Jonathan Belton | Graphic Design | Web Design

Design in Economic Recession

Jonathan — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:04:27 +0000

It’s already October, and I haven’t been able to update this blog as much as I would have liked to in recent months, partly because I have been particularly busy with various new projects. I have heard from colleagues in the design & design related industry that their business is quite slow, or certainly slowing down, so I decided to post this - Is the global downturn effecting your business?

I have noticed my regular clients are spending less than they would have over the same period last year, but thankfully I have also seen an increase in the amount of clients I have, where regular work is dropping of somewhat from regular clients, I’m finding new business elsewhere.

I would love to know your experiences in the graphic & web design industries, so please feel free to share.

Picturesque Review

Jonathan — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:34:11 +0000

Recently I got to try out an image editor that I have seen advertised quite a bit. It’s called Picturesque. Basically, it’s a really simple program that allows you to add reflections, shadows and adjust perspective giving your 2d images a 3d look & feel.

picturesque image

The images that it exports are really easy to work with by allowing you to save transparency, so you can easily drop your exported image into photoshop and your reflection & shadow will have the proper level of transparency.

Photoshop it isn’t, but it’s not trying to be. At $34.95 picturesque is a little pricey for what it is, but all the same it’s a great tool for bloggers and people who want to quickly manipulate their images for web use.

10 Beautiful Typefaces for Graphic Design

Jonathan — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:48:11 +0000

Good typography is an essential part of successful design. I have constructed this list for designers who may need some suggestions for purchasing typefaces. I believe that money is better spent acquiring a few quality, versatile fonts rather than a large package such as fontfolio by adobe. These are some of my favorites - I’ve mixed up the weights a bit, but I would generally use most of the family of each typeface. I hope you like these, and if you’ve any other favorites of yours, please mention them! Oh yeah, museo (the last on the list) is free!

Typeface Spotlight - Hoefler & Frere-Jones’ Archer

Jonathan — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 01:44:50 +0000

Archer

This is a relatively new, beautiful slab serif typeface from Hoefler & Frere-Jones. I haven’t had a chance to use it in any projects yet, but hopefully I will soon. I suggest you take a look at some of the fonts over at Hoefler & Frere-Jones as there are some fantastic typefaces these guys have released. My personal favourites besides Archer, are Gotham, Verlag and Requiem.

Logo Design Picks June & July

Jonathan — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:08:35 +0000

Here are a few lovely logotypes that have caught my eye over the last 2 months.

Global Hue

Global Hue are a marketing firm in New York. I Think the designer has done an excellent job pairing a hand drawn logomark with a complimentary typeface. It is a prime example of the importance of pen & paper in the design process.

I actually used a felt-tip marker, and then scanned it into Illustrator. From there, I just cleaned it up a bit and hours and hours later…I finally had it polished. It was hell. I almost hate this one because of the amount of work I had to put into it

David Brown

David Brown, unfortunately I’ve no more information on this, but I love the simplicity and use of negative space.

Pixelcraft - Branding, Graphic & Web Design

I’ll be upfront from the start! this is my business, recently rebranded and this is the logo design I’m planning to use. As always. any comments appreciated!