Friday, August 16, 2013

Teach yourself design

Fast Company has an article on learning to be a designer

Karen X Cheng writes about her experience learning to be a professional designer and provides a great list of suggested resources:


Step One: Learn to See

1. Learn to draw.
Get the book You Can Draw in 30 Days and practice for half an hour every day for a month. 

2. Graphic design theory.
 Picture This taught the foundations of graphic design (color, typography, and designing with a grid). 

3. Basics in user experience.
The Design of Everyday Things
Don’t Make Me Think!

4. Learn to write.
Your job as a designer is not just to make pretty pictures -- you must be a good communicator.  Made to Stick will teach you how to suck in your readers.
Voice and Tone is a website full of great examples of how to talk to users.

5. Learn to kill your work.
This is the hardest step.
Be prepared to kill everything you make.
Listen. Really listen. Don’t argue. If you ask someone for feedback, they’re doing you a favor by giving you their time and attention. Don’t repay the favor by arguing with them. Instead of arguing, thank them and ask questions. Decide later whether you want to incorporate their feedback.

Step Two: Tools.
1. Illustrator.
Adobe Illustrator Classroom in a Book--
Vector Basic Training
 logo
 scenic landscape.
2. Photoshop.
 PSDTuts
 Photoshop tutorial to make an iPhone app.
 Photoshop tutorial to create a website mockup.


Step Three: specialties.

1. Logo Design.
 Logo Design Love.
 Designing Brand Identity
2. Mobile app design tutorial
 Tapworthy.
3. Web design.
 Don’t Make Me Think
 The Principles of Beautiful Web Design
 SiteInspire.

Step Four: portfolio
  • Find poorly designed websites and redesign them.
  • Join a team at Startup Weekend and be a designer on a weekend project.
  • Enter a 99 designs contest to practice designing to a brief.
  • Do the graphic design exercises in the Creative Workshop book.
  • Find a local nonprofit and offer to design for free.

Step Five: Get a job as a designer.

The whole article is worth reading.  http://www.fastcompany.com/3015726/dialed/dont-love-your-job-teach-yourself-a-new-one

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Seven Lessons for Presentations

Marta Kagan writes on 7 Lessons From the World's Most Captivating Presenters.  Drawing insights from the presentations of Steve Jobs, Gary Vaynerchuck, and Scott Harrison, she uses specific examples (picture and slideshare presentations) to illustrate the following lessons:

  • 1. Start with paper, not PowerPoint
  • 2. Tell your story in three acts
  • 3. A picture is worth 1000 words
  • 4. Emotions get our attention
  • 5. Use plain English
  • 6. Ditch the bullet points
  • 7. Rehearse like crazy

It's a relatively long post, but easy to skim, and well-worth the effort.