The Design Alphabet

Okay now I thought of a cool game to play and the game is to think of a word related to graphic design for every letter in the alphabet. For those that are new to graphic design, this may be a little difficult but hey, it's up to you to figure out what words you want to use.

My alphabet
A is for Adobe. They run everything in graphic design.
B is for Blend. Good for mixing colors, lights, images, shadows, etc.
C is for Creative. Without this, you're nothing..well maybe not you, but your work will though!
D is for Design. Plain and simple.
E is for Effect. Can definitely make your designs, illustrations, and images come to life.
F is for Font. So many fonts out there...so many choices!
G is for Graphics. This is what you're supposed to be designing.
H is for Hue. Gotta love colors.
I is for Illustrate. It's all about making visuals to tell a story.
J is for Justify. Keeps the edges of your paragraphs tidy and crisp.
K is for Kerning. Used to add or remove space between a pair of characters or letters.
L is for Line. ______ That right there haha!
M is for Move. The most powerful tool in the program.
N is for New. Nothing like starting fresh!
O is for Opacity. Goes right along with blending and transparency.
P is for Path. Make sure you follow the right steps when you make this.
Q is for Quality. Quality over quantity people! Remember that!
R is for Rasterize. Turns a vector based image into pixels.
S is for Style. The coolness in your work.
T is for Tracking. It determines how loose or how tight the space is between characters and words.
U is for Underline. The line that goes under...
V is for Vector. It's a type of image that can be manipulated, scaled, stretched, re-sized, etc., and still not lose any of it's original quality.
W is for Wrap. Basically putting something into something else. Done.
X is for X-axis. When you move something either from right to left or left to right.
Y is for Y-axis. When you move something either from top to bottom or bottom to top.
Z is for Zoom! Helps you get a good look at your work and see all the detail that you might have missed.

Now you go ahead and make your own alphabet and share with me the words that you come up with! You don't have to actually design the alphabet like in the awesome picture above, but hey it will definitely get you bonus points and show just how creative you can be!

The Mood Board

You guys ever had a good idea about a project, and then you lost it? I have had millions of ideas(okay maybe not millions, but more than I can count) and told myself, "I have to remember that," and forgot it the next day. Well with the mood board, it solves that problem! Perhaps there's a particular color that you wanted to use in a project or better theme than what you already have. Using a mood board will solve all your problems.

What is a mood board?

You see that picture right above with all the other small images in it? That is actually a mood board. Just think about it like this, it's a brainstorming board that has your resources and useful ideas. The project may be a complete corporate branding or maybe a full stationery package. For designers, this is awesome because not only are you able to keep a reference of helpful ideas but this allows you to see actual examples as well. It is always good to have something to show people other than words from time to time. Now I'm not saying don't use words at all, but I'm just saying it is good to incorporate both in this powerful tool.

Judging from the picture (I like guessing games from time to time haha) I would start to break apart everything shown in the picture starting from the very beginning. So it looks like we have some kitchen utensils in a pan in the first image so maybe the project is based on cooking something. Next, we have what looks like bamboo. Bamboo has a lot of different uses and is used in the kitchen as well so maybe this project does too. Then we have a picture of some leafy greens with some veggies, cheese, and possibly a piece of meat. Next is a picture of a woman that's smiling. She has a natural smile and looks like she is enjoying life so this could be about people enjoying food. Then we have a grocery list. Judging from some of the items on the list, all the items on it look like they all may be used together for a recipe so maybe the project is about recipes that people enjoy. I would try to share what I think is going on in the rest of the picture but that wouldn't be fun now would it? If you really want to know what I think the project is, go to the end of this article.

How to make a mood board?

Honestly that depends on how you want it to look or feel about the project. Two crucial things that you need in your mood board

1. The format of how you want the ideas to be arranged
2. Having consistent and structured content in all of the ideas that you place on the board. Similar elements such as color, theme, style, space, shape, form, and texture should be used for it.

Good Source of Information

At Creative Blog they have a list of things that you should consider while making a mood board.

So the next time that you have some ideas about a project and you want to hold on to them, then go ahead, make you a mood board and put them on there! Just have fun with it and hey it's always awesome to try and guess what someone else's mood board is about too!

