The Graphic Design Tools You Need
10 CRAP Summary. Contrast – When things are different make them very different – Can be used to guide the reader's focus. Repetition – Repetition creates a sense of cohesion and consistency. Online video tutorial - Beginners guide to Graphic Design Back to index Overview: Hello and welcome to this beginners guide series to Graphic Design. If you’re interested in Graphic Design and considering becoming a Graphic Designer then join me as I discuss a series of Graphic Design topics. From what Graphic Design is, Skills to be a Graphic. Computer Graphics 6 Computer graphics is an art of drawing pictures on computer screens with the help of programming. It involves computations, creation, and manipulation of data. In other words, we can say that computer graphics is a rendering tool for the generation and manipulation of images. Layout (Printing) Color can play a large role in the elements of design 4 with the color wheel being used as a tool, and color theory providing a body of practical guidance to color mixing and the visual impacts of specific color combination. Color star contains primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. AutoCAD is a versatile and powerful tool for developing graphic design elements. In AutoCAD Succinctly, Lucio Da Silva provides the skills necessary to make AutoCAD the base for better graphic design across a variety of fields. Engineering Graphics And Design.pdf - Free download Ebook, Handbook, Textbook, User Guide PDF files on the internet quickly and easily.
Whether you're a professional-level user or hobbyist, personal computing and graphics software have forever changed the way designers and fine artists work. In this roundup, we evaluate several graphics applications that have been in the ring since the beginning. While scores of wannabes have faded away, these programs are still standing. Adobe introduced Illustrator in 1987. In 1989 it released Photoshop, the same year Corel introduced CorelDRAW.
The selections span a variety of needs, from raster and vector image editing to typography to page layout (with InDesign being the primary exponent of the latter). We'll add to this with an even greater variety of additional specialized graphics programs, utilities, and apps.
Software features aside, one of your first decisions in choosing graphics software is how you want to pay: The two Adobe products included here are only available as part of the enormous Creative Cloud subscription suite, while you can get the Corel products for a one-time charge. (That's why the pricing in the table above looks odd.) Inkscape is completely free and open-source, but it forces you to do without some major creature comforts, like easy installation on macOS.
The Right Tools for the Job
Wherever you look, you see graphics of all kinds. The job titles of people who create them are similarly expansive: visual designer, user experience (UX) designer, user interface (UI) designer, information architect, web designer, illustrator, interaction designer, app designer, photo retoucher, animator, surface and pattern designer, type designer, and on and on.
Luckily, we have splendid tools at our disposal, each with its own place in the toolbox. However, as developers expand the software's functionality and as we evolve as designers, those original boundaries become harder to distinguish.
For example, while Photoshop is the go-to photo-editing tool, it also creates awesome photo-realistic text effects. In 1989, no one would probably have guessed that Photoshop would become the favorite front-end web design tool (with nods to Sketch and other capable newcomers). While CorelDRAW's forte is in the production and service bureau industry, you can produce astounding photo-realistic vector art and illustration using blends, gradients, and transparencies. Though Illustrator may not be as accessible as Corel, it endures as the professional vector graphics champ, and learning the program is a sound investment for heavy-use professionals.
Keep experimenting with whatever app or combination of tools you choose. The more creative and curious you are, the more powerful the tool becomes and the more striking and original your designs.
How Did We Do It Without Them?
In the dark ages BC (before computers), producing a color newsletter, for example, was a colossal undertaking that required a team of specialists with expensive equipment. I look back and can't imagine how we managed.
Prior to using software, once a client approved the design (presented as loose sketches and tight comps), we recreated it by drafting the framework of the layout on an illustration board (using a parallel ruler, T square, non-repro blue pencil, and a triangle). Then we had to send our approved copy and written type specifications out for typesetting (via courier to a typesetter who had a phototype machine). Back to us came a strip of photographic paper, which we trimmed, rolled the back of with sticky hot wax, and positioned on the boards in the columns we drafted. For any line art (created with a constantly clogging technical pen, ink, and Pro-White), we had to send out for a photostat that would come back on similar paper as the galley.
If you wanted the art to be tinted, you had to indicate a screen line value for the stat operator. We assigned different spot colors by pasting the physical art on different layers of acetate sheets, which we adhered to the top of the board—in perfect registration. On top of that, we had to adhere a red film, called rubylith, to the acetate and cut the shapes that required masking. Then we sent photo transparencies to the color separator who delivered four pieces of halftone film negatives (CMYK). Of course, the film had to be shot for all the layers composed on the board. Once we annotated our instructions to the offset lithographer, we took the mechanical boards and the large sheets of film to the stripper at the print house, who cut and integrated the film for handing off to the printing plate maker. (Not that kind of stripper.)
