You're a newbie with 6 months dedicated to improving yourself as a graphic designer. What do you do?
Anders (413 pencils) | Thu, 2011-11-24 02:05Title says it all.
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consume as many books as you can based on design using TYPE!
Neat, thanks. Any specific suggestions?
any design annual would be a good start. but ive found a lot of guidance over the years from books on the work of david carson and neville brody. or from an older-school standpoint herb lubalin or woody pirtle / pentagram
Reading about design is very good and there are hundreds of excellent books which cover many aspects of design communication. Studying award winning designs is also very good. The AIGA contest winners are always top notch and they publish a annual book which always pulls me into the local Barnes/Nobel. I'm very impressed with the designers at www.dribbble.com who appear to me the equal of AIGA winners. If you've followed some of my posts, I always stress the importance of golden ratio and sacred geometry.
Once you've steeped yourself in a lot of communication by design theory, studied great designs and learned the basics of golden ratio, the best thing you can do is invest in a large Moleskin book with grid paper and a few pencils and do a lot of sketching.
Yes. Step away from the computer. Just sketch. You'll be surprised how much you improve in 6 months.
A good collection of excellent books on identity design was compiled by David Airey.
http://www.davidairey.com/books/
Without my sense of direction, I don't know where I'd be.
Yes, I'm already a huge fan of sketching with pencil and paper only. I never even touch the computer until I've sorted out everything in the first phase of a project.
Thanks for the input! Much appreciated.
*edit: That dribbble site… Not sure if I should be motivated or depressed.
Yeah. I definitely get a motivated/depressed feeling when browsing dribble.com. Good stuff.
Without my sense of direction, I don't know where I'd be.
Purchase a six month supply of preserved food, then hike to some remote mountains and live there as a hermit. In total solitude, meditate on the principles of design for 16 hours each day until you have achieved oneness with the universe. When you are ready, you will no longer need a pen & paper or a computer; objects around you will automatically arrange themselves into pleasing formations.
I understand this is how Saul Bass got started.
This seems wise.
I'm with wgzn. Spend a year on font usage and typography. A simple way to make yourself stand out in a crowd full of Photoshop users is to understand fonts and typography. Get inspired by looking at any pre-1980 advertising. Look at the care the career typesetters put into their work back then - beautiful type like that has virtually disappeared these days.