I know the biggest complaint of kids in my high school program is that they would love to sit and learn more, but the school day ends, they need to take the bus home, and don’t have the programs at home.

I took the liberty of doing a search of the Adobe Designers Edition of CS4, the latest release as of this date. For someone who is not a teacher or student of any sort, getting the programs will cost, get this, 1,600 DOLLARS!!

Yikes.

So, hey, guess what? There are ways around this, and I will show you how to get discounts on the software so you can learn the programs more affordably. Aren’t I just handy?

Step 1:

Go to www.adobe.com

Step 2:

This is a little more muddy to follow. By that I mean, from this point on it depends on what type of “person” you are as to what type of discount you’re going to get. College students get the biggest discount by far. The design premium package only costs $399 with all of the programs! (All of the programs means Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, and Acrobat!) Nifty huh? If you have less money as a college student, you can obtain a standard student edition for $299 and it includes InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat. To be honest, if you aren’t going into web design, perhaps that package WOULD suit you better.

If you are a college student AND CAN PROVE IT (current Id’s, statement of classes, bills, etc showing proof), click here for the premium version. If you’re in college and wish for the less expensive one, click here instead.

Step 3:

For those who are k-12 students, or for those who are teachers, the cost is a wee bit more for you pandas. These are your options instead. The cost inflated about $200 dollars. But I’d take $599 over $1600 any day.

You can comparison shop at many different software stores that offer educational deductions, but be sure you’re buying from a reputable company with a standing reputation so that those sucky ripoffs don’t happen.

In my experience in meeting with reps and listening during portfolio critiques, it is in my experience that many art schools prefer a break down like this:

10-12 pieces will effectively demonstrate your portfolio

They like to see examples of:

• Usage of typography
• Illustration
• Ad design and Page layouts
• Still life pieces (done not in a Graphic Design program, but a fine arts one) (Also, having pieces done involving the human body do not hurt at all!)
• Photography
• All of the above done in a variety of mediums (gouache, watercolor, pastel, marker, colored pencil, graphite, illustrator, photoshop, etc.)

Obviously this list will be tailored to what sort of school you’re attending. If it’s an animation and video program, you might have to provide examples of illustrations, but in some semblence of sequence (as in doing an illustration, but breaking it down into 9 steps, and in each step showing the process of how to make coffee with a coffee maker or something thereof).

If you’re truly afraid that your portfolio is lacking, call the school! Look the number up on their website and get ahold of a rep. They will more than happily set you up with someone who can review your pieces with you and let you know if you’re lacking anything. That way you can complete what you’re lacking, come back, and get accepted! Easy peasy right?

Want to know the best way to get into your teacher’s good graces above all other things? Don’t ask the same questions over and over, don’t interrupt when they are speaking, and for GOD’S SAKE, REMEMBER WHAT YOU’RE TAUGHT. There should be some sort of a progression in learning, not daily memory lapses because you end up being too lazy to care to make an effort. Teachers are people too. And we do get annoyed when you don’t work hard. You CAN do it. It is your choice not to. If you’re shown how to use the eraser tool in Photoshop while adjusting the size and hardness of the brush, remember how to do it for next time!

I have had some fights with a few students about the direction of their futures in regards to graphic design and the opinions of others. One student was learning how to use Dreamweaver and told me that he had a friend who said one should only use html coding and never “design it as you see it”. (For those unfamiliar, code is a way to make a website in many places, not just Dreamweaver. But that program has the option of not needing to know code in order to design a website.) I disagreed and a debate ensued. After it was over, I got the distinct feeling that he probably wouldn’t be going to college because he seemed fairly certain that anything you can learn for graphic design, you can learn on your own.

