She’s got the look?

5 Oct 2009 | Web design | 0 hellos

When I started out as a designer I found the idea of creating a brand identity to be a mystical and exciting thing. Putting shapes and words together to create something with it’s own personality, to encompass what a company was about, was quite appealing, but as I developed my skills in both print and web design I discovered that it was something I tended to struggle with, and then just neglect. Then, as I found my interests lay more towards web design, with it’s wonderful mix of problem solving, creative design and programming, I just never quite got around to getting any better at it.

So, around ten years later the idea of creating a brand for myself didn’t even cross my mind. When creating this site, I just naturally created a little ident that I was rather fond of, instead of spending hours thinking of what I wanted my logo to say to other people. Hence, I was rather surprised, and flattered, when David Pache contacted me to ask if he could include my website brand in part 3 of his 100 Brands of Interest.

This has gotten me thinking about my original love for brand identity and how I’ve never quite felt comfortable around it. I believe the time is now to re-examine it. I’ve enjoyed developing my illustration skills, and thanks to iStock’s new product, Logos : Logos come to istock, I have a great new avenue to help me rediscover my lost interest in logo design.

I’ll let you know how I get on!

CSS Switcher by month using Javascript

3 Sep 2009 | Code, tutorial, Web design | 0 hellos

I’ve been creating a website where I wanted to change the look depending on the season.  I’ve used Javascript to control what CSS was applied by checking what month it is, then changing the href property of the css <link> tag.

Adding the default stylesheets to the HTML

I created one main CSS file, that held all the styles that will never change, as well as a four separate season CSS files for Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring. I used the Summer css file as a default and added an id called season.

<link href="main.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<link id="season" href="summer.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

Javascript code to select the CSS

Firstly I get the date, then use an if statement to set a variable with the correct filename. So, between December and February it will show winter.css, March to May spring.css, June to August summer.css and September to November autumn.css.

Then I just set the href property of the element with id ‘season’.

// Get CSS JavaScript Document
function getCSS()
{
datetoday = new Date();
themonth=datetoday.getMonth() + 1;

if (themonth == 12)
display = "winter.css";
else if (themonth <= 2)
display = "winter.css";
else if (themonth > 2 && themonth <=5 )
display = "spring.css";
else if (themonth > 5 && themonth <=8 )
display = "summer.css";
else if (themonth > 8 && themonth <=11 )
display = "autumn.css";

document.getElementById('season').href = display;
// End -->
}

Call the function

All that’s left to do is call the function in the<head> of the page.

<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
getCSS();
</script>

Done!

Spam away

21 Aug 2009 | General | 0 hellos

I’d been getting really fed up with the silly amount of spam comments I was getting. Decided it was time to take some action!

Installed the Simple Captcha plugin. Very excellent so far!

Anyway – aside from that I do feel like I’ve been neglecting this blog for a while. Got a couple of things I’d like to write about – I’ll get to it soon.

It’s time to get on with it

8 Aug 2009 | General | 0 hellos

I’m still working on a few freelance projects. I’ve been learning how to make an Adobe Air application (frustrating, yet still rather enjoyable – DAMN YOU AS3!). Still have an illustration to do – it’s been sketched out on paper, but I still have to work on it in Illustrator. My blog theme has been woefully neglected. Really need to get all these things finished, but instead I’ve had a lovely morning and early afternoon relaxing and reading a good book.

Monday is going to be a productive day. I’m certain.

What’s the big idea?

7 Jul 2009 | General | 0 hellos

Are you a marketing super kid? Ideas just stream out of your head at an exponential rate? I’m certainly not. Despite occasionally having a great idea pop into my head I quite often struggle to create exciting and interesting concepts. So, if you’re not a marketing genius, or are just on a bad day, what do you do?

Well, for me it’s all down to research, brainstorming and hardwork.  I try to soak up as much as I can about the subject, target market, brand or whatever, then start doodling, writing and sketching whatever comes in to my head. It can also be really useful to sit down with a bunch of colleagues and just bounce ideas off each other. All you need is a few not too bad ideas, then just work on developing them. I think with that you’ll get there in the end, and sometimes it will even turn in to that genius idea you were looking for.

Anatomy of Illustrator (CS3) – for super beginners

16 Jun 2009 | tutorial, Web design | 1 hello

I was helping out a friend who is almost completely new to design, and discovered that there is very few tutorials explaining the very basics of Illustrator and how to use the tools. The variety of panels and menus can be quite confusing to a beginner and there is very few guides out there to ease a new user to the program. If you’ve not had any training it can be a struggle to teach yourself in the beginning, so here is a simple beginners guide to using Illustrator that I wrote for my friend.

The basic anatomy

The workspace

  1. Artboard – This is the main page area that you are drawing on
  2. Tool bar – Where all your main creation and editing tools are. This is shown in front of the artboard as a floating panel or attached to the side of the artboard
  3. Panels – Where you control and change your shapes. These can be shown attached to the side of the artboard with icons to denote the panel, or they can sit over the artboard.
  4. Top menu – This is the usual type of top menu that includes ‘File’, ‘Edit’ etc. This is where you’ll find all tools and options in the menu list format
Tool bar

Tool Bar

Panels

Panels

The tool bar

This bar contains the main tools you’ll use.  If you can’t see the tool bar on the artboard then use the top menu to find it.

