NotePad Design

A Notepad Designed in a more Professional look than my normal style of Street art.  This is my second attempt at the design.  The first was lost on a flash drive. Overall, I felt like this version gave me a chance to redesign somethings.

Business Card Remake - Digital File Prep

The Business Card was created with both Adobe Illustrator and InDesign in mind.  Using a common feel I developed the entire design in Helvetica. I used a 1/8 bleed with this project and also focused on making it look relaxed yet still has a professional feel.  After seeing what design of template we were trying to focus for, i decided to make my Vector Image In illustrator and then import it into In Design.  I put a tint of 47% on the Pantone Coated Color 801C as the background color for the front.  Then Using the same color at 100% I created the logo in Illustrator.  I then made a duplicate of the logo and shifted it in a way to make it look like a hard drop shadow. The fold marks are intended to be folded at 3 7/8in to have the back show when its folded. 

For the back/inside,  I took the same logo and made it into a gray scale image and continued to put information regrading my DJ/Entertainment Business.  I always notice people using the [strait brackets} to put focus on the entertainment company and wanted to do something similar but {different.}   I really had fun with this design and can't wait to see how it turned out!~

Attention Graphic Design Students!!!

I wanted to do a post on here about how to get a great looking banner with links even attached to them! I used photoshop to create a great banner of the desired size.  (coming from www.bannersnack.com)  then i logged in to www.bannersnack.com with Facebook or how ever you'd like.  Then you will notice add a banner at the top of the page.  This is a great tool for making your Blog Sick!  Ive used these before with any HTML application and it seems to work for multiple ideas.  I used mine in order to director potential interest to design work I've done in the past.

So Step 1.  Know what banner size you want
Step 2.  make the design in photoshop.
step 3. upload you JPEG to www.bannersnack.com via NEW BANNER button at the top with correct size.  (note you can create your own custom size but keep in mind 13in standard for most user)
Step4. Get to work on designing.  It will pop out a HTML code that you can implement in to your Design page on your blog.

This is a general understanding of how to get started.  Its very easy to pick up and understand if you have done something similar to it before.  Don't be afraid to ask me if you have any question ill help out.  BTW this is a Great Flash Tool and makes your Blog look more professional.

Have fun!

Chapter 1 & 2: First Assignment

Chapter One - "Life Cycle of a Print Job"

• The Responsibilities of a designer has changed over the past 25 years.  Designers were more hands on using hand drawings and pen and ink to do there jobs.  Production Artist would have to cut out there photo print and glue it down using wax or rubber cement to a piece of thick illustration board.  It was a much more physical day than present day.  

• The Following are Salary Caps for the following positions:
• Sales Rep / Customer Service Rep --- $40,000 - 60,000 (http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Graphic-Designer-Customer-Service-l-Bloomington,-IL.html)
• The Primary contact between you and your project.  while handling the job, they are the communicator.  They are looked at as the translator between both design-speak and printing concepts. 
• Estimator --- $45,000 avg up to 88,000 for top 10%(http://www.searchbydegree.com/cost-estimator-career.html)
• Determines the cost of the job.  This includes labor, paper, ink and proofing materials.  Time is also a factor, including press time and bindery time.  Some times CSR take the role of this job.
• Preflight Technician $25,000 - $45,000 (http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Graphic-Design-Pre-Flight-l-Grand-Rapids,-MI.html)
• Operations include running threw a check list in order to check the validation of the piece. To make sure the Content and setup is correct.  Checking file extensions to checking bleeds, misspelled words, overset text, incorrect or extraneous spot colors, or wrong document size.
• Prepress Operator  $49,000 - $69,000 (http://www.ehow.com/about_6698138_job-description-prepress-manager.html)
• Job Description is to look over the job and make sure it is correct for the print.  In the modern look at things, they are to monitor the Computer Systems the run the Product in the correct means.  Also they look at imposition. 
• Imposition
• The action of arranging the product multiple times on a page in order to get the most out of the paper.  Example would be a 8 up business cards.
• RIP
• Raster Image Processor - the process that converts from a design to the printer.
• Trapping
• When the printer is printing two colors next to each other.  What you don't want is to have two white color coming threw. Sometimes a stroke is used in order to avoid this all together.
• Die Cutting
• The Process of cutting irregular shapes on a piece in order to get a different style of cut. Instead of just strait, you could have rounded edges.  But remember to know you bleeds.

Chapter 2 - Ink on Paper

• Halftone Dots
• Lined out Shapes, circles that simulate gray scaled tones. (square, round and optical)
• The following is an example of halftone.

• DPI
• Dots Per Inch - How many dots are in one inch of a design. The more dots that appear per inch is a better quality design.
• LPI
• Lines Per Inch - the design will be come shaper with more lines per inch of the design.  Reminder when using thickness of the paper.  If you have to many LPI it will absorb in to the paper.
• The following is a diagram of Lines per Inch

• PPI
• Pixels Per Inch or points per inch - This is the amount of pixels/points that can be put in to one inch. The higher the number the better quality of the image. If a image is scaled up it back become distorted because the Pixels are being expanded.  Some images are better small that to be blown up.
• CMYK vs. RGB
• CMYK -

• The process colors of most printing machines. Cyan Magenta, Yellow and Black. These colors can be used in different combinations to create new wide range of colors.
• RGB -
• The Colors Red, Green, and Blue Reflected on to a computer monitor.  They use PPI as a rule of thumb for determining how defined the pixels are. 
• Color Management
• This refers to matching colors wether it maybe be on a monitor with RGB or on a Printed page with CMYK.  It is the designers job to make sure they are using the correct ICC profile on there computer to make sure their screen is showing the correct color.  They must also keep in mind the pantone matching system.  When selecting colors the designer should grab the Pantone book to find the correct color that they want.  Once they find the color they want they put the number in to there design software with the pantone number. They can then know that that is the color they choose and the design is going to come out to the color that they wanted.
• Spot Colors
• Some times while looking for a CMYK/Pantone color you won't get exactly the color you want.  In return, CMYK will not always have the exact color you desire.  This is when you talk with the processor of the job and tell them you have a spot color.  For example, metallic colors are often used with spot colors.  These colors can't be created with CMYK but are colors that are on hand and are specially made for the job.
• Registration


• This is the layers of the printer missing there correct alignment.  It can be noticed when trapping is used and a misalignment will become present.  This will make you designed piece very unprofessional and cause your work to look thrown together.  It may also cost you money and time