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!