Get ready for a tsunami of changes in the way graphic designers work.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is already affecting the graphic design profession. This is almost certain to continue as AI technologies advance and become more adept.
Typography has its own jargon. Here's a brief dictionary of useful terms.
Have you ever wondered what the little dot that forms the top of an i is called or puzzled over the two very different styles for the letters g and a? If so, I have a few answers.
A new year brings Adobe Stock's predictions for the future.
Not to be outdone in the future-prediction business, Adobe Stock has come up with their list of design trend predictions for the coming year based on trends they've noticed in the stock industry. According to Adobe Stock, 2022 is...
Are crowdsourcing sites killing graphic design as we’ve known it?
I'll sometimes visit Upwork.com to pick up jobs during slow periods and between assignments.
Unlike many of the other crowdsourcing sites, Upwork doesn’t expect designers to submit ideas to online contests hoping that prospective clients select them. No serious designer would...
Finding valuable design inspiration in everyday places.
My appreciation for good design grew enormously during the first year of my university design program. Each week throughout the school year, we traced hundreds of words from magazines onto layout paper.
At some point during that year, while tracing the lowercase a in a headline set in Helvetica, it occurred to me that...
Today's world demands more from us than decorating other people’s ideas.
The nature of our profession has changed, is still changing and will continue to change.
Designers specializing in one-off projects, like logos, flyers or banner ads, are finding it difficult to compete against lower-wage designers overseas, crowdsourcing, a glut of recent design graduates and the semi-automated, do-it-yourself services, like Canva and Wix. Going forward, this trend will only accelerate, which...
So you thought your new diploma meant that you were all set to go, right? think again.
Four years and many thousands of dollars later, you got what you wanted — a great design education from a top-notch school. You've done everything right, and it's time to make your mark on the world. But wait, the professional world is turning out to be different from school. What happened?
Many former students have difficulty adjusting to the realities of work. All too often the skills and talents that lead to good school grades don't translate all that well into immediate...
As the old saying goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words."
The nature of our profession has changed, is still changing and will continue to change.
A recent study by Microsoft says today's typical reader has a shorter attention span than a goldfish. That's right, in a world saturated with information, people have become notoriously picky about what's worthy of holding their interest. Failure to immediately engage the reader too often means...
If you don't make a concerted effort to keep up, you'll soon be left behind.
Paasche airbrushes, Castell pens, French curves, orange triangles and various other obsolete bits of yesterday's technology fill a couple of my flat file drawers. I'll likely never use these tools again, but I still keep them as souvenirs from the past. I've lived though at least two big technological transitions that ended or stalled out some design careers while providing...
Summer fun beckons sprocketheads in the heart of southwestern Utah's color country.
Brian Head Peak tops out at 11,307 feet. Not really a peak in the classic sense, the mountain might better be described as a large knob sitting atop the Markagunt Plateau. Nonetheless, the view from the top is impressive. To the south and down from the summit, forest-clad mountain slopes wrap around the red cliffs of Cedar Breaks like the rind of a watermelon. Several thousand feet farther below, at the base of the mountains, lie the sun-bleached floors of...