If there is one thing I’ve learned as a designer for nearly 10 years it’s to SAVE everything. a lot of work has been eliminated through the years because I have been able to go back and quickly put my hands on a certain file, font or stock photo that was previously used for a project.

Unfortunately, you probably already know that SAVING EVERYTHING can take a lot of time and space. This week a fellow designer and colleague asked about my file practices. I realized this is an area where we can certainly all learn from each other as we share our methods and increase our effeciency.

So, here’s what I do:

My file structure is first broken down into clients. Sometimes by their names or their company names.Inside those ‘client’ folders, I break each client down by projects.

Such as:

Business Card

Bookmark

CD Covers

Website
Now, within each of those “project” folders, I include folders for all the parts of the projects:

Such as:

Concepts
Stock Photos
Fonts
Final
Revisions

As I mentioned, so many times, this has saved me being able to go back and pull some random part from a project quickly. Depending on the size and scope of the project, sometimes within that structure I’ll also have to break it down into layered files and flattened files, so I may also have a directory for JPEGs, PSD, INDD etc. Just depending on the program used and project specifics.

That’s me and how I handle my files. What about you?

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If you travel as much as I do and you’re as committed to keeping up with your work as I am, then you might be interested in some of the self sufficiency tips and toys I’ve acquired over the years.

Internet Access. As a Web designer it’s not possible for me to go TOO long without an internet connection. To make sure I have what I need on business trips and traveling adventures I use a broadband aircard. The card I have is from Verizon, but it’s my understanding that there are more companies that carry them today than when I purchased a few years ago.  The aircard works much like a cell phone, generally requiring a 2 year contract and a monthly connection fee. But for me, it has been well-worth it. Case in point. Tonight I’m blogging form the back seat of my mom’s Jetta as we are taking a road trip down to Dallas, TX for the week.

Vehicle Power Supply. Car, truck, van or SUV I can always plug in. I use an AD/DC adapter that I plug my Mac power cord into for continual power streaming to my machine from any available power outlet or cigarette lighter. These  adapters normally run about $35 and can be found at most hardware or electronic stores.

External Mac Battery. Power outage? No problem. I recently added a Hyper Mac external battery to my “on the road” arsenal. With it, I have an additional 12 hours of ‘no-plug” time. The best part is, I don’t have to ever sit and seeth about wasting my time anymore. Because no matter where I am or what I’m doing, I can be fully connected to EVERYTHING in a matter of minutes.

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Wow. This time yesterday I was in the middle of an extentsial melt down. I had restarted my machine only to realize in the process of my furiously fast workflow I had inadvertently dragged my desktop and profile files to an invisible folder. Thus when my machined logged in I was met with what appeared to be a fresh installation of Leopard X.

To say I freaked may be putting it mildly. The good news however, is that I’ve been using Mozy Unlimited for quite some time now and have all my files automatically backed up with them. As simply as checking my account online and ordering my back up disks, I had a full backup of over 100 GBs of work being sent to my home. If you haven’t invested in a good backup solution I would suggest you do so before you get that gut wrenching feeling of re-doing your work and disappointing your clients.

Good BackUp Solutions:

• A third party solution like MOZY Unlimited–they are easy to use, incremental backups and reliable.
• Back up to an external Hard Drive. For a Mac you can use Time Machine or Carbon Copy to make this a breeze.

Bad BackUp Solutions:

• Burning to a CD or DVD —the shelf life on these is too small and too unpredictable. Not to mention the fact that you would have to spend ALL your time backing up and very little actually working!
• Uploading to an SFTP site —the server load and time constraints are much to heavy for most web servers and hosts out there and again, all your processing time would go to backing up your files!

We all enjoy what we do, but having to do it OVER again is no fun. Don’t despair! There is hope! Backing up regularly and reliably will keep you from having to go through the pain of rebuilding!

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For a graphic designer faced with the decision of getting things printed, dealing with print houses can seem like a daunting task. There are so many to choose from and tons of things to take into account, when selecting a good one.

What should you look for in a printer?

1. Request Samples. If you’ve never used the company before or seen their work elsewhere, request samples of their printing. This is fairly common and shouldn’t cost you anything. Nearly every day I get sample printing, papers or packaging in the mail from companies that are competing for my business, and you should too!

