typographasaurus

[typographasaurus]

https://instagram.com/logo_fonts

[typographasaurus]

hi i hope you’re doing good! can i ask design advice? how do you deal with the dread of seeing other people’s work and realizing your not as creative and never will be as creative as those people? one day i feel like i’m on a good streak creating things for my portfolio but then i look online and see so many creative designs and my self confidence becomes minuscule and i don’t design or do anything for a month! it’s a bad habit and i don’t know how to break out of it!

HI! Again sorry for taking so long to answer this question, my brain has been all over the place this month. 

I definitely know the fear that comes with seeing other people’s work, but keep in mind that everyone has to start somewhere. What you’re seeing (if you’re just looking at other people’s portfolios online) is that some of these people have been working with the tools for a lot longer or have a different background with design than you do and that’s okay! 

This is going back to my core advice for design is just:

research and copy styles you like you’ll learn a lot about design and the tools you’re working with by doing this! is this something you’ll put in a final portfolio? probably not, but you’ll get a feel for certain style choices as you do this and begin to develop your eye for design even further!!

but also to branch from this is another tip from writing to share with you: 

everyone’s perspective is different the way you tell a story and the way someone else tells the same story is going to be different, so don’t focus too hard on comparing your design to someone else's. Your perspectives are different, so your designs will be different too! 

[typographasaurus]

your design advice is so helpful and i love your work! thank you for being an inspiration and amazing human to others! stay safe out there!

hi anon!!! you are so heckin lovely!! thank you!! (also if you are the same anon/or just to let the other anon know: I do have your ask in my inbox and i’m formulating an answer!!)

[typographasaurus]

Keller Biolo Personal Brand Identity Project created by www.kellerbiolo.com.br Mockups by 👉 www.mockupcloud.com

[typographasaurus]

What does the design process (the conceptualisation, research, first draft, etc) look like to you? I think this process is very brushed over and if you don’t have a grasp on it right away it’s pretty hard to teach yourself because you overthink everything and never come to a decision to follow & edit later & i also find like i have no idea what i’m doing & what are the right questions and answers for a design project it’s stressful! Your portfolio is so good! You are such a good designer!

I always find I’m the worst at trying to explain how the design process happens for me because I’m such a mess?? It usually just comes down to how much information/specifics I need to cover and then spending 3 hours in a rabbit hole looking at design online and dumping resources into a folder/on my canvas. 

Right now I’m working on a prospective donor brochure for a local museum and their restoration of an old farmhouse and I was literally given a 5 page basic bare powerpoint presentation and three photos and then handed an example big information booklet and was told ‘make it like that’ with no other direction which was.....really fun lmao....  

So I opened up InDesign, organized the text into a couple different pages and cropped some of the images/color corrected them in PS to look better than a grainy cellphone photo and then had to go dig through the other material I’ve done for them in the past (information, more photos) and began dragging and dropping them into InDesign and just kept moving text around and repositioning/recropping photos until there was a layout that made sense to me and displayed the information in a way that makes sense. 

I think that’s really what’s important, but tough to conceptualize when you start with a design is just trying to figure out ‘okay what’s important to highlight here, what hierarchy makes sense, what shapes and colors match the clients brand but also is interesting enough to create something visually appealing?’ and working within those parameters. 

Another example was I was asked to help do an introduction ‘presentation’ for some of our freelancers who interact with us every day on a digital level but don’t know us personally. So I literally spent an hour searching different variations of ‘about me pages’ ‘about me presentations’ ‘biography page presentation’ ‘biography graphic pages’ and taking ideas from those image searches and mashing it with our company’s current brand and sprinkled in a little from an example template my coworker referenced that they had used many years previously (that looked absolutely awful, I might add xD) 

From that, I created a title page and an example page with an example bio of me and gave it to the coworker who requested it. (It’s currently sitting in my inbox being asked to pare it down and fit two people on one page instead of using one page for each person, which I have no idea how to do by keeping the same fun feel she loved from the ‘one page-one person’ version but  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

And overthinking and anxiety always sit with me while I’m working too... I always deal with it, by telling myself to do like five wildly different versions, and then the lazy part of me gives up by version 2 and I go back to version 1 and implement what I liked in the first 20% of version 2 and then tweak it until I’m like WELP GOOD ENOUGH, LET’S SEE WHAT THEY THINK and then let the client feedback guide me from there. 

