Discover, Design,
Experience, & Learn
Resources to Grow Your Knowledge of Design
When we care about something we like to keep our knowledge up to date on the subject, but sometimes life makes it’s hard to know what to read/follow/listen to/watch and keep up on it.
Raise your hand if you know what I’m talking about.
I thought about it and realized I had a great resource right in front of me through Zoom. So I asked my interviewees what resources they would recommend to designers looking to grow their knowledge and be a great inspiration. Because the more you learn, the more you can empathize, create, understand, and solve.
Here is a compiled list of the recommendations by categories. “By the time you’re sitting in an interview, these people want to know what is Elizabeth like. How does her brain work, what is she thinking about, and how is she going to fit and be a culture add to the team that exists here. ”
Books
Making of a Manager by Julie Zoo (a book about running but demonstrates how teams are being built)
The Culture Code
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Rework by Jason Free
Books by Eric Spiekermann
Books by Michel Bay Rue
Books by Louise Feely
Books by Stephen Heller
Books by Gail Anderson and Stephen Heller
Creativity for Sale by Jason Surfapp
Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon
Podcasts
New Layer—About product design
Design Details—About design culture and process
Debbie Milman—Creative director in the ad world
Overtime—Dribble’s podcast, hosted by Meg Lewis
People/Organizations to Follow
AIGA Eye on Design
Find them on Facebook and InstagramPablo Stanley—This is a newsletter, the interviewee believes this to still be available via Twitter.
David Carson
Stefan Sagmeister
Jessica Walsh
Jessica Hische
Paula Scher
Aries Moross
Software to Use
Adobe Suite
Invision
Asana
What is a User Experience?
Have you ever said:
“Geez, this website is taking forever to load!”
“What does the (drive-thru) menu say? I can barely read it.”
These are examples of bad user experiences. As designers, it is important to ensure that the users of our designs have positive experiences when engaging with them. If they don’t, it can cheapen the appearance of a brand.
A user experience is a small portion of a customer’s journey with a product or company. These small experiences can make or break the view of the product/company.
So how can you, as a designer become more aware of integrating user experience (UX) into your work and how? What can you, as a business owner, do to ensure your customers are receiving the best experience?
First, let’s understand UX design.
You can’t not have an experience.
Experiences can come in a wide range of types and sizes. Some are small and you won’t really notice while others are larger.
Some of these may be a child getting a sticker at the doctors, customer service, packaging, the product itself, the product instructions, a website, an app, a company office, business cards, and a whole lot more.
We have experiences in everything we do, and they aren’t always positive. But when we do have a positive experience, we often subconsciously remember it and will be more inclined to return to where that experience took place.
Someone once said, “Good UX design often goes unnoticed, as it is working properly and causes no issues for the user. Bad design is always pointed out and noticed.”
Let’s get into some positive examples
A major aspect of UX design is the accessibility of the designs. Take Starbuck’s drive-thru sign language ability.
A few years ago, a YouTube video was going viral about how Starbucks was signing through the drive-thru dash with a deaf customer. This showed that Starbucks thought about all of their customer’s experiences with them.
Having the drive-thru being deaf accessible is an amazing experience that will stick with this woman, as she now knows, “I can come back here and not have to worry about if I can get a drink or not.”
How about,
The ease of navigating an app or website. We are all too familiar with websites where you are unsure of how to get anywhere or do anything. A good site has easy navigation. It’s a site that you will always want to come back to. A website should be intuitive, informative, and functional.
Duolingo is a great example of a website with a good user experience. The site uses a minimal design approach, has an easy sign-up, and allows the ability for personalization. There is no question of, “How do I do XYZ?”
What’s a negative experience?
We have all gone to a website that we couldn’t find anything in or hated visiting, maybe a website like, Craigslist.
Craigslist’s site is hard to read in both contrast and size, visually busy, and is not responsive.
Having a responsive site allows for easy navigation and reading on a phone or tablet. Since Craigslist doesn’t do this, it forces people to try to zoom in and find what they can’t see.
This video shows how Craiglist looks on different sized screens.
The blue type is uncomfortable to read, due to its poor contrast. In the video below I used a color-blind simulator, called Colorblindly, to have an idea of how people who are color-blind view a site.
If you look at the “event calendar” and the “new” in the side navigation you can watch how its contrast changes and how poor, it can become. This can cause users to avoid Craigslist since it’s too hard to use.
Marion, a marketing and design company, beautifully discusses six more bad UX aspects of a website or app (check it out).
How to ensure you think about UX in your designs?
Never assume.
