Typography & Graphic Design Blog
Beautiful logo and branding for Mark Spencer, a Forensic Botanist, field botanist and public speaker. Brilliantly created by Fieldwork Facility, They were asked “to create an identity for Mark that was intelligent, simple and memorably executed.” They’ve done it well!
To help you refocus today: The Holstee Manifesto. Holstee offers creative life inspiration and art for living mindfully.
Yes, I’d like to try one. I’d like to try one in Iceland. Hat’s off to Auston Design Group, they do amazing branding and package design for beer, wine, and spirits.
Just got the new book, The Art of Noticing – It’s a fun, down-to-earth book chock-full of ideas on how to see and connect more deeply to the world around you. Here’s a few lines from the beginning:
Imagine… devoting just one hour a week to consciously directing your attention. How would that affect the way you see, perceive, and think? How would it shift the way you engage with the world? How much might that not only change but also improve your work and your life?
…Let’s stop trying to be so productive all the time and make an effort to be more curious. Do you want to look back on a life of items crossed off lists drawn up in response to the demands of others? Or do you want to hang on to, and repeat, and remember, the thrill of discovering things on your own? –Rob Walker
The Art of Noticing, hot off the press May 2019
Ever wondered if some of your favorite writers were early or late risers? Ever wanted to justify your own bizarre sleep schedule? I’ve always been fascinated with the routines of famous creatives. Check out this cleverly illustrated chart from Brainpickings.org and observe how sleep routines may or may not correlate with productivity.
(Created by Maria Popova, Wendy MacNaughton and Accurat)
If you’ve just now published your first book, you are FINALLY ready to move on to the next big task: marketing and promotion! There are many proven methods when it comes to marketing your book. If you’ve published through IngramSpark or Amazon’s KDP, you’re off to a good start with world-wide distribution to retailers and wholesalers. Congratulations! Now what? What can you do in addition so you can sell more books directly and cut out the middle-man to reap a better profit? Lets take a look at a few possibilities.
If you’re a soon-to-be first time self-publisher, one thing you need to know upfront is how crucial creating good metadata is for the discoverability of your titles in the book industry. If you do not have good metadata, you simply will not sell your books. You may have valuable content and extensive inside knowledge about a subject, yet your title will go unnoticed if this step in the publishing process is neglected or overlooked – which unfortunately happens quite often by authors.
Once you’ve obtained your ISBN numbers, you may be interested in getting a Copyright for your book. This is another important step in the publishing process and can be done while you’re in the process of or even after you’ve received the printed book from whomever your publisher might be. You can relax, however, because any manuscript you produce is automatically protected with the first stroke of a pen. The benefit of registering your work with the Copyright Office is streamlined legal protection should you actually have to contend with a naughty manuscript thief.
If you’re an author who is looking to self-publish a book you’ll need to understand some of the industry standards necessary for successful publishing and distribution. Purchasing an ISBN number is one of them. In this article we’ll cover all the basics you need to know to get going, so let’s get started!
In doing the research on self-publishing for print, it didn’t take long to get thoroughly overwhelmed. POD Publishers are a dime a dozen, each with an onslaught of details, numbers, packages and options to consider. Of course, there’s a lot of great blog posts out there, but as you compare one author’s experience with the next, you’re left scratching your head at the contradictions as the industry expands leaving a trail of information obsolete.
The good news is with the current resources available it has never been easier for an author to self-publish professional quality books and sell them globally with ease and total control from beginning to end. There is a way to succeed that fits your unique situation so long as you first define your needs and goals.
In this article, we’ll focus on the two 800 pound gorillas in the room for POD and global distribution: IngramSpark and Amazon KDP.
The harvest is in and it’s a big one! If you were looking for vat full of ripe wine bottle label graphic design ideas, you’ve come to the right vineyard. Roll up your pants and start stomping through this list. You’ll be inebriated with the ideas that flow out, and inspiration will be the least of your worries. There is more incredible design here than you can imbibe in a month!