The process sounds insane compared with the process and tools we use now and the way we create designs today using the software in this roundup. Now a single person can design a project, send their files to an offset print house where they print the files direct-to-plate, load them on the press, and print. Digital printing is even easier (though I prefer the quality of offset).
Celebrating Choice
Similar to Adobe's suite of Creative Cloud applications is the eight-piece CorelDRAW 2018 Suite. Although our review is specific to the CorelDRAW app itself, it's satisfying to have access to a group of integrated tools between which you can enjoy the productivity of seamless asset interchange and compatibility. Adobe's Creative Cloud is still the industry standard, but it's a snap to export CorelDRAW files to Illustrator (or Photoshop) formats and just as simple to open an Illustrator file in CorelDRAW.
Each user has different goals, psyches, and abilities, and with this trio of apps, you're sure to discover the tools and process that meet your needs. Ultimately, you should choose the tools with which you feel most proficient—and stay with those that issue timely, purposeful upgrades. It's important that your software encourages your technical growth and challenges you to boost the skills you need in order to keep yourself relevant during today's visual design and interface sea changes.
Where Are We Headed?
In our increasingly digital ecosystem, graphic designers can boost the value of their work if they diversify their skills and broaden their talents. Interface and experience design dominate the job market, and with the booming popularity of smart speakers and digital assistants like Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Cortana, Google's Assistant, and Apple's Siri, we should see a shift to auditory experience design as well.
It's a good thing each of these applications offers tools for designing for multiple screen sizes. CorelDRAW lets you upload directly to WordPress, and layered Photoshop files are the most requested developer hand-off. Even Illustrator CC 2018 has an optimized workspace for web and mobile design with the relatively new pixel preview mode. It also boasts an Export for Screens workflow that generates your assets in different sizes and formats—all in a single action.
What's Not Here—Yet
The waters are teeming with a spectrum of other graphics-producing software—from esoteric niche scripts that only do one thing and hybrids that require light coding, to more mainstream painting, photo-editing, sketching, CAD, and vector programs. Add to that a wave of apps developed specifically for touch-based tablets or mobile devices. There are so many novel design tools out on the horizon and we're looking forward to exploring more of them. Stay tuned!
Best Graphic Design Software Featured in This Roundup:
Adobe Photoshop CC Review
MSRP: $9.99Pros: Multitude of photo correction and manipulation tools. Slick interface with lots of help. Tools for mobile and web design. Rich set of drawing and typography tools. 3D design capability. Synced Libraries.
Cons: No perpetual-license option. Premium assets aren't cheap. Interface can be overwhelming at times. Lacks support for HEIC.
Bottom Line: Adobe continues to improve the world's leading photo editing software. The 2018 edition adds a new auto-select tool, raw camera profiles, loads of font and drawing capabilities, and support for the Microsoft Surface Dial.
Read ReviewAdobe Illustrator CC Review
MSRP: $19.99Pros: Killer vector design abilities. Excellent Touch Type feature. Simplified Free Transform tool. Powerful new Puppet Warp feature allows transformation of select portions of illustrations. Many improvements to existing features.
Cons: Can't buy a single, perpetual license. No uniformity of key commands with Photoshop and InDesign.
Bottom Line: Despite some harrumphing from the digital arts community about Adobe's subscription-only model, Illustrator CC is the best vector-graphics editing program around, and new features make it even better for 2018.
Read ReviewAdobe InDesign CC Review
MSRP: $20.99Pros: Superbly balanced interface. Easy, smart automatic global page adjustment. Contextual information at your fingertips. Huge selection of downloadable fonts.
Cons: Requires subscription. PDF comments integration needs polish.
Bottom Line: InDesign maintains its relevance, giving the commercial creative of 2019 an edge in satisfying ever more-demanding client requests. Despite minor quibbles, InDesign is a must-have for any professional designer.
Read ReviewCorelDraw Graphics Suite 2018 Review
MSRP: $499.00Pros: Capable professional-level features. Fun and easy instant-gratification effects. Highly customizable interface. Unique features. Offers both subscription and outright-purchase sales models.
Cons: Windows-only. Some ease-of-use issues.
Bottom Line: CorelDraw is a powerful, capable graphic design app, one that offers some native capabilities that even Editors' Choice Adobe Illustrator requires plug-ins to replicate.
Read ReviewCorel PaintShop Pro Review
MSRP: $79.99Pros: Photoshop-like features at a lower price. Powerful effects and editing tools. Tutorials. Good assortment of vector drawing tools.
