We all have those things that just make us cringe with agony. Nails on a chalkboard, aluminum foil touching your fillings—or if you’re a print designer, bad kerning mistakes. When letters are improperly spaced, it can ruin the look of your design. The worst kerning is usually the result of not kerning at all, trusting that the typographer and your graphic design software both know what they’re doing. A lot of times you get lucky—but there’s no reason to leave the success of your design up to … [Read more...]

When you're working with other graphic designers, it's easy for personalities to clash. When some jerk doesn't put in the work or is unpleasant to work with, it can sour the relationship and poison the project. Today, we're going to teach you how to be that jerk. Sure, collaborating on a graphic design project can open you up to new perspectives, help you learn new skills, expand your networking capabilities and increase your creative output potential—but why grow as a graphic designer … [Read more...]

When big name brands redesign their logos, the world takes notice because it means that something about our shared culture has changed—it reminds us that the world is changing around us. That can be a scary thing for people, so when popular brands successfully create a great new logo, we sit up and take notice … and when they fail, we notice it even more. We rounded up examples of the worst logo redesign failures and the best “wins” from the last couple years to show you the how to handle a … [Read more...]

Adobe Photoshop has completely redefined the word "brush" as we know it. Though the program comes preloaded with an assortment of different brush tools designed to simulate regular art utensils, the Photoshop brushes you download elsewhere don't have to act as "brushes" at all—and they rarely do. Stamps, clipart, textures, illustrations, vectors, photographs—anything can become a Photoshop brush. In fact, the image above was composed almost entirely from Photoshop brushes. This makes brushes … [Read more...]

There's one little secret every print designer needs to know: with the right design, postcards are arguably the most effective form of print marketing for businesses. People don't throw them away as often as other direct mail, and the most creative postcards live on as collectible artwork. Many of us hang them on the fridge, display them on memory boards or paste them into scrapbooks. When designing custom postcards for your clients, keep this "second life" in mind and strive to create … [Read more...]

Somewhere along the way, the human race evolved to have an innate fondness for anything in a pretty package. We adorn our gifts with ribbons and paper, we fill our homes with objects that serve no other purpose than looking nice-and of course, we beautify our designs with elegant ornaments. This collection of elegant Adobe Photoshop brushes (most of which are completely free) will give your designs that extra touch of class to help enhance and elevate the message and brand. There's no shame in … [Read more...]

Want to see some of the worst print graphic design you'll ever encounter in your life? Just take a trip to your nearest cinema. Movie studios put so much money into promoting their products that we hold their marketing to a higher standard than practically any other form of print media. As a culture, we cannot abide bad movie posters. But when movie posters fail, they fail hard. Even a huge, multi-million dollar movie can somehow end up with a poster that looks like it was Photoshopped by a … [Read more...]

Letting go of a graphic design client is a lot like breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend; it's not exactly pleasant, and it might even be someone you actually like, but sometimes it just has to be done. Breaking off a professional relationship nicely is a delicate operation, and chances are you don't have an HR department to rely on, so this responsibility falls directly on your shoulders. If it's time to say goodbye to your client, you can reduce stress and discomfort by taking steps … [Read more...]