When we assume, we avoid major points and design opportunities. When we assume, we ignore issues that may lie within our designs that could cause offense, struggle, or be inaccessible.
Insert it into your process and always ask yourself, and others:
Is this working?
Do the users understand this as I do? Is it intuitive?
Does this fit my target audience? Should I test this?
Testing is a key aspect of ensuring a positive user experience. By testing, you will be able to discover if your designs function properly. It also allows for discoveries along the way of development rather than at the end when it is out in the world. These discoveries can show you that the colors chosen aren’t conveying the proper tone or that the navigation on that app doesn’t open.
As a business owner,
Some ways you can ensure your customers are having their best experience possible could be as simple as a survey. Ask how their experience was for firsthand input.
Or hire a UX designer, to go through your company, website, pamphlet, etc. to help discover where any issues may lie and design solutions for those problems.
Go through the experience yourself, do you find any problems?
We live in a world of experiences;
it is important that our designs leave positive impressions and be remembered. Test your designs along the way, ask yourself questions about their functionality, and assume nothing.
Folded
Have you ever thought about the way something was folded? Have you ever even noticed it? Well all of the pamphlets and brochures you hold may be in different types of folds.
There are plenty of folds you can do and some of you may know about folds already, especially if you are into origami. Folds can convey a different experience and appearance to what you have designed. For this reason we are talking about folds because creating an experience for your user is immensely important in this ever growing user-centered world. Even though many can be used for similar, if not the same things, they still change the interaction the user engages when they open the brochure or pamphlet.
So if you’re stressed or just need to take a minute for yourself then grab some papers. Go back to your younger years and follow along in these folds and fold some for yourself.
Half Folds
Half folds are pretty self-explanatory. Take a piece of paper and hold it in half, hot dog or hamburger whichever is more your style, but it is generally done the hamburger way. This fold is good for cards, invites, price lists, menus, programs, booklets, bulletins, flyers/brochures, or announcements.
Tri-Fold
Tri-folds are, like a lot really, pretty self-explanatory. It is able to be used for statements, durable pamphlets, specials, flyers/brochures, price list. To do this fold fold the paper into equal thirds and there you have it.
Z-Fold
This fold has the same fold lines as the tri-fold we just spoke about; however, both flaps should not fold inward but one folded behind. This fold is again good for special offers and flyers/brochures.
4-Panel Accordion Fold
This has the same feel as the z-fold but has an extra fold in it and if looking at the thin edges should make a “M” or “W” shape. First fold the paper in half and each of those halves in half. make sure that they alternate their folded direction.
3-Panel Gate Fold
This fold gives the look of gates opening when well, opening. When folding the center of the paper must be known without making a crease. Then each opposite end is folded to the center.
Double Gate Fold
This fold is similar to the one above except it has an extra fold. So rather than the center panel of the 3-panel being half of the whole paper size, it is folded in half. Making each fold fold inward to the center.
Roll Fold
A roll fold can be rather confusing to understand because it seems to simply be the double gate fold; however, the folds roll into the other (the image makes it seem as though the flaps are different sizes, but they are the same size).
Double Parallel Fold
Once again another fold similar to the others. This has the 3 creases, one in the center and then each half creased in half, causing the folds to encase each other.
Vertical Half Fold
You guessed it! it’s a good old half fold except it is hot dog fold. I assume you don’t need an image for this but if you do view the image under the heading Map Fold, bottom left corner.
French Fold
The French fold is when the paper is folded in half hot dog style first and then (still in the hot dog fold) folded in half hamburger style.
Map Fold
Map fold is when the paper is folded in half hamburger style and then folded into thirds the other way. (see map fold on bottom right)
Get Crazy with it!
Now the folds mentioned above are just common folds for printed materials but that doesn’t mean you can’t change it up or do something crazy and different. There are circle lock gates, diagonal wraps, circular accordions, and corner folder open gate.
If you are looking for a unique way to engage and delight your users don’t forget about the way items are folded, it may make a huge change! To find more ideas on folds visit: foldfactory.com
Send it in an Envelope
Envelopes seem like this monotonous ugly thing that true adults seem to have around. But once you take a closer look at what they are for and how they help get things from here to there, they aren’t half bad.
As a designer and soon to be new business world adult I’ve learned a bit about how envelopes are needed and important for companies and businesses. Through google searches and print/paper companies, MOO and Neenah Paper, I have learned about different types of envelopes, when to use them, and how fun looking they can be! So let’s just tear right in shall we?