I will do my best to present an unbiased view of my overall opinion of the matter. There have been many designers in art history who never had any formal training whatsoever and began groundbreaking processes and rule breaking that created new facets of design that are still used today. Others studied in various art colleges around the country for many, many years before making it big. It all seems to depend on the student. While I won’t pretend to know what is best for you, I do know that schools can help immensly. I knew what looked good and what didn’t, but sometimes I didn’t always know why. I was annoyed with people who could analyze art and spit out what seemed like inane nonsense. Now that I’ve gone through college to experience design programs, I can actually see the logistics behind why people do what they do. Graphic design is logic and cleverness mixed with creativity. I was given tools to discover new ways of thinking creatively while having someone there to guide me in times of difficulty (ideas, homework, learning programs, etc). It was also a great experience to be in the presence of other designers and become friends and coworkers of like-minded people.

While I can’t tell you what is best for you, I do recommend college as a backbone for your designing education! So please, tour schools, ask questions, and think hard about the path you’d like to take.

I tend to liken design to fashion. The trends always change as such with preferred illustrations, ads, and even fonts. There are identifiable areas like Art Nouveau (my favorite), Bauhaus, the font Helvetica (designers would get a kick out of that…watch the movie kids), etc. Realizing this, it’s good to keep up with the trends.

Companies refresh their logos, start new ad campaigns, and try to keep up to date to maintain an image for the customer. Marketing is a form of manipulation. You want the consumer to think and feel a certain way when you see things. Right now for teen movies, a popular illustration style is the “sketchy school” drawings that can be found on movie cases like Juno and Napoleon Dynamite. So when a client asks you for certain styles, you need to make sure you know the trends!

Right now for the older generation, there are insurance companies marketing themselves as hip and full of energy. This is a direct reflection of how the masses feel or want to feel about themselves. People seek out products that they feel represent themselves or their interests best. They have snazzy, bright colors flashing across the screen while energetic music from the 60’s plays and tries to level with the consumer about know how they feel and what they need. Keep in mind this is a corporation. Corporations aren’t a person. They don’t think, feel, or know you. They are simply a mass of bodies working under one generalized idea for making money. The idea is to make these places seem more friendly and less intimidating. They hand out brochures with smiling teens of different ethnicities (so it can relate to anyone reading it). It seems friendly, but also clean, business-like, and no nonsense. This is the trend for the companies now. But who knows where it will turn in the future?

Graphic design magazines such as Print, How, Graphic Design USA, Communication Arts, CMYK Magazine, and ID Magazine offer some gorgeous pieces of design work done in a rainbow of styles. As a student, you may want to consider in investing in one of these subscriptions. They tend to be on the pricey side, but you have an advantage as a student. Usually extreme discounts are given if you can prove that you are currently enrolled in a school. This will get you in the habit of keeping up with market trends and seeing what others are producing (ie. your competition)! If you are enrolled this fall in college, inquire with one of your instructors about obtaining the magazines. Sometimes the school sends a mass of student subscriptions in at once and all you need to do is write that check.

Keep in mind that the more creative resources you have, the better you can keep up in the market.

Though graphic design is probably one of the more fun jobs fields I’ve ever had the pleasure of entering, it can, at times, be morally challenging. While you are in high school or beginning in college, it may not be as prevalent. But once in the work world, you may find yourself encountering situations that you wish you could have avoided.

Breaking it down, I suppose a good example would be smoking. If your client was a cigarette company, you were needing money badly, but you don’t believe people should smoke. Would you still do the ad? Would you consider the ramifications for doing such a thing if, say, the ad was aimed at young teens? Because of your profession, it’s intent is to influence people to think and feel a certain way. So where do you stand with issues? There are a lot of hot button causes, smoking almost being a mild one compared to say, abortion. If your art director asked you to work on a project you didn’t ‘believe in’, would you have the courage to say no and risk the consequences of such actions?

Although much of design is dedicated to creativity, these are also issues you must consider. Because your designs directly influence those who see it, you must consider your course carefully. So when searching for jobs, research what clients they pull in and so on. Be smart!

