The New Gearspeed Motorsports Project

Around Thursday, my old college buddy, Kevin, who owns a motorsports shop in Muntinlupa asked me to overhaul his company website, which is http://gearspeedmotorsports.com.

I immediately agree to do the task even it has been years I coded a website, both through the wonders of Dreamweaver and a notepad. I browsed the website and the first thing I noticed is the site is one big flash file. I downloaded the site and it is a whopping 10MB. With today’s internet speed, a 10MB flash file loads in a faster pace but not immediately. Still, the site should load  because there are only 2 kinds of viewer of your site, the one who really in need to view your site even if it loads forever, and the other one who can click another site to view.

My challenge is to decrease the site size, so I suggested to Kev to have the site done in Dreamweaver and add some flash animations on each page banners. I designed the first layouts of his  site a while ago and already emailed to him. I hope Kev likes the layout, and good thing the deadline he provided is not urgent. Hopefully he approves the layout and I will start coding and author it within the week, after office work, that is.

Essential & Very, Very, Very Basic Graphic Design Tips

I am doing graphic design work, professionally of course, since 2004. Still, like what I always say, there are a lot of things I need to learn, like feeding myself some new awesome stuff from newly updated design software to improving our manual skills like cutting a clean curvy shape from a paper, which I still have problem doing it because my hands can’t stay still.

Here are some basic and essential graphic design tips I learned both the hard way, which being verbally spanked by my superiors and the easy way, through the power of self-learning.

Logos and icons creation

1. Always create your logo using vector software (Adobe Illustrator, etc/) for easy manipulation of size and color.
2. In designing the real logo, listen to your client demands, and extract all the keywords from the demands. Write the logo name in a piece of paper and put all the keywords beside it. This way, you can visualize easily what he wants based from the keywords. Try blending the keywords with the logo name for the design.
3. Consider the target market of your client, write it also next to the keywords and try blending it
4. Learn from your client on what he or the company itself doesn’t want. Some clients are anally strict with designs.
5. Use 1 to 3 basic colors for the logo for easy brand identification. Take a look at McDonalds, it’s always yellow and red, and we know they are McDonalds due to their color scheme.
6. Be strict and consistent with the color Pantone.
7. 100% of time we create logos in white background, but you must also create the logo placed in a dark background. There is a possibility the logo you create be placed in a black background, like in a dark shirt or a leather bag.
8. Make more than 1 logo studies, make sure the design is different and not a simple font change.
9. If you have time or budget, try simulating the logo by placing it in other related collaterals, like in a shirt or in a book cover for presentation purposes.

General layout design

1. Have your computer color calibrated with the supplier for consistent color output.
2. Be strict with the measurements and margins in your documents.
3. Speaking of measurements, if you have history of short-term memory loss, especially with numbers, always write down in a notebook or a notepad all the important measurements of your document. One mistake of measurement with the supplier can cost a lot of money.
4. Always set your document mode in CMYK unless the bosses want RGB color.
5. Probably my preference but always uses Photoshop for images and photos, not as the main layout-authoring tool.
6. Make sure the image resolution is right for the print output. If viewed closer, like a booklet, the resolution is at least 220 – 300 dpi above. If seen afar, like a big billboard, 72-75 dpi will do.
7. Speaking of resolutions, the original photo should have a very high-resolution; raw format is highly encouraged for easy DPI manipulation.
8. Always use common fonts for the main copy, like Arial, Times New Roman, Verdana and Helvetica. This way, if there a quick correction, the supplier can do the editing for you, unless they are assholes and wants you to send them new files with 1 correction.
9. Proofread the document thoroughly; let your copywriter help with your proofreading.
10. Always give the supplier a printout of the document aside from the FA (Final Artwork – the file you give to the suppliers for printing) for comparison purposes.
11. Convert to curves all the text with fancy fonts. The supplier sometimes has problems reading special fonts even if it is part of the FA file.
12. Organize the FA files  properly, have separate folders for linked images and fonts. The last working file or PDF is alone in the main directory.

Basically that’s it, some tips you can adapt in your creative mindset. Good luck on your next design.