Internship - New Techniques.

New Technique New technique I’ve learned so far is more precious than technique I found on the internet, and those techniques are design and work process wise.

By: Caroline Peni (Stu. No: 59510 / class: w3a1) -intern at DAY, Amsterdam.

01 Your Notebook is your Treasure Box. Write every feedback and suggestion the trainer / other designer might have in your note book / scrapbook. This is very useful for person whose lack of memory. From what I have learned from them, their black book filled with note instead of drawing. They normally draw on huge paper as A3 so that they can also present it to their neighbor designers.

02Draw with ticker pen, erase no more.

This helps me to not be afraid of mistakes (because you cannot erase them after all). Mistake is subjective. Some people found my mistakes better than what I intentionally did. This is also applying digitally. They told me to always make copy of something you want to change. That also means I have to keep everything that I did and never delete any of them.

03ProjectName_Product_2011-2-30.ai Naming is also an important job. It’s is good to prevent you from getting scold by the Project Manager and to get an headache for looking at a certain file on your folder. The trick for not getting lost at your own folder is to create a folder in this kind of order: Project Name

Client Input Phase Name

Image Presentation Design

Concept 1 Concept 2

Concept 3

File_2011-02-18.ai

041:10 Always work in proportion. It is important especially because we also work with printing company.

When we send the EPS document to the printer, we said that it is 1 : 1 or 1 : 10, and also give the exact size in meter.

05Measure the measurement Always work with rulers in ai. Even a tiny bit inches could be seen from afar. The thing about measurement that should be sent to the printer together with the file and the size is the screen shoot of the design together with the gap in between every line. This screen shoot shouldn’t have been so big, just as long they can see the number.

06Divide the divide-able While giving files to the printer make sure we give them different EPS files for everything that has different colors, material, and size. The most logical and simple thing is to divide Header, Sub-header, Body Text, Footer, etc.

07RAW, Pantone, CMYK, or RGB? RAW is color that we see on real 3D object. Pantone is a special series of colors that usually is use for bright color. This color cannot be printed on normal printer. CMYK is a normal printer color, while RGB is screen color. While we give something to the printer, we should ask what type of color they have. In some cases where you want to make a 3D lettering in perplex you might need to search for a right RAW color code that match with your CMYK/RGB color on screen.

Sometimes, you already work on Pantone color on Illustrator. If we currently have a series of printed pantone sample, tear the one that you are using. Do not print what you have from your computer, because the printer will use CMYK instead of Pantone. Match that Pantone color sample, take a piece of white paper with more less 2 cm hole on it and also take a RAW color series samples. Put the Pantone together with RAW color that you think is similar behind the hole. When we do that, we only see those 2 colors surrounded by white, and we won’t get distracted by any other colors around us.

Bookmark those RAW colors and once again match them in the hole and see which one is the closest.

08Don’t rainbow up your color swatch Delete unnecessary color in Illustration swatch to avoid the printer miss print the color. What we give to the printer is EPS document with transparent background.

09Run fast, work fast.

One thing to learn from them is that they work really fast. Work fast doesn’t mean you don’t think. Most of the time when we work so slow, and think a lot of design rules, good ideas are missing with the time.

When we work fast, most of the time we try all possible compositions and most often we do mistakes that leads to a better one. None of our precious time is missing! Not to mention that they also have to catch the hour. This is also the reason, when they sketch, they go directly to Illustration.

10Mindfuck you client A way to make your client agree with you is through presentation. There are at least 2 presentations in a project: Concept presentation, (Preliminary presentation), and Final Presentation. From what I’ve learned here, this is the order of Concept presentation (in general): • • • • • • • • • • • •

Cover Table of contents Introduction (bullet points of background information) (List of Problems / requested items and solutions) Concept 1 title and background information Mood board Sketches (digital and paper if it’s good enough) Main design element requested (for ex: Logo) Colors Typography The design in carriers or requested product along with some mood images if necessary Concept 2 and so continues

For Preliminary presentation: • •

Cover Table of contents

• • • • • • •

Introduction of the chosen concept (Problem and solution) Mood board Concept 1 with specific mood Main design element requested (for ex: Logo) revised The design in carriers or requested product along with some mood images if necessary Concept 2 and so continues

Final presentation: • • • • • • • • • •

Cover Table of contents Introduction of the chosen concept (Problem and solution) Mood board Main basic design elements (ex: Logo, or floor plan) Color palate (CMYK, Pantone coated and uncoated, RGB) optional: put keywords.

Example of how the colors will apply.

Other works in carrier and all ideas that is listed in “Solution” page in graphic.

Other notes. Next steps for the client.

Another trick to please the client is by using his existing house style (if available) on the presentation.

Make their logo big if they are proud of it.

One thing that should always be on the presentation is: • • •

Date Page Number Project name

11Designers don’t speak with language One language that designer speak with is visual. When I had an interview in one of package design company, one of the main task Intern will have there is making mood board. They told me that mood board is really important, because designer is not good at convincing client with beautiful words. One

thing to communicate designer’s message to client is through that mood board. In this internship I also found that choosing images for mood board is the hardest (and annoying thing). Mood board is so important, that it takes days for newbie to make it.

Collecting at least billions of images is the first step. Choose 5 best images you found interesting, and group the rest based on those 5 chosen mood. Not enough images? Find more on the internet. *said in demanding voice* These 5 moods will lead you to Adobe Illustrator to start sketching Mood board is an important part in presentation because it’s representing the following page. By seeing that mood board, client will get a bit overview on how the following concept will look like, what material will they use, what color, etc.

Unlike what I’ve learned in school where we have to take the unnecessary part away, (because they have a very limited time) they just use existing template in their keynote and just drag the picture into the picture box. A page of mood board consists of 10-12 pictures. Not all pictures are abstract.

These are the types of picture that should be in the mood board: • • • •

Original inspiration (could be photograph, and should be the root inspiration of the concept) Color mood* Graphic design (existing graphic elements other people have made) Photography treatment (what kind of photography will be used)

*If other colors from other picture distract the color mood, make it grayscale or duo toned it with the chosen color.

12Make client chose what we want him to I once make 6 squares, equally the same size, to show various compositions the client can do with the logo. But then I was told to be concerned about the client’s point of view. She dragged the horizontal line downward makes the upper 3 parts bigger. Apparently, by making all boxes equally the same size will make the client lose his focus, which one to see? Which one to choose?

Composition / variation that get bigger portion get more attention. Of course that chosen composition will get higher chance to be chosen. This portion doesn’t apply for sketches page. On sketches page, everything should be equally the same because the meaning behind this is just to give an overview of previous approach we have made, and not to make them choose.