Graphic Design Resume

What can be said about the graphic design resume? Is it a big deal? It doesn't necessarily show your talent or creativity. This is where many people are getting burned. This is huge. It's the first impression an employer gets from you. But don't over do it....

The Layout (graphic design resume):

There are a few schools of thought when it comes to the graphic design resume and presentation. A few say go for broke (make it a work of art or funky), and others say to keep it conservative & clean. I think you can have both, but generally lean towards more conservative. That's not to say that the conservative one should lack any kind of flare. It just means you're not going to push an aggressive funky visual style on someone who isn't looking for it. You should be keeping it clean and simple. It shouldn't be hard to figure out what's going on for the sake of style or artistic interpretation.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule. Some magazines, newspapers & websites focus more on youthful in-your-face layout (like a skateboarding magazine), so they might want to see your creative flare. In the end, it's up to you to decide what kind of format and look to use. I've seen a few (not many) very unorthodox graphic design resumes get people design jobs. Just try not to lose the job right away by using a layout that is too wacky. Most entry level jobs in the graphic design field require a more conservative approach. Remember that you have a portfolio (graphic design resume) that can show this more artistic & crazy side.

No matter what approach you use, there are some design elements (at your graphic design resume) that should be strong. Considering that you will not be using many graphic elements, you will have to let the typography do a lot of the talking. Look to have strong alignment to create lines and order, contrasting typefaces to organize and separate text, and effective leading and spacing to give a good balance and feel. The body text should be clean and easy to read. Headers should be bold and contrasting from the body text. Save fancy/wavy type to your name, if you use fancy type at all. Remember that faxing might be done, so design around the idea that everything should look good even when getting spit out on the other end. It can be a good idea to have an extra layout designed strictly for faxing.

Keeping it to one page is a good idea, but not if you have to cram a load of information in tiny type just to fit it in. Remember that the graphic design resume should breathe, and have a strong sense of order and purpose. The employer shouldn't have to "work" to find the information they are looking for, or strain their eyes with tiny type or poor typeface selection. And please, keep the look consistent throughout.

Copyright © 2004 A Digital Dreamer.
source: http://www.bhi-design.com/articles/graphic-design-resume.htm

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Art and Propaganda

By Milton Glaser

On February 15, Milton Glaser gave the keynote address at “Where the Truth Lies: A Symposium on Propaganda Today,” sponsored by the School of Visual Arts. The following is his transcript.

Some years ago I was in Fez, Morocco, with my wife, Shirley. We had hired a guide and were being escorted through the Medina, the ancient part of the city that had 160,000 inhabitants and no telephones—although our guide assured us that he could reach anyone in the old city within two hours by word of mouth. We stopped momentarily to look into a courtyard through an open door where about 50 boys between the ages of 4 and 5 were seated on the ground, reading out loud.

“How long will these boys be at school?” I asked our guide.
“Generally, two years. After that, almost all of them will go to work.”
“What do they study?” I asked.
“The Koran.”
“Nothing else?”
“No.”

The memory of that scene and conversation has haunted me for over 25 years. These poor boys would never be able to question their own beliefs and could never understand how those beliefs had been systematically pounded into their brains. Every culture has its own way of indoctrinating its citizenry. In our culture, this indoctrination occurs through the use of advertising, television, schooling and the way news is reported. Because this indoctrination is so difficult to identify, it becomes essential to question all the beliefs we cherish most.

We live in an ocean of persuasion, most of it unrelenting and invisible. I once described making a low-calorie Greek salad for my wife and myself on a warm spring day in the country. After I chopped the tomatoes, onions, peppers and cucumber, I found a package of French feta cheese in the refrigerator, which I crumbled into the bowl. I glanced at the back of the package. It read: 70 calories per serving. Below that, in smaller type, it read: number of servings per package–7. I had just added 500 calories to our modest lunch.

