Domestic Geek

Some days when I'm cruising on stock sites like iStockPhoto.com and the like, I see images and illustrations that caught my eye from the many publications we print. I've decided to get off my duff and learn to illustrate people so that I can get my work onto iStockPhoto and one day come across my work in one of our client's magazines. A weird goal? Maybe. I still think it would be cool, though. Damn, why is illustrating people's faces so freaking difficult?

When I was in design school, the woman that taught our prepress classes was amazing (she owns Phases Design Studio)! A lot of designers really don't get the technical side of things and their eyes kind of glazed over when she talked. She also held people to strict, high standards and that put a lot of people off. After I got over the initial fear of her because of rumors of how mean and unfair she was, she quickly became one of my favorite teachers ever. She has such a wealth of knowledge about how computers worked, prepress issues, design sense, font problems, etc. I used to love picking her brain.

I remember a piece of advice she gave in class one day and it echoed through my mind yesterday as I was dealing with yet another set of problems caused by designers that do not really understand the tools they use. "If you want to be a really good graphic designer, one of your first jobs out of design school should be in a prepress department." I received a similar piece of advice from Joelle over at Moxie Design Studios awhile back regarding being a web designer. She suggested that if a person really wanted to be a great web designer, they should start out in a web production company. Wise women both.

I guess my whole point here is that if you're going to truly master a craft, start out somewhere where there are lots people who have been doing it a lot longer than you and be open to picking up as many tips and pointers as possible. I know my thirst to understand how and why things work and my ability to ask the right questions is gaining me knowledge that, while making me a better prepress employee, ultimately makes me a better designer. It's kind of sad that we don't really have true apprenticeships anymore.

You know, back in the day, expandable themes were kind of cool. If you're not familiar with the term, it means that a section of a site can expand or contact as you make a browser window larger or smaller to fill the space so that the whole site fills the window. That was fine for the days of 800x600 or even 1024x768 resolutions, but right now I have an Apple Cinema Display with a 1680x1050 resolution. Most times my main browser window fills the screen. Do you have any idea how much of a pain it is to read a blog entry that spans almost that entire entry sans sidebars? It's a royal PITA! Even better are the ones that have two columns: one that floats right an one that floats left with no set width for the whole page. It leaves a big huge freakin' while hole in the middle of their site. Not pretty, let me tell you.

I've got an idea in my head for something I'm working on and I'm ready to bang my head on the wall.

I'm sure it can be done, I just haven't figured it out yet.

I wish I was a CSS guru instead of just a really good hack. Hmph.

As a graphic designer, one thing I absolutely refuse to design for anybody anymore is a company logo. People don't realize how much time and effort goes into creating a unique logo brand for a business. It can actually make or break the success of a company. Most clients don't really have any idea of what they want their logo to look like or they have a vision, but they can not seem to relay that vision to the designer.

That's why I'm actually grateful for sites like LogoYes. As a business owner, you can design your logo that you have in mind by using their unique logo design process. The interface is easy to use and with the amount of symbols provided, the logo combinations are endless. There are tips and ideas provided to guide you through how to create an effective logo, including what NOT to do.

Once you design your logo, you can order it on business cards, postcards or brochures.

It's an ideal solution if you don't have a lot of money to pay a designer or you want a quick, simple, straightforward look for your business.

Do you want to know why I don't do web design for a living even though I studied it? IE. Yep, that stupid web browser...the spawn of the browser world let forth upon this earth by those jerks over at Microsoft. It is its own monster. I hate making a perfect good layout that looks absolutely lovely in every browser known to man EXCEPT Internet Explorer. I then hate wasting hours upon hours trying to figure out why things won't line up by one pixel. Grrrrr.

So, I'm taking a little break from researching health-related issues. I had some lunch and just finally got my morning coffee. I just realized we've over a third of the way done. Very cool. Although I set a goal of $500, I was going to be grateful for any sponsors I got. Well, lookie over in the sidebar -->

We're up to $300 people! Yay!!! Thanks to all my sponsors who so graciously pledged their support.

I'm so going to get myself on the ball next year. So many bloggers are giving away stuff they made. I could so do that if I got my act together. Hmmm, that gives me a topic for a post.

Any designer who has been around a while hates certain fonts because of their overuse and their inappropriate use. One of these among the design community is Comic Sans. In fact, I had a CSR last week suggest that as a font I should use for her client's cover. I gently had to steer her away from that particular font. That's why this Achewood comic is so darned funny. [via Moxiegirls]