Gucci clothing?

Winkler, Dietmar. University of Alberta (2003). Design>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric

If I Told You You Had a Beautiful Figure...

Lay out images consistently across your site using a liitle clever JavaScript.

Gustafson, Aaron. List Apart, A (2007). Design>Web Design>Graphic Design>JavaScript

Illegal Colors

Illegal colors are those colors which you can pick on your computer that will not reproduce using traditional CMYK offset printing. For example, open the Apple color wheel. Set the brightness as high as it can be and click on the aqua color at nine o'clock on the wheel. You see that bright, glowy, neon-like color? Isn't it beautiful? Too bad, it's illegal. There is no way that ordinary CMYK inks can reproduce that color. Most people get into illegal color trouble when they pick a color that looks great on the screen, and then have the job printed using process colors. They then complain to the print shop that the job looks dull, that all the brightness is gone. That's the fault of picking illegal colors. You won't get arrested but you will be disappointed in the output. The following is a list of some of the popular desktop publishing program and how they handle illegal colors.

Cohen, Sandee. Design, Typography and Graphics. Design>Graphic Design>Document Design>Color

Illuminating Illustrations  

Too often, illustrations just sit there, taking up space on the page. Here's how to make them work.

Kvern, Olav Martin. Adobe Magazine (1996). Design>Document Design>Graphic Design

Illustrators Unite!  

An under-the-hood look at Illustrator's versatile unite filter.

Zeitman, Randy. Adobe Magazine (1995). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Adobe Illustrator

Image File Formats for Print and Web  

Images such as illustrations, photos and charts are an integral part of most technical papers. For the person compiling the document for print or online venues, images present unique problems. Unlike text documents, which are readily transferable between applications and platforms, images need special attention. In order to create images which are an appropriate quality for distribution, the author must always be mindful of the format of the final output. The final format will affect how the images are created, scanned and submitted.

Birchman, Judith A. and Susan G. Miller. STC Proceedings (2001). Design>Graphic Design>Web Design

Image Tricks That Make You Look Good  

Web graphics are more than just window-dressing. They function as navigational elements and provide informational design. Oh, and they need to look good, too. Learn how to add graphic zip to your Web pages by using these Dreamweaver techniques.

Berkowitz, Ivonne, Yanier Gonzalez and Janine Warner. Creative Pro (2004). Design>Web Design>Graphic Design>Dreamweaver

Imagery

Don't reinvent the wheel for functional imagery. Concentrate creative effort on imagery that adds value in branding or message (content).

Hunt, Ben. Web Design From Scratch (2006). Design>Web Design>Graphic Design

Images of Science  

Photoshop gets involved with rhinos, criminals, ancient math, and the microscope.

Shuster, Robert. Adobe Magazine (1999). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Adobe Photoshop