Greymint Design

5 more typography mistakes that graphic designers make [PART II]

Aaina Sharma — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:16:53 +0000

You can find Part 1 of this article here.

• Using the wrong typeface

There is a plethora of typefaces available on the web but that doesn’t mean that any of them can work for any given design. Each typeface is designed with certain characteristics in mind and and we design each project the same way. So, it is our responsibility as designers to marry the right concept and designs with the right typefaces, otherwise, the marriage doesn’t work.

• Making it illegible

Beautiful typography is meant to be seen, read and admired. If the type is illegible and can barely even be seen, the design will fall flat. Using the wrong colors or justifying the type when it’s not needed are a couple of ways to make type illegible.

• Making it look uninspiring

Leaving words typed out in a typeface and hoping they would have character because the typeface has character is a big mistake. Sure, the font may have character but adding your design sensibilities to the design is also critical. Why would a client need a designer to design him/her a logo if he/she could just type the name of the company in a fancy typeface? Clients hire designers because they want them to add a special touch to the design, which most clients don’t have expertise in.

• Making it too big

A misconception: big type is better. Well, not always. If you’re designing a poster, the type that you put on there will most likely have to be big in order for it to be readable at a distance. But what about text type? In order to achieve hierarchy, it’s important to use scale with typography. Text type should be between 8-10 points and display type is 13 and bigger, depending on the size of the piece and of course, the concept.

• Being limited by what’s available

Many a times designers may feel restrained by what’s available in terms of typefaces. There’s an easy solution to that. If you feel like you can’t find a typeface that goes perfectly with your concept, create one! You can also modify typefaces to give them a more unique look. Doing this will add a more distinct quality to your work and it will stand out for being unique.

Check out this article to see which other skills you should have as a designer.

What do you guys think?

5 skills you should have as a graphic designer

Aaina Sharma — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 01:22:18 +0000

Photo by Andrea Jaccarino

As graphic designers, we constantly have to wear multiple hats and perform a number of different tasks for certain projects. This is especially true if you are a freelance designer. Often, clients don’t have a budget to hire multiple people to get a project done and they expect the designer to do all that’s necessary for a given project. It’s very important for freelance designers to gain knowledge of certain skills that go hand in hand with design, so they don’t have to send a client away just because they don’t know how to do something that’s closely related to design. Below is a list of only 5 of the many skills that a graphic designer should acquire:

• Copywriting

Although designers are visual people and deal with mostly images and graphics, sometimes a dire need for having a catchy headline arises. Instead of having to hire a copywriter, some clients would want the designer to come up with something amazing and this is when designers who have experience in copywriting will have an edge over the ones that don’t.

• Photography

Learning photography and the ins and outs of the techniques used to capture something comes with a lot of knowledge and practice. It’s very important for designers to be able to photograph well if the need arises, which is very likely in freelance work.

• Basic illustrations

Most designers are comfortable with sketching ideas for concepts but when it comes to doing illustrations, we might not be so comfortable. Well, it’s important to get rid of that fear and jut go for it. If you sit down with a pencil and a drawing pad and start practicing for even 30 minutes everyday, it can drastically help improve your skills to illustrate something by memory or reference.

• Calligraphy

It’s not very uncommon that designers will come across clients whose business will require a logo or a design element that needs calligraphic treatment. Getting familiar with the art of calligraphy will definitely open gates for more business and will expand your opportunities in the future. As we get more into a time period where just about everything is done on the computer, hand done lettering is and will be appreciated more and more.

• History of design

If you’re a designer, you know how important it is to constantly get inspiration. Inspiration shouldn’t just come from what’s going on in the design world today but also from what has already happened. There have been some powerful design movements in the past and some eye-opening design. We should be aware of the legendary designers of the past and their work in order to get inspired by them. This inspiration can make the biggest difference in your designs, if absorbed correctly.

Apart from helping with freelance projects, displaying these skills on your resume can tremendously boost your chances of getting hired. When there is a lot of competition, it’s wise to gain more skills which will set you apart, without losing quality, of course.

5 reasons you should hire a freelance designer vs a design company

Aaina Sharma — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:19:36 +0000

Photo by Evangelos Vlasopoulos

It is common for some clients to feel reluctant about hiring a freelance designer as opposed to a design company, but there are a lot of advantages to hiring a freelance designer, five of which are listed below:

• Flexibility

Freelance designers tend to be a lot more flexible when it comes to design ideas and time lines. They make sure they offer their clients flexible service in order to meet their design needs. Also, for a freelance designer, it isn’t always 9-5, 8 hours a day while working on a project, so, clients may even get revisions back within a couple of hours, which helps in speeding the process.

