Monday, March 4, 2013

Design is Fluid

Graphic Designers are no longer segmented into neat categories of print, web, typography, illustration, ect... Designers today, especially freelance and those who work at a small firm, are called to be more diverse and offer a variety of skill sets. It is impossible to know it all, but we can see some growing trends for young designers

UX: "user experience" This is a growing field for business and designers. It is crucial to understand how users will interact with your site or app to know how best to program and layout the program so that it works with the intended audience. This can help your specialty brand or business to tailor your enterprise directly for the needs of your customers.

Coding: Maybe its because we grew up with computers, but many young designers know at least a bit of code if not expanding their capabilities to create custom sites for themselves and their clients. If you don't know any coding and would like to learn more Treehouse.com and Lynda.com are great resources. Of course searching on google can provide you lots of great information on html, css, javascript, php, and any other programming you may need to use to create your next website or app.

Guitar Cards with thermographic printing


Print still leaves and will new technogologies come with new ways to interact with print. Because of technology advancement it can bring the cost of doing specialty effects down. Such as embossing, thermal ink, matte mixed with Aqueous gloss, die-cuts, and more. Obviously I am still a fan of the old techniques, such as letterpress. Most of these technqiues just take one additional pass through the printing press. Print can really do anything you can put your imagine

Friday, March 1, 2013

Make a Deep Impression

It is no secret that I love the tactile experience of letterpress. My dream retirement would be a refurbished vandercook and I cranking out beautiful type and lino-cuts. My LetterMpress app is great, but it is nothing like the real thing.

Created by a Savannah Red Top 
Muhs Home by Passing Notes
By Ray Fenwick
This blog shows the process that went into making this card. I can practically smell the ink through my screen.