Window > Tools

There are a few different types of tools in the tool menu, so here is a quick run down of them.

Selection

  1. Tool image Selection tool - Select an object or grouped objects on the artboard
  2. Tool image Group selection and Direct selection tools – This lets you select a single object (Group) or a single point/line (Direct). This is useful if you want to edit an object that is part of a group, or edit the shape of an item
  3. Tool image Magic wand – This lets you select objects with a similar fill colour/pattern
  4. Tool image Lasso tool - Also a selection tool, just draw a shape and it will select everything within the shape

Object creation (Drawing and typing)

  1. Tool image Pen tool – This selection of tools let you draw out a shape point by point then edit it. Clicking once and releasing creates a point. If you click and drag you can create a curve.
  2. Tool image Type tool – Write text with one click, or create a paragraph shape by dragging, then click on this to write text within this text box
  3. Tool image Line tool – Allows you to draw different types of lines, such as straight, arcs, spirals and grids
  4. Tool image Shape tools – Draw different types of shapes
  5. Tool image Paint brush tool – This creates a stroked line using a brush (This can be found in the Stroke and Brush panels)
  6. Tool image Pencil tool – You can freehand draw a shape or line. If a shape is selected you can also go over the same line again to adjust its shape

Reshaping

  1. Tool image Rotate tool – Select and object before you select this tool, then you can either double click to enter a rotation, click once on the artboard to the the rotation registration point, or click and drag to rotate the object
  2. Tool image Scale tool – The scale tool works in a similar way to the rotate tool, but with changing the scale of an object
  3. Tool image Warp tool – Drag across an objects to change it’s shape
  4. Tool image Free transform tool -This tool lets you scale and rotate an object using the bounding box handles. These are the little squares shown on the object when it is selected. To maintain the proportions of the object, hold down ‘SHIFT’ while you drag. Holding ‘ALT’ will let you transform the object from the center point rather than a corner.

Additional tools (Painting, graphs and more)

  1. Tool image Symbol tools – This tool lets you spray paint and edit symbols on the artboard from the symbol library (Symbols can be found in the Symbol panel)
  2. Tool image Graph tools – This tool lets you create a variety of types of graph. You can select a size and enter the graph details.
  3. Tool image Mesh tool – You can create and edit mesh lines on an existing shape. Click to create a mesh point then you can adjust the shape and fill.
  4. Tool image Gradient tool – If you have a shape with a gradient fill (i.e. by using the Gradient panel), then this lets you drag across the shape to change the gradient.
  5. Tool image Eyedropper tool – If you have one item selected and click on another item it will copy the colour/styles over to your first item.
  6. Tool image Blend – You can blend two items together. Select either an anchor point or in the middle of each item and the blend tool will blend these together.
  7. Tool image Live paint tool – Lets you fill in sections of shapes on the artboard. A shape with a hole or different sections in the middle is called a ‘Compound path’
  8. Tool image Live paint selection – Selects the shape you want to fill

Artboard

  1. Tool image Crop area – You can select what area of the file you would like to export  (i.e. File >  ‘Save for web’). Double-click to select the options, or you can click and drag.
  2. Tool image Erase – This tool lets you erase sections of your selected item.
  3. Tool image Drag – Drags your view of the  artboard
  4. Tool image Zoom – Click to zoom incrementally, or click and drag the area you want to zoom to.

Colour

  1. Tool image Colour selections – You can double click on the fill square or outline square to change these colours of the selected shape. You can also click the arrows to switch them. If the colour is white with a red line through it, this means that there is no colour.

There can be little arrows on the bottom corners of a tool. This denote that if you hold the mouse down there is a choice of tools.With some tools, such as the line and shape tools, you can click once and you will be able to type in options for the object, rather than just clicking and dragging on the artboard. Also, for some tools you can also double click to change the tool options.

The panels

These panels I normally have on the right of my screen. If you can’t see them use the top menu:

Window > #Panel Name#

The panels are grouped together with each other and can be selected with tabs. There is also a little arrow on the right that will give you more menu options.

