Graphic Design

01 Dec 2009

Graceful Green

Some time ago, a client asked me to do a "green" logo, meaning it had to reflect 'eco-friendliness', 'connected to earth', 'nature' and so on. I liked his briefing and decided to go for it. After doing some research and gathering some ideas and inspiration I started to draw and color.While I was looking for the 'right' green color, I found out that it's hard to find a beautiful green. It took me a long time to decide what green I should use. I created a Graceful Green Flickr gallery to collect inspiration from the color green and the green idea.

14 Sep 2009

Making a style guide

The previous months and weeks, I've been busy with some projects for both web and print. The print projects have my full attention at the moment and so I wanted to share some of the things I'm making for a client. Because I cannot share the name of the client, i have replaced the logo with my own, hope you don't mind. I'm going to show how I did the style guide for this project. A style guide can be a really helpful guide. For me, it is an anchor point to refer to when I'm busy designing for the same client. It helps me focus on the colors, the style, the elements that are important when building an identity for print and web. I designed this style guide with Adobe InDesign.

13 Aug 2009

Art forms in nature

Recently, I rediscovered a book I bought when I was in first grade of art school. It made me think of the times we had to discover patterns and inspiration from that book as students. Now, so many years later, the plates are still incredibly rich and the book is a very good inspiring tool for graphic design also. If you look for patterns, for (irregular) shapes, for logo inspiration, poster inspiration, etc.. Even for a webdesigner, you can find lots of inspiration from the book to make bullets, header shapes and so on.

28 Jun 2009

A new wallpaper for July 2009.

A new wallpaper for the month of July 2009 is available for download.

I made them in 2 different options: with a calendar for July 2009 and without calendar.

27 Feb 2009

A webdesign brief document for every website

It's no luxury to make a document for every website that you design. A document with a design description. Before starting a webdesign project, a webdesigner collects lots of information. You get a lot of information in your mailbox (clients tend to send you everything by e-mail), you receive a logo, a brochure and text for the webdesign, that's about it. Over the years, I collected everything nicely in a folder with the name of the client. I still work this way but I add a design brief to every project now. The client receives also a copy of this document. It's important information, my clients use this document for marketing material that they afterwards (after the launch of their website) need to order.

24 Feb 2009

March 2009 free calendar

February is almost gone, the shortest month of the year. That means spring is ready to begin, no? Because it is my favorite season, I made this March calendar free to download and to use it as a Wallpaper for your screen.

14 Jan 2009

Making a favicon with IconBuilder

How to make a transformation of a logo into a favicon in a browser window? How exactly do you define the area to show in your favicon? And how do you built a quality favicon, and implement the code into your document? I'll explain in this article. I prefer to use the Photoshop Filter IconBuilder by Iconfactory.

04 Jan 2009

Creating reusable buttons for your website.

Let me start by wishing you all a very happy 2009! We have been busy building websites and creating mock-ups for new websites. I was looking for a way to make adjustable buttons for use in a website and tried to make a few reusable buttons in Illustrator after reading some tips in Computer Arts Magazine. Let me tell you how I made them:

11 Dec 2008

Choosing harmony colors from a logo

Every other day around 6 pm, I receive an e-mail from Layers Magazine with 1 Illustrator or Indesign tip or trick for the day. This time after reading the article, I tested the tip in Illustrator for one of my clients who needs a new website (and for whom I am looking for some inspiring colors). I have a logo (already some years old) but looking for some harmony colors for that logo. Suppose you have a logo with 1 or 2 colors. You need some more colors for - let's say - a website, a brochure but you're not sure what colors to choose exactly. Here are the steps to follow:

30 Nov 2008

Printing JPEG

Recently, a client asked me what type of digital camera he should buy. The most important feature he wants is the ability to print his JPEG's in print quality. He wants to use his photo's in printed brochures, printed newsletters, advertisements, etc... The question here is: how do you know on what dimensions you can print your digital photo?