• Direct communication

Communication is key when it comes to having great design, which completely matches the clients’ expectations. With a freelance designer, clients can be sure to get lots of ideas and solutions to their design problem. Also, with direct communication, clients can be rest assured that they are communicating to the right person who is going to be working on the project and the information will not get passed along or misinterpreted.

• Cost control

Hiring a freelance designer also lets you have a better control over the budget and control costs. Since freelance designers who are self-employed usually work from home and don’t have overhead costs like rent and additional bills, their rates are usually lower than a design agency’s rates. Also, big design firms are looking for big projects because their services are less scalable. They consider small projects unprofitable but that’s not the case with freelance designers.

• More control over quality of work

This goes back to being able to communicate the exact idea to the designer that is working on a particular project. Clients that are working with a design firm can not be sure of who’s working on their project, a senior designer or an intern. The quality of work will be very different in both cases. However, when a client chooses to hire a freelance design, he/she can thoroughly look at the portfolio and decide if that’s the kind of work that he/she is looking for or not. The quality of work will not change because that one designer is the only one who will be working on the project.

• Reliability

Since freelance designers work for themselves, they are not going to quit the job or fire themselves, once they’ve taken on a project. It can be different with a design company. The person handling a particular project may have to quit the job or may get fired for whatever reason and someone else will have to replace him/her. This can cause a lot of confusion and hence, the clients may not get exactly what they are looking for. With a freelance designer, clients can expect the same person to start and finish their projects.

These are only 5 of many reasons. Can you think of any other reasons for hiring a freelance designer versus a design firm?

5 typography mistakes that graphic designers make [PART I]

Aaina Sharma — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:01:05 +0000

Photo by zehfernando

Typography can be very tricky to implement, especially if you are not sure what it means or what it does to a design. Here is the formal definition of typography on wikipedia:

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type, type design, and modifying type glyphs. Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading (line spacing), adjusting the spaces between groups of letters (tracking) and adjusting the space between pairs of letters (kerning).

Believe it or not, typography can make or break your design. It’s not very uncommon to see beautiful symbols paired with bad typography, making the entire logo a not-so-successful one. For example:

So what are some of the mistakes that graphic designers make when it comes to typography?

• Using upper case letters for “more impact”

I see designers using all caps type on design pieces just because they think it will stand out more and have more of an impact on the person who sees it. Upper case type might look bigger in size than lower case letters but that certainly doesn’t mean that it’s more impactful. In fact, it’s very distracting to read a lot of text in upper case letters because our eyes and mind read in terms of shapes and if there are lines of text written in uppercase letters, it’s very difficult to read as opposed to upper and lower case letters. Also, lower case typesetting can be just as impactful as upper case letters (if not more) if done right.

• Not using typography with the concept

Some designers tend to not take typography into consideration when working with a concept in a piece. If everything else (symbol, layout, illustration, etc.) flows together in one concept, why can’t the typography join that flow too? Like I said above, typography can make or break your design. So, if everything else works great and the type doesn’t, there definitely is a problem in the overall design, like the example above. There is nothing organic about that type, although the symbol is nice.

• Underestimating the power of typography

It’s very sad to hear someone say, “All I have to do is type the company’s name in Comic Sans and I’ll have my company’s logo.” Sure, you’ll have a logo, a very bad one though. Typography is an art in itself that many people spend their entire lives studying and exploring. Typography has the power to convey emotions and get a point across all by itself by the way a letter is crafted or the way a typeface is designed.

• Using too many typefaces in one design

This one is a very common mistake. There shouldn’t be more than 2 fonts in any design, barring few cases. This keeps the design from being uncluttered and busy. Another thing to keep in mind is to have 2 fonts that compliment each other instead of being conflicting. There are some discussions about that here.

• Not setting type correctly

It can be challenging to know how to set type correctly but the good news is that it’s easy to learn. Tracking, leading and kerning the type can make all the difference in the world. Not only does the type look more appealing but what you do to the type may also be more relevant to you concept. You can read more about that here along with more typography terminology.

Stay tuned for [PART II] of this article.

What does having an original logo mean?