I want you future Graphic Design students to know that when you get into the real world, you should know of the story ‘Ketchup Soup’. If you have dreams of growing up, finding your job, and then your fortune, what exactly do you picture? A nice house, a nice car, and the latest technological toys cost some dough! So going to school has a purpose. I know you want to maintain a social life, friends, family, partying, and whatever it is that ‘you kids’ do, but if you don’t want to eat ‘ketchup soup’, you’ll need to make more effort in school! The difference between those who eat ketchup soup or steak is that extra bit of effort to make sure you come out ahead of the competition. With the economy on a downturn, and competition becoming more fierce for money, I hope you take your future seriously!

With that said, I hope you start the school year with enthusiasm and a go-gettum attitude! For some of you, it will be entering college for the first time. For others, you will be starting design classes at your high school or local technical center. I wish you all the best of luck! Don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions, absorb as much as possible, practice what you learned in school on your own, and try as hard as you can! Good luck too all of you! I will try to post more helpful and frequent hints for the upcoming school year!

So you’re needing a new camera for your high school year book or are headed away to college and have a pretty massive list of things you might need (cameras, key drives, computers, printers, etc). There is a delightful website for the educational public called www.campustech.com! Here’s the deal: the prices are lower than going to a store and buying it all by your lonesome. The catch? You have to prove you’re going to school. One of the ways is sending a copy of a school ID. Other ways are also listed on the website. But saving money is never frowned upon in my book. So bookmark it! You might even be able to help mom and dad out and Christmas time (added bonus: get that scanner you always wanted)! So hop to it!

I decided that the books with ‘Idiots Guide to…’ are very helpful because they are any subjects quick need-to-know cliff notes. Sometimes as a beginning design student you can be a bit overwhelmed by how much there is to know in crunch periods of time. You’re afraid to ask what something means/ is for fear of ticking the teacher off or being ridiculed by fellow students for forgetting something basic . But honestly everyone does it. We can’t be on top of our game all of the time, now can we? I’ve compiled a list of terminology that I felt was useful for everyday designing in and out of the classroom. With this handy dandy tool, you’ll be speaking ‘graphic design’ in no time at all! (Keep in mind this is a list I’ve compiled of things I’ve noticed kids commonly forget. You’ll need to do more in-depth studying on your own!)

1. Opacity: A descriptive word of how transparent or nontransparent something is. If you leave an image at %100 opacity, you cannot see through it whatsoever. However, if it’s set to, say, 50% opacity, it’s a lot easier to see through.  Opacity is commonly used in Photoshop to make collages.

2. Opaque: Nothing shines through. An object described as opaque does not let imagery or light through.

3. Scaling: Resizing an image to it’s correct dimensions for whatever size necessary. There is a scaling tool in Photoshop and in Illustrator. Using either one of these will bring options in some form or another to make the image smaller or larger.

4. India Ink: A very deep, rich black that artists use for any number of reasons. For example, I enjoy using it to paint black and white pieces. By adding water, it thins the color to a grey for a more transparent look (like watercolor). Certain kinds are waterproof while others are more easily workable. Although this ink is typically black, it can be found in other colors such as blue and green. They also come in cool little bottles!

5. Gouache: This was put in here more for spelling than anything. Even though it is pronounced Gwash, it’s certainly not spelled that way. For those uninformed, gouache resembles a watercolor paint but can be worked in slightly different ways. (Watercolor is generally meant for washes, and layered and transparent artwork. Gouache can be much thicker and have less of an opacity.)

6. Crop: Trimming up an image/ piece. The crop tool in Photoshop has you draw a box around whatever you want while it discards the rest.

7. Body Copy: This is the main area where text is located. Examples include articles in magazines, the contents of a book, etc.

8. Glyph: In places such as Illustrator, it references a pallette full of symbols available specific to a font. It could include letters with accents, tildes, etc over them. Or it could represent shapes or other things available specific to that font such as hearts, smilies, skull and crossbones, etc.