Cons: Interface can get cluttered. Ineffective chromatic aberration removal. No face or object recognition. No Mac version.
Bottom Line: Corel continues to add new photo editing possibilities to its PaintShop Pro software, making it a worthy Photoshop alternative at a budget-conscious, one-time price.
Read ReviewInkscape Review
MSRP: $0.00Pros: Free and full-featured. Cross-platform. Robust community and extension ecosystem. Good placement and path tools. Helpful website.
Cons: Problematic Mac version. Interface visuals need a boost. Steep learning curve. Weak text formatting tools. Poor interoperability with Illustrator.
Bottom Line: Inkscape boasts outstanding features and a passionate user base for a free program, but it's not suitable for busy professionals.
Read Review
When it comes to free ebooks, recent years have seen a lot to offer. Of course, there's always been a healthy market for design written by experts, and this isn't likely to change any time soon. Sometimes there's just no substitute for splashing your cash and getting high quality content in return.
But there's a growing movement towards free and 'freemium' content on the web. And the quality of the content is often on a par with the books you'd part with cash for. Clearly nobody can afford to print and distribute free physical books, but in this age of tablets, smartphones and laptops the electronic book offers a fantastic, and very cheap, way to spread this content. If you do have some cash to spare, take a minute to browse our guide to the best graphic design books – you can be sure you won't be wasting your money.
If you are inspired by these free ebooks, and in need of other incredible freebies to get your project started, check out our selections of the best free graphic design software and the best free fonts for designers.
So, what content can you get for free in the field of design? A quick search on your favourite search engine will reveal hundreds of free ebook offerings, making it difficult to sift the wheat from the chaff. But we've saved you the trouble, so here goes...
01. Everything There Is To Know About Logo Design
Logo design is one of those apparently simple areas of graphic design that actually contains many subtle nuances. To walk you through what makes for a good logo, including how to incorporate colours and typography, download Blue Soda Promo's free ebook, Everything There Is To Know About Logo Design.
Running at a trim 25 pages, this free ebook will quickly fill you in on everything you need to consider when creating a graphic to represent either your brand or that of a client.
02. Pay Me or Else!
Sooner or later, every designer is going to come up against a client who, for whatever reason, won't pay up come invoice time. Lior Frenkel from nuSchool has been in this situation plenty of times, so he's written a book, Pay Me or Else!, on how to deal with such clients.
It's broken up into three parts: the first is about the best tactics for getting clients to pay up, the second looks into why clients don't pay, and the third part covers strategies for avoiding bad clients and working in a way that covers you in almost every situation.
03. Attention-Driven Design
Attention, says Oli Gardner, is a limited resource; every link and banner you add to a web page, while serving a purpose, also serves to distract your users and deplete their mental energy. If you want to eliminate unwanted distractions from your websites, his book Attention-Drive Design hopes to help you out.
In it, Gardner outlines techniques for achieving visual simplicity through psychology and interaction design, with plenty of real-life examples to help you ramp up your conversion rate.
04. The Shape of Design
Starting life as a talk in 2010, Frank Chimero's self-published The Shape of Design was an early design community Kickstarter success, getting funded on its first day, and has since become essential foundational reading, not just in design education but in other creative practices, too.
Focusing on the mindset of making rather than tools and methods, it asks: what are the opportunities, problems and possibilities of the creative practice? And once the work is done, what happens when it is released into the world?
05. The DesignBetter.co library
Why settle for just one free ebook when you can have three? The DesignBetter.co library from InVision aims to help you build a strong design practice.
This collection of definitive books, written by Aarron Walter and Eli Woolery, explores how the best companies approach product design, design thinking, design leadership and more.
06. 50 Must Read Tips From Designers, To Designers
As the title suggests, this free ebook from Route One Print brings together key pieces of advice from experienced graphic designers – including Jacob Cass (aka Just Creative) and Brent Galloway – to make your life easier. 'From client management to typography, brand identity to finding alternative textures in Photoshop, this ebook offers practical tips for designers and showcases new ways to think about design,' says the blurb.
It also promises to reveal which fonts the designers never use. Is it Comic Sans? Helvetica? We guess you'll have to download the 50 Must Read Tips From Designers, To Designers eBook to find out. Route 1 offers a whole range of ebooks for designers in fact, including The Freelancer’s Bible (below) and The Design Comedy: How to deal with the 9 stages of client hell.
07. Brand House Book
If you're having problems getting to grips with the world of branding, this free ebook by Roger Lindeback can help you out by taking away all the jargon and relating it to everyday experience.
