Foundations of Graphic Design

My friend Mike works for Oregon Connections Academy. He has a student who wants to be a graphic designer, and wanted me to give him some recommendations on what he can do to prepare. Well, I did not have traditional training for this occupation. I didn't go to an art school, and I was the first to graduate with a degree in graphic design from the University I attended (read: program guinea pig). After college I had the fortune of being able to learn on the job doing both prepress (boy was that ever valuable!) and design. Thinking back to what I would have liked to know before hand to prepare me for the field, I really couldn't think of anything specifically design-related. Really, the basics of any highschool instruction plus a well-rounded liberal arts education was probably the best thing for me in this field. Here's what I wrote to Mike's student:


Hey DC,

I hear from Mike that you're planning on going into the field of graphic design. Great! It's a whole lot of work, and a whole lot of fun. Mike wanted me to put together sort of a tip sheet for you – as in, what would I have liked to have done or known to prepare me for this field if I were in high school again. Here's what I came up with:

1) Know that graphic design is just another word for visual communication. Many schools would categorize graphic design as a visual arts major, and some of the best design programs I've heard of are at art schools. However, I would equally categorize it as a communications major. The goal of graphic design is to communicate – whether that be to persuade, to express, or to inform; and because communication is a two-way street, graphic design can even be meant to gather information, as a medium to allow "viewers" to persuade, express or inform back.
So I would recommend a solid foundation in the basis of human communication. Know how to read well, write well, and speak well. Language is a large part of how we think and process, and some of the best visual solutions come out of the language we use. Plus, good communication skills are essential to understanding problems and presenting solutions. This brings me to point number two.

2) Graphic design is about problem solving. In this way, it has to potential to make significant impacts. Design can allow people to understand points of view that were previously incomprehensible, and is therefore a tool for reconciliation, unification, resolution, and even peacekeeping. Graphic design can make something that was difficult much easier, make the unclear clear. Graphic design can save lives.
Of course, the vast majority of what you will do as a designer will be (or seem) much more mundane. But you will still be taking someone's problem, and creating a solution. So I would recommend honing your abstract thinking skills. Try your best at understanding math and logic – that's the basis for abstract thinking.

3) Graphic design is beautification. A good solution or an appealing message will be beautiful – or better said, will have a visually appropriate impact on the viewer depending upon the intended purpose of the design. Ugly is beautiful if it's supposed to be ugly for the purpose of a good visual solution. One of the cornerstones of creating something beautiful is craftsmanship. So like a musician trying to make it to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice. Study other people's work that you find beautiful. What makes it beautiful? Don't be afraid to copy in order to learn – that's how the master painters did it. (Don't copy others' work as a final solution – that's called plagiarism.)

4) Some things I would recommend doing regularly in order to prepare for this field would be:
• Read often. Anything at all (preferably good writing, but really, reading in itself is an edifying exercise).
• Write reasonably often, and do so in full sentences (no shorthand), always reading out loud (or "out loud in your head") what you've written after you've written it.
• Draw as often as possible. Doodling is drawing. (I feel hypocritical here, because I have been sucked into the computer trap, and it has taken a great deal of effort of late to start drawing again.)
• Use your hands in your work as often as possible. (Writing utensils count, but computer peripherals do not – not even a Wacom® tablet.)

5) Reading material I would recommend:
• A History of Graphic Design by Philip Meggs
• The Elements of Style by Strunk and White (best book on writing... ever)
• The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst
• Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards
• Take a look at HOW, Print, and Communication Arts magazines, which should be available at your local library or college library. (They also often have articles or snippets available on their websites.)
• Look up anything on the internet having to do with Von Glitschka. He's from Salem, and he's awesome.

Well, I hope that helped. It's very general, but very foundational. You can go a lot of directions in graphic design (and more often than not, companies or clients will want you to be able to go all directions), but being a good designer, I believe, starts with the stuff I've mentioned.

Best of luck to you, DC!
peace,
Brandon Buerkle

The 1953 Color Palette?

The other day I was at my bank, where they often times give out Dum Dums lollipops at the teller. This day they only had one left in the jar, and the colors looked like they might indicate a butterscotch flavor (one of my favorites), so I took it. To my surprise, it was not butterscotch, but piapple coconut. The wrapper was a sort of deep purple and gold, and said "100th Anniversary Flavor", and below that "1953". Obviously 1953 was the year this flavor was released, because if it was supposed to indicate the founding date of Dum Dums, then surely someone over there must be a Dum Dum to be celebrating the 100th Anniversary so early.

