Author: David Airey
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G . F Smith, 1885 onwards
I always appreciate the work that paper specialist G . F Smith puts into the company’s print material. The 2014 “Portrait of a Company” book is no exception.
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Mike Dempsey on “the graphic designer and ethics”
“If you are a designer, ask yourself: am I colluding with a food or drinks manufacturer in minimising the bad points of a product through a designed subterfuge to make the product look enticing to children?” Photo by duncan c “If the answer is yes, you have some serious thinking to do. A design ‘strategy’…
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Creative people say no
Kevin Ashton wrote a good, short piece aimed at helping designers in business, and about choosing your work wisely. Here’s a quick excerpt. “We are not taught to say ‘no.’ We are taught not to say ‘no.’ ‘No’ is rude. ‘No’ is a rebuff, a rebuttal, a minor act of verbal violence. ‘No’ is for…
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Context is key
A valuable lesson on dealing with design clients, from Chermayeff & Geismar’s 2011 book Identify.
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Wigan Little Theatre’s little known facts
Problem: design a brochure for a small theatre. Solution: make the brochure small.
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Food art pairings
David Schwen had the idea of making individual Pantone chips out of household objects — sponges, cardboard, and so on. But while finishing off a poster design, he’d taped two Pantone chips together to see how they looked next to one another.
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Beyond the logo
“The role of the logo is to point, to designate — in as simple a manner as possible.” Those were Paul Rand’s words in a 1991 article published by AIGA: Logos, Flags, and Escutcheons. I agree. But of course as most of you will know, the strongest visual identities are about a lot more than…
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The Geometry of Type
A lovely typographic primer by Stephen Coles, with a foreword from Erik Spiekermann.
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A few Adobe alternatives
I doubt any of these can do as much as the Adobe option (except Quark), but they might do as much as you need, and it’s something I’m asked about now and again. Image via Fstoppers Photoshop alternatives Acorn (OS X, $49.99) Pixelmator (OS X, £20.99) GIMP (OS X, Windows, Linux, free) Illustrator alternatives Sketch…
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On negotiating your design salary
A chapter from Ted Leonhardt’s new book Nail It: Stories for Designers on Negotiating with Confidence — a collection of true stories about designers getting the salaries they deserve.