Oh and here's what I think the mood board is about. I believe the mood board is for a website dedicated to showing people healthy, organic living, using fresh home-cooked recipes from the best sources around the world. But hey that's just my opinion so don't judge me haha!

How to make a Business Card part 2

Alright now picking up where we left off at, I just showed you how to create the back part of the business card. The reason why I decided to start with the back part first was because it is always the easiest side to work with since there isn't as much content as on the front. Usually on the front that's where you have things like the the logo, person's name, position, address, phone number, email, website, social media links(if any), and so on. Normally, there are not that many steps on the back and just to keep it real, some people's business cards only have the logo on it. All they have to do is place the logo on the card and that's it.

Step 1

Open up the business card with the chef hat logo on it and select the chef hat. Click and while holding shift, drag one of the six corner points of the logo(looks like a white square with a blue out line) from one side to the next and you should see the logo get smaller without messing up its proportions.  

If done correctly, your logo should look something like this.

Step 2

Now is time for the content. Select the type tool and create a text box to the right of the logo. We still will be using Century Gothic font so go ahead and switch the default to that if you need to. I went ahead and listed the content sizes and styles.

Content Information

Name-Century Gothic bold, 10 pt.

Position/Title-Century Gothic Italian 9 pt.

Rest of content-Century Gothic Regular 8pt.

Step 3

There you go! You finally made a business card. Now go out there and make some more!

How to make a Business Card part 1

In this tutorial, I will be showing you how to create a business card.

Things you will need
Adobe Illustrator
Century Gothic font
Chef hat vector


Step 1

Open up a new Illustrator file and for this tutorial, we will be using a new cmyk file. Change the units to inches, width to 3.5 in., and height to 2 in.

You should see something like this if you did it right. Go ahead and save it as businesscard.ai. or a name that you will remember it by. Also, save it to a place where you can find it easily.

Step 2

Go to File>Open, and find the Cafe, Restaurant icons, Symbol File( it should say cafe_icons.ai) and select it. Once you open it select the hat shown above.

Step 3

Copy and paste the hat to your businesscard.ai file or whatever you named your first file as.

Compound Path

Now there is something that you should know about the hat. It is actually formed from a compound path. A compound path is an option that lets you use an object to cut a hole in another object

For the next step, we want to remove the first compound path, which looks like a black outline around the hat.

Step 4

Double click on the hat to enter isolation mode(this allows you to select and change different grouped objects in the compound path). Click once on the black outline. It doesn’t matter where as long as you click on it.

Push delete or backspace and you should be left with a black silhouette of the chef hat. The other two objects will still be grouped and that's what we want. Double-click in any area outside of the hat to exit out of isolation mode.

Step 5

Move the hat over to the left and then get your type tool and type the word Chef. Open up your character panel by pushing Ctrl+T(PC), or Command+T(Mac). Switch the default font to Century Gothic. Change the style to bold. Put the kerning on optical. Set the font size to 60.

Step 6

Go to type>create outlines(you should see blue points all around each of the letters)

Click and drag your mouse and select both the hat and the letters(blue points on the hat and letters just like the image above). 

Step 7

Next go to window>pathfinder Shift+Ctrl+F9(PC) ⇧⌘F9(mac). Then go to shape modes>Unite (the c and the chef hat should be combined now like the image above)

Step 8

Double click in the logo to get in the isolation mode and select the c and chef hat and go to swatches and choose the 3rd one the far right side on the top row. 

Step 9

Bam!!! Now you have the backside of your business card. On the next part, we will be making the front with all the contact information and stuff on it. Catch you later!

Detail, detail..late night flashbacks

Tonight, I was just thinking about how life was for me as an artist when I was younger. I loved art when I was younger and for some reason was fascinated by small things and objects with lots of detail on them.





Whenever I went to the doctor, there would always be magazines and games in the waiting room and I just remember, they would always keep "Highlights for Kids" in there. The magazine had different arts and crafts, and games for kids to try out and my favorite part was at the end! I know that sounds bad, but it wasn't! At the end, there would be a hidden pictures page and that right there blew my mind away every time..The artist would always carefully draw an object or image and turn a section of it into something totally different! The image right above is actually one of the hidden pictures pages from the magazine that I remember looking at years ago. I bet you can't guess what's in it haha! I'll give you a hint, look at how he's walking..As soon as I got back in the patients room, I would always stare at the paintings on the walls to try to figure out what kind of designs were in them and all the small details composed in them as well. They weren't as awesome as the magazines since they always had the same paintings, but hey it was always better than looking at a blank wall.





