On Dec 19, 2007, at 12:39 PM, Robert Hoekman, Jr. wrote: > Ditto. I've had plenty of practice, but I'll never be half as good > as a real > visual designer.
I've long hated the term "visual designer." It's really nothing more than a cop out in this field and I hope people will start to drop it one of these years. Practically speaking, anyone who designs interactive software or digital products needs to be good at the core basics of graphic design. No ands, ifs or buts about it. This is effectively type, color and layout. (Layout meaning general composition and the grid.) There are larger components of graphic design that one should try to become good at if possible, but are not necessarily required. These are basically illustration and photography. Illustration leads to icon design and other visual stylistic elements of a product. Photography should be pretty well understood. To master either illustration or photography can take many years if one doesn't have the raw talent. For those that don't have the raw talent, I can see where they might not feel comfortable, and thus might attribute "visual design" to cover all of graphic design instead of segmenting illustration and photography on their own. For the record, I'm not that good at illustration outside of my own personal sketching style. That doesn't mean I don't consider myself a pretty damn good graphic designer. Becoming reasonably competent with type, color and layout is -- to be completely blunt -- quite easy. Mastering it to the likes of a Paul Rand might take more, but general competency doesn't take massive amounts of raw talent to achieve a core level of acceptable craft with these elements. It really only takes a desire to understand how those three design components work together and a lot of practice using good graphic design principals every day and with every thing you touch. This means every memo you write, every blog you design, every design deliverable you create... all of it should be places where you are practicing good graphic design to keep the design muscle in constant use. In fact, type, color and layout are the easiest components and skills to master as a designer, especially given the technology that provides access to implement type, color and layout in the general work we do every single day. If you look at my blog, http://www.designbyfire.com, you'll see that I did very little *except* focus on type, color and layout. While I like my personal brand, the logo is a small part of the overall design. The core is nothing more than focusing attention to the color choices, the type and how the layout works. The javascript fade is nothing more than an experiment, and one I need to revisit to fix URL resolution of my content. But when you look at DxF, you have to notice every single little detail about these three things because one little change rips the entire effect apart. Where I use all caps, where I don't. What the leading value is of my body copy. Where I use color and and where I don't. What spacing I use before and after paragraphs. How many characters are used per line. Even the little Bodoni ornaments I use to end articles or split the title from the date. (One is a rightside up, the other upside down, a nod to indicate start and end.) Becoming good at type, color and layout is basically like learning the guitar or any musical instrument. You have to practice. Period. No matter what, you ave to practice, practice and practice some more until it becomes second nature. If you don't, you simply won't get good at it. Avoiding it, making claims that you are not a "visual designer" won't help. The good news is that there are tons and tons of resources available to get started with these three core graphic design principals. The even better news is that practicing is easy since you have to create design deliverables in you every day line of work. There's really no excuse to avoid it imho. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