Commercial
As commercial envelopes were designed for machine insertion, allowing a machine to quickly inset a large amount of letters into envelopes in a shorter amount of time, it makes them ideal for invoices, direct mail, and all those “To Resident” or auto name filled letters. Sometimes people will use them for sending out their personal letterheads to a client or for the everyday personal use. The most common size for these are #10’s. What does that mean? Well, envelopes have standard sizes 4 1/8 inches high by 9 1/2 inches long a #10 means that it is meant to hold a normal old 8 1/5 by 11 inch paper.
Still kind of confusing? Don’t worry I get it.
Square Flap
Now a square flap is not a whole envelope as I’m sure the word flap may have tipped you off, but none the less important to know. When folding closed the envelope the flap you fold can be a commercial flap which is the triangle shape or as we are stating here a square flap meaning it will be parallel to the sides of the envelope. (view bottom right envelope on image below, side-seamed).
As I stated before #10’s (commercial envelopes) are designed for machine insertion. Whether or not that #10 has a square flap or not determines if it can be used in a machine. Often times these are used for smaller audiences mailings and are better suited for personalization with thermography, engraving, etc.
Side-Seamed
A side-seam is part of four common seams, center, diagonal, side, and weld. But let’s focus on side-seams. The seams I am speaking of are how the envelope was folded to make the shape. Being the parts that fold onto each-other to be glued and held together. Seams can be placed on the inside or outside of the envelope. These types of seams are often used because of the wide space they allow for on the back of the envelope making it ideal for extra printing!
A-Style & Square
Remember getting your family-friends wedding or graduation invite? Or that one family member’s, the one you aren’t to sure how you’re related to? Well this is the type of envelope you more than likely got the invite in as these are commonly used for social announcements, invitations, and maybe even some promotional pieces.
Square styled envelopes are practically the same thing as A-styled envelopes. They do command attention against the typical rectangle with their durability, allowing you to add 3D accents to your invites, and a modern square shaping for the envelope and flap.
Business Announcement
These types are typical for businesses, booklets, and informal invitations due to the large available colors and finishes. They tend to have square flaps, as noted at the beginning, and are often more square in overall shape.
Booklet
Booklet envelopes are great for heavy-duty mailing such as annual reports, sales materials, and proposals. These have side openings making them able to be used in automatic insertion mailing, just like #10 envelopes.
Catalog
These are very similar to the booklets in that they are great for heavy-duty mailing materials. Where they differ is that catalogs are great for presentation material, catalogs, and multi documents. But the biggest difference is where the booklet opens on the long side, the catalog opens on the short edge. (See example above).
Now that wasn’t too bad, was it?
This is just a portion of the world of envelopes, there are plenty of opportunities find more and create more. As a designer and for anyone who has their own business knowing what types of envelops I have around is important.
I stated in my More Than Just a Piece of Paper I mentioned how paper can make an impact in a users experience through the feeling and visual of the paper choice. This can also extend into you envelope (smaller use needs) by having envelopes purchased or custom made in your brand’s paper. Doing so allows the experience through multiple levels for clients as well as setting a rememberable standard for your brand. After all the graphic logo (graphic identity) and name (typographic identity) are only a portion of the brand.
Now you’ll know what type of envelope you need next time you’re at the store rather than staring blankly at all the options. Have fun mailing!
More than a Piece of Paper
“[From] a two-dimensional virtual reality, you eventually have to take your plans to the third dimension,… making that leap requires paper.”
In todays day and age it seems as though every single interaction is between a person and their screen. But do you remember the woman at the conference who handed you that flyer? Or the attorney who gave you his business card? Here, how about that new folder and book you just bought from the store? Those were all interactions with paper! Yep it is still relevant even if we don’t think it is. Paper is a huge part of a brand but to understand why you need to know a bit about the variety of paper and what experiences they can create.
Characteristics and variety of paper such as weight, texture, pulp, finishing, coat, opacity, brightness, and size allows for the paper to invoke emotion. By using a paper that aligns to your business or personal values it carries your brand through the touch, rather than just visual. As a designer I know that all of these paper traits and qualities are important to a brand and that brands experience. So what are some aspects of paper that give it different characteristics?
It isn’t just this flattened, ink soaked, dead tree.
Coating
The coating on paper regulates how much the ink bleeds and absorbs into the paper. If you are seeking to print large pictures coated paper is great because it will keep the colors from mixing and make the images sharper.
Hand
The hand is the way the paper feels when it’s handled. This texture gives anyone holding it an experience or at least a feeling. If the paper is more textured, ridged or toothier, then they may experiences feelings of hand-made, organic, environment, heavy-duty, and old. If a paper is silky smooth you may experience thoughts of high quality, sophistication, clean, and modern.
