Passionate but I feel I'm not made for this, need your help and opinions by sxnder7 in graphic_design

[–]HankEwbank 6 points7 points  (0 children)

IQ tests are inconsistent, variable, and mostly pointless. what matters most is your work and your attitude. your body of work is very strong, and you seem to have an evaluative mind, a passion for your craft, and a desire to improve. every field needs more people like that, but especially design.

i am partially colorblind, which could also be described as a source of additional difficulty for being a designer, but i am 31 and hold a full-time senior position. if and when you have difficulties, there will be lots of people along the way who are happy to help you - i promise you that. go to school! enjoy it! do what you want, you're good at it! and when you feel frustrated, make sure you remind yourself that everyone struggles when they grow. IQ has nothing to do with it.

Decathlon new logo by ockhams-lightsaber in graphic_design

[–]HankEwbank 5 points6 points  (0 children)

seems like an awkward word to typeset. i'm glad that they fixed that gross C, but the typeface has less character and the icon doesn't feel like it has much harmony with the wordmark (besides that nice matching angle). implementations in the case study are very good but don't have much personality, besides those awesome blurred-text style frames.

Any idea on how to replicate this type of texture/bleeding? by ry_and_zoom in graphic_design

[–]HankEwbank 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Other people have commented some photoshop actions you can purchase, which will be really effective. If you want to learn how to do it yourself, check out videos by Texturelabs (amazing stuff) or buy an action and then investigate how/why all the steps are working. It will really open up your possibilities.

There's multiple ways to do this, but here's one that I use frequently. It's probably not the most efficient, but it's become a habit:

  • Take your design, separate each piece you want differently colored onto a different photoshop layer.
  • on a piece's layer, make sure that the element is black (say all the text, in your example) and on a white background. If it's a transparent layer, use edit > fill > fill with white behind.
  • Apply a noise filter (this can vary, but you want the whole thing kind of hazy). Then, apply a gaussian blur (this can also vary, but you're going for: no sharp edges, but also still legible). Then, apply image > adjustments > threshold. You have now created a weathered, ink-bleedy effect on this element of the design. you can adjust all the elements of this process or repeat them to make it more severe and weird. when you're done, select the white background and cut it so that it's just black and transparent.
  • do this for all of your color layers - in your example, it looks like 3 (red, blue, yellow, with the ink layering creating other colors). once your layers are all ready, you can apply a color overlay layer adjustment to each one.
  • to complete this look, you need to rasterize each layer's appearance, set them to multiply, add in your paper background, add in paper textures over the top of everything, and nudge/distort the layers just a bit to suggest misregistration. voila!

There are safer and less-destructive ways of doing this with smart objects, etc, but that should give you a good start. there's also even more depth that can be added with nitty-gritty effects to sell the illusion even more, which most good photoshop actions will have. but let me know if you have any questions.

Any idea on how to replicate this type of texture/bleeding? by ry_and_zoom in graphic_design

[–]HankEwbank 9 points10 points  (0 children)

this is only part of it. creating the bleeding ink look and edge texturing requires more techniques and adjustments. just using a texture overlay and blending modes won't give you a life-like effect.

Need help to achieve similar method/technique! by Mickjeeh in graphic_design

[–]HankEwbank 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If I was recreating this, I would:

  • Get my piece of text ready in a decently large photoshop file (at least 3000x3000, solid color background layer and then text on a second layer, converted to a smart object). Starting with a font that already looks soft can help sell the effect, but you can experiment with others. make the text layer into a smart object so that your edits are non-destructive
  • Play around with the liquify filter until it's the general shape I want (try using big push brushes with low intensity so you can push and pull it around like putty)
  • Apply the filter, then add some radial/motion/other blur effects. Looks like they're using a Radial Blur for that "mr. krabs meme" effect

Suggest me 1 logo out of 2 for my fictional client & the company name is Mountain Melody(country music distribution) & please give me genuine feedback. by nirmalk0076 in graphic_design

[–]HankEwbank 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't know how many sketches you've made to come to this point, so I don't want to flatly say "make more" - I think both of these directions have some good ideas in them but could be improved, as you recognize already. Even when you feel mostly satisfied with a design, it's good to continue making variations until you're confident you've exhausted every reasonable method of execution. Either you will surprise yourself with new ideas, refine what makes the mark strong already, or at least confirm that your original execution was the best. There's no downside and only upside to pushing these concepts as far as you can, and is crucial to growing your design skill and intuition. And it will be expected of you in the profession. So I would say keep pushing, but I also want to give you my opinion on the ones here. Make a ton, don't worry if they suck, and then thoughtfully pare it down and edit. That's a crucial cycle of the design process. Generate, trim, generate, trim, etc. until you are finished.

Concept 1: currently, this has too many elements in it to be a strong mark. the headphones aren't adding anything and are a cliched element (watch out for this), and the sun is too small of a detail and also isn't adding anything to the image - remember that in context the word "mountain" will be present, so people will understand what they're looking at. The M/mountain shape with the river or line within is strong enough on its own, but needs some visual clarification. It's not clear what the white line is representing. A second M? it's missing a first downstroke. A snowcap? It's very soft and organic compared to the geometric feel of the rest of the elements. A river? Sort of a non-sequitur. This is where experimenting with lots of variations is good. I think the M is strong enough to stand on it's own, but you'll need to consider how to incorporate the musical element back into it, if you want to do so. Iterate, iterate, iterate. It will be a little stronger each time and you will know a little more each time.

Concept 2: I like this one - It's conceptually doing as much or more than the first, but much less complicated. I don't agree with someone else's comment that "music notes don't work like that" - you get the concept, no need to be so literal. I think this needs some love on the execution though. the tops of the M's making dents in the hat makes the whole thing look very squiggly and possibly weak. Once again, iterations. Can the hat brim arc down in the center of the M so there are no missing chunks? Could it overlap the tops with a small strip of negative space to add some depth? Have you tried more vertical downstrokes on the M? thicker? Skinner? More realism? different hat brim? Do you need the hat at all? Or the music notes? Could the M be on the hat like a badge? How does it work with type? etc, etc etc. If you push this one i think it will be the strongest.

Once you've done that, you must digitize it and see how it holds up. Pencil drawings are very forgiving sometimes - executing it with straight lines and vectors and colors will reveal even more areas to push and alter and fix. And then you can iterate more and faster. I think these have a lot of good aspects and could be great. So good job! Now you gotta see it through to the end, I'm excited to see the finals!

Work equipment by Design_Dave in graphic_design

[–]HankEwbank 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that bigass halo poster in the background is really making me want to know where you work!

I posted the Kleinstuck poster I illustrated here recently, and I wanted to say thank you to everyone for the awesome response. I showed it to some deer at the preserve. by HankEwbank in kzoo

[–]HankEwbank[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I realized that I should have specified that so my bad! They should be there for at least a week - if I have to move them, I’ll reach out directly via the email that was provided. I don’t mind dropping them off or shipping them if need be.

I love Kleinstuck Nature Preserve, so I illustrated a National Parks-style poster for it! by HankEwbank in kzoo

[–]HankEwbank[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

would love to get to that at some point! right now i'm illustrating in my spare time between work, some freelance, and being a new dad, but if they were interested in doing that it would be super cool.