Design tip bits

So I haven't been active for a while on my blog, that's because I have been keeping a dutch one for my work. Which I suppose I could easily translate and copy to here, uhmm… bad excuse, however that sounds better then I don't have time because we got a puppy, which is the truth. Boy, puppies need a lot of time, but she is worth it. Well here's the tip. When you use the rounded rectangle tool by dragging, the corner radius used is the last value entered in the rounded rectangle panel's corner radius field. The size you determine by dragging, hold down the Space bar to change the position and hold down the Alt key to draw from the centre. Here's how you can alter the corner radius while dragging. 1. Select the rounded rectangle tool and drag a rectangle. Do not release the mouse. 2. Use the up arrow to increase the corner radius. use the down arrow to decrease the radius. The left arrow makes it a rectangle and the left arrow gives you the maximum corner radius. ...

This tip is only for CS4 users. (IMHO it's worth getting if you don't have it yet ) Say you've made an illustration on an A4 sized artboard, but your illustration is a lot smaller and you want to get rid of the excess white paper. That can easily be solved. In the example below the black stroke is the A4 paper. 1. Draw a rectangle on top of the illustration. This will be your new page size. Make sure the rectangle is selected. 2. Select the Artboard Tool (shift o) to select the A4 artboard. 3. Double click on the rectangle. The rectangle now becomes the new page size. 4. Select the rectangle with the direct selection tool and delete it. You now have an artboard (page) the same size as the rectangle. And because it is fun friday check out this site Logolounge . Actually this is serious stuff for designers.

Live paint is an function in Illustrator which in my opinion doesn't get enough attention and it is a powerful tool. Pathfinders cut the shapes into separate shapes whereas live paint leaves the objects editable it's non destructive. Here's a simple example of a simple info graphic illustration made with live paint showing the average beer consumption. 1. I drew a typical dutch beer glass. 2. With the pen tool i drew a line marking the top of the beer (beer line). 3. Select the glass and 'beer line', select the live Paint tool in the toolbox and click to make a live paint group. You can also go to Object> Live Paint> Make. 4. The separate parts of the illustration will now have a thick red border when hovering above them to show you the live paint sections. When selected the anchor points with the crosshairs shows you that it is a 'Live Paint Group' 5. Select a yellow swatch, select the Live paint tool and click in the lower part of the glass. 6. Selec...

Ik geef direct toe dat mijn Nederlands ook niet is wat het zou moeten zijn. De tussen-n dacht ik eindelijk onder de knie te hebben totdat men weer een paar uitzonderingen uit de hoge hoed toverde. Daarom maak ik begrijp van allerlei websites en naslagwerken. De taalunie heeft haar eigen website. Hier vind je informatie over aanhalingstekens, haakjes en comma's. Klik op deze link . Eén van mijn favoriete sites is de website van Onze Taal. Deze site gaat vooral over het taalgebruik binnen onze maatschappij. Dus ook over sms-en, voetbaltaal, etc. Klik op deze link. Een boek dat ik vaak uit de kast haal is 'Redactiewijzer' van P.J. van der Horst. Erg handig voor grafici en ontwerpers. Hierin vind je antwoorden op vragen als; hoe zet ik een opsomming, telefoonnummer en postcode? Klik op deze link. •

Via John Nacks blog I was shown a very useful panel for Photoshop CS4. If you install this panel then a Colour Picker panel will be added to Photoshop. This makes it easier and quicker to select colours. To download the panel click on this link to Anastasiy Safari. You need to extract the zip file. Place the whole folder in Applications> Adobe Photoshop CS4> Plug-Ins>Panels Folder. Restart Photoshop. Open the panel via Window> Extensions Because it is a CS4 panel it can be displayed in several ways. For example a simple button. Now that we are talking about the colour picker. Of course you all know that not all colours seen on screen are printable. To show the un-printable colours directly in the colour Picker go to the View menu> gamut Warning. The colour picker will grey out the un- printable colours. If you go to Image> Mode> 32 bit the colour picker will look completely different. InDesign and Illustrator contain a Colour picker dialogue box. Double click on ...

This tip ia about alphabetizing a list in InDesign. InDesign does not have a sort function, so if you need a list in alphabetical order it can be a problem, especially if it is really long. Here's a quick trick to make a list that can be updated at any time. 1. Make a list in InDesign 2. Define a paragraph style and apply it to the list. 3. Go to the menu Layout > table of Contents By default a title will be entered in the title field. Remove this and leave it blank. 4. In the Other styles (right field) select the style and click add. 5. In Entry style choose a paragraph style. This style will be applied to the list. For page number select No Page Number. 6. Click on the 'More Options' button and check the button 'Sort Entries in Alphabetical Order. 7. Click on OK and place the list. Always keep your original list. If you need to add enteries do this in the original list. Select the table of Contents and go to Layout> Update Table of Contents and the TOC will auto...

Ever heard of the Rorschach inkblot test? Good news you can draw them yourself in Illustrator. Who knows you may find out more about your inner self. It works as follows 1. Draw an object and select it. 2. Go to Effect> Distort and Transform> Transform. 3. Enter the following values and check the Reflect Y. Make sure the reference point is below and centre and set copies to 1. Click OK. A copy of your image will be placed. 4. Select the object. 5. Go to Window> Graphic Styles and click on the new graphic style icon to add the style. Now you can apply this Graphic Styles to any object. 6. You can also apply the style to a layer. Make a new layer. target this layer by clicking on the button. Then click on the graphic style. The style will now be applied to everything you draw.