Top artistic resources for those who simply aren’t
15 January 2010 | blog,Business Skills,How To | Comments Off
I am not an artist. I do not understand how to move either pen or pixel in an original way that makes sense visually. I am insanely jealous of those who can.
With that confession in mind let me describe how I remain able to create documents like this:
Yes, that will be one side of my new business card which will be here in a week and yes I really like it.
Typography
First off, even though I can’t draw anything while in middle school I took a calligraphy class. No I didn’t think it was cool and the only time I ever used the skill was to write up an invitation to a girl to come to me to my senior prom (which for those asking, she said “no”). That stated, in design, fonts can be the non designer’s saving grace. They can create a feel and mood in document that simply is hard to ignore. 1001freefonts.com and comicbookfonts.com (paid for fonts) are real friends here and each should be thoroughly explored to find that perfect font that conveys the information you want in a great way.
Stock Photos
iStockPhoto is the first place I go for all my design when I can’t beg, borrow or steal something from a friend or co-worker. The big secret there is to search inside the illustrations for things with movement to use as backgrounds, even if you have to drop the opacity on them by 50-80%. Additionally don’t hesitate to use colors on pages and more importantly in large documents, show real people’s faces. You’d be shocked how much more friendly a document “feels” when there’s someone good looking staring back at you. (I used this last trick regularly in my presentations and papers in my master’s program. I mean if you’re a professor and you’ve got a stack of 70 of these business plan analyses to read and you’re the one kid who uses photos of people in your document while remaining in the page limit you’re going to get extra points.)
Color Design and the Psychology of Colors
This may well be my biggest secret in the bunch and I hate to give it away but since we’re getting really close this month and my audience is still small, why not? Color design is something reserved only for the artistic but if you’re in business in my mind it’s a must. Without it you can’t understand why fast food restaurants choose the colors they do for their logos or the reason why a specific color on that new product package. This is so key and it something that I think a lot of business people who have no artistic skill can really improve on by reading a couple of books. One such book is Color – Messages & Meanings: A PANTONE Color Resource by Leatrice Eiseman (amazon link, not an affiliate one). This will also begin to allow you to see color fashion in logos and documents going forward which can be key to using fresh colors that make sense for what you’re trying to achieve rather than simply using the corporate color scheme.
Experiment and Play
One of my favorite things to do with documents when I’m doing this is simply sit down and play. I know Bert Monroy of Pixel Perfect wasn’t the first artist to tell students to do this but he’s the guy who motivated me to do so. Download comps left and right and test the hell out of fonts in their online viewers.
Finally, I design documents with the end recipient in mind but I don’t make design decisions that I can’t live with. I think that each document I create is a part of my business portfolio (yes I really have one that displays both content and the imagery I put in to final products) and therefore it needs to feel genuinely me. Whether it’s the intentional wrong choice on a font or accent color there are some trademark odd calls I make in my documents and I don’t hesitate to take pride in them.
That brings it back to you my non-artistic readers….what are you going to make look great today even when you can’t draw a stick figure?