What struck me, though, was that a Children's Book Week poster we had decorated my son's room with had very similar colors to this wrapper's as it's primary palette. And this poster was from 1953. Were these – deep purple and gold – some sort of official colors for 1953?

I looked around the web (very very briefly) to find some other 1953 examples to back this up. The War of the Worlds poster from the same year seemed close.


Here's an assignment: see if you can find some other 1953-specific examples on the web that use this color duo, and post the links in your comments to this blog entry.

Birth Announcement from Beyond!!!

So in case you couldn't tell, I really didn't want to do a traditional birth announcements. I've received far too many of the same old cutesy cards with a picture and a pastel background. No offense to all those who have gone that route to announce the birth of a child, but as far as I'm concerned – as a designer – I needed something a little... different.

I sketched out a few ideas (which I may yet make into announcements to print and sell, along with this one), and the one that seemed to tickle my funny bone the most was the retro monster movie poster theme. The way I see it, the more dire and life-altering an event, the more it needs a bit of humor to take the edge off. Plus, having a kid is a joyful event, and if you can't have a bit of a chuckle because of it, then it's not joyful enough.

The great thing about a birth is that the phenomenon itself is amazing and scary enough, so it doesn't need to be spun much to make it seem like the subject of a monster movie. Slap on a quirky label (Pod Person) to the otherwise ordinary being in question, and "Whammo!" – instant monster movie. The trick, then, was to illustrate it.

After taking a look at a few old horror movie posters, one can easily get a sense of common visual elements: drippy lettering for the title, sans-serif font along the lines of Futura or Univers for the rest of the text, a woman in distress (comes naturally with childbirth), and maybe a shot of the monster or shocked bystanders. Well, we don't want to show a shot of "the monster" because that would be crossing the line. Our baby's too cute for that. Plus, the idea that something's in there about to come out is scary enough (Alien anyone?).

Although most of the old movie posters I looked at were full color, there's something about a 2 color treatment that says, "low budget B-movie." So that's what I did. The woman's head was taken from the Abominable Snowman poster I found, and modified a bit. Nothing like going to the source for that look of shock and terror. I got the torso from a preggy-mom shot, and the rest was just good-ol' Illustrator. The 1950's hospital bed was added in for texture and a sense of space and place. And of course I couldn't leave out the shocked bystander – in this case a wide-eyed doctor modified from a stock photo.

The woman has to be in the moment of impending doom in these posters, so for this announcement the lady had to be in labor. One has to blow the features of the monster out of proportion, but since we weren't showing the monster here, the place where the monster dwells has to be blown out of proportion instead. So now we've got a pregnant belly fit to burst, so big it covers up most of our subject. Ridiculous? Yes. But that's just what we're looking for.

So there it is. Just use words like "amazing" and "cosmic" in the wording on the back, and you've got yourself a genuine, bona fide retro monster movie poster birth announcement... from beyond.

Separation of church and state – er – I mean home and work.

In the excitement of getting this blog up and posting about my new pride and joy, I ended up mixing two things that shouldn't necessarily be mixed: professional and personal. Since brandonbuerkle.com is my "work site" and I want this blog to focus on art and design inspiration and ways to inspire, I don't want to be blogging about home life on it. (Although, in my defense, a new son is definitely an inspiration.)

So with that, I'm moving the home life subject matter to another blog, brandonandkorie.us – aka brandon @ home. If you want to read about Inen, Korie, and other home and community issues, go there. For art, design, and illustration inspiration, stay here.

Sorry about the confusion! I'll see you around the blogosphere.

So, what's the name?

{Post moved to www.brandonandkorie.us}

Inen John Buerkle

{Post moved to www.brandonandkorie.us}

*GASP!!!*

Thrusting his head above water and taking in a huge gulp of air, Brandon flails in the deep. For the brief moment they flutter open at the surface of these proverbial waters, one can read in his eyes, "I'll get you a more substantial post with pictures, video, and everything, once I learn to tread water!"

And with that, Brandon heads back under.