2. Check the weight. Make sure the printing will be done on a nice weight paper. Not to heavy and not too light for the job. If you are getting business cards printed, you don’t want a lightweight card that will be easily crumpled. Instead, you want a sturdy card stock that will stick with your customer for at least a couple of years.

3. Color matching. Does your printer have a disclaimer on their color matching? If they do, be wary. Printing in color is a tricky process, so be sure your printer will back up their products. If their ink comes out the wrong color, you and your clients should NOT be left holding the bag!

4. Logos. Some printers, especially the cheap ones, give you a cheaper rate if you allow them to print their logo on the backside of your piece. Depending on your client, your job, or your budget, this may or may not be an option for you. But, it should be a question you ask as you are getting quotes and selecting printers!

5. Finishes. Ask whether or not your printed pieces will have an UV coating on them, a gloss or other finish. This addition will drastically change the way your final print turns out, so you need to be ready for anything!

My favorite printer?

I love OvernightPrints.com. They are fast and affordable for excellent quality.

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Among some of the most creative and impressive marketing moves of all time, chances are you will hear tales of early Starbucks. While trying to increase brand awareness, they hired people to drive around with a Starbucks cup glued to the top of their car just above the driver’s door where it would be found if the driver had inadvertently sat it down while getting into the car.

Brilliant? Not yet, it gets better. As other drivers and those considerate enough to marvel at how he had gotten this far, and motion or speak to him regarding the cup, they were given a coupon for a free coffee at their local Starbucks. Now, it’s brilliant. Not only did it raise brand awareness but also drove new potential customers to the store who had the potential of being turned into loyal customers.

Recently I read a similiar story of brilliant marketing in Deliver magazine. After reading the article, I searched for a more information on Prospera Credit Union, what I found was a small chain in Wisconsin that I thought were behind the marketing expenditure. Fortunately a reader (see the comment below) was kind enough to let me know that the Credit Unioin that was actually responsible for this marketing is actually a much larger bank with 21 branches actually in Canada.

Whether large or small, the company was still faced with a problem. They were assigned the task of making their new equity shares sound exciting. How can this be accomplished?

See for yourself!

As Deliver put it, few things say freezing your taxes like a freezer pack.  In case you can’t read the text, in addition to the the logo of the credit union, the pack boasts, "Paying taxes is a big headache. That’s why we’re freezing them for 10 years."

Was the campaign successful? You better believe it. In a short 7 weeks they had surpassed their revenue goal!

Simply Brilliant!

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Following up an earlier article where we discussed some magazine layout principles, let’s take a look at continuity in design.

Design continuity for a specialized marketing piece, specifically one that only makes an appearance quarterly or annually is incredibly important. Because the piece will only be in the viewers hand a few times a year, it’s important to make a visual impact that the reader can easily remember.

How is this accomplished? When creating such a piece, it’s important to keep some "theme" of consistency throughout the magazine. The theme will usually consist of similar graphic elements that appear on each spread, every page or at regular intervals within.

Here is a great example of how this is applied in a semi-annual magazine for the Alumni of the Communications Department at ORU. Knowing the advisor/designer personally I can clearly see her thought process as she carries the visual theme throughout the magazine.

Notice the "recording" lines around the dominant photo. These are repeated symbolically on the opposing page that begins the profile article. Later on, as we continue through the magazine, we again see the same elements repeat. The story is different and even the layout is different but the theme is the same.

To keep the magazine fresh and changing, we don’t want to simply repeat the exact same layout over and over. Between these main stories the magazine is filled with shorter articles, sidebars and photos. But once we come back to such a spread, there is an immediate visual connection to what we’ve already seen.

Ways this can be accomplished:

1. Repeat. Simply pull a previously used element such as a drop cap, a rule line, background graphics, etc.

2. Duplicate a photo effect. Add crop marks, frames, distress or elegant filter effects to dominate photos to create a unified effect.

3. Mirror. To mirror a spread simply re-arrange the elements in your layout to appear as if they would if you literally printed it out and held it up to a mirror. (If you can’t visualize the effect–print it out!) This is what has been done in the above example.

4. Reflect. What would your layout look like if reflected upside down? Please realize we’re not referring to the text or headline, but rather the arrangement of the elements on the page. If your dominant photo is a square on the bottom left, another layout within the piece could have it placed in the top left instead.