A Few Traits
Brightness | This is the amount of light that reflect off of the paper back at the user. If you are publishing a book stark white paper may not be the best option, Why? Because if they take that book out to read on a bright day that sunlight is going to reflect off of the paper and cause the reader eyestrain.
Opacity | This is how much light can pass through the paper. If you want to make a notebook you would want to use higher opacity, or opaque (less transparent) paper because you don’t want to see the text from other pages or have ink bleed through.
Now that you know a bit more about paper and the experiences that they can enhance or destroy are you going to be more aware of your paper choices?
Characteristics a Designer Should Have
In my previous post, What I Learned Through My Interview, I spoke about the main takeaways I learned from my interviews, but for this one I wanted to share the answers of my interviewees from the question, “What do you believe a designer needs to be?” These were their answers *cue Law and Order, dum dum*
Kyle Rice | Rolling Stones
Always be curious—“It is a term so many people use to where it has lost it’s meaning, but at the end of the be willing to learn.” everything is so connected to design (marketing, photographers, production team, etc.) that it is important that I have an idea of what they are thinking
Push those boundaries—You’ve got the idea of what the team are already thinking so you can provide solutions for them, but also provide ideas of “what if we did this instead, what would that be like?” Sometimes you get too comfortable in a position that you don’t think outside the box.
Mental Health—Health is so important. Kyle shared that he can become a workaholic easily and forget to take breaks. Before COVID he was able to separate himself from work on his drive in and out of work, but without that drive he’d think about it more at night and it began to take its toll.
Matt | Lead Art Director Rolling Stones
“Pick a good bourbon, lift with your back, and be the loudest person in the room. Just kidding!”
Curiosity—design in all its different forms, it is a story telling process. with more knowledge you can better describe and share it with fluidity.
If you can design one thing, you can design anything—with a skillset and knowledge of typography and design you can design almost everything.
You never know who you many need—“I will look up illustrators in other countries to see their work.” You never know when you may need a street artist, so keeping a record or saving websites of different photographers, artists, illustrators, writers helps to be prepared later on. Never think, “well when am I ever going to need an underwater photographer?” or anything else.
Toby Fox | Deputy Art Director Rolling Stones
Flexible—The hardest thing to deal with is a stubborn designer. You have to be willing to change the designs, learn to roll with the changes, not fight them.
Story Teller—Know how to tell the story visually. Nothing should be there to be pretty, it should always have information in it and purpose. It is all part of the story. “[An image of] The Who live on stage in 1989 on the opening spread, you don’t want to see The Who on stage 1989 from a different angle on another spread.”
Being a Collaborator—we have to as designers that, editorially, the story is told completely, if they need 6,000 words without hurting the design. If it hurts the design, then we collaborate with them on avoiding the problems. It’s all about working together to create effective and beautiful designs.
Justin Mezzell | Plural Sight
Know how to talk about your work—Being able to explain where the inspiration came from, or if it's a product design, why did you go with this design. Justin stated that, “It means so much to me to have a product designer, be able to walk through why they were like, well, we thought we were going to build this and then we did some research and we found out it was this. So then I pivoted this …we [noticed] a huge uptick in how people were performing in this experience.” He stated that the details in why the designer or creative changed directions is so important to understanding the project and making an empathetic product.
Be able to push a style, or your style—Be able to show adaptions and flexibility with a set style if you have one. “I do love a design style, but I would say pushing on it is great. So if you want to be an illustrator have a portfolio that's all about illustration that defines a style but like flex it a bit, you know. Show me where the medium changes and show me where you're able to work and another space. If your product designer. Don't just show me, Helvetica Neue on a white page that's always the same look, show me how you change the design for the needs of your user base right there.”
Write—Using a blog or platform of some sort to discuss design, illustration, photography, whatever it may be, helps to show case your abilities of the prior two points. Being able to communicate design and reasonings as well as being able to push designs and your thought process. “writing is such a powerful piece for us to see not just your work, your output, but a little bit about who you are, about what you think about what it's going to be like to work with you.”
Breaking down your illustration [or designs] into these really intentional moments for illustration I think is so awesome.
— Justin Mezzell
Meg Lewis | Freelancer, Ghostly Ferns, & Podcaster for Dribble
Not ego driven—Learn to place your opinions aside when designing for a brand.
Sense of self—Identifying what you are good at and letting go of what you’re not good at. We compare ourselves to other designers too much, when someone is better at something than us we internalize it and we make ourselves feel bad. But once you can identify what your good at it will help empower you and it will help you to see what others are good at too.