I KNOW NONE OF THAT IS LIKE SUPER HELPFUL. But like all my advice boils down to do your design research and always keep your eyes out for awesome designs that can inspire you for your next project! 

[typographasaurus]

What are your favorite font combos?

ugh it’s so cliche but like bebas neue and brush script fonts always fuckin get me

ANYTHING WITH HIGH CONTRAST IS JUST *chefs kiss*

like a slab serif font and a thin sans serif font? excellent

serif fonts contrasted with the softness of thin cursive handwriting? fantastic

In like publications and stuff it should probably be more simple than that but ye just that high contrast of like thick serif headers and sans serif body text? stuff like that? excellent. 

I suggest signing up for Creative Market’s emails because they email you every week with stuff that’s free that you normally pay for and I’ve gotten some GORGEOUS fonts from those emails

[typographasaurus]

anon, i realize I did not link my portfolio in my answer like an idiot lol 

for anyone who’s curious my portfolio is here!

[typographasaurus]

how do you get over stress when it comes to designing? sometimes even if i think about designing something i get really stressed out and i overthink it and can’t come to a conclusion i also suck as interpreting clients words or ideas into actual things i try so hard to become better at graphic design but whenever i face my computer i forget everything i learn and get stressed out.. esp when everything has to have a meaning it’s so stressful and i’m not creative at all

ok actually tho i also get nervous about what i’m making and i create like 10 different versions of everything even if i only end up showing the client 2 versions

again i just say not everything has to have a reason! sometimes! it can just be because it looks good to you! trust your design sense! throw some shapes on the page. put some text in there. just make it not a blank page~

this is actually advice from another hobby i have, which is writing: 

you can’t edit a blank page

give yourself something to work with! start with the information you have to include in the design and just play with it until something catches your eye, drag things around, play with the sizing and shape of your design

does your business card have to be 2″x3″? what if it’s a square 3″x3″ or a circle? 

google is your best friend and just keep trying things you see from other designs until you find something that’s right even if that means you have to try 10, 20, 50, 100 different versions of your design! 

i hope these answers have helped in someway! I know it’s super scary when you’re first starting out but like I said if you’d ever like specific pointers for a specific project, please feel free to reach out! I’d love to help! 

[typographasaurus]

1/2 you give good advice! yeah it’s hard to find stuff online when comes to the actual design process and what to look for when designing something do you have any book recommendations or any recommendations on the design process? or the research part? like let’s say your creating a flyer ad for a gym membership how would you go about this? this is just some random suggestions i also find it so so so hard to create stuff for your portfolio b/c you overthink everything

2/2 i’m always so scared b/c i dont how to start a project like i said but i think your advice will help to just copy things you like so you can develop a style for what you like & what you know looks good! i get scared to do random projects b/c in interviews i’m always scared they’re going to ask why did you do this way & i’m just like “idk i like the look of it” i feel like you have to have a reason for every decision made & it’s scary when you’re not smart & have no sense of good design

thank you!! it is super tough because design is something that’s so.... open to interpretation and therefore can be hard to teach/hard to learn. It’s not like math where it’s like ‘here are a one or two ways to find your solution and it’s correct and you can move on’

with design there’s A MILLION different ways to tackle things.

here are a few resources I was able to find that might help you!

pixel perfect precision

this is kind of more about UX/UI and website design but short and sweet and includes a lot of good principles are touched on here that can apply to any project!

graphic design basics 6th ed.

