Typography tips from 7 top designers

David Airey
Typefaces for graphic designers
Typography tips for graphic design students

Jacob Cass – Just Creative Design
Top 5 Typography Resources

Brian Hoff – The Design Cubicle
10 Common Typography Mistakes
15 Typography Books To Help You Learn and Love Typography

Ridiculous client requests (and how to reason with them)

Ridiculous Request #1: Can you show me how you would do this project before I hire you?
Unless you are a fan of doing work without getting paid, the answer to this should be a respectful “no”.  This question is simply a request to do spec work disguised as a reasonable request.

Solution: The Ice Cream Store [...]

10 Dos and Don’ts when redesigning a logo

Redesigning a logo can be difficult. Companies, and the public become very attached to a logo and, if done incorrectly, a logo redesign can really hurt a company’s image.  Below you will find 5 Dos and 5 Don’ts when it comes to redesigning someone’s logo.
#1. Don’t stray from the general look and feel of the [...]

You might be an insecure graphic designer if…

Recently, I was in a classroom with some rookie graphic designers and advertisers and I noticed a few habits that tend to spotlight you as an insecure graphic designer. Don’t get me wrong, if you happen to do any of these things, you are not inherently wrong. Rules are meant to be broken – and [...]

Justifying your type justification

Right alignment? Left alignment? Full justification? There is always be a debate on which justification (or alignment of text) is best for your design piece. This article will explore the advantages and disadvantages of each of the most popular justification styles: right alignment, left alignment, center alignment, and full justification.
Left alignment
The most commonly used text [...]

Three simple secrets to keep your readers coming back

There are millions of articles floating around on the internet about how to increase traffic on your blog.  There seems to be a shortage, however, on the number of high quality, informative posts on how to increase reader retention.  The success of a blog is usually measured by the amount of people who subscribe or [...]

Dressing your design piece for the occasion

I recently had an opportunity to meet with Steve Colin, creative director at Creature, a world-class ad agency in Seattle, Washington.  He emphasized the importance of “dressing your design for the occasion”.  “It’s important to keep the company’s personality and appearance,” Colin said, “but change their creative wardrobe frequently.”  This creates a challenge for designers [...]

Three rungs on the creative ladder of success

Climbing the ladder of success in the creative industry  can be a tricky journey. In February, I visited WONGDOODY, a creative agency in Seattle, Washington where I asked Shaun Moshay, an account director at WONGDOODY, what three attributes I should possess if I wanted have his job some day. More or less, this is what he told [...]