Taking critical feedback—Practice being okay getting feedback and when you’ve done something wrong and apologize when you need to and move on.
Brooklyn Brown | GitHub
Communication Skills—especially with remote working
Being Adaptable & Flexible—be comfortable with uncertainty, when aspects of the design/project changes we can’t take it personally.
Being Humble—not taking design critique personally. Being able to critique other people’s work and being able to take constructive criticism in return, and learn to implement it into your work to make it better.
Dawn Austin | Brand Muscle
Detail oriented—You want to make sure that the bleeds are right, sizing is right, and so forth. You never want to send off a document without making sure it is mistake free as it can cause issues later on.
Confident—No matter what it is. If you are not confident then no one else will believe you or follow you. But with that be a team player
Time Management—Make sure to meet the goals along with the way while making everything ready by or before the due date.
Adrianne Ngam | Glide
Never stop learning—There is no end goal to how good of a designer you can be. “[I] went to design school for over five years and I didn’t feel like I learned anything until I started working.” having that open mind that you don’t know everything
Being and organized communicator—Stay organized so that you can easily show and communicate to others what you are doing and working on.
Having no ego—the more humble and sponge like you can be is critical for any designer. It’s important to design for what the client wants rather than what you assume they want.
Stacy Simpson | Britten
Creative—“You can be taught a lot about concepts of creativity, but I don’t think creativity is something you can’t just be taught as a practice… If your not getting a lot of opportunities in your work to be creative then you should be creative outside of that because you are definitely going to lose some of that. I think the brain needs to be constantly creating and practice. Those are muscles you have to keep up”
Collaborative Mindset—It can be easy to get frustrated. But at the end of the day what you make is for them.
Effective Personal Time-Management—Learn what works for you and how you can stay on top of things efficiently and effectively.
Valerie | Britten
Teachable—“Recognizing that you have not arrived and that you always have more to learn.”
Problem Solving— Being creative more than just visually
Thick Skin—“I’ve had a lot of very stressful situations where there is a lot to do in a short amount of time with super high stakes. And you can’t cave in to the pressure and give up. You’ve just got to keep going.”
Jessie Peters | Designer, Mitchell Graphics
As Jessie was my first interview I had not yet thought of this question. But to keep her included I wanted to share what three things a designer needs to be and have from my discussion with her (these are not her words, but what I believe would be important based on your conversation.)
Learn—When you know about where your working and working with because it allows you to know what is possible, how it would be produced, and if it won’t work and how to re-work it.
Be adaptable—while you may have a focus in an area of design still be willing to learn and rework something if it isn’t working to better finish designs and make the designs for the clients needs.
Creative—When you know more about a process you can better determine its possibilities and are better able to push those ideas and be more creative. This helps to also articulate and practice utilizing the design eye, that is hard to be taught.
It’s Kind of a Process
As designers we have a process for everything. A process to solve and understand our task, a process of iterations to push the designing of the task, finalizing, and production.
Even though there are tasks for many aspects within the design world I am going to focus specifically on the pre production and printing process. Which will talk about spelling and grammar, print marks, file names, colors, fonts, and production forms.
Spelling & Grammar
Your designs are done! Now double check them for grammar or spelling errors, you don’t want to be the person who writes, “buzy” instead of “busy” or “there” instead of “They’re.” Just do yourself the favor and double check it. Often what I do is I give it to a fellow classmate or friend who I know is good at English and ask them to check for anything I might have missed.
Print Marks
You are getting ready to export your design but don’t forget to click the add document bleeds. Didn’t use them when you made the document? Then add them! You can add in bleed marks if you forgot to do so when you first created the document by going to (in Indesign) File, document set up or option + command + P.
Having the crop marks and bleed on your file for printing is a necessary thing to make sure the prints are cut to size and for any colors that may come off the page are flush and not speckled with white from no bleed being present.
File Naming
Now even if we do file naming, let’s be honest we still now and again (with personal documents) often do “holiday-cards-christmas-FINAL-v02-seriously-FINAL.pdf” and if you still do that with school or job files here is what I do.
When I am naming a file, specifically for school, I always use the first 6 letters of my last name followed by my first initial. That allows for my teachers to know who’s document they are looking at. So my name and then the project name and the aspect of that project that is in the file example: “smithj-personal-brand-letterhead.pdf”
Colors
This is a big aspect of the production process to understand because CMYK colors print out differently than RGB colors do. Always check to make sure that your file is in CMYK since you want to be printing in CMYK and not in RGB. RGB is meant for screens not print and CMYK is meant for print not screens.
