Fonts have a look that tells something about the character of the person or company that chose them. For me, that has always been the main reason for the letter choices I made for a client. What should their appearance be?
But fonts have more aspects that influence that choice. It is important to know them in order to choose the right font.
While beautiful or ugly is one of those arguments, it is the least important of all. So, why is choosing the right font important?
I was a graphic designer for 35 years, so I had to develop several technical skills over time. When I started in 1985 fax machines were quite new and there were no computers in the offices in the Netherlands.
Most printers had offset, although there were a few that still used letterpress printing. Designs were made on the drawing table. The design drawings were transposed by phototypesetting. And, we can hardly imagine this, there were no mobile phones, let alone the smart ones.
The main conclusion throughout the years was that the techniques may change, yet the rules of corporate identity will not.
Some years ago a Dutch friend, Jenny van Diggelen, Blauwwerk, gave me a workshop on Cyanotype Printing. I wasn’t sold right away because I was in the middle of emigrating.
Once in order in my new house, I was again inspired by the blue colour and the possibilities of cyanotype.
It took some getting used to the Spanish sun and sometimes the sun really shines too bright to make nuanced tests. Which makes experimenting all the more interesting.
Sometimes the budget is scarce and the wish to make an outstanding item is big. For example, you want to have a great present for a birthday or anniversary. Or you want a gift as a souvenir at a customer meeting, like a friend and I did.
In this article, I explain how to make a booklet by folding it, without the need for any other resources but paper and an A3 printer.
And I show another way of folding a booklet for which you don’t need a printer unless you want to use text.
Nowadays I am retired, yet I have been a graphic designer for 35 years. There hardly was a day I felt reluctant to go to my studio to start my day. It goes without saying that the profession is still part of my heart.
The world has changed hugely in those 35 years, as you can imagine. After all, everything changes all the time.
The question “Is graphic design a good career choice” was frequently asked of me, both by my clients and by students and interns. Despite all the changes, I could always answer with a resounding yes.
Colour has a big influence on us. Colour sets our mood and is a way to express ourselves. Colour has a symbolic value, which can be different per culture.
We are warned by colour. Red means beware of danger, while green stands for safety. Fire trucks are red. Sustainable companies often have green as their main colour.
Especially because of its recognizability and emotional value is colour important in graphic design and advertising. As a designer, you can deviate from generally accepted colours, just make sure you have a good reason for it.
Several Modern Art museums in Valencia are so worthwhile to visit.
Valencia is one of my favourite cities for a midweek trip. It is only 3 hours by car from my village and offers a huge variety of art, culture, and nature. The latter, in the beautiful botanical garden or in the immediate vicinity with beaches and marshes.
There are all kinds of museums in Valencia, plenty of choices. However, we like modern art the most, so those are the museums we visit more than once.
Until now we went for architecture and art, but a chance conversation with a compatriot during our visit to Bombas Gens has made us aware of the opera and dance culture that can also be experienced in Valencia.
In 32 tips to get ideas to spend your free time is a pencil drawing of a shape, giving the optical illusion that the inner circle is much whiter than the surrounding white outside the circle.
A former colleague even made an airbrush in which the inside of such a form was darker than the environment, and still, it seemed lighter.
So I wanted to examine that. How much black can I add until the inner shape seems darker than the outer space?
In my personal challenge, an assignment to make a collage daily for 365 days, I am focusing on one aspect a month. More or less. It’s not written in stone, of course.
The month before, I primarily worked on art journaling, using illustrations and text. February 2023 was dedicated to transferring pictures to the Gelli prints.
I used several methods. The main difference was either Gelli printing or using the copy machine on tissue paper.