For those of you who don't know, this right here is the king of hidden images, "Where's Waldo". Your mission was to find Waldo who was always wearing a matching red and white striped sweater and cap, glasses, and blue jeans. You would think it would be obvious, but it wasn't. It would take me forever to finish these books just because of the fact that there was so much small detail on the page. The torture and eye-strain was horrible, but I couldn't resist...I just had to find Waldo haha!



I loved to draw cartoon characters too. This book, "Disney's Learn to Draw Uncle Scrooge, Huey, Dewey, and Louie" was one of my first drawing books and that had to have been well over 15 years ago haha. I used to practice with these "how to draw" books and get them from the library all the time. These things helped mold me into the designer that I am today and I don't regret any of it. Try to remember all the things that influenced you to be a designer and hold on to those memories. Peace and God Bless.

Inspiration of the Day

In today's inspiration of the day, I decided to feature Mauricio Mora's piece entitled "Natzuro". I used to have a passion for anything related to martial arts. I like the designer's cartoonish style, blur techniques, and choice of colors that creates an awareness for it's viewers. If you look on the guys face, you can just tell that he is focused on something hard because of the squinting mark under his eyelid. Mauricio did a great job with the shadow detail as well as the gradient which you primarily focus on when looking at his nose.The character outline is great too. Heavy outlines like the ones Mauricio made give cartoons and digital illustrations a unique feel and I like the fact that it made the character look as though he was popping out of the background. The background is pretty cool as well. It reminds me of something you would see from an old comic book. Even the motion blur on the yellow things( I'm not even going to lie, I don't know what they are because it wasn't mentioned. Just for the sake of this topic, let's just say they are chips) is pretty awesome. So basically here's what I think is going on in the picture. The guy is getting bombarded by chips and now he is trying to fight back to save his families honor! Haha now that is a crazy story. Oh and if you want to see more of Mauricio Mora's work check him out here.

Early Morning Design Catcher

So I woke up this morning, thanked God for another great day( oh it will be a great day today haha!), got on YouTube, watched a website review, and out the corner of my eye I saw a video title on the side of the page that said, "Live by your slogan or you don't have one." (Credits go to Jared Polin for posting the video of it on YouTube). I thought to myself, "whoa...now that's too real." To me, that title was so deep that I felt like I had to put my own self in check. Standing by what I offer people, clients, businesses and so on, can be a challenge sometimes depending on the situation, but regardless of that, I should still make every effort to do what I said I was going to do by giving them exactly what I had offered them in the first place. As a designer, my slogan, "Simple, clean, fresh." is part of the reason why people came to me and I will never forget that. Just to be real about it, I see a slogan as a promise that I am making to people and if I can't hold up to my promise, then I would be considered nothing more than a liar and a hypocrite.

So I got creative with the phrase and decided to just do a demonstration of how it would look on a few different items. It never hurts to go ahead and try something out as a designer. I tend to give some of my close clients, who are just starting in their business, visual help if they have a slogan and aren't sure if it works or not with what they are trying to promote. Most people charge consulting fees for things like that, but hey it's up to you what you want to do.

The reason why a slogan would fail for your design business is you

The number one person to blame when providing services or offering something to people and you don't follow through, is yourself. Keep priorities in check, plan ahead of time, be confident in your craft. Don't offer services that you have no experience in. Say for instance, if you do graphic design and tell people you do web design too, just because it sounds good, but you don't have a clue how to make one or even build one from something like WordPress, Squarespace, Weebly, etc., or who to get the site hosted by, or get a domain name, let alone know what a domain name is. Like my coach used to tell us, "You better check yourself before you wreck yourself." Spend time researching the things you don't know in your spare time, not on a clients time.