This is also applied to images. Make sure all images in a document are converted into CMYK before printing.
Fonts
Fonts are not there for everyone to use even if you send the document with them in there, that font is localized to your computer. Unless someone also has that typeface then they will be unable to print the font and a substitute will take its place. To avoid having filler fonts you want to make sure to package them (as well as images) in your document files.
Production Forms
Pre-Press Check List
The pre-press check lists ensures that all aspect of the design are included and made sure are accounted for before being sent off to production. To make sure that everything mentioned above is accounted for and so minimal or hopefully no mistakes are made during production.
Print Specification
This forms is to make it clear to your printers of what it is that you want for your prints, this includes size, single of double sided, paper type, paper weight, binding, number of copies, as well as extras like if you want foil stamping, embossing, debossing, UV treatment. Whatever it is that makes your design goes here.
Print Estimate
You send this off along with the print specifications because the printers can then send you it back so that you have an idea of how much it will cost to have what is wanted done.
Knowing now all that I have told you about the process for production are there ones you might install into your own process? Or has it maybe inspired you to create a process for yourself? Whatever it maybe the aspects I have mentioned above are important for the success of a project and are things to not to be taken lightly and should be handled with care to make sure your work is produced to the best of its abilities.
What Interviewing Designers Taught Me
While I worked at my internship with Nimble Kettle, I was also interviewing every designer I could get my hands on from a wide range of fields. I was able to speak with designers from Plura Sight, GitHub, Britten, Mitchell Graphics, Freelancer/Ghostly Ferns, Glide, BrandMuscle, and Rolling Stones. Each of these interviews has taught me something new about design, may it be process, industry, or purpose. This is a longer post than most but well worth the read if you are interested in design as a career.
Let’s do some introductions, shall we!
Brooklyn Brown | Senior Product Designer, GitHub
Before her new position at GitHub, Brooklyn worked at Microsoft as a Senior Product Designer.
Toby Fox | Deputy Art Director, Rolling Stone Magazine She is in-charge of front of book and back of book. She has been working at Rolling Stone Magazine for seven-eight years.
Justin Mezzell | Designer & Illustrator, PluralSight Freelance Illustrator. He has does illustrations for Google, Twitter, PayPal, Facebook, FastCompany, Wired, and Disney. He is also a self-taught illustrator and designer.
Meg Lewis | Freelancer/Creative Director,
GhostlyFerns, Sit There and Do Nothing podcaster, & Dribble podcaster Meg is a designer, performer, and comedians bringing happiness to the world through her work. She has worked with Dropbox, Buzzfeed, Google, Vox, and Brit+Co.
Valerie | Designer, Britten
Has been working for Britten for nine years.
Adrianne Ngam | Designer, Glide
She is part of a small team at Glide, a recent startup.
Kyle Rice | Designer, Rolling Stone Magazine
Ferris alumni, working at Rolling Stone Magazine for under six months. He handles a bit of everything print, social, web content, and assist with anything/everything. A big reason he was brought onto the team was to help create social media narratives rather than just sharing photos.
Matt | Lead Art Director, Rolling Stone Magazine
Matt has been at Rolling Stone Magazine for 15 years. He heavily handles feature print pages for the magazine.
Dawn Austin | Senior Graphic Designer,
BrandMuscle Dawn a Ferris alum. has been working for BrandMuscle for three years.
Jessie Peters | Designer, Mitchell Graphics
Jessie is a fellow Ferris alum and has been working for Mitchell Graphics for ten years.
Stacy Simpson | Graphic Artist, Britten
Has been working for Britten for 6 years.
I want to share with you some of these things that these interviews have taught me. New information and ideas/practices that I hope to implement into my own life (in and outside of design).
Adrianne from Glide
Don’t Pigeon Hole Yourself, Stay Open
“Try stuff, be open to opportunities…” Brooklyn said these words to me while asking her about ways to find what area of design I want to work in. This statement made me think of two quotes/sayings.
"If you're the smartest in the room, you’re in the wrong room.”
“If you’re not changing, you’re not growing.”
I like these quotes/sayings because they’ve helped me to put into perspective that change is good. When we change we better learn who we are and grow as individuals and become closer to discovering who we are at heart and what we love to do.
It is Okay to Ask for Help
Kyle, mentioned how it can be hard to ask for help. It is a common thing for people to feel that we have to figure it out all on our own. But this simply isn’t the case. Toby and Matt reenforced that with Kyle and myself during the interview, that it can be hard to come to a creative/art director and ask for help, but that’s how you are going to get better and that’s how the designs are going to get better.
