Design for Print

Cover design challenges in the digital world

by Keith Martin on 15 October 2010 in Design for Print
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Is it possible to design sophisticated covers that communicate and sell in the virtual newsstand when all we can show are low-resolution thumbnails? Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. We all know the saying, but do we pay any attention? Of course not. And that’s why we also say that first impressions matter. In [...]

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Don’t be a one-trick specialist, be a flexible expert

by Keith Martin on 1 October 2010 in Design for Print
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Don’t be afraid to play around with established production methods. If you know enough about them, you’ll find creative ways to subvert them. When you look at designers today, you see people who are faced with massive multi-skill requirements. Photographer? Check (everyone has a digital camera these days, even if they’re not actually good at [...]

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Dazzle and digital camouflage, the art of staying hidden

by Keith Martin on 17 September 2010 in Design for Print
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There’s more to camouflage than blobs of muted green, yellow and brown – just look at the modern Marpat patterns and WW1 dazzle designs… Seeing patterns in things is one of the most basic instincts we have. It’s a survival instinct, something that helps us sort relevance from randomness. Pattern recognition is a fundamental part [...]

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There’s more to colour than meets the eye

by Keith Martin on 3 September 2010 in Design for Print
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Colour plays a crucial part in how we perceive things, so understanding its emotive effects is fundamental to creating standout designs. How do you react to colour? The hue of things has a surprisingly strong effect on how we perceive things and even on how we feel, both physically and emotionally. It’s thought that both [...]

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Graphic design as visual language

by Keith Martin on 20 August 2010 in Design for Print
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With the growth of digital magazines, it’s time we threw out the design conventions of the past and created a brand new visual language. How many languages do you speak? The chances are, if you are a born English speaker, you’re monolingual; when you travel to other parts of the world, you rely on finding [...]

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Line ‘em up: the secret to designing with grids

by Keith Martin on 6 August 2010 in Design for Print
Keith Martin

Page layout is chiefly about how objects on a page interact with each other, which is why grids play such a vital role is design. Here’s how they work… Page design is seen as a bit of a black art by so many people. It’s true that it isn’t a doddle, but there are certain [...]

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