In the Brand House Book, Lindeback aims to make branding tangible by comparing it to building a house. He breaks it down into six manageable stages – dreaming, planning, starting work, designing, building and finally getting the details right – with a branding summary at the end of each stage, setting out all the important issues to think through in your brand building process.
08. The Practical Interaction Design Bundle
Not one but three free ebooks in one handy bundle, The Practical Interaction Design Bundle consists of three free volumes from UXPin, comprising over 250 pages of design best practices and with over 60 examples of the best UX design.
Volumes 1 and 2 of Interaction Design Best Practices will take you through techniques, theories and best practices relating to the tangibles of interaction design - words, visuals and space - while volume 2 tackles the intangibles: time, responsiveness and behaviour.
Topping off the bundle is Consistency in UI Design, covering how and when to maintain consistency in your design, and when to break it to draw attention to elements - without suffering the drawbacks.
09. An Introduction to Adobe Photoshop
If you're after a beginner-friendly guide to getting started with Photoshop, this free ebook by Steve Bark, An Introduction to Adobe Photoshop, will explain the fundamentals for you, from panels and tools to layers and basic printing.
If it's just a little too basic for you, never fear; there's also an intermediate guide available that covers more advanced subjects such as vector tools, smart objects and clipping masks.
10. The Building Blocks of Visual Hierarchy
If you're designing for the web and want your layouts and interfaces to be accessible and visually intuitive, The Building Blocks of Visual Hierarchy from UXPin is an invaluable resource.
This free ebook explains how size, colours, space, layout, and style affect visual understanding, provides tips for designing clear visual hierarchies, and includes 18 examples of great sites including MailChimp and RelateIQ.
11. The Freelancer's Bible
Whether you're already freelance or thinking of making the jump, The Freelancer's Bible from Route One Print is full of useful freelance advice. It includes tips on how to market your business, find your USP, licence your work, manage client relationships, complete tax returns and much more.
12. Flat Design & Colors
The free ebook Flat Design & Colors by UXPin dives deep into the most powerful techniques for creating highly usable yet visually interesting web designs.
The design team compiled advice from experts and illustrated their points using examples from 40 companies such as Google, Squarespace, and others.
13. Houdini Foundations
If you're looking to add a touch of 3D art to your designs, Houdini Foundations will help get you started. With this free ebook you'll learn all about the tools and techniques you will use as a Houdini artists, then run through three lessons that teach you how to build simple projects from scratch.
14. Design's Iron Fist
Jarrod Drysdale is a designer writer who focuses his articles on getting the best out of your work. Design's Iron Fist is a sort of continuation of his previous book Bootstrapping Design (now discontinued), in which he collects all of his previous essays into one, free ebook.
Topics such as 'Think like a designer' and 'Get out of a creative rut' are just some of the titles on offer in this selection.
15. Pixel Perfect Precision Handbook
The Pixel Perfect Precision (PPP) Handbook from leading digital design agency ustwo has come a long way since it was first released. What started as a 108-page simple guide to best practice with pixels and Photoshop has grown into handbook number 3 - a whopping 214-page designer bible.
16. The Creative Aid Handbook
Created by Kooroo Kooroo, The Creative Aid is a free book jam packed full of inspiration and available to download today.
Co-founders Nicole Smith and Richard Tapp explain the concept: 'It's a mini resource for your creative projects and food for your creative thoughts. We’ve included our own valuable references and resources we know and trust as a means to help you get your projects done.
'We want to give you the creative push from a direction you may not have thought of, be it informative, inspirational, or simply entertaining.'
17. Type Classification eBook
This excellent 27-page ebook details the 10 key classifications for typography, providing the basic understanding you'll need to gain a grasp of the fundamentals of type selection. The Type Classification eBook covers a brief history for each of the classifications, as well as the core characteristics of the style.
18. Creative Suite Printing Guide
The Creative Suite Printing Guide from Adobe provides all the information you'll need to get the best-quality results possible when printing from Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Acrobat.
Over the course of 149 pages the different tools and options within each package are broken down, illustrating how to produce files for print that will provide accurate colour reproduction, pixel-perfect transparency matting and sharp lines.
19. Graphic Design for Non-profit Organizations
Graphic Design for Non-profit Organisations focuses mainly on design and best practices for non-profit organizations, but the content is a great resource in general and the teachings can be applied pretty much anywhere.
Engineering Graphics And Design Textbook Pdf
20. The Design Funnel
Seeing us out is a manifesto from the ChangeThis.com website. The Design Funnel from author Stephen Hay provides a methodology for converting client input (which may often be extremely vague!) into a meaningful design approach. This free PDF offers a personal insight into the process, demonstrating its value.
Computer Graphics And Design Pdf
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