Aaina Sharma — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:17:17 +0000

A lot of clients ask me this question, “what is the difference between a stock logo and an original logo? Why should I pay more for a logo?” It seems absurd to them to have to pay more for a logo that has the same purpose as the other logo that’s cheaper. Well, that’s where they are wrong. There is a huge difference between a stock logo and a custom brand identity. There is an abundance of stock logos out there, which means they all look the same except for the company’s name and a couple of colors here and there. Whereas, having an original brand identity for your business means that its exclusive to your business and no other business can legally rip it off and call it their own.

Here are some miraculous things that an original brand identity can do for your business:

Ensure credibility: Having a stock logo that 20 other businesses out there already have or having no logo at all doesn’t have a very positive impression on potential clients. It is very easy to lose credibility if prospective clients have already seen your logo somewhere and might connect your business with the run-down car wash that’s on their way to work, when your business has nothing to do with that car wash place. Having an original brand identity will ensure that no one has ever seen your logo being used anywhere other than on your material and it’s originality is what makes it credible and trustworthy, hence making your company credible and trustworthy.
Show professionalism: If you are professional and serious about your business, you would want to be perceived as that. Not having an original logo or not having one at all shows that you may still be unsure of what you’re doing or may not be too serious about it. Believe it or not, potential clients can see the difference between professional and unprofessional behavior from a certain business and the start of that is a logo, which is the visual representative of your entire business.
Guarantee uniqueness: All the businesses pitching and advertising on the TV and radio are always trying to say one thing: we are unique and better than that other brand. Well, your logo should say the same. It should proudly be unique rather than timidly being unoriginal. Every business’s logo should have a distinct image that describes what the business is trying to say to its target audience. If your logo looks similar to another company’s logo, they how can you claim that you’re unique or better?
Develop a concept/story: Having a story to tell to your audience is very important for any business. Telling a story makes it easier to get people to connect to your brand and hence, to trust the company and what its selling. This can be done easily through a strong, original identity. It is very important that every logo has a concept behind it because without a concept, it has no meaning. Sure, some logos are just pretty to look at but they have to be at least remotely related to the product/business that they are associated with to give them credibility. A logo that has no connection to the brand that its designed for is not a very good logo.
Provide power: A stock logo may look good today because only 5 other businesses have the same logo and you or your clients may not have come across those other five businesses’ logos yet but that doesn’t mean that it will always stay that way. A couple of years later that number can grow to 20 and more people may have seen it now. You can’t go to those 20 businesses and say that that logo belongs to you and they need to change their logo, because it doesn’t. Now, if you have an original identity and you see your logo being used by another business, you do have the legal right to send that business a legal notice, because that logo solely belongs to you. This way, you never have to change your logo if you don’t want to and you brand’s image doesn’t have to change simply because someone else decided to steal your logo.

Getting an original brand identity designed by a professional graphic designer is a very wise decision for any business. The time and money that you spend in the process is well worth it and can do wonders for your business.

Shoppers’ Stop’s redesign

Aaina Sharma — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:48:39 +0000

A famous chain of retail stores in India, Shoppers’ Stop has recently gone through a process of rebranding. Their old logo was designed to appeal more to the youth and had a friendly and approachable feel to it. It also stood for being trustworthy, warm and confident. The new logo, however, has a more sophisticated and elegant look, which will appeal to both youth and older women. It is bold but in a subtle way.

Another difference between the two logos is that the old on had an apostrophe at the end of the word Shoppers (making the brand name grammatically correct) but the new logo doesn’t. This was done to make the logo less confusing and more simple, without paying too much attention to the grammar of the brand name. “This was done to simplify the word. And to keep it in customer language without worrying about the grammar,” clarifies Vinay Bhatia, Vice-President of Marketing and Loyalty at Shoppers Stop.

Logo Watch: Issuu

aaina — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:21:52 +0000

I recently started using Issuu for reading interesting articles and viewing portfolios of some very talented designers. “Issuu turns your documents into beautiful online publications. Publish to an audience of millions and get your message across to anyone, anywhere.”

Looking at the logo, I couldn’t help but notice that Issuu’s orange symbol is a cross between that of Target and Scottish Arts Council. The target is reversed out and is very close to the proportion of Target’s mark. The shape containing the reversed target very closely resembles the shape of Scottish Arts Council’s mark. I wonder if this is a coincidence or a deliberate attempt to make the logo look like something that already exists.

I also feel like the type doesn’t work for the purpose of the website. It’s too rounded and stiff. Also, the symbol pointing to the other side of the type doesn’t help because the pointy “arrow” draws your eyes away from the name instead of towards it, which should be the purpose of a logo. What do you think? Should the logo have been more unique or does the similarity not bother you?

Target logo

Scottish Arts Council logo