Print Design
What’s the Difference Between Spot and Process Printing?
Spot Color Printing The ink that goes on the press is hand-mixed or comes out of the can the color you want More expensive than process printing Unlimited paper choices Colors are exact Process Printing The ink on a process press only uses four colors: Cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Those colors are printed in…
Read MoreHow to Change the Colors of the Guides in InDesign
Question Hey Lena, Do you know how to change the colors of these red guides in InDesign? I got a document that I have to work with but the red is driving me crazy. Mine are usually light blue. Its not under the Guides and Pasteboard options in preferences. Answer The guides you are talking…
Read MoreInside a Designers Mind – Logo Development
Aaron Draplin does a great job showing what it’s like to work on a logo design for a client. We all start out with rough thumbnails and lots of ideas. So, if you’ve ever wondered what is going on at your designers desk, this is a pretty good example. And, if you are a fellow…
Read MoreThe True Cost of using Comic Sans
If you are a designer, you know we hate the font Comic Sans because of its overuse, readability and a dozen other reasons. What you you may not know it is that Comic Sans is costing you money to use it compared to other fonts. Via PixartPrinting
Read MoreInDesign: Powerful Search and Replace Examples
Wikipedia says… Grep is a command-line utility for searching plain-text data sets for lines matching a regular expression. Grep was originally developed for the Unix operating system, but is available today for all Unix-like systems. Its name comes from the ed command g/re/p (globally search a regular expression and print), which has the same effect:…
Read MoreNeed a flip book? Use InDesign!
You’ve seen digital flip books. You see them online. You can click the pages and they do this neat page curl and you can make your mouse “flip” the pages. Traditionally (which is funny, since tradition doesn’t go back THAT far in our digital world), these created with Flash. Later we have learned to do …
Read MoreIs this picture big enough for my brochure?
I get this question a lot from clients when working on a printed piece. Resolution for printed pieces is totally different than for websites. Website (or screen) resolution is only 72dpi. This means your images look like they do on your monitor. But, when you use them for high quality printing, the resolution must be…
Read MoreAdobe Illustrator pressure sensitive brushes don’t work with my Wacom Tablet anymore!
Question I recently had to update my drivers for my old Wacom tablet due to a system upgrade. I was very disappointed to find out that my pressure sensitive brushes don’t work any more in Adobe Illustrator CS5. I can draw with them, but they aren’t pressure sensitive. Is there any way to fix this? Answer I…
Read MoreCute Girl Art: Illustration
I got a new client recently. They were searching the internet and found my existing illustrations I had done for Girl Scouts and wanted something similar. I sketched it first, then refined. Then I digitally inked her in Illustrator and colored her in Photoshop. This way all her lines are vector – so if the…
Read MoreAdobe Illustrator: How can I create item that won’t print?
Question I often have projects where I create the graphics in Illustrator and then I convert my fonts to outline for the press. So, I was thinking I would just put the name of the font on my file in the pasteboard area so I can see it and remember what font I used. But,…
Read MoreWhat is bleed? My printer asked for it.
Question What is bleed? My printer asked for it when I gave them my brochure file. Answer When you send your brochure to the printer, they print it on much larger pieces of paper than the finished size of your brochure. They do this for a variety of reasons: Printing several brochures at the same…
Read MoreSo You Want to be a Graphic Designer?
This week I had the pleasure of being interviewed by a student from a high school in Illinois, who was doing a research paper on jobs they might want after graduation. What kinds of things do you design? I design things related to the internet (Web sites, banners, eblasts, etc.), and just about anything on…
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