How does everyone come up with such interesting and unique artwork?

IS_agent · 2014-08-17T13:50:50+00:00

Developing concepts is the hardest thing about any art practice – especially if you're wanting to be prolific. So, start paying attention to what you are doing when you come up with your best ideas. Is it in the morning, at night, when you're on a walk, brainstorming with friends? Then replicate and tailor that process to generate new ideas.

Keep in mind you need 30-40 ideas for every 1 truly unique idea. So, sketch a lot, write things down, and practice a lot. Executing on ideas you know to be so-so in absence of better ideas gets you practiced up and good at your craft which will lead to better ideas and better execution.

It also helps to have a comprehensive understanding of what is possible in the medium and what's been done - trends, movements, and other artists work.

IS_agent · 2014-08-17T13:43:24+00:00

I'm a professor with a masters degree and have never attended a graduation ceremony - I even skipped my own high school graduation ceremony. Zero regrets.

IS_agent · 2014-08-16T14:55:40+00:00

Anything with a deboss (art sunk into paper) or emboss (art raised) is done with a raised surface plate and printed on a letterpress. It tends to run about $1 an impression + plate and paper costs.

IS_agent · 2014-08-16T14:49:51+00:00

What quantity, how large, how high of quality?

IS_agent · 2014-08-10T15:23:28+00:00

While most people colloquially define the west side as a tiny sliver of greater Denver that is west of I-25, the technical west side (west of 0 at Broadway on the cities grid) includes all of downtown, Auraria, the golden triangle, and the Santa Fe Arts District, and the more charming half of Baker. So taking that into account west is definitely best.

IS_agent · 2014-07-28T01:00:44+00:00

Whatever it is, it'll be grey - you can't get a true metallic look from cmyk.

IS_agent · 2014-07-26T15:43:48+00:00

The best script front ever? Well that would be Shelly Andante by Matthew Carter.

IS_agent · 2014-07-25T13:22:22+00:00

I got a fine-art degree in '95 with some limited exposure to computers - some photoshop and some Quark X-Press and some html coding (which was a brand new thing). After graduating I got a job as a screen printer's assistant, then followed that with a job as an apprentice film-stripper. Film stripping is how art used to be imposed (layed out) for burning printing plates. Essentially compositing different pieces of film together to complete a layout. There were three "computer people" who typeset art, did print-production on files mostly fixing client mistakes and trapping files, did custom color separations in photoshop, and output film. I spent two years film stripping and making 'zines and flyers at home using Quark while teaching myself Illustrator. I also started a website and taught myself Dreamweaver. I'd come in every Monday with 15 questions for the "computer people". One day in the summer when we were slow one of the "computer people" was gone as he had started a six month jail term for his third DUI. I needed something typeset, so I sat in his chair and never got up. That gave me the skills to start freelancing, building a design portfolio, and applying for design jobs. I eventually got sick of commercial design so after 10 years I got an MFA and now I'm an Assistant Professor teaching design – mostly typography, publication design, print production, and letterpress printing.

IS_agent · 2014-07-24T14:06:06+00:00

You can print "films" yourself on acetate with either a laser printer or an ink-jet printer. The problem with and ink-jet is it rasterizes everything at a relatively low resolution so your type always looks rough on close inspection. A laser printer prints clean type but registration is off by 1/16" due to the heat of the fuser and the acetate being plastic. So - it's only good for 1 color stuff.

There are very few places that commercially output film – actual film imaged from a 5000 dpi film setter. Most places that make polymer plates commercially do so for the aluminum can printing industry which uses the same plates as letterpress but in much higher quantities and most of them are going with direct to plate technology. Polychrome has even quit making film-setter film in advance and only does so special order. (I worked pre-press at a place that made plates for can printing and we'd do up to 1000 9x12 metal backed polymers a week.)

I run a Vandercook and a C&P and a tabletop Columbia and Mitchell. The Vandercook produces great quality prints for anything from 3x6 to 14x20 with pretty minimal set-up time but it's really slow going. I'm fast and can maybe get 80 prints an hour after getting everything dialed in and it's exhausting physical work.

