I'm a fan of Netflix's new logo, which is a nice evolution that will work well whether as an icon on a phone or up on a billboard. There's a good discussion of it over on fastcodesign
Thursday, 30 June 2016
Knowledge of software does not a designer make
I have noticed that lately people seem to believe that knowing how to use Adobe's software equates to a design qualification when nothing could be further from the truth. You can create powerful design with a pencil and paper and all the software in the world won't make a bad design a good one.
Over the years I have increasingly seen people enter the workplace, or worse set up as design studios, without the most basic knowledge of what constitutes good design - balance, negative space, typography, colour theory etc. People cobbling together bad artwork and dodgy layouts who think because they can create a table in InDesign they can tackle anything. I know not everyone can afford higher education but actually most of what I learned I learned on the job, based on a solid foundation learned in college. A foundation that can be learned in other ways too. I'm a big believer in 'read a book' and there are plenty design videos and tutorials online or online courses that are very affordable.
As with most things a bit of talent, coupled with a bit of guidance and a willingness to learn can go a long way towards improving anyone's work. But reading a software manual from cover to cover will never teach you how to be a designer.
Over the years I have increasingly seen people enter the workplace, or worse set up as design studios, without the most basic knowledge of what constitutes good design - balance, negative space, typography, colour theory etc. People cobbling together bad artwork and dodgy layouts who think because they can create a table in InDesign they can tackle anything. I know not everyone can afford higher education but actually most of what I learned I learned on the job, based on a solid foundation learned in college. A foundation that can be learned in other ways too. I'm a big believer in 'read a book' and there are plenty design videos and tutorials online or online courses that are very affordable.
As with most things a bit of talent, coupled with a bit of guidance and a willingness to learn can go a long way towards improving anyone's work. But reading a software manual from cover to cover will never teach you how to be a designer.
Friday, 17 June 2016
Edit a PDF in illustrator even without the fonts required
Oftentimes, especially in the printing industry, a client will come to you with an old PDF that they want changed. They don't have the original design files for one reason or another but they need a change made to the artwork for a reprint, maybe changing the offer or some such. There's no budget so resetting the whole thing is out of the question, but the background is complicated so you cant just slap a new text box over the top. What to do?
Well one thing you can do is open the PDF in Illustrator and make the changes. Open it up, load the relevant fonts if any are missing, edit the text and then hit SAVE – NB not SAVE AS. Hitting save will preserve all the attributes of the original PDF like bleed, trims etc.
One caveat. If the last time you used illustrator you created a PDF with say bleed and trim marks, then when you hit save Illustrator may add an additional set of those trims and bleeds to your newly edited PDF. So its not a bad idea before you edit a PDF in this way you quickly create a blank illustrator document and save it as a normal, Illustrator PDF.
But what if you open up the PDF and you find out you're missing a vital font. Some unusual, grungy font you'll never be able to identify has opened up in the default font, which is completely wrong. Well in this case you can open a new document and PLACE the PDF into it. With the PDF still selected go to OBJECT > FLATTEN TRANSPARENCY. You will see a dialog box and here you must make sure you have checked "Convert All Text to Outlines". This will produce a result similar to above but with all the text converted to outlines (using the font data embedded in the PDF). From this you can keep the outlined versions of that unusual, grungy missing font.
Between the two techniques you can usually get a result. In fact if you open up the PDF you want to edit in Illustrator you can also actually place a copy of itself off to the side, lined up horizontally with the artwork and use flatten transparency to create an outlined version. Then delete the elements which aren't working on the artboard and slide across their outlined counterparts. Then hit save!
Well one thing you can do is open the PDF in Illustrator and make the changes. Open it up, load the relevant fonts if any are missing, edit the text and then hit SAVE – NB not SAVE AS. Hitting save will preserve all the attributes of the original PDF like bleed, trims etc.
One caveat. If the last time you used illustrator you created a PDF with say bleed and trim marks, then when you hit save Illustrator may add an additional set of those trims and bleeds to your newly edited PDF. So its not a bad idea before you edit a PDF in this way you quickly create a blank illustrator document and save it as a normal, Illustrator PDF.
But what if you open up the PDF and you find out you're missing a vital font. Some unusual, grungy font you'll never be able to identify has opened up in the default font, which is completely wrong. Well in this case you can open a new document and PLACE the PDF into it. With the PDF still selected go to OBJECT > FLATTEN TRANSPARENCY. You will see a dialog box and here you must make sure you have checked "Convert All Text to Outlines". This will produce a result similar to above but with all the text converted to outlines (using the font data embedded in the PDF). From this you can keep the outlined versions of that unusual, grungy missing font.
Between the two techniques you can usually get a result. In fact if you open up the PDF you want to edit in Illustrator you can also actually place a copy of itself off to the side, lined up horizontally with the artwork and use flatten transparency to create an outlined version. Then delete the elements which aren't working on the artboard and slide across their outlined counterparts. Then hit save!
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