Technology

As a stained glass construction designer, I know how important it is to understand the limitations of the materials I will be designing for. Since each shape will be cut out of separate glass colors, each shape’s design is crucial. The same is true for all media designs, online or printed.

Because glass will break at its weakest point, stained glass designers often avoid the following shapes: hour-glass, deep inner curves, and long, extremely slender shapes.

The first question a designer needs to determine is, “Is it for print or digital design?” The “materials” are very different for digital versus printed media.

Although there are no tangible materials used in digital design, light is the “material” used to represent color. Since an additive color model is used, RGB should be chosen as the color mode. Consider the resolution. In digital design, the standard screen resolution is 72ppi, and images should be exported to the web as .jpg or .png files.

When designing for print, ink is one of the materials used, so use a subtractive model such as CMYK. In printed design, the minimum standard resolution for print is 300. If the image’s resolution is less than 300, uncheck the resample box and increase the resolution to 300. Since this will decrease the dimensions, determine if the image is too small for the design.

Designing for print is a little more complicated than digital. When choosing colors for your printed project, you will work with spot colors, process colors, or a combination of both. Each has its benefits and limitations.

A spot color is a ready-made blend of printing ink in a standardized color that is printed with its own printing plate. The most common system of spot colors is the Pantone Matching System. A number is explicitly associated with one color. A “C” or “U” signifies coated or uncoated.

As a designer, you will need to know if the project will be printed on coated or uncoated paper prior to selecting spot colors. (There is no difference in how Pantone 185U and 185C is made.) Since coated paper allows the ink to lay on top of the paper, the Pantone C colors will appear brighter. The uncoated paper will absorb more of the ink; the color will take on the paper’s color. Always refer to the printed reference cards.

Do not use the transparency effect on spot colors. The Pantone green with a transparency effect added will appear correctly on screen but print as a solid.

Although raster images can be used, usually spot colors are used for vector images such as logos or any other design where color consistency is crucial.

Four-color processing involves combining yellow, magenta, cyan, and black overlays to create a multitude of colors.

Four-color processing involves printing yellow, magenta, cyan, and black on separate plates to compose a full-color image. It uses a method of overlapping these plates to create a multitude of colors.

Raster images are made up of rows of pixels. Because the inks are transparent, the plate images are overlaid, resulting in many color combinations.

This is especially important to remember when deciding which black to use. A standard black will not be able to cover objects consisting of any other component color. However, using Registration Black presents another design challenge since the recommended ink coverage should not be above 340 percent. (Theoretically, the maximum ink coverage would be 100+100+100+100=400.)

If an unused spot color is left, it could lead to miscommunication with the printers, and an unused and expensive printing plate would be created for this color. To correct this, go to the dropdown menu in the Swatches window and select “Select All Unused.” Those unused swatches will then be highlighted so you can then delete them. Review any Preflight errors.

It’s important to know what materials you will be using before the design phase even starts.

Many of my Media Design courses have focused on designing for traditional markets such as print, web, and television. However, last semester I decided to take an elective class on social media marketing. For several years, companies have realized how marketing on social media can attract customers, create loyal customers, and create brand awareness. Also, keeping an understanding of social media trends is essential to keep this marketing fresh and relevant.

Live stream videos are one of these trends, which has helped businesses build a stronger brand image and increase engagement in real-time. A Livestream study found that 80% would instead view a live stream video than read its blog. This study also found that people spend about twice as much time watching a live stream video than watching standard videos. An example of this trend occurred when Sephora invited a mega influencer for a 30-minute block to talk about tips, trends, and beauty products.

Virtual reality is another trend that potentially appears to change the way products are marketed. In a Greenlight survey, 53% responded that they were more likely to purchase a brand that uses virtual reality than a brand that doesn’t. The North Face company gave users a VR experience by taking them on a virtual dog-sledding adventure.

Augmented reality gives companies the ability to alter users’ real-life environments. The first augmented reality app was Pokemon Go. IKEA created an app that allowed customers to place furniture in their own homes.

Ephemeral Content, or EC, is content that eventually disappears. In this type of marketing, engagement is increased and adds an element of authenticity to a brand. It has been proven that ephemeral content is appealing to users who fear missing out on special deals. Taco Bell uses EC on Snapchat to promote new products and develop stories about customer experiences.

As target audiences change, so should the methods to reach them. Keeping up with current trends in design, marketing, and social media is vital.