How does a tablespoon of feta become a serving? Everyone here today knows exactly how this happens. It’s so trivial, so banal it hardly seems worth mentioning. Of course, I should have paid attention and read the label before I dumped the feta into the salad. Multiply this trivial event a million times and you begin to understand today’s constant and relentless subversion of what is real.

As someone involved in the communication business, I often find myself confused by whether I am an agent of propaganda. The most obvious examples of my own interest in persuasion are a series of buttons I’ve created for The Nation—the magazine, not the country.

A while ago, I was looking for a definition of art’s purpose. I came across one that I liked; in fact, I liked it so much that I used it for the title of a film that was made about my work. It’s from Horace, the Roman philosopher and critic, who wrote, “The purpose of art is to inform and delight.” I’ve been thinking about the purpose of art all my life, and Horace helped me to arrive at an understanding. Art is a survival mechanism for the human species. Otherwise, it never would have lasted so long.

But how does it work? How does it affect us? Primarily, it makes us attentive to the reality of our own life. The first cave paintings made its viewers attentive to the spirit and character of the animals their lives depended on. Sixteen thousand years later, Guernica made us conscious of how cruel the death of the innocent could be. Picasso and Cezanne help us understand that things can be looked at from several points of view at the same time. When we pass a landscape and think of how much it resembles a Cezanne painting, we become aware that Cezanne has made us attentive to how we see a landscape. Picasso and Seurat anticipated and illuminated the science of the 19th century, demonstrating that a landscape is an accumulation of color fragments and spaces. Art may be the only truth we can ever know.

The experience of art can be considered a form of meditation. By suppressing the debris of everyday life and the illusion that desire creates, meditation enables us to observe without judging. In this way, what is real to us becomes visible.

Recollecting Horace’s description of art’s purpose, he said “to inform and delight,” not “to persuade and delight.” Informing us makes us stronger. Persuading us robs us of our ability to observe things for ourselves. Propaganda cannot be described without its link to persuasion.

Propaganda is not necessarily a lie, but it affects our neurological system and brain in the same way. It undermines our ability to understand our own reality. It makes us more infantile and dependent. It substitutes an alien authority for our own perception.
Not all belief is culturally manufactured. A large part of what we believe seems to come from a universal moral code that is genetically programmed in every human being. They are:
Doing no harm to others
Fairness
Loyalty and shared solidarity with your group
Respect for authority
Fear of contamination or the celebration of purity

Every society and political system emphasizes the parts of this moral construct to serve its own needs. My moral indignation and anti-administration activity may, in fact, derive more from fear of authority than any other motivation. Those on the right don’t have trouble with authority but are driven up the wall by such issues as same-sex marriage, which is a contamination issue. On the other hand, my parents, who were anything but right-wingers, were horrified when I told them I had eaten a clam.

Propaganda not only inhibits our sense of reality, it frequently causes us to act against our own interests. It does this by affecting the primitive parts of the brain that are unaffected by logic or consciousness but respond to images and symbols.

The short recent history of the Bush administration has demonstrated this principle. By using fear and endless repetition, the government has subverted our mythology and character and it has processed the American people into accepting a dramatic erosion of our civil rights and, perhaps most appallingly, to approve of torture. Sadly, the phenomenon is scarcely unique. In fact, it may be the inevitable narrative of human civilization. The intersection of fear and persuasion has created the world as we know it.

The mind’s ability to alter itself is the source of human freedom. Information expands the capacity of the mind to change. Persuasion limits that capacity. Beliefs must be held lightly, because certainty is frequently the enemy of truth. Or, put another way, to free ourselves from the insidious grip of propaganda, we can follow the example of the scientist and psychologist William James, who was said to have loved questions more than answers.

Source: http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/art-and-propaganda

About the Author: Milton Glaser is among the most celebrated graphic designers in the United States. He has had the distinction of one-man-shows at the Museum of Modern Art and the Georges Pompidou Center. In 2004 he was selected for the lifetime achievement award by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. As a Fulbright scholar, Glaser studied with the painter Giorgio Morandi in Bologna. Today, he is a spokesman for ethical practice in design. He opened Milton Glaser, Inc., in 1974, and continues to produce work in many fields of design.

