How to get your own style
alexisVERT (45 pencils) | Thu, 2007-03-01 15:27hey hey, well i am a graphic design student that is busy embarking on a long journey, one that i hope will be fun and i will succeed in....
ok well i was in first year last year at a crappy institute now im in a brilliant one second year... this place has more for me to learn from although i have now catching up to do...
i wanted to ask how do you come up with you own style? is there a specific way or what? whats the best designing tips etc. any imput would help thanks
i really love designing but now i discovered that i know absolutly nothing about it, only that i have a talent to make things 'pretty'. so i would like to broaden my views of design etc
my current project is to design a trexi and caricatures
my ideal profession would love to eventually go maybe into webdesign
so far i have worked with freehand mx, photoshop cs2 and illustrator (and got a few things to move around flash lol)
lots o creative love alexis
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Seriously. That's it. Look at everything. Look at all the magazine/newspaper ads. Look at every brochure and poster you come across. Look at as many Web sites as you can.
Keep a copy of the ones you like. After a while, you'll probably begin to notice a pattern develop with them. Sometimes it's the vibrancy of the color use, sometimes it's the use of negative space, or perhaps you'll find you like or don't like geometric layouts rather than more free-flowing ones. With Web sites, you may notice that you like top navigation sites, or darker colored sites, etc..
Once you begin to see the patterns, you'll probably discover that your design tendencies are similar.
Just remember, "design" has nothing to do with computers or software. Design is about communication. To be a great designer doesn't mean you have to make something "pretty." It means that the message or emotion you're trying to convey is clear in your work. Great design motivates people, pretty pictures don't.
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thanks that helps tremendiously,
yes i know that atleast that computers are only another medium to convey the message, oh yes and i collect everything i have my visual diary bursting at the seems! hehe and i am an internet junkey so i really love looking at websites... do you prehaps know of any that you think i should look at prehaps
ok one question, if i like something does that mean its good design? because i do tend to like darker things but i alwasy get told it kills the design etc so i am really confused, although all my work i have produced is really colourful, yes contradiction but im female im allowed to be arb. hehe, like my excuses? my problem is when i use concepts i make them to difficult to the normal reader... you have to really think so therefore im not acheiving the objective
how do i rectify that or do i just have to take an idea and keep working at it? love your last line thanks clarifies eveything! ok mmmm so much to do...
so i take it your a designer... how do you find it?
zoom zoom
alexis
couldn't have said it ANY better.
the only thing i'll add though is this:
learn to draw by hand. it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be masterful, it doesn't have to be great either. Get a set of pencils, some decent pens, some regular paper, and some tracing paper. ( i have rolls of the tracing paper and RARELY use regular paper when sketching stuff out)
draw out the things you've saved from JimD's post :) trace them if you have to learn the way things go. sketch ideas up, don't be afraid to doodle little dumb ideas. The tracing paper will allow you to take bits and pieces that you like from an array of ideas and try to puzzle them together to make new ones. I wish I still had the scanned version of logo's I'd done a while back an posted on here to give you an idea of what i mean (i'll upload one later, so check back again)
don't be afraid to show the torn tracing paper of sketches to clients. they'll LOVE IT! my clients just eat that stuff up!
this will make you that much more versatile. computer software can only do so much, personal touches help both with conveying an idea and creating new ones, even when you use previous clippings and savings from outside sources.
hope this helps.
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Architectural Technician - Multimedia Designer
www.ArchMedia.us
yes i can do all the fine art stuff... i love doing it actually and im pretty good at it... will i be able to post it to prove or will i hvae to rely on you to have faith :)? lol yeah im getting afraid of clients all the stories i heard! are they really as difficlut as everybody makes them out to be? mmm i have to work on my communication, in person im shy lol, i dont knw why haha.especailly when i have to explain a concept to a lecturer... i have one i just battle to put it in words in a sentence that actually makes sense... im in a whole other level lmao you need to decode what i say sometimes... but thanks the whole tracing paper sounds so cute, tracing paper and me are not good friends though so ill stick to the white stuff:)
any websites that you recogmend i look at?
stop picking your nose :)
alexis
it's not so much that clients are problematic with me, it's that most of mine are just as creative but in different areas/walks of life. a good chunk of my clients are architects, so design is natural to them, just web and graphic design is slightly different. In meetings my clients can be creative with the questions they'll ask me, and that's where i get pinched. i've read alot of nightmare stories on here, and i thank god i haven't had half those problems (yet!)
with that said, seems like in person communication is what you need to work on to convey your ideas and back them up. not sure how to recommend working on that, sorry
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Architectural Technician - Multimedia Designer
www.ArchMedia.us
i posted two forums by accident how do i get rid of it?
thanks
the blonde one
hehe
Here's a great article to start you on the road to good design and finding your own style:
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/25226.html
Good design to me is about balance and hierarchy so your viewer receives the information you are trying to present in the most clear way. If you don't choose your most important element and go down from there, how will anyone else do the same when viewing your design?
It's like making each tire the same size as the entire car; bad design. :)
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Natobasso
Bassist with a penchant for Web Business Technology
"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling
is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side." - James Baldwin
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Dirt and Rust