Inspiration of the day

This piece is apart of Murat Suyur's collection called Food on Click ad. I love this image because it takes a short, unique phrase, "Ordered fish got shish," and literally gives you just that in the advertisement. You understand the problem immediately while trying to order on the phone because of the blockage aka the shish kabob. He did an excellent job with the brightness and contrast, shadows and highlights of the fish, lettuce, shish kabob, and the phone itself. Not only that but the subtle gradient is perfect for this because it brings a feeling of awareness to the ad without creating a distraction. This is the work of an advanced artist that knows how to work with and manipulate images to the point to where it makes you think that it could actually be possible to shove a fish through the phone. But yeah guys, don't shove fish or shish kabobs through your phones though haha. 

Adobe Illustrator-The Logo Process

For today, I thought it would have been good to go ahead and show you how to make a logo. For a lot of newbies and young people, this is a very difficult process to learn. Gradually with time and practice, it does get easier and hopefully after showing you how to make one, then you can go out there and start making your own without pulling your hair out or tossing the computer out the window. Now what we are going to make today is a simple, modern, and clean looking logo.

What you will need to get

• Adobe Illustrator
• Baron font

Step 1

Open up Adobe Illustrator and make a new document. For this tutorial, I just used the custom defaults and switched the orientation to landscape.

Step 2

Click on the type tool located in red.

Step 3

Type the words shown above. (If you didn't already, now would be a good time to download and install the Baron Neue font.)

Step 4

Change the font from the default by going to the font tab which looks like an upside down triangle and then scroll down and select Baron Neue. 

Step 5

Click and highlight the word and then open up your character panel by pushing (ctrl+T) or command+T for mac users. Next, go to your kerning options(the spacing between two letters or characters) shown in red and change it to Optical.

Step 6

Click and highlight the word "Your", and go back to your character panel and change the font style to "Extra Bold 70". 

Step 7

Click and highlight the word "Logo", and go back to your character panel and set the tracking(the spacing between selected letters and characters) to 50.

Step 8

Click and highlight the word "Your" and then go to your swatches panel shown above and choose a color that you want your word to be. For this tutorial, I used the orange which was the last one in the top row.

Step 9

Congratulations! You have just made a logo! Now go file and then save it somewhere where you will remember. 

Soon enough you will be able to use it for business cards, letterheads, envelopes, websites, anything that you want! Just imagine, a simple logo like this can really bring the most out of a design, period.

mmm...leftovers

I wanted to show you guys a personal project that I am working on now. My inspiration for this character came from cartoons that I used to watch. Actually I had planned to turn this character into an animated cartoon but after doing a few seconds worth of animating, I had to put that project on hold and focus on graphic design. So now I decided to go back and actually use leftover parts for a new project. Right below are actual images taken from my website at www.rlee2.com. Sometimes you just gotta love leftovers.




This is a picture that I use now for my homepage. It's the same character but just in different actions and positions.




This the contact page image. Now I know flip phones are old and a thing of the past, but I still love my old one so don't judge me people! Even though it might be scratched up, dingy, and small, I would use it now if my Galaxy phone did not work.



I love this one. This is the image I'm using for my service page. There's nothing like surfing on a wrench to get you through the day.



These are home page images too but I think I may use them as banners eventually.



I wanted to show and tell you all that you shouldn't get rid of an idea just because it isn't working the way you had planned it to. Take the leftovers and make something else out of it! Plain and simple.

Adobe Illustrator-The move tool

Ah yes the move tool! Although I'm not an expert on Adobe by no means, I felt like it would be good to share what I have experienced using their programs. Now although there are many tools in the Adobe programs as well as other design programs, this my friends, in my opinion, is the most powerful tool in the design field. Without it, you can't go anywhere. Sure you can come up with all the ideas that you want, but without being able to move ,your ideas will never be able to be put into action. 

For those of you who still don't know what it is, it basically allows the person to move part of a design from one area to another. You can move to the left, the right, upwards, downwards, diagonal, basically wherever you want to go. Not only that but there is a keyboard combination that will allow me to do another feature. Now lets say for instance that I wanted to move the area I chose from the left to the right and wanted to make sure  I moved it in a straight path. If I hold shift+click and then move that selected area from the left to the right, then it will keep my path straight.


3 things I like about the move tool

• Easy to use
• Versatile
• It moves stuff

This tool has been around for years and I still love it haha! It's so awesome that I had to find a video dedicated to it to help you see how epic it really is. Sometimes the best things in life, as far as careers go, are simple and this is a prime example of simple.