But printed material isn’t the only thing that can give you inspiration. Stephanie Orma in her article Crank up Your Design Radar over at Smashing Magazine tells us:

No one understands the statement, “design is everywhere” better than us designers. But comprehension and integration are two totally separate acts. From food packaging, to billboards, to book covers, catalogs, websites, and everything in between, we spend the majority of our waking hours on our computers designing and/or looking at these designs through the portals of our monitors. But when the computer is shut down, does your “design radar” go off-line, as well?

Do you see design everywhere? Where do you get your ideas from? Are you sure you are not overlooking sources of inspiration? The article on Smashing Magazine is certainly a good read. You will realise there are so many things you just overlooked, many ideas just around the corner screaming, “Look at me!” and you just shoved them aside!

I kept changing things around, you know—this title doesn’t work, maybe I should add a line, I shall move this… Eventually I just sat back and thought, “That’s it, I am going back to simplicity.” I took off the background, some decorative lines and simply used colour to get what I wanted. The page looked much more sober and, most importantly, it worked.

It might be really tempting to do really complicated and cool things when you have powerful software, but sometimes simplicity is all it’s needed. You’ll also find the most clever design is often the simplest.

Select your symbol. Go to the Symbols Palette and click on the little arrow on the top right. A menu will appear. Click on Break Link Symbol.

Et Voilat. Now you can edit it.

Technorati Tags: illustrator

I couldn’t get an answer from the printer to the simple question: “What format do you want the logo in?” (the logo is for a sign) I had to suggest to him which format would have been better for that kind of job.

Another question I couldn’t get an answer to is: “Do you want the artwork to be RGB or CMYK?” Not knowing what method of printing they were going to use I had to ask. Days passed by and I didn’t yet get an answer, which so far I have asked three times.

So what’s the moral?

Know your stuff and answer the client’s questions with precision. Do it fast, too.

Technorati Tags: business, client relationships, printing, prepress, desktop publishing

I have heard many times the myth that Macs cannot read files created by a Windows program and vice versa. That might have been true some time ago, but it is no longer. Files created by a Windows application can be opened by the same application run on a Mac. When going from Mac to PC, it is often necessary to add a file extension, as Mac software usually doesn’t append it at the end of a file name—that’s about it. There are other minor differences, but they’re easy to outdo.

The main problem remains fonts. Usually fonts used on a platform won’t work with the other one. Sometimes there are problems even using Mac OS X fonts on a Mac OS 9 platform. Luckily there are exceptions:

1. Open Type fonts are cross platform. You can use them both with Windows and Mac OS X without problems.
2. Mac OS X handles also Windows True Type fonts, yet this doesn’t work in reverse.

If you know your job will be dealt with by another designer using another OS, remember this and you’ll save you both a lot of pain.

[tag]Mac OS, Machintosh, fonts, type Windows, PC, Mac[/tags]

Usually printers that mainly deal with envelope printing, won’t also produce posters, others that deal with exhibition panels won’t likely to also print large runs of flyers, but can probably print a small run on a digital printer. This is not to say that multitasking printers don’t exist. Yet there are also those who say they can do a certain type of printing, but in actual fact they have to outsource the job to someone else. Depending on the relationship you have with the printer this could be good, but if you have never used them before, maybe it could be cheaper and faster to go directly to those who can do the type of printing you need.

Find out what printers you have in your area, which ones are best suited for what type of printing and you’ll save yourself and your clients time and money. This also allows you to establish a relantioship with them as you know that “Joe can do bla best”, so you don’t have printers do lots of quotes without jobs coming in. Trust is built and they are likely help you when you need it.

Technorati Tags: printing, prepress, desktop publishing

Maybe you read the Hello and OK magazines, or you just got another of these annoying leaflets through the mail. Don’t throw them away and do take that pamphlet at the mobile phone store even if it doesn’t interest you. Keep them as design samples. They can help you find inspiration (still make sure you don’t copy somebody else’s work) or you can have a look at what they do and don’t like in their design.

This is a great way to improve your skills and break from fixed styles which you might have developed.

Technorati Tags: design, graphic design, brainstorming, design idea, brainstorming, inspiration

There are other situations in the printing field where your images have to be RGB: In certain colour managed environments, even if the final output is offset, and with some digital printers.

Technorati Tags: RGB, CMYK, print, printing