5. Rotate. If your original design is solid, you can rotate your layout of elements in a clockwise or counter-clockwise fashion to retain the ‘feel’ of the other spreads.

Keeping these tricks in mind with assist you in creating a unified magazine piece.  To download the entire magazine to see the visual impact of repeating elements click here.

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A remarkable print process has been released. The 75th anniversary of Esquire magazine boasts a printing first: E-ink.

What is this new phenomenon? It’s literally a digital display that is battery powered and snuggled in the front of the magazine cover. The cover, barely heavier stock than a normal cover is not even noticeably different. That is until the image changes in front of your eyes.

A friend was in a local bookstore and saw that flash of the magazine cover. It captured his attention and immediately he thought of me. As soon as he saw it, he knew it was a must have. There were only 2 issues left. After talking to the clerk, he found out that this "flashing" issue, was a limited edition. 1 of 100,000 made out of the more than 700,000 ran in the regularly subscription issues.

How does is work? Honestly, I’ve read the articles and I still have no idea. But I do know that it’s remarkable and chances are this will be the wave of the future. As designers, we are required to get the information and get on board.

In the meantime, I’ll be holding on to my copy of the magazine! And learning what I can about this new technology. To read the full article on the technology of this cover click here.

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Is your photoshop work lacking a little something? Could it be that you need a some new brushes to spice up your designs? Here’s a list of some of my favorite resources for photoshop brushes. The one I use the most? Brusheezy! They  have great stuff! So I made them number 1!

Free Photoshop Brushes at Brusheezy!

Photoshop Brushes – Brusheezy is the a HUGE collection of Photoshop Brushes and Photoshop Patterns to download, or upload your own!

Photoshop Brushes

Photoshop brushes, patterns, custom shapes, tutorials, styles and gradients – all for free – just download and enjoy this great collection!

PS Brushes.net – Photoshop Brushes, Your Number one source for …

We offer over 500 photoshop brushes all for free, with those kind of numbers why would you search for photoshop brushes anywhere else?

Free Photoshop Brushes – Grunge Brushes and Photoshop Tutorials

Grunge Brushes, photoshop brushes, Free photoshop brushes.

Free Photoshop Brushes – Adobe Photoshop Brush DIRECTORY …

Directory of free Photoshop brushes, with information on how to create and install Photoshop brushes.

Top 50 Free Photoshop Brushes Resource Sites : Speckyboy – Web …

Free (cca 50) Photoshop Brushes sets that are even free for commercial use. 

100 Awesome High Resolution Photoshop Brushes

A great contribution to all the Photoshop brushes starving hordes of designers and artists, including myself: 100 Awesome High Resolution Photoshop Brushes. 

Photoshop Brushes: 150+ High Quality Free Photoshop Brushes

Featuring the best Adobe Photoshop brushes on the net and their authors, free PS brush downloads.

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Most designers couldn’t exist without stock photos. So where’s the best place to find them? If you’re looking for pay as you go images or subscription services. Look no farther. I’ve assembled the best of the best in this post.

1. iStockPhoto
2. StockExpert
3. Photos.com
4. Getty Images
5. Veer.com
6. Comstock
7. Jupiter Images
8. Punchstock
9. Shutterstock
10. Snap Village
11. Foto Search
12. Big Stock Photo
13. Corbis
14. Dreamstime
15. Fotolia
16. Photo Spin

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If you were to ask me which of the Adobe products was the hardest to learn, I’d have to answer Illlustrator. If you asked me which of the Adobe products I’ve had the most fun with, I’d have to say Illustrator!

That may be in part to the freedom that Illustrator gives you to be a "real" artist. I can sit down with my Wacom Tablet and just draw naturally. I love it.

Creating stunning illustrations, though time consuming is tons of fun. My favorite trick? I love to use illustrator for text that I want to blow up. I create my text box, choose type>create outlines and now I have a vector version of my text that can be blown out of proportion or used in tandem with other programs to create awesome posters and really fun effects.

When I was first learning Illustrator I came across a remarkable book by Scott Kelby, Illustrator Killer Tips. He’s actually recently put this book on sale. It’s a remarkable resource. Start having fun!

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