I grew up in a neighborhood with a high concentration of Filipinos, so when I came across this article on Team Manila I was immediately interested. It seems this graphic design studio has been open since 2001 and puts a lot of their efforts into nationalism, rather than focusing on other cultures they’re embracing their own. Be sure to check out the article!
First and foremost, if you’re thinking of joining the graphic design community it should be something you’re passionate about, because the competition can be so stiff, it’s important that this is something you really want to do. Oxidizzy has a great blog post on 8 steps to get into the graphic design industry, be sure to check it out!
These days there’s not a lot of money floating around, and most businesses are hurting but there are things you can ask of your clients instead of more money. You The Designer posted up 7, while I’ll list what I think the most important are.
Testimonials
Testimonials are great for your site, but only if they can be verified, if someone gives you and awesome testimonial but wants to remain anonymous, who’s to say you didn’t write the testimonial yourself? A link to the clients website should take care of this.
Designed By Links
When you design a website, be sure to ask the client if you can include a small link at the bottom of the page, often times even resistant clients will let you put a link up that may match the background closely, especially for a discount of some sort, or maybe you can offer to design free business cards, something simple, the link is worth it.
Logo Usage Rights
For your own website, it’s important to have a list of your clients, be sure to ask if you can use a client’s logo on your site.
Referrals
The best way to get business is by word of mouth, ask your clients to tell their friends about you, you can also offer incentives for every project you get based on one of their referrals.
One of the most famous graphic designers of this generation has got to be David Carson, as one of his assignments at the un-conventional Ray Gun Magazine had him using a Dingbat font for an interview that he considered to be boring. He’s been known to use non-mainstream styles and his style often has a grungy edge to it. Be sure to check out his site.
1800 Artist Series
1800 Tequila has a wonderful new project going on right now, they’ve commissioned 1800 artists of all styles and have come up with an artist series that displays art in a not-so-typical medium. Also if you sign up at their website you can upload your own artwork or photos and have people vote on them.
Once a brand has made it’s mark it’s hard to look at any other logo concepts without thinking that they all look inferior to the known design. There may even be a better logo than the one they use in the stack, but the logo the world has already known will always be proffered. Logo Design Love posted about different Sony Playstaion concepts, and though most are not as great as the current logo, there are a couple in the batch with definite potential.
Just to show how important branding is, if Playstation were to change their logo now, I don’t think it would be well received. Not just with Playstation, but any brand in general usually sees a little backlash, just like Pepsi had when they changed their logo a few months back, though it’s evolved, their last re-brand was a little too extreme.
Be sure to check out Logo Design Love’s other posts too, their blog is great.
A group of designers have launched a site giving other designers access to freelance work for free. The wesite is Graphic Design Freelance Jobs. Check it out for more information.
Italian street wear label 55DSL is celebrating 15 years in the industry by holding a contest to re-design their logo. The contest begins today and you can enter a logo until December 5th. To get more information about this contest check out http://logoremix.55DSL.com.
Percy Miller, formally known in the music world as Master P, is being sued by London-based Pepe Jeans for copyright infringement, due to the logo he’s using for his P. Miller Designs clothing. The lawsuit also names Wal-Mart as the low-cost retailer is currently running tests on the P. Miller clothing line in question. Above is the P. Miller logo from their website.
The Denver Art Museum has a temporary exhibition going on to go along with the Democratic National Convention. The pieces on display will be political posters that will be shown digitally.
