Here are some tips, tricks and hints for successful graphic design.  These are things I’ve learned over the years from experience, and often wish I’d known earlier in my career!  Whether you’re a budding designer or a potential client, I hope you find these articles helpful.

This section of my site is brand new, but I’ll be updating it regularly.  If you have any suggestions for Design Tips topics, please contact me!

• Colour space: CMYK and RGB Colour space.  What does it mean and why do designers care? Being an expert on colour space is the job of any designer who wants to be successful.  That’s because different mediums require different types of colour, and using the wrong one can have disastrous effects. It may not occur to you, but your computer screen is emitting colour as light, while the magazine you’re staring at, is inked paper absorbing or reflecting specific wavelengths.  Light and ink see colour in different spaces. RGB (red, green, blue) is additive, which means that if you combine the maximum of all three, you get white.  CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) is subtractive, meaning that when you combine the maximum of all four (or just CM and Y), you get black. Computer monitors emit colour as RGB light.  Although all colours of the visible spectrum can be produced by merging red, green and blue light, monitors are capable of displaying only a limited range of the visible spectrum.  In other words, the human eye is capable of seeing more colours than a computer monitor.  When graphic designers start a project, we design in the RGB colour space because we’re using a computer and we want to see our colour choices as accurately as possible. Although a computer monitor only emits colour in RGB, it is capable of converting colours into an accurate depiction of CMYK so that we can see a sample of what our work might look like when it is printed.  CMYK  pigments serve as filters, subtracting varying degrees of red, green and blue from white light to produce a selective range of spectral colours.  This sounds complicated, but the good news is, we don’t have to fully understand how it works in order to create successful design.  Have you ever changed the cartridge in your at-home ...
• What makes great Layout Graphic designers use the word layout to refer to the placement and position of many objects which add up to create one design or spread.  If you are viewing a magazine, brochure or website that has been laid out well, you won’t even notice, because the pages will be easy to read, pleasing to the eye, and interesting. However, if you’re looking at a page spread that has been laid out poorly, you may get frustrated, confused or become uninterested. Layout consists of images, text headings, text body, and white space.  It can also include charts, breakout text and anything else a client decides to throw in there.  It is the graphic designer’s job to take all of the elements given to them by a client, and lay them out in a neat, organized and engaging fashion, while maintaining the integrity of the content. When elements such as images and text in a layout line up with eachother, they create something called eyelines.  Eyelines allow for clarity, are aesthetically pleasing, and lead a viewer’s eye across a spread, creating what designers call movement.  Movement gives a sense of unity across all of the pages in a spread, and allows the reader to effortlessly take in the information in the intended order, without thinking twice about it. As always, choosing the right fonts plays a big role in successful layout design.  I like to use typefaces that have a large family, such as Helvetica Neue or Myriad Pro.  This allows me to use bold and light versions of each font.  (Both Helvetica and Myriad also have extra light and extra bold versions as well, which really come in handy.)  It’s best to stay away from fonts such as Comic Sans, Papyrus, and any others that have a stigma attached to them.  Display fonts such as ...
• Vector vs Raster So what’s the difference, and why should we care? A raster (or bitmap) image is made of thousands of little squares, or pixels.  The best example of this is a photograph.  Because each pixel has been assigned it’s own colour value, and there are millions of them in an image, raster images are rich in detail, which mimics realism.  They are also large in file size. You might not realize it, but a program such as Photoshop edits the colour of each individual pixel in your design. Raster images have a maximum size and do not enlarge well.  Increasing the number of pixels, or making the pixels bigger, results in the original data being spread over a larger area.   This makes the image appear distorted and chunky, or grainy.  The word resolution applies to raster images, and refers to the number of pixels or dots that make up the image.  A high-res image will have 300+ dots per square inch, and be appropriate for print.  A low-res image will have less than that, although computer screens only require an image to have 72 pixels per square inch to be clear.  Printers print in dots, and print many more dots per square inch, than a computer displays pixels.  The terms dots and pixels can be used interchangeably when referring to image resolution. Websites are designed as raster images, because they don’t need to be enlarged, and because they are being viewed with a computer screen, which sees things in pixels.  Photographs are raster images because at this time, the technology doesn’t really exist to make them vectors. So what happens if you have a photograph, and you want to place it on the side of a bus?  Camera companies charge thousands of dollars for cameras that shoot in high pixel density, or megapixels, which enables people ...
• What makes a great logo? Branding is the single most important thing a business must take into consideration.  Without strong branding, a company selling a great product, is likely to fail.  Solid branding is driven by a strong, clear logo that represents a company in many different contexts, and still gets the message across. There are a few key elements that make a great logo. First of all, a great logo design starts with a great concept.  Many clients have a concept in mind when they approach a graphic designer, but it might be a weak idea, and they need to be coached gently.  Telling a client that their idea is bad will just insult them.  Explaining the importance of brand identity, and offering a few stronger choices will hopefully help them understand that they are hiring a designer for expertise as well as design capabilities. A client may have a favourite animal or colour, but they must realize that regardless of how much they love turtles, it has no place in their electronics store logo.  It is the job of a graphic designer to guide the client into making good decisions about their branding. A logo must represent a company accurately, favourably and easily.  It must do this in print and on the web.  Whether it is placed on the side of a moving bus in full colour, or etched onto a ballpoint pen, it must relay the same message.  If a person can’t understand a logo within two seconds of seeing it, they won’t bother at all. A good logo must use a font that is clear, easily readable, and represents the company accurately.  For instance, you likely wouldn’t use a cursive font on a logo for a mechanic shop.  Choosing a font that isn’t too trendy is also very important, since certain fonts like Papyrus become popular and are therefor ...