Find Your Style
While speaking with Justin Mezzell I asked him his thoughts about designers not having their own design style. He said that it depends on wether you are more freelance or want to work as a studio employee. When working freelance, as he does for illustrations, many people will hire you for your design style. Having a style as a freelancer is more important than it is for a studio employee, but it is important to know your style in general.
When working for a company (rather than freelance work) it is important that your portfolio shows your style through your brand but that you can easily design something outside of your brand styles to show you are more adaptable.
Designing for Media is Different
When I reached out to fellow Ferris Alumni, Kyle Rice, he asked me if I knew that design for media was different then branding or traditional editorial. Once we were able to meet up along with his Art Directors, he explained to me why designing in media is so different.
When you design for media, there are sort-of two levels.
1.When you are at a studio, you are always experimenting, since you have different clients. So you are constantly exploring different colors and fonts and so forth. When you are in-house/single brand options are limited. So you need to be creative within the brand standards.
Matt, will utilize the select number of typefaces to be utilized to communicate different things vs being in a studio setting where the options are practically unlimited.
2. In media everything is ramped up. Everything is fast-tracked, that you have to learn to do the design process (research, discover, plan, prototype, repeat) without doing the design process.
Always knowing what the industry is doing, so when hearing, “what if we did this…” I don’t go back through the whole process, because I’ve already seen it successful elsewhere or quickly checking out if it will work.
Practice Being Creative for the Sake of Being Creative
Sometimes it’s hard to find time to be creative and sometimes our jobs don’t provide us with enough flexibility to be creative. Employees, Valerie and Stacy, from Britten have something to say about that. While speaking with Valerie I had asked her if she listens to podcasts or audiobooks about design, she responded with, “listen and read what inspires you…” Valerie said that it’s good to read and listen about design, but it is also important to take time for what inspires you, for what makes you creative.
Stacy said something very similar, she said, “creativity is something you can’t just be taught as a practice… I think the brain needs to be constantly creating and practice. Those are muscles you have to keep up.” Stacy spoke to me about how if your job doesn’t provide you the opportunities you need to be creative take time outside of work to practice being creative. What Stacy spoke to me about made me realize how true this statement is. When we are children we are constantly creating, made up stories, abstract drawings, pretending, & making a box into anything our imagination drives us to make it. But as we grow up we hit a point when we stop doing that, we forget how to pretend and loose parts of our creativity.
There is More than One Type of Design
Conducting these interviews has allowed me to see into the world of design from a new perspective. it has showed me how design is all around us, something I knew but didn’t comprehend until now. Design is in everything, music, companies, social media, media, film, and so many more.
While working in design, it’s important to find the area of design that best fits your life, life-style, and ambitions. While speaking with some of the designers they never thought they’d up up where they are today. Many believe they liked the design work for branding companies but realized they preferred in-house designing/product designing better. Jessie, from Michell Graphics, didn’t think she would end up designing for print but now loves what she does and where she is. And Dawn felt she wanted to work with concept driven work that took more time, however, she found that her skills better lie in a fast-paced setting where concepts are produced more quickly.
There is no better or right design field to be in. All that matters is what you love and enjoy what you do. There will be plenty of times you are at a job you dislike but that’s an opportunity to learn and grow. And what you enjoy doing can change, in fact I hop it does. From the time we leave college (or nail your first job after teaching ourself design) it’s important for us to be constantly trying new things, new forms of design, and expanding our knowledge and growing.
If you are someone struggling to know what you want from design or if design/or company type is a good fit for you try conducting some interviews with people.
Reach out to people you know who are in the field of friends with someone who is, reach out to a college professor to see if they can give you any leads. This was an amazing experience for me. It gave me the chance to learn so much, I couldn’t fit it all in one post. It also gave me the chance to meet so many amazing people who have opened up their world of design and shared a piece of it with me.
It’s Bound to Go Down
We encounter books, magazines, swatch books, and information packets all the timeBelieve it or not you’re bound to go crazy about all of these ways to bind books. Now there are a lot different binding techniques and I’m gonna mention common ways to bind.
Saddle & Loop Stitching
Saddle and loop are very similar to one another except that saddle is one of the more common types of binding. Saddle stitching is when the wire is punched from the outside through the center of the spine (kind of like a staple but slightly different). Many magazines are are done in this binding technique. Saddle is also best for 8 – 80 pages and is a cheaper binding.