this is a TEXTBOOK textbook but cover some good stuff from flipping through it, from history to basic principles

basic designs: design thinking

this actually was a textbook for one of my courses once upon a time, it’s a little more graphically interesting to look at and scroll through... some of it’s a little bland but there’s some good stuff in there!

in your hypothetical about creating a flyer for a gym the first thing i’d start with is the pre-existing brand of the gym and what’s been done before and follow from there. what have previous flyers looked like? what are you advertising? what platform are you advertising on? will it be a print only flyer or something to be viewed on facebook for instance? if it’s print, is it going to be a fold out flyer? there’s so many places you can go with an existing brand.

if you’re starting a brand from scratch: that’s another beast. but even then you can start with: what do the competing gyms branding look like? what audience are you trying to reach? how is your brand going to stand out over other options your customer has?

you’re welcome to take a look through my portfolio! it hasn’t been updated in a hot minute but maybe it’ll help you build your own portfolio?

I RESONATE SO MUCH THOUGH WITH THE ‘why did you do it this way?’ ‘it looks good’ BECAUSE THAT’S HOW I DESIGN TOO!!

when you’re still learning, you don’t have to have an answer for everything! in fact, my answer for how to approach those kinds of questions: BULLSHIT ANSWERS. just make something up. learn design terms and look at your own work as if you’re an outsider and come up with reasons why you did something.

“I wanted to highlight this bit of information because I think this is an important message to communicate...” (i found this cool font and this bit of information stood out to me) or “I chose this color because it lends a certain energy to the brand...” (i just like that color and it looks good with the rest of the design) or “The hierarchy here leads your eye through the design...” (the layout just looked right to me)

i can’t tell you how many times i’ve been told i have a successful design and internally i’m like ‘cool i didn’t even think of that but yeah i guess it is successful because of that’ and there might be some truth to your bullshit answers! when you are forced to talk about your designs you realize subconsciously there are reasons why you do things.

maybe you’d find the rubber duck method that programmers useful to you! have a rubber duck (or whatever!) on your desk and as you make design decisions just explain them to the duck like you’re talking to a client and why this design is successful for their brand.

this is very long and rambly at this point but if you’d ever like help on a project or if you have specific questions about aspects you’re stuck on or whatever! or if have questions about what to put in a portfolio I’d be happy to listen and provide any kind of feedback!!

[typographasaurus]

thank you so much for your advice!! you have some amazing tips! i tried some online schooling like lynda and bring your own laptop but byol didnt teach me anything about creating good design just about the programs and lynda did the same thing with some courses i found some were tutorials showing you how to make something but not why they made those decisions and what led them to creating that piece and what made it a good design choice! do you think you need to be creative to be a good designer

yeah no problem! I’m happy some of my rambling was helpful!

that is tough to find a starting point for teaching yourself the actual design part of graphic design... I think the programs I was in did some like color theory and graphic design basics like typography which were helpful in someways, but honestly I hardly ever touched my textbooks. 

(If you want a place to start with, try your local library and search for graphic design books, there are a lot out there! or instead of books, ditch lynda and byol--which are great for technical tutorials!--and just peruse youtube and find people who do design/art/layout kind of tutorials that are less technical and more about the actual design process! I don’t know if there’s many good resources like that out there, but it’s the internet, you can find lots of stuff! -- That being said, still be critical of all the design work you see or watch, hahah.) 

it’s kind of a tough question about whether or not you need to be creative to be a designer... I think in some aspects you do? but like i don’t see myself as like an artist since I’m not awesome at like traditional artwork? 

what it comes down to is not whether or not you’re creative, it’s whether or not you have an eye for design! it’s great to just keep your eye out for things that look cool to you and translate that to creating your own stuff that excites you and looks good to you! And like I said sometimes that means going through and copying some ideas because eventually you’ll take those ideas and begin to put your own twist on them~

[typographasaurus]

hello kat! i’m new to graphic design and have trouble on the creativity part and creating ideas, when i face a blank page it constantly feels like my mind is stuck at a barricade with zero ideas and when i try to research i don’t know how to take inspiration from other people without copying how do you take on a new project and research ideas and create good design? my school never taught me this so some advice would be very welcome on this front! thank you so much!