I’ll order these in the approximate order I have them in on the screen

  1. Colour – RGB for web stuff and CMYK for print. This lets you drag the arrows to create a colour, or double click for the colour picker
  2. Swatches – These are saved colours. You can drag the colour square to the swatches panel to keep it. If you double click on this you can give it a name, change it, or set it as a global colour. Making a colour swatch a global colour will let give you a colour slider for the swatch when selected and you can change the tint.
  3. Brushes – These adjust your stroke lines and can be used in conjuction with strokes around the shape and the paintbrush.
  4. Symbols – These are little symbols you can re-use again – You can also create your own by dragging them into the symbol panel.
  5. Stroke – This lets you set the outline of the shape. You can change different options for your stroke in this panel.
  6. Gradient – You can change gradient colours by dragging them on the gradient bar from the swatch panel, you can also drag these little colour squares and change the angle and location options
  7. Appearance – This allows you to change the order of the fills, strokes and effects (Shown in the Effects top menu item). You can also add strokes and fills using the arrow option to the right i.e. to create double lines etc.
  8. Layers – This allows you to have different shapes on different layers, you can view, hide or lock these as well as change the order
  9. Transform – This lets you change the position and size of the shape you have selected. You can also change the angle or skew it. The little link icon on the right after the W and H, lets you either keep the shape in proportion if on or just change one dimension if off.
  10. Align – This lets you align shapes against each other, i.e. centre them all together
  11. Pathfinder – Use this to cut out or join shapes. Select all the shapes you want to change, then click on one of the pathfinder icons.
  12. Character – Basic text options such as font, font size and leading
  13. Paragraph – Further text options if you have created text within a paragraph shape

The top menu

  1. File – This has your usual, ‘New’, ‘Open’, ‘Save’ and ‘Print’ type options
  2. Edit – Basic edit controls such as copy and paste, as well as preferences and settings
  3. Object – Controls the shapes on the screen. Some of the basic object controls are:
    • Transform – Changes the shape using ‘Move’, ‘Rotate’, ‘Reflect’, ‘Scale’, ‘Shear’ etc.
    • Arrange – Changes the order of the shapes on the screen. This will change the order only within the selected layer
    • Group – group selected items together
    • Lock – Lets you lock an item so you can’t select it – you can ‘Unlock all’ from here if you want to select them againExpand – This lets you expand text to outlines, and expand compound shapes, effects and fills
    • Rasterize – Creates a flat bitmap image from the object(s) you have selected
  4. Type – This is for controlling and editing the text/fonts
  5. Select – Lets you select specific items, such as if they have the same fill colour
  6. Filter -This menu lets you distort vectors, as well as having a filter menu that can be applied to bitmaps – I suggest you stick to Photoshop for these though.
  7. Effects – This menu lets you add effects to items such as Drop shadows and rounded corners as well as other fancy effects. You can find anything you’ve added in the Appearance panel mentioned before. These can be edited or deleted.
  8. View – Viewing selections for the artboard, as well as options such as ‘Ruler’ and ‘Guides’
  9. Window – Where you find all your panels/tools if you can’t find

Now, getting started…

Hopefully the above has given you a bit of help with how Illustrator is put together, and although it’s not a completely comprehensive guide I know I’ve learned a few things writing this that I hadn’t know before. So, now you’ll need to learn about to actually use Illustrator, for how here is a few useful places to visit.

Useful beginner tutorials/articles

Create an envelope icon – Lovely tutorial to start on
How to create a cute Hippo character
Getting started with Illustrator
Use Adobe Illustrator to create a clean website layout

Resources

Vectortuts+ – Great place for Illustrator tutorials

Smashing Magazine -  find useful tutorials and articles

Blog.Spoon Graphics – 50 Illustrator Tutorials Every Designer Should See

Busy month of May

29 May 2009 | General | 1 hello

Well, I have to say that I’m glad May is almost over. My poor little brain has been working on overdrive, although I have really enjoyed the projects I’ve been working on.

The main project has been a wonderful Flash interactive feature. A little mini educational game for kids. It’s really stretched my coding skills, and the timescale has been tight which as added extra pressure, but overall it’s been fun. I’ve also got to animate fun little bits of it, which I always love doing. And, it’s given me a bit more motivation to think about creating another game for myself on my own time.

But anway, June is almost here. This is my favourite month, mostly because my birthday is in it. Celebrations (and much shopping) shall ensue!

Go baby, go baby, go

17 Apr 2009 | General | 0 hellos

Aside from the fact that the catchy, yet slightly annoying, song from the Noisettes (Don’t Upset The Rhythm) is on the radio at the moment, I’ve also been rather on the busy side. I’m getting through my freelance projects at a steady pace, while not stressing myself out about it.

I’m looking forward to getting a few more of them finished and getting back to a few of my own personal projects. I have a few illustration ideas in mind, some crafty things I’d like to do…and I’ve itching to re-design my website for quite a few months now.

I don’t think I’m working too hard. I’m working just as much as I have to.

Too much on my mind

6 Apr 2009 | General | 0 hellos

I think I’m trying to do too many things at the one time. Lots of ideas for new things I want to do, and a whole backlogue of things unfinished…but not abandoned. I think I need to get through the freelance work first, then just attack each of my unfinished projects one by one. I am not allowed to start anything new…well, maybe once I’ve finished at least one or two things…

And the microsites just keep on coming

13 Mar 2009 | Code | 0 hellos

Working on another Flash microsite. I’ve not even finished the first one yet. Thankfully I can reuse a lot of the work I’ve done on the other one, and I’m really enjoying the amount I’ve been learning while working on them.

Classes are really great way for me to easily reuse the code, and with each of these sites I’m working on I’m refining them. Right, back to work.

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