Loop is very similar to saddle except that the wire punched through the center has a loop left on the outside of the bind. The reason it has the loop allows the bound pages to be in a ringed binder. This is also a cheap binding option but is better suited for meeting materials and information statements.
Loop binding
Saddle Stich
Sewn Binding
This is a very expensive process because though it is a similar process and binding technique rather than using wire to bind the pages, yep you guess it, thread is used in its place. This type of process can be used for works 8 – 24 pages long.
L–R Saddle, Loop, Sewn
Perfect Binding
Perfect binding is a common one seen on many books ranging from 50 – 250 pages. This binding process is a bit more extensive which is bound to make it a bit pricier. This process includes folding segments of the book aligning them on their spines and placing them on the perfect binding machine. Once on the spines of the paper are roughed down to allow the glue to better adhere. Then after it is roughened it is ran over the heated glue and placed situated in the covers of the book.
Stabbed / Side Stitched
You’re bound to find this one amazing. Stabbed book binding is a fun technique to try yourself. The process can handle anywhere from 2 – 300 pages, yet if you do it by hand I’d suggest less pages. The way that the pages are bound are by rather than binding them through the spine and center they are bound through the front and back covers. The wonderful thing about stabbed book binding is that you can creative with your binding and make designs and shapes out of your binding creating intrigue and uniqueness.
Tape Bound
Being able to contain 50 – 250 pages this binding is fairly expensive. This method is done with pages, usually, being stitched together first and then adhered together by an adhesive tape around the spine.
Screw Bound
As another expensive option of binding this process holes must first be drilled allowing barrel posts to be inserted into the holes and screw capped off. This bonding is best for swatch books and hold 16 to an astonishing 400 pages.
Hardcover & Case Bound
Another expensive binding process that can hold 60 – 400 pages is one that uses many of the techniques spoken about above. This binding is most commonly used for hard-cover books. The pages are typically first bound by sewing groups of them together, then they are glued to end papers, and finally glued to the cover.
Plastic Grip
Plastic grips are 3-sided plastic spines that when the two outer sides are pulled apart and the pages are pushed in-between.
Combo/Plastic, Spiral/Coil, & Wire Bound
I’m sure we have all seen this kind before *cue the torturous flashbacks of rushing to buy all the supplies and notebooks.* These kinds of binding are all very similar and their differences are the material that hold the bind together.
Combo or plastic bound allows the book or manual to lay flat when opened. This is also the cheaper of the three binds. The document is punched with rectangular holes and then threaded with the plastic wire.
Spiral or coil is a smooth coil that allows the book to lay flat while also allowing the option to fold pages back all the way around.
Wire bound is weaved through the holes and allows it to lay flat just as the other two. They come in variety of colors and are durable enough for whatever kind of project you can conjure up!
Are these binds bound into your mind yet?
Now that you know about binding techniques you can have an idea for what you will need for your next project. As a designer, I know I have to know what is best for my clients projects and what they can afford.
Now go be that DIY-er I know you are and make some of your own bound books!
Hello! I Think it’s Time We Met
“All we have to do is decided what to do with the time that has been given to us.”
To many of you, I am a stranger, so an introduction on this cool windy Petoskey day only feels right. So grab a drink, get cozy, and let's chat.
Who Even Am I?
My name is Elizabeth, I am an awkward, shy, and ironically an outgoing person! I am a proud fur mom of an Aussie and calico cat, a gardener, a cook, a dabbler in every hobby and art form I can think of, and I LOVE Lord of the Rings & Star Wars. *wink wink, hence my quote*
Before I dove into studying the depths of design at Ferris, I became an assistant photographer (mainly weddings), picked up small design jobs, and worked in the kitchen of a country club for four years.
Fur babies cuddling <3
I grew up near where the thumb meets the hand in the town of Frankenmuth. Now some of you may know it as the town with great chicken meals, home of the world's largest Christmas store, or as the hometown of Greta Van Fleet—two whom I graduated with. Yep, you read that right, Sam and Daniel were my classmates.
Now living at the top of the mitt, I have access to a wider range of places to clear my mind and gather inspiration from nature. When I'm not designing or creating you can likely find me hiking, swimming off of the Petoskey lighthouse, playing ultimate frisbee, spending time with my friends and family, and watching Netflix or Hulu—great convo starter BTW.
What I'll be Blogging About
As fun as it sounds, this blog isn’t all about me, but instead more about my creative mind. Design is only a part of who I am. Fueling my creative juices through photography, painting, drawing, and the great outdoors enhances the design mind to where they intertwine. Through this blog, I hope to share what I’ve learned and experienced about design, the creative field, and the balance of work and life.