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Archive for the ‘Graphic Design’ Category

Who should pay for Stock Imagery?

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

stock-photography

There have been a lot of articles written about stock photography lately, many of which believe that the use of it damages our creative industry. Rather than finding the perfect solution for a design brief, designers and clients alike log onto sites such as istock, fotolia and shutterstock, complete a quick image search which turns out average images that are far from perfect for their intended use. These photographs or stock vectors are not bespoke and have often been overused. A classic example is the ‘call us now…’ image on a contact page or catalogue showing a man or woman with a headset on! This image screams ’stock’ and should be extinct! (more…)

Oh No… not another graphic design spec work article!!

Friday, July 17th, 2009

Oh No... not another graphic design spec work article!!

I know what you are thinking, this is just another article (or rant) dedicated to probably one of the hottest debates in graphic design… spec work and free pitching. Well you are wrong… sort of. I agree that we really don’t need another article based on this subject as there are so many already out there (like this one, this one and this one). All of these are great and tackle the subject in various ways and showcase a wide range of attitudes and thoughts towards free pitching. However, I am hoping this article will be slightly different and maybe question (as it has us) your thoughts towards free pitching and spec work. I thought I would share with you something that has happened to us here at Eightyone Design in recent months. (more…)

What’s your favourite part of the graphic design process?

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Favourite part of the design process

A client recently came to us with an excellent idea for a site and I couldn’t wait to meet with them and get stuck into designing the visual. However when I thought about building the site I could feel a mild headache coming on. This got me thinking, what’s your favourite part of the graphic design process? I realise every project is different and some projects are a pure pleasure from beginning to end whilst others are just painful from the outset. However I still think there must be one part of the process where you think “I’m really looking forward to working on that…” (more…)

How would you improve your graphic design studio or office?

Monday, June 1st, 2009

How would you improve your graphic design studio or office?

Just lately, we have been wondering how we could improve our graphic design studio to make it a more creative workspace. Whether it means adding a huge mural on the wall or simply designing some graphic art, we feel it could do with a bit of a change. After all, an extravagant and funky working space should give you an extra boost of inspiration! This led me to start looking at unusual and creative offices. Here are a few offices and creative spaces that take that concept to the extreme:

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How do you design something you don’t like?

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

How do you design something you don't like?

This blog article is about something that I am sure happens to all designers at some point in their career - You are asked to design something you don’t actually like. Now it’s not that what you are designing is wrong, in fact it’s perfect for the intended market. However, you yourself are not the target market and the brief does not encompass your style. Therefore, you do not like what you are actually creating. 

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20 Cool RSS and Twitter Icons

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

20 Cool RSS and Twitter Icons

Following the recent re-design of the Eightyone Design website we are now questioning the inclusion of some extras in the site design. First off is the RSS icon. Do wee need to have the RSS icon displayed on our website in order for users to instantly recognise they can subscribe to updates from us? Secondly is the Twitter icon and accompanying feed. Should we include our latest tweets on our blog? Similarly, should we also include a twitter style icon to allow people instant recognition that we are actively using Twitter? (more…)

Eightyone Design launches a brand new website

Sunday, March 29th, 2009

Eightyone Design Launches brand new website and blog

Sorry for the lack of blog posts and Twitter updates lately but we have been hard at work getting our new online graphic design portfolio and blog completed. It has taken us 7 months to develop, build and launch the new Eightyone Design website and we thought we would share with you the process we went through to design the site as well as some alternate designs, thought processes and other discussions along the way! (more…)

Why is a Graphic Designer Never Satisfied?

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

Why is a Graphic Designer Never Satisfied?

After a conversation with Amanda from Truly Ace Design on our post ‘eightyone design christmas card designs‘ (you can see the full conversation here) I started wondering if graphic designers are ever satisfied? In this blog post I look at the design industry and how it may be the cause of our endless search for satisfaction, how online networking and commenting encourages us to re-think our designs and how our eternal pursuit of perfection could just be a mere personal trait of a graphic designer. (more…)

Our Graphic Design Process - Part 3: Print Design

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

Our Graphic Design Process - Part 3: Print Design

In Our Graphic Design Process - Part 1 we outlined the research and development process we go through for all of our design projects. In Part 2 we looked into Our Graphic Design Process for Website Design and in Part 3 we will explain our print design process.

1. Initial Drafts

For print work we use a combination of Photoshop and Illustrator. We then bring together our elements in Indesign. Adobe Indesign is an easy tool to work with allowing us to import graphics from Photoshop or Illustrator and wrap copy around them with ease. If properly set up at the start using a baseline grid, master pages and character / paragraph styles, Indesign can make a large brochure or catalogue design project much easier. Using these tools, you are able to make quick document wide changes to explore ideas and tweak designs. (more…)

Another 20 Gorgeous Music CD Cover Designs

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

Another 20 Gorgeous Music CD Cover Designs

Looking through my iTunes library, there are loads of album covers I missed out in our last post on music CD cover designs, so have decided to include them here. For me a successful CD cover is not just about how gorgeous the design is but how does that cover relate to the music? Does the art sum up the music in a concise and effective way? Here are some covers I feel not only convey the type of music, but generally look pretty cool.

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