Ok, down to business regarding what we have picked out for you. First, great wine bottle design is essential for the success of any winery. It’s all about the image. The labels have to be eye-catching and superbly produced in order to stand out with the overwhelming surplus of competition lining the shelves at any given store. The designer must be exquisitely attuned to the top competitors, consumer desires, and market trends in the industry. A great designer for this niche also has to have a good understanding of wine varieties, culture, and region. Being a wine drinker will also score you some points!
Once again it’s that season where we round up the best graphic design blogs of the year! And per usual, there are some perennial favorites, and really not much in the way of surprises.
If you are new to the graphic design community on the web, you will find this list instructive. You’ll quickly find your favorites among them, and become devoted fans for sure.
And speaking of favorites, we’d like to give a shout out to David Airey for helping us get going on blogging way back in 2009, and for being an example of what focusing on a niche looks like both theory and practice.
BONUS! Be sure to check out David’s logo-focused blog, Logo Design Love — always a treat!
And without any further delay…the list!
So you want to get a handle on the main types of fonts used by graphic designers and typographers every day. We have a list of the 17 of most used kinds of typefaces in general order of their usage and popularity. The most elementary and different kinds of fonts are here listed for you, so look no further!
We’ll look at all our examples using the same format: the name of the font, a basic description, and an example so you can see each one in action. Here we go!
Serif fonts are typefaces composed of lines with their ends embellished with small marks or strokes making them easy to read. Serifs originated in the Latin Alphabet. An example of classic serif fonts are Times Roman, New Century Gothic, and Palatino.
Are you planning your own wedding? Making your own invites? You need all the help you can get, right? Well, we’ve compiled 20 contemporary wedding invitation examples along with a few tips for those of you who are thinking about DIY wedding announcements. I enjoyed scanning wedding sites for these images–all the design associated with weddings in general are more artsy and beautiful than ever before. Hopefully this helps you a little, saves you some time, and gives you some ideas to think outside the box to make your special day just that much more special!… [Read More]
Lovely work with a good use of type, color and contrast and from our featured artist Thomas Vanhuyse –An illustrator and graphic designer based in the city of Ghent, Belgium.
As a warm-up to our upcoming Free Wedding Font Combination book, we’ve compiled a partial list of popular free wedding fonts (with links to downloads) from our own research process. From old style and slab to handwritten and classic script–you’ll find a diverse collection appropriate for any style wedding. So if you’re planning on saving money and time by creating your own wedding invitations, start by perusing our collection. Feel free to or download and print the PDF’s!
The principles of design are simple guidelines used to organize the various elements of design (line, texture, color, etc.) in a composition. Five basic principles that we illustrate here are: balance, unity, rhythm, proportion and emphasis. Good art has both elements AND principles of design cooperating well together creating a composition aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
Below we show examples of fun wine bottle designs where several of these principles have been applied…. [Read More]
To save you time and help shorten your list of wedding t0-do’s, we’ve collected a list of resources for DIY wedding invitations and wedding blogs. (It’s just a fun little precursor as we get ready to release our upcoming book–The Big Book of Free Wedding Font Combinations!)
As we all know, weddings are not cheap! A few ways to cut back on your expenses is by creating your own wedding invitations and wedding blogs. But where in the world do you begin? Below we’ve whittled down and compiled some of the TOP resources for these two fun DIY projects, that when outsourced to local artists, can be costly.… [Read More]
After researching some of the classic to modern fonts, we’ve combined a sampling of just a few of our favorites. The font combos include both a decorative font, as well as a more readable print font–so you can include a variety of information on your invites. Go ahead and Print the PDF’s! And be sure to keep an eye out for our upcoming book–The Big Book of Free Wedding Font Combinations, coming soon!
Just to get your creative juices flowing, here’s a few sites that showcase beautiful avant-garde and minimalist style invitations. Enjoy!
Creative energies stagnant? Need to mix things up or gain a fresh perspective? Here’s a little poster design inspiration for your upcoming projects, articles or blogs.
We all get stuck from time to time and when this happens, nothing is more valuable than investing your time “stealing” ideas from wherever you can get them. Scanning beautiful portfolios, clever illustrations, typographic styles and good use of design elements (in addition to stepping outside or grabbing a coffee) are all effective ways to build upon and improve your work…. [Read More]
