bloghive

Glad to be featured in “365 Awesome Designers” site project - by Matthias Mentasti

For the budding designers, I feel design contests offer a good starting point (launch-pad), i.e., providing opportunities to continually improve their skill-sets by getting updated with the latest trends of design while participating and/or watching the design competitions and competitors’ works.

One always wants to get clicked there. This means, every time a sword is hanging on the top of his head to remind him that he has to win the contest by kicking-out other skilled designers. One can get ample opportunity to have that exposure to improve his skill-sets  by trying different fair winning methods like studying hard, doing sketches, managing time, being ethical while dealing and learning communication skills etc. And yes, it is purely subjective to his know-how on business, graphic design & design industry, community knowledge (social) and design skills.

Communication always plays a crucial role when it comes to design business. A designer must be a good communicator - whether it is verbal/oral or non-verbal.

In social media, non-verbal communication is much trickier and sometimes harder than it seems. Because you are open to a certain group or community of people where your communication actually projects your image not only to like-minded people but also to people who still want to understand you. Their views can differ and you may be accepted by your peers or restrained by observers!!

I was working on a design project that was getting quite a good feedback at my client’s Facebook and actually unknown to me. Days after completing the project I discovered that the initial drafts were appreciated by number of people (my client’s peers). And amongst them, only one comment drew me to write a thank you note on my client’s Facebook wall. I did so by thanking and emphasizing with much appreciating that one comment showing my interest. There I did the mistake - “I must have thanked everyone equally who really liked my works, whereas, I confined myself”. I realized it later but it was too late. I think, I failed to create an impression there !!

Nevertheless, mistakes happen and that can be lessened if you can open yourself to answer the following:

1. the Audience: Whom you are communicating?
2. the Theme/Gist: What you are communicating?
3. the Place: Where you are communicating? and
4. the Process: How you are communicating?

CASE

Now the print job is over; but my first impression after seeing the prints was not satisfactory. I realized that I have invested $250 to get 1000 pieces of junk that I can not even approve for my studio promotion! Because I didn’t find the same what I expected. Here I have two options and one obvious action-

1. blame the printer or
2. get a lesson to be learned - “the opportunity to improvise my knowledge to work with offset printers in future” and
3. Action: re-print the brochure in another printer after implementing the must improvements (from lessons learned)

CMYK plates

Following is the brochure properties/preferences (set when sent to the printer):

• layout - 20.5”x17.5” (print area) with 0.5” bleed (in Adobe Photoshop CS3)
• mode - CMYK color, 16-bits/channel (printer acceptance level - 8-bits/channel)
• proof setup - working CMYK
• color profile - ICCProfile: U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2
• file - multi-layered (printer accepts PDF or TIFF files only)
• paper - matte, 170gsm

@ Printer: One of the best printers in our city

• preferences - unknown to the any of the personnel who handles the printer. Also it is not documented anywhere!
• paper - feed size 21”x19” (coated/uncoated OR glossy/matte). Not sure about high-quality paper available in the market.
• color - 4 color process (offset printing)
• appointed designers: work with more than 4-5 editing softwares and highly complex print machines hardly know what happens when/if fonts get rasterized OR the difference between 8 and 16-bits/channel mode!!
• final check - no personnel appointed
• printer age: 20+ years

Let me analyze the whole process and find out - what went wrong and why I faced the following issues with the final printouts:

1. color - no true colors, inflated and cyan overly exposed in places
2. paper - broke where creased spoiling the back poster
3. design - minute lines/patterns blurred

contd…

In these days, I was not so active in social media because to be very frank, I think I am not quite there where I should be! I am not feeling positive to handle different projects till I learn how I should convey the right message and in which way? Not that I am feeling incapable or overly biased by something - rather I have become more receptive and open to make my skills more stronger. So may be the reason why I decided to hibernate from social media for some time.

I am learning and gaining experience to get to know how design communicates visually and that to effectively? It all started with my design studio branding about six months ago and I am still in the middle of that project!! Initially, I was quite unsure - what should I do? and where should I start? And at the same time, I thought that I should continue with logo and brochure design. Despite of the hurdles like budget constraints and less-experienced printers in my town - I decided to have my brochure printed, at first.

Huum, this is not it - I had to go with several iterations and modules to get the final design -that of course, forced me to read a lot and sit with my clients to understand what would influence them and how they want me to approach them or vise-verse?

Nevertheless, I have sent my design to the printer and waiting for the prints. But my experience with the printer is still obscure! Why? What am I afraid of?

Just like this, there are many questions in mind- still the answer is same, i.e., go-get the knowledge :) It is always a designer should seek is what he learned today! And that makes him confluent with the ever changing standards of design. Well, design is science and few theories are constant but still few are new and unknown to most who struggle to know how design influences and communicates with prospects mind?

contd…

Its been a year since I have been trying to get an invite to join Dribbble. But it is really difficult to get one unless you are very lucky. Recently, I got a chance to join Dribbble’s prospects list. No doubt, Dribbble has got a lot of wonderful designers sharing their recent works. It’s really cool to browse through their projects lists too. But does Dribbble ensure by placing a strong emphasis on quality, always?

Perhaps, it is not always, you ensure your invite is really worthy when it comes to maintaining the sole motto of an invite on Dribbble. I have seen many designers use Dribbble as Logopond!!

Nevertheless, the Dribble invite has become a status symbol for many designers and for some it has become a medium to escalate or market themselves. Well, the marketing policy is quite simple - just post an article naming “Dribbble Invite Giveaway” on your blog. Now, hundreds of designers and followers will drive-in to your blog :)

Here is another example of getting the invite on Twitter. @dribbbleme claims to be the best place to find Dribbble invite and so on.

How far these sort of giveaways are worthy to get a right Dribbbler? I believe the invitation should be based on evaluation or else that place becomes a complete mess.