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Belajar Desain Grafis (?)

Bagaimana memulai belajar Desain Grafis? Memang itu sebuah pertanyaan yang sangat mendasar bagi seorang desiner pemula.

Definisi Desain Grafis adalah salah satu bentuk seni lukis (gambar) terapan yang memberikan kebebasan kepada sang desainer (perancang) untuk memilih, menciptakan, atau mengatur elemen rupa seperti ilustrasi, foto, tulisan, dan garis di atas suatu permukaan dengan tujuan untuk diproduksi dan dikomunikasikan sebagai sebuah pesan. Gambar maupun tanda yang digunakan bisa berupa tipografi atau media lainnya seperti gambar atau fotografi.Desain grafis umumnya diterapkan dalam dunia periklanan, packaging, perfilman, dan lain-lain.

Beberapa tokoh menyatakan pendapatnya tentang desain grafis yang saya ambil dari situs http://id.wikipedia.org

Menurut Suyanto desain grafis didefinisikan sebagai ” aplikasi dari keterampilan seni dan komunikasi untuk kebutuhan bisnis dan industri“. Aplikasi-aplikasi ini dapat meliputi periklanan dan penjualan produk, menciptakan identitas visual untuk institusi, produk dan perusahaan, dan lingkungan grafis, desain informasi, dan secara visual menyempurnakan pesan dalam publikasi.

Sedangkan Jessica Helfand dalam situs http://www.aiga.com mendefinisikan desain grafis sebagai kombinasi kompleks kata-kata dan gambar, angka-angka dan grafik, foto-foto dan ilustrasi yang membutuhkan pemikiran khusus dari seorang individu yang bisa menggabungkan elemen-eleman ini, sehingga mereka dapat menghasilkan sesuatu yang khusus, sangat berguna, mengejutkan atau subversif atau sesuatu yang mudah diingat.

disadur dari : www.pdii.lipi.go.id

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Panduan Praktis Menguasai AdobePhotoshop CS3

Desain Grafis
ISBN 978-979-29-0284-8
By Wahana Komputer
16x23cm, 362pages
1st Published, 2007
Price: Rp. 46.000

Adobe Photoshop CS3 merupakan software gambar yang sanga tpopuler dan kecanggihannya sudah diakui. Kelengkapan fasilitas dan kemampuannya yang luar biasa dalam mengolah dan memanipulasi gambar membuat banyak desainer grafis menggunakannya. Keberadaannya benar-benar mampu membantu dan memudahkan pemakai dalam menyelesaikan berbagai jenis pekerjaan digital maupun digital imaging.

Buku panduan ini mengupas tuntas fasilitas yang dimiliki Adobe Photoshop CS3. Dalam setiap pokok bahasan, penulis berusaha mengulas berbagai fasilitas yang hanya dapat dijumpai pada Adobe Photoshop CS3. Kemudian buku ini membahas pula fungsi-fungsi untuk keperluan manipulasi gambar.

Lebih lanjut buku ini menyajikan beberapa contoh aplikasi yang dapat digunakan sebagai bahan latihan agar pembaca lebih mudah memahami isi setiap pokok bahasannya. Dengan demikian, buku ini sangat cocok dipakai dan dimiliki sebagai buku panduan belajar Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Pokok bahasan meliputi:
Fasilitas dan fitur terbaru Adobe Photoshop CS3
Adobe Bridge
Menyiapkan lembar kerja
Mengolah warna dan layer
Menggunakan Seleksi
Membuat dan mengolah obyek Shape dan Path
Menggunakan filter
Membuat dan mengolah animasi
Mengoreksi kesalahan
Membuat dan merekam action
Mencetak dan mengolah gambar

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