You’re in the Money In our last post we identified some of the advisors you’ll need on your team as you start a graphic design business.  Lucky for you, the logistical fun doesn’t end there.  Armed with your graphic design education and ready to take on your first project, you’ll first need a pricing structure. Design [...]

Learning the Biz Graphic Design schools will sharpen your artistic talents, but what about your business acumen?  If starting a design business appeal to you, however, both sides of your brain need to be functioning.  In order to get You, Inc., off the ground, knowing the nuts and bolts of business ownership is just as essential [...]

More 3D for Fun and FunctionIn our last article we presented some nifty examples of what you can do with Photoshop in creating your own 3D objects. There are literally thousands of PS objects that you can download from the Internet, but the process of making your own Photoshop 3D items is not only fun [...]

Practice Makes Perfect After a while, it seems that plain old 2D Photoshop images are lacking when it comes to creativity for some of your graphic design projects. Maybe you have thought about doing more 3D work but didn’t know where to start. The following Photoshop tutorials can help you create some nice objects. All that [...]

Presentation and Eye Appeal What would your reaction be if you were served a plate of food at a restaurant that had dust, lint, or smudges on the dish? Now let’s switch this scenario around and put this in the context of a job seeker presenting a portfolio that has dust, lint, and smudges on the [...]

The Basics At long last you’ve landed a job interview at a design firm. You’re excited, nervous, and worried all at the same time. You realize that part of the interview process hinges on presenting a strong portfolio. But where do you begin? You’ve got lots of examples from projects while going to your graphic design college [...]

It’s More than Just Talent When you are going after a graphic designer position, your prospective employer is not only seeking qualified talent but “soft” skills and abilities. The “hard” skills as described in our last article, What Employers Are Looking for in Graphic Designers - Part I, gave a list of the skill sets that graphic [...]

What You Need To Qualify To land a job as a graphic designer you need the skill sets and talent necessary to fill the job requirements. There are two types of skill set categories employers are looking for when hiring a graphic designer. In the following three part series we’ll delve into what these qualities are and [...]

Graphic Design Is Messaging Although the artistic merits of good graphic design is at the forefront of what a graphic artist does the real backbone behind the design is the effectiveness of the message you are trying to communicate to the viewer. In our last article we quoted Marshal McLuhan saying, “The medium is the message” or [...]

The Medium Is the Message Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “The medium is the message.” McLuhan was considered one of the cutting edge media theorists of his day and realized that the “container” of the message or the medium influenced how the final message was perceived. As graphic artists it is important to understand and use this [...]