HomePosts Tagged "tips" (Page 3)

tips Tag

Welcome to week 2 of the Every-Tuesday graphic design portfolio tips + advice series! Last week, we went over how to select the right projects to include in your portfolio based on your personal skillset strengths. This week, we’ll go over proper formatting for your projects, how many projects to include in your portfolio and what order to put them in to leave a memorable impression on an interviewer. These tips will contribute to graphic design portfolio best practices that you’ll be able to apply to your portfolio – no matter how much it changes – over the course of your career.

The Full Time Graphic Design ebook is less than a week away from being available! You’ll want to pick up your free portfolio project checklist to accompany this week’s video here and you’ll automatically be put on a list to be notified when the ebook (packed with tips + advice for getting a full time graphic design job) goes live 🙂

Last week, I mentioned a new portfolio tips + advice series starting today and leading up to an ebook being released later this month called Full Time Graphic Design. In this week’s video, we’ll walk through how to pick out the right design projects to put in your portfolio and craft it in a way that highlights your strengths as a designer and sets you up for an interview with intention, rather than a general collection of work that spans every discipline of graphic design. Choosing the right work for your portfolio will play a pivotal role in not only reaching out to potential employers to land an interview, but for the interview itself. Watch below to see all of my tips!

In Tuesday’s video, I shared my graphic design story and today I wanted to share what my current design workspace looks like, as well as some of my favorite desk items that I use every week, if not every day. I’ve definitely gone through my fair share of printers, tablets and computers, so listed below, you’ll find names and links to all of my top picks and why I chose and use what I do 🙂 I hope this helps anyone who may be on the fence with anything desk-related (I did a lot of thorough research before I started adding to cart, so I know how helpful a user review can be). I’m an open book, so if you have any questions about anything listed, feel free to ask!

If you’re an every-tuesday email subscriber, you’re already aware my ebook on tips and advice for obtaining a full time graphic design job will become officially available later this month. In preparation of its launch, I wanted to dedicate this month’s Tuesdays to sharing portfolio tips I’ve learned from my own experiences in a free portfolio tips video series. The first video will be next Tuesday’s post, but this week, I wanted to start things off by sharing my own graphic design story.

I’ve had a few comments and emails asking how I got started, how I knew graphic design was the right major for me, and what I would tell people who might be on the fence about a career in graphic design (and if jobs are available for graphic designers) today. I sat down in front of my computer in a very non-typical/non-screen-only recording this week to answer all of those, so it could be like we were sitting down together, just having a conversation as friends. So here it is, from beginning to now, along with some tips I picked up on the way 🙂

A couple of weeks ago, I shared some tips for using a waterbrush to create watercolor lettering. It was so well received, I wanted to do a follow up using that same waterbrush, but with ink this time. Yep, I filled that blue waterchamber with super black speedball ink instead of water, squeezed + lettered to my heart’s content 🙂 Before filling the waterbrush with ink, I had been using a Tombow for my brush script lettering, but after burning through a few pretty quickly, I was in search for an alternative to save a little dough. That led me to the waterbrush and I haven’t looked back! In this week’s video, I share some basic tips for getting started with your own brush script lettering. Lettering in black vs. watercolor will quickly allow you to scan your artwork in, vectorize it and use it in a bunch of applications quickly, like masking or font making (more on that next month!). Let’s get started!

I was going to say a few months ago, but I just checked, and last year (holy moly), I shared some geometric photoshop patterns. They’ve been downloaded almost 20,000(!!!) times, so I thought it might be time for some Illustrator ones! This week’s freebie is a set of 4 geometric Illustrator pattern swatches to use on whatever you please 🙂 I’m also sharing some quick tips + tricks on using them you may not have heard before – read on to see!

So let’s talk about websites. As graphic designers – talking primarily print here – we spend a lot of time making really beautiful art that can be hung on walls, printed in magazines, embroidered on polos, or foil stamped on business cards. We make a lot of work in a digital age for a lot of analog applications. For a print designer, getting our work online always seemed like a necessary evil; and a popular necessary evil at that- so much so that Behance did something about it for us. So did Squarespace. Dribbble didn’t try to be, but has become an uncanny solution, too. And those are great for portfolios, but what if you don’t need just a portfolio? What if you want to bedazzle a potential employer with something other than the 20th Behance link they’ve seen today? What if you want a blog, an ecommerce shop to sell your sweet designs, or what if your mom called in a favor for you to make a website for your great aunt Sue’s cake business? We might not be programmers or considered web designers, but we’re smart enough to know we have options. Cue in WordPress: one solution for everything. This is the first video in what will become (what I’m predicting will be) a 3 part video series on how to get your own kick ass wordpress website up from start to finish. This first video goes over everything to look for when picking out the right wordpress website theme for your purpose (be it a blog, ecommerce, portfolio, etc). Read on for all of the tips + tricks I use when getting started.

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