A few days ago I was harping on about receiving really really boring postal and emailed CVs from students wanting either job or work experience placements.

Expressing wonderment as to why on earth I was receiving sheets of white paper with black writing all over them; no attempt at ‘design flair’ in their application/CV and a complete absence of portfolio to show me either.

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Got lots to say when passing on your details? Why squeeze your message onto just a double sided flat business card when you can so easily have folded?

There are pro’s and con’s for this option of course, but if you feel like you just need to say a lot its a way of achieving that without ruining the aesthetics of your business card with squashed unreadable text rammed edge to edge.
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Looking for professional development in your design career?

Bournemouth University are launching a range of innovative short courses aimed at media professionals already in employment, or with recent professional experience.
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Is graphic design just all about making things look pretty? Does anyone care if it looks pretty? Does it directly affect business success?

Of course design directly affects business success …… but how to prove it?
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I like pink as a colour…. I especially like it with brown, what interesting pink logo designs can I dig up?

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I’ve explained this in recent years to quite a number of potential customers and so thought I’d blog about it.

Web developers tend to be involved in the ‘coding’ and building of a website rather than being ‘creative designers’ who can create something aesthetically pleasing and creative to actually look at from a web visitors visual perspective. A creative designer tends to design the look and feel of what is called the ‘front end’ of the website - ie what the website actually looks like.

Now can one person do both tasks to a high standard? Personally I don’t think they can in my experience though I’d love to meet the exception one day.
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I can’t count how many times I’ve been asked when first communicating with a new graphic design client with regards to how fast designs can be delivered; what our ‘timescales’ are.

Usually before finally been given the tightest deadline known to man that no design provider on this earth could ever manage without reducing their standard of design, or customer service - or both.

Now consider this when very first planning ahead for your project, when it comes to your design provider, do you want to be served by ‘Ask’ or by ‘Macdonalds’?
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I was on the phone earlier today to Euphoria Beautique discussing the latest stage in their brand identity overhaul, which is to make some decisions about the re-design of their ‘pricelist’, as it was described to me.

We’ve discussed the pricelist several times over the last month and each time I was having the growing feeling that I was becoming more and more concerned with the actual word itself in connection with the salon.
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For those of you not in the know, Pantone is a colour pallette containing 1,757 unique and individually numbered colours. These were devised to help designers and printers specify colours for printing projects.

Pantone is sometimes referred to as PMS - Pantone Matching System, and it also sometimes called ‘Spot Colours’. It’s important to know all the different names so you don’t sound stupid when talking to a printing firm (joke!).

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I was absolutely delighted to visit the Shop For Bags website yesterday evening and see that my longstanding US client (owner of retail businesses Katydid Collection and the massively successful wholesale business Shop For Bags) had put her Breast Cancer charity motif design to excellent use.
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