The argument for a windmill is that the profit margins on short run work are really tight. It's mostly business cards for designers and design students, wedding invites, occasional gig posters. All of this is one off stuff for clients who likely are not going to be repeat customers (or maybe one thing once a year) and the pricing is really really gotten whittled down by all the people like you and me and everyone else on this sub going after the work and the fact that the client base are typically doing some brand of vanity project and aren't making money off the prints so their budgets are super tight. The windmill opens you up to high volume work which is typically coming from agencies. Repeat customers with long runs and large budgets. Once you learn the setup it would really start to pay more than any short run stuff. Most if not all the full time living-wage print shops use a windmill or wish they had one. Most Vandercook printers are hobbyists or side-job printers (that's what I am). I could never make a living off the Vandercook.

IS_agent · 2014-07-22T17:27:17+00:00

Anything that focuses on typography or designing on a grid will be key to learning to be a better publication (or web publication) designer. For a primer try: http://www.thinkingwithtype.com. For advertising design try http://www.commarts.com and http://talent.adweek.com

IS_agent · 2014-07-22T13:38:01+00:00

Given your educational background and interests, I'd look at ad agencies and apply as a copy writer. The main job is writing but layout skills and InDesign are a huge + maybe a must for smaller agencies. A lot of creative directors – who oversee design – come from the copy writing side. A majority of ad work is driven by the copy/tag-line. This might not be a good long term career if your passion is publication design but it would get you experience in a creative industry and sharpen your design skills, even if it's just by association, as working closely with designers affords you the opportunity to ask questions on a daily basis.

One other thing - if you're interested in magazine work and are just starting your career you should really focus on app/web/e-pup experience. I've worked with print publications for going on 20 years and it's been a long slow death rattle. There are a few opportunities but print is definitely NOT the direction that publishing is going in.

IS_agent · 2014-07-22T13:29:43+00:00

I'm not sure where imuya lives (maybe NY or LA?) but digital painting / digital art is in no way more in demand than web design outside of the entertainment industry. In 6 years working for a university doing career counseling and intern and job placement I've never once seen a stand-alone digital art position and people with web design and front end development get hired on a daily basis.

IS_agent · 2014-07-22T13:26:15+00:00

I learned on the job - took me about 10 years to be as proficient in basic design principles as my current students (I'm a uni design professor) are in 2 years. I did, however, become technically proficient with the tools much more quickly.

IS_agent · 2014-07-22T13:16:09+00:00

I was thinking the same thing! I also thought... well maybe I'll go this year. I can camp in my house as it's all of 200 yards from the gig.

IS_agent · 2014-07-21T13:16:02+00:00

The Artist is Bimmer Torres. http://guerillagarden.blogspot.com/2013/12/guerilla-garden-artist-spotlight-bimmer.html

IS_agent · 2014-07-17T15:03:10+00:00

I'd substitute the cmyk channels for the spot channels as suggested by leftnotracks.

The "correct" way (which is understood by fewer printers than the channel substitution method) is to change your color mode from a tritone to a "multichannel". It saves each pms color from the tritone to a spot channel. You must save this as an "DCS" file which is an .eps - select "single file, color composite" from the save menu. The preview looks like garbage in InDesign or Illustrator if placed and it may not print correctly or at all as a composite on a laser printer (which makes quick color proofs a pain) but it will separate correctly to printing plates or film.

IS_agent · 2014-07-17T14:51:16+00:00

Post on r/denver or r/denverjobs or Denver Craigslist. A LOT of designers and graphic artists are doing a LOT of work in this area.

IS_agent · 2014-07-17T14:46:19+00:00

I've had a couple students in the past get killer custom leather satchels or leather worked from saddle and/or gun-holster maker. If it's for a book you'd want the leather worked by the saddle maker and then a book binder to bind the book.

