But what about the simple, time-intensive tasks graphic designers tediously undertake? Things such as identifying a font, changing a CSS style, or choosing a complimentary color can take hours away from more “important” tasks such as creating your designs and choosing imagery. The creative can be stifled by the banal.

Some of my favorite productivity software for graphic designers include:

FileZilla — An FTP application that lets you instantly edit server-side files. This comes in handy when you need to make a simple CSS change or swap a banner image.

7-ZIP — Lets you compile, compress, and unpack a myriad of file types that the built-in Windows application can’t. If you work with large file transfers, Z-ZIP and FileZilla are necessities.

IdentifFont — Identify a font by name, style or by answering a series of quick questions.

Open Source CMS systems — Content Management Systems, once put in place, save time and money. When you need to make a portfolio update, you simply fill out a form and upload your file. If you want to change content, add products or do anything else in a flash, there’s probably a CMS that facilitates the action. Learn to design and find a good developer (if you don’t code) for systems such as Wordpress, Joomla! and Drupal. Content is still king, and Open Source CMS is here to stay.

Color scheme generators/color wheels — Here’s a great list of 25 color scheme generators.

Whatsitscolor.com — Upload an image or submit a link to an image and Whatsistscolor generates a color scheme based on the colors in the image. This is valuable if you like the look of a website, brochure or postcard and want to emulate its color scheme. Color Hunter does the same, perhaps slightly cleaner.

Don’t forget that Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Quark and other software have add-ons, plug-ins, actions and a whole host of other time-saving devices available for free download. Try this list of Photoshop plug-ins for starters.

Of course, software suites such as Microsoft Office and OpenOffice deserve a mention, as well as the many commercial project management applications. For free and simple project tracking, check out FreeMind.

Image CC License Flickr.

©2009 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

By Jason Moore

In my last post about typography I talked about taking in all of the interesting design elements that can be found all around us in this visual world of ours and incorporate that inspiration into our own work.

I still stand by that idea, but I think it may need to come with a disclaimer of sorts. Definitely observe, examine, reproduce and modify some of the excellent design concepts to keep your products fresh and relevant in an ever-changing marketing environment. But know your limits.

Don’t go overboard

It is important to remember that you can’t incorporate everything into one idea and, unless you are a full-time professional designer, it is very easy to go overboard trying to combine different styles into one piece, putting you at risk for losing your content in the design.

Building off of that, you may have some nice new software that has so many great tools and features to play with. You want to use a new look you saw on a movie poster, commercial or direct-mail ad and you think that with this new application you’ll finally be able to do it.

After completing your first draft of the project ask yourself, does it really work? Am I trying to do too much?

The main point of any design project is to convey information in a visually compelling way. It needs to serve the message you’re trying to send. If you’re trying too hard to imitate a look and feel that is out of your reach you run the risk of looking unprofessional and even losing the message you are trying to share.

Fancy software doesn’t make you a designer

Just because you have some hot piece of software doesn’t mean you’ll immediately be able to produce what Hollywood studios or NYC marketing firms put out every day. Like my dad said many times, “Having a lawn mower doesn’t make you a landscape architect.”

With that said, though, perfect practice makes perfect. We should always challenge ourselves and strive to make each design better than the last. So go out there and try something new, take a risk and see if it works. But know your limits. Recognize when it just doesn’t quite work and if the design is getting in the way of the bigger picture, change course so you can keep the main thing the main thing.

Jason Moore is an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop CS3 and manages the Photoshop Blog, “Jason D. Moore Photography.”

©2009 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

By Jason Moore

When approaching a new design project, you need to ask yourself three important questions. After your target audience receives your materials — whether a postcard, a brochure, a flyer or even your business card — what do you what them to know; how do you want them to feel; and what do you want them to do?

There are three questions you should be asking on every project to increase communication with your client.

What do you want them to know?

This one is pretty basic. The main point of any publication is to convey information and before releasing the final product you need to determine what you want those receiving it to learn. Is it information about an upcoming event? A description of the services you provide? Basic contact information? Some combination of these?

How the information is presented is almost as important as the information itself. You want your audience to learn something through your materials, but make sure that your design lends itself to sharing that information in a meaningful way.

How do you want them to feel?

As I said above, presentation is almost as important as the information. By selecting what images to include, the type of language to use when describing your services, even the font(s) you choose will shape how your audience responds emotionally to your materials.

What do you want them to do?