9. Swatch: A sample of a color. In Photoshop and Illustrator, swatches are little squares of color that you can easily grab and use rather than trying to find it on your own. In everyday life you could find them at any store, even Walmart! They are in the paint section as solid colors on little white pieces of paper so you may take them home and try as hard as possible to see an entire room from looking at a square the size of your thumb.

10. Kerning: Refers to adjusting the spacing between letters of type. Let’s say you type a word such as “Zoo” and feel like the two o’s are fine, but the z seems too far away. Kerning would be moving the z closer to the o next to it.

11. Serif/ Sans Serif: A typeface can be either one of these. The way to tell if it is serif is whether or not it has a short ‘finishing’ stroke on it or not. Times New Roman is probably one of the more well known types with a serif. The font I am using now is sans serif. It ends. There are no cute little tales or ending points on any of the letters.

12. Leading: Refers to the spacing between lines of type. Why would you want to change it? Designers perogative. Also sometimes you may need to save space or the chosen font looks too crowded with the lines where they are.

13. Pull Quote: When a sentence or 2 is pulled from a paragraph and made much larger and somehow set in the design.  This is very popular in magazines that would like to grab your attention to the article. Usually something horribly scandalous is pulled like, “…and then they grab the hair and lift fiercely. Screams are heard for miles.”, from a paragraph that says something along the lines of, “Professionals who enter hair cleanup contests after a dog grooming marathon tend to become excited when their team pulls ahead. First they don rubber gloves, grab a black garbage bag, and then they grab the hair and lift fiercely. Screams are heard for miles.” 

14. Pagination: The pages, or numbers of them, in a book!

15. Focal Point: The part, portion, or space in any design that has the greatest impact, therefore, draws the eye there first. If you’re advertising underwear and paste an 80 year old woman’s wrinkly butt in the center of the ad wearing hot pink panties, that would definitely be the focal point. And you’ll make your audience wish it wasn’t.

16. Thumbnail: It’s a small (1 inch by 1 inch is a good size), rough sketch of a layout, placement, or drawing idea. Thumbnails are something that you do fast to get maximum output for ideas or to remember those you have had without getting too in-depth with the detail.

17. Sepia: It’s a nice brown color. In black and white photos, there are shades of grey in between. Sepia can do that as well, but instead of shades of grey, there are shades of brown.

18. CMYK/ RGB: CMYK refers to the typical colors available in a standard printer: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Obviously things design in this mode are meant for printed work. RGB refers to the screen colors red, green, and blue. Things designed in this mode are typically meant for web work or pieces staying on a computer.

Bank these in your memory! Somewhere down the road whether it be in high school, college, or at work you will utilize these terms. When someone says them to you, you can be super-impressive and nod emphatically when they say, “The artwork this artist did in gouache doesn’t reproduce as well in opacity when printed in CMYK. I wonder why?” You may not know why, but at least you know what the heck they are talking about!

Alert! Alert! Alert! Fun website time!

For those of you who aspire to be Photoshop experts, it’s probably going to be a lifelong process. There is so much offered in the program and it’s constantly being updated that you will never really run out of things to do. (That’s a good thing!) Because you can customize almost literally everything you do, combinations of photo correcting and/ or illustrative styles are endless. Want a brush that isn’t available? Make it! Heck, if you’re abitious enough you could even sell it. Keeping photo correcting skills up to date couldn’t hurt either. If you’re good enough, you could make some pretty decent money from putting people in or taking people out of photos (or just correcting blemishes and such).

There is a site of people who happen to be Photoshop buffs and they hold contests, competing against one another to see who can pull it off the best for whatever they are told to do. If you’re looking for what you CAN do with lots of practice, worth1000 is the place to aspire towards! The makers even have published a few books that you can purchase at major bookstores and online. The site itself offers a handful of fun tutorials as well. They are very specific as to what they can be used for, but it will really help you learn your way around the program. Warning: they are not for beginners. Don’t frustrate yourself beyond anything you can’t handle. You’re new to Photoshop and shouldn’t be running Hell’s Gauntlet.

So if you’re up to it, visit www.worth1000.com and enjoy!