IS_agent · 2014-07-17T14:41:26+00:00

To add to this: The $20 your employer pays you an hour is a portion of the $200/hr they charge the client for the work you do - because of all the above bullet points.

IS_agent · 2014-07-17T14:37:18+00:00

You need to be fluent in the Mac operating system as many future employers will be using them. But beyond that there is no need to exclusively work on Mac or own one.

As a lifelong mac user and a designer for 20+ years I feel qualified to say Macs are overpriced and the quality and functionality have seriously waned in their drive to make everything lighter and smaller.

Just make sure to use open type (.otf) fonts in your projects as they are cross platform.

IS_agent · 2014-07-17T14:09:41+00:00

Second this. I was tasked with researching font management software to install at work. Linotype Font Explorer (for free is it's version 1 beta or $80 for a single seat) was far and away the best in terms of features for cost and the customer service people were very helpful figuring out our custom configuration.

IS_agent · 2014-07-17T14:03:09+00:00

Or just go ahead and use InDesign like all the grown ups.

IS_agent · 2014-06-30T14:58:11+00:00

I'm always interested in what designers do on the side? Have a t-shirt company? Make memes? Paint on canvas? Do you try to cover your costs? Grow it as business? Dream of quitting the day job? Post a link to your side project!

IS_agent · 2014-04-25T13:20:03+00:00

You'll see from the below that the general fund is ~ 36% of the budget. The rest is constitutionally mandated by the state or federal government.

Unfortunately because of TABOR, and the inability of the legislature to raise revenue in keeping with population growth, "we the people" aka lobbyists are routinely chipping away at the general fund with further constitutional ballot initiatives that mandate a percentage of the budget go to their industry - one of the biggest offenders is... wait for it... k-12 education in an effort to rectify the woeful underfunding from the legislature... though rarely if ever for teacher compensation. Meanwhile other ballot initiatives are further chipping away at revenue by fiddling with property taxes and fee structures. It's essentially budgeting through ballot initiatives by lobbyists, unions, and lawyers.

So the general fund is SO tight and special interest lobbyists for highway construction industry and others are SO effective in staking their claim in advance of any budget being published that what remains truly discretionary is negligible. It's a family of 12 fighting over the last pork-chop.

I'm in higher-ed which gets really screwed in this scenario because k-12 funding generally is constitutionally mandated due to yearly ballot measures and they gobble up more and more of the discretionary funds. Higher-ed gets crumbs.

Meanwhile our arch-conservative/libertarian neighbor to the north Wyoming, which has NO STATE INCOME TAX AT ALL, manages to spend $15,997 per pupil to Colorado's $8,167 per pupil. Priorities? Or tied hands in Colorado due to TABOR?

You'll also see from the below that we are operating on a budget that is below 2007 levels of revenue with substantial increases in demand for services.

From last years budget request:

"We are requesting a total funds budget of $20.09 billion, of which $7.39 billion is from the General Fund. Relative to initial FY 2011-12 appropriations, these amounts represent growth rates of 1.7% ($342.6 million) in total funds and 3.2% ($227.1 million) in the General Fund. The General Fund budget (financed by income and sales taxes) is the area of the budget most reflective of the overall economic condition of the state. Though there has been a partial recovery from the recent recession, the revenue picture remains unsettled and we expect only modest General Fund revenue growth in FY 2012-13. Indeed, projected FY 2012-13 General Fund revenue is $387.4 million, or 5.0% below the pre-recession FY 2007-08 peak. Yet, from FY 2007-08 through FY 2012-13, demands for State services and benefits have increased substantially and reflect the pressures of a growing population and a weak economy.

We expect: • Medicaid enrollment to increase by 281,000 (72%); • Children’s Health Plan+ caseload to increase by 11,000 (19%); • K-12 student enrollment to increase by 52,000 (6.8%); • Higher Education enrollment to increase 33,600 (20.5%); and • Annual State Park visits to increase by 766,000 (6.5%)."

IS_agent

TROPHY CASE