After determining what you want your target audience to know and how you want them to feel comes a time for action. Do you want your audience to subscribe to your service? Do you want them to donate to your cause? Do you want them to show up at your next event? Whatever it may be, it is important to make sure that you make it clear what the next step is.
The key to tying all of this together is to know your target audience and know what buttons to push so they will respond in a way that helps you reach your goals. Next time you are pulling together a design project, remember to ask yourself if you are providing the right information in the right way so that those receiving it will act.

Jason Moore is an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop CS3 and manages the Photoshop Blog, “Jason D. Moore Photography.”

©2009 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Adobe
The problem with free trials is that they’re too limited. Adobe offers a 30-day free trial for its Creative Suite products, which gives the busy designer precious few chances to really try the software out. Instead, why doesn’t Adobe allow designers to try out CS4 long enough to actually complete a professional project with it? If I have the time to learn your product to the point that I can see how purchasing it will benefit me professionally, I’m more likely to buy from you.

Wordtracker
And how about Wordtracker, which offers a seven-day trial? For the uninitiated, Wordtracker helps you optimize your web pages for search engine visibility by identifying and comparing potential keywords and key phrases. If I ran Wordtracker, I would offer a six-month free trial. This way customers can come to rely on it as an integral part of their marketing strategies. At that point, Wordtracker becomes an invaluable “must-have.”

Keyword Spy
Keyword Spy takes a different approach. Instead of a time-limited trial, the company offers a feature-limited trial. You only get to view a fraction of potential keywords, so it’s really impossible to tell how helpful the software actually is. Now, if I could harness the power of all of Keyword Spy’s features for a full six months, the application would have ample opportunity to show me how it can make me more profitable.

Such limited free trials are basically zero-incentive marketing. If I can’t take your product for a true test run, I have no way of knowing if it will actually do what it says it does. But, if I can spend ample time learning your system and how to work it to my advantage, I have incentive to buy. If I use Wordtracker for six months, and the keywords it generates for me have boosted my website traffic by a few thousand hits per month and my revenue by hundreds or thousands of dollars, I’m sold.

What about you?

©2009 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

This is a godsend for graphic designers who, before the Internet, had to rely on relatively local scenery or “publishable” books for inspiration. Now, you can learn new techniques, get free critiques from other professionals, and keep abreast of industry trends with the best online communities for graphic designers.

In no particular order:

HOWDesign Forum — Share your work, ask for critiques, and learn new styles in this rather active community.

All Graphic Design Forum — Don’t let the poor design of this forum fool you: Its parent site is quite nice, and the community is moderately active. It’s a good place to go when you can’t find an oddball answer elsewhere.

Your Design Forums — Another good place for critiques, this forum is run by YouTheDesigner, a popular graphic design resource in its own right.

Graphics.com Forums — This community boasts interesting threads that many of the other sites don’t have.

Adobe Groups — What designer doesn’t use Adobe software? With Adobe Groups, you can find and found a group local to your area, or join online and international groups depending on your preferences. Share and learn with a knowledgeable community of experts.

Graphic Design Forum — This forum has been around for a long time, evidence by the monotone VBulletin-style layout. Still, experience matters, and this community puts a wealth of information at your fingertips.

Estetica Design Forum – Another huge graphic design forum with tens of thousands of searchable posts, Estetica has a hundred or so users online at any given time.

These are the big dogs, but there are literally thousands of excellent graphic design communities on the web. My next mission: to identify several personal graphic design websites that offer extraordinary benefits to graphic designers. Help me out! Can you name any?

©2009 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Here’s my list of the top 5 color scheme tools on the web:

1. A conceptual color scheme tool, the Instant Color Schemes lets you enter a keyword and searches Yahoo! Images for five related images, and displays the six most prominent colors from each for a total of 30 color suggestions.
2. Color Scheme Designer is perhaps the perfect online color wheel, capable of a broad range of color schemes. Adjust your values and hue, choose between mono, complement, triad, tetrad, analogic and accented analogic and drag your mouse around the color wheel to update your scheme in real time.
3. On etre.com, you can make sure your color scheme is compliant with WAI guidelines by checking whether your colors contrast well enough to be easily viewed on a black-and-white monitor or by those with color viewing deficiencies.  The Color Blindness Simulator lets you see what your images look like to those who are color blind so you can make your designs more accessible.
4. Love the color scheme of a particular website? Find out what colors they’re using with the I Like Your Colors Tool. Simply input a URL and the tool will collect all color styles from that website.
5. Kuler by Adobe has thousands of color schemes that you can browse or search by keyword. You can also rate and comment on your favorites.

What can you add to this list?

©2009 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.