In a previous post, I talked about working with typography in Adobe products like Illustrator and InDesign. However, you are not limited to using just the fonts found on Adobe Cloud or online. Through Illustrator, the possibilities are endless to alter existing fonts or create entirely new fonts.

First, open a new file in Illustrator. Select the “Text” tool and draw a bounding box.

Select a base font that contains the style or movement that your design will simulate and adjust the font size accordingly.

Make sure you select the text box and then select the Type tab > Create Outlines. This action will create anchor points around each letter.

Using the Direct Selection tool, move the anchor points accordingly. Using the pen, shape, and other tools, add elements to your design.

Although Adobe Cloud and online sources can be abundant, the only limitation to creatively designed fonts is your imagination. 

Since we live in a visual world, creative and eye-catching design is vital to today’s packaging and Point of Purchase displays. Every day, consumers come in contact with designs that influence their purchasing decisions. I am no different. I began to think about my own purchasing decisions and how the packaging or labeling design convinced me to buy the product. One of these products I found myself purchasing was ICE sparkling flavored water.

The day I bought this product, I was not incredibly thirsty, but I forgot to bring a beverage on my way to work. In the same situation, I would typically purchase a non-sparkling plain bottle of water. The packaging showed a cube of ice with an embedded lime and cherry within. The beverage had not been refrigerated, but something about the clear crystal cube with the juicy bright red fruit and the slice of fresh green citrus reminded me drinking something that would be cold, refreshing, and with a little tangy.

One of the projects in my Media Design course was to redesign a package label. I had enjoyed a particular brand of bottled water but found the label not very creative or eye-catching. I thought back to other labels influential to my purchasing and decided to use some of the same elements that had caught my attention with the ICE sparkling water.

In the past, I sometimes have purchased products with eye-catching packaging, but later I found the quality to be poor. Sometimes, you can’t judge a product by its cover, and sometimes the cover encourages you to try a great product. I continue to enjoy the ICE brand beverages still today.

Of all the aspects of design, typography has been an element that I knew very little about before attending a Media Design program at Southeast Tech.  Most, as I did, think of typography as just some text. But it’s so much more; the style, size, and shape of a font family set the stage for the total design’s mood or message. The following are a few of the basic points of managing typography that I thought I’d pass on.

So let’s say you want to use a specific Adobe font within an Adobe application. The great thing with all Adobe applications is that the font menus are similar when choosing typefaces. In previous editions of Adobe products, the font menu also had a button “Add Fonts from Typekit” in the upper right corner. To currently access additional Adobe fonts, access the Adobe Creative Cloud, click the Font tab, and press the “Browse more fonts” button.  From there, you have the option to set up filters to make your search more specific to your needs.

Once you find a typeface, you’ll have the option to activate the complete font family or individual members.

So let’s say you want to use a font from an online site, like DaFont.com. When you press the download button, the font file(s) are placed in your Downloads folder.

Locate the font file in Downloads, and double click on it. A “Font Book” window, which contains the character sets for the font, will appear. In the lower right corner, press the “Install Font” button.

The next time you access the font menu in an Adobe product, the font will appear in the font menu list. (Font Book is a font management tool for Macs.)

As design students, we are given assignments to create visual advertisements by using imagery and typography to convey a message. And although this task requires many components of design and creativity to merge into a whole aesthetic message, designers need to be aware of why they are creating a particular design and be able to convey their strategies to business and marketing areas.

Douglas Davis’ book, “Creative Strategy and the Business of Design” was recommended to me by Sarah Bieber, Art Director of Farmers Business Network. The book, which is written for “creatives”, is written in a common sense tone with insightful personal stories from the author, but also shares step-by-step ways to implement the marketing strategies into the design of the advertisements. Awareness of the target audience is essential to creating an effective and relevant ad.

In order for “creatives” to understand the task at hand, communication with marketing and business area is very important. Chapter 1, explains some of the terminology of the marketing world. By understanding each other, marketing and design areas can work together to accomplish the stated objectives of the project. I found that the objectives of the project are what really should drive the designs that I create. For example, is it awareness of the brand, engagement of the brand’s customers or is it revenue? As a designer, I need to know what the objective of the campaign will be before I start designing.

For those designers which have a limited marketing education or background, the book is a great source of marketing information from the “purchasing funnel” to explaining how to create a creative strategic framework.