hi there!! blank pages are actually the worst and scare the heck out of me too!

it is tough to look at inspiration and not feel like ‘god i’m just copying this design’ but i would say COPY THOSE DESIGNS! copy them as an exercise! you’ll learn more about what your software can do if you’re trying to copy a design. Once you have a better understanding of your software I feel the crafting part of the design comes easier because it starts to take shape as I think about ‘oh I did this one technique on this project one time, i’m gonna do that here, but tweak it so it matches this’ 

on that note, set yourself some projects! SOME FUN PROJECTS. You mentioned your school didn’t teach you much. I was fortunate enough to go through two different design programs (a community college and then a four year online program) so the amount of design projects I ended up with at the end of my last degree was ridiculous. And they were really open with what we were able to do with our projects! A good chunk of my assignments ended up being fandom related because that’s what excited me. If that’s your jam create a publication you might see in world, create fan made posters. If it isn’t your jam, find something you’re passionate about. Like history? Create an infographic of your favorite time period or historic event. Space fascinates you? Make a magazine spread about your favorite moon of Jupiter. (No one’s reading it. You can use Lorem Ipsum as your text!) 

spend time researching similar spreads, infographics, posters etc. Open at least five of them that you like. Take layout from one, take color scheme from another, and frankenstein your design until you’re tweaking it to what you want the final design to look like! 

also spend your time looking through free resources and collecting stuff to help you along! suck at making patterns? download some cool stuff at vecteezy! not a photographer? find some beautiful free shots at pexels! 

I’ll leave ya with a quote one of my instructors told our class from designer Paul Rand: “Don't try to be original; just try to be good.”

that’s stuck with me through my schooling and now at my job! you don’t have to reinvent graphic design every time you go to create something. just trust your design eye and make it good! 

[typographasaurus]

Timeline of 10 Famous Fonts

[typographasaurus]

Gachapon capsule toys for graphic designers! Font figures of the first Japanese letter “Ah” available in both serif and sans-serif, concept by Musashino Art University students.

[typographasaurus]

Check out Color Supply! The site has inspirational colour palettes from designers & illustrators around the world!

It’s got some tips and tricks about picking colours. They also have a Hex Colour Palette Generator!

(Thanks to @magnetholic for showing us!)

[typographasaurus]

[typographasaurus]

100+ Superb Professional Display Fonts - only $27!

Is your typeface toolbox bugging you daily for some new friends? Not to worry! This awesome deal from Tugcu Design Co. sports more than 100 professional display fonts for one super low price. These fonts are spot-on perfect for making some noise on everything from posters to book covers, and with a royalty-free license, you can use as many of them as you want on as many commercial or personal projects as you’d like.

For more amazing font deals, visit the Mighty Deals website!

[typographasaurus]

the legend of korra press kit

Meet Korra, the next Avatar!

On February 21, 2005, Nickelodeon first introduced Aang, a reluctant 12-year-old boy ready to fulfill his fate as the long-awaited Avatar responsible for saving the world. The anime-inspired series, rich with epic story arcs, layered mythology and beautiful martial arts choreography, now continues with the hit franchise’s highly anticipated next chapter The Legend of Korra, premiereing Saturday, April 14, at 11:00 a.m. (ET/PT) on Nickelodeon.

There is only one Avatar. Each time the Avatar passes away they are reincarnated into the next nation, which is where we meet Korra. Bold, head-strong and physically capable, Avatar Korra is a girl from the Southern Water Tribe whose childhood is spent training in a protected environment. Upon turning 17, her thirst for adventure brings her to Republic City where she begins her journey, striving to embrace her role as the next Avatar in a more modern but now corrupt world.

The enclosed press kit includes a DVD-ROM with the press release, character descriptions, cast and executive biographies, production credits and artwork. These press materials, along with show clips and a screener of the premiere episode are also available on the DVD-ROM.

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