Graphic design seems easy to get into, but it takes a lifetime to get REALLY good at it.

But what if just a FEW TIPS could make you look like a PRO and take your graphic design game to a new level?

Join The Angry Designers they share game changing tips to advance newbie designers by years.  In this episode, the gents break down tips in 4 categories from:

• Design
• Layout
• Color
• Typography

Whether you’re a total beginner or you’re in the early years of your career as a designer, these universal list is what separates the Jrs from the Pros!

Angry Designer

[00:00:00] Well, I guess the person who was typing it wrote in Dick. Oh, okay. Hard Dick. Because they're talking about pricks the whole time. Oh. And they thought, oh, it's like, it's clever. It's good. Well then nobody caught it because they're looking at Dick, but they're in their mind reading prick and it went Torick and it went to the medical magazine.

Nobody likes a hard Peck. Nobody likes a hard nor Dick go.

You're listening to the angry designer where we cut through the industry, bold to help frustrated graphic designers survive. Thrive. Right here we are again, here we are again again on a Wednesday. Yes. After a actually I had an okay. Date today. Good. I, it wasn't. Oh, wait, first off. Cheers. No. Yeah. Cheers.

Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. [00:01:00] Hmm. There's our moment of silence. how the moment of silence. Oh, damn. That tastes good. And we're mixed tonight, right? I'm drinking. I'm going with the Jameson. Yep. Yeah. Oh, no. Sorry. Yeah. Glen Finnick Glen FITT and I'm actually got the, uh, was it maker's Mar maker Mar, but it was like their special cast or something.

Right. Which was really good. It is really good. Was torn, but I am a bourbon guy and you are definitely a scotch guy, so that's okay. Yeah. That's okay. I think I can appreciate that, but I like bourbon. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you're coming around to scotch. I am definitely coming. I'm digging it. I'm it's just then my mood changes and I get conservative and snobby.

I develop an English accent. What happens there? I don't even know that happens. I don't even know how to speak in an English accent. And when I have scotch, I all of a sudden try all, like all of a sudden you're fluent in English. I . Oh yeah, yeah, no, it was a good day. I mean, I had, I can't speak you. I, we did, uh, information architecture presentation today for a client and it went [00:02:00] very well.

These like brilliant, brilliant, brilliant guys. And, um, you know, like a huge tech company, like some of the smartest people, one of our customers. Yeah. It is. It is S B well, cuz I mean again, it's like, but you know, the cool thing is they, they respect that, you know? Uh, I guess they respect the skillset, right?

Well, I was just gonna say, cause what you have exactly and what they have very different, very different, but some of them see, some of them have this whole God complex where they feel they can do everything. Exactly. These guys are brilliant. Yeah. But they completely know where their brilliant stops and where they need this side.

Exactly. So it's amazing. Like it's, there's just, there's nothing. And I don't wanna say it's, it's maybe humbling is the word it's flattering when it's like, no, no, you know, we, we can build these in, you know, incredible, you know, SAS platforms and, you know, we work with companies like apple and Google, but we know that, you know, you know how to speak human and you that's like really cool.

That's awesome. Yeah. That's pretty good. That's the expertise. That's like, they, they respect the expertise and it's just like customers like that. You keep forever. That's exactly it. Those are, are [00:03:00] strive. Those are the good ones. Yeah. Right. Smart enough. To know, to let, to get out of the way of the creative process.

AB yeah. Right. It's but I mean, when you start, you have no idea. Right. You have no idea what, what you're in for you have, um, you know, like you take every customer, you don't care if they're like walking all over you. If they're stepping all over you, right. Like there's so much how different it is from now after doing this for 20 years versus one, I started, right.

Like everything from just accepting every job that came in to, you know, being a generalist, to seeing to everything and, and learning along. I mean, that's cool. I think that that still exists a little bit, but, you know, but the reality is you put up with so much shit back then. Yeah. And it's not fair.

Exactly. But did you hate it in the beginning? No. I always loved it. You did? Although I hated some of the people, some of the people. Yeah. And, and you kind of had to suck things up, you know, it's not the greatest thing in the world, but you had the, you had the end goal. I did. And you knew you were gonna end up here.

At this, at this kind of spot, you know, it's funny, clear as day I knew [00:04:00] it was gonna, I knew it was gonna be the agency. I, I knew, you know, I didn't know what that agency looked like. Mm-hmm other than being kind of that whole vibe that we got going, I think that was the only thing is the vibe. Yeah. I knew, but you know, as, as we, you know, but you didn't foresee yourself in the tech field or no, cuz that was something that was something more recent, right?

Like we, it as a very niche company mm-hmm then we, we went to being a generalist cuz we thought that's what you had to be and right. And I mean it's not wrong to be a generalist in a niche and that's, that's what we ended up doing in the end. Yeah. Right. Our mistake was we started in a niche market mm-hmm um, and we were doing everything for a niche market then we're like, no, no, no we've gotta be a generalist and we've gotta do everything for everybody because it's a huge market.

Right. Well the reality is it's too big of market. Yes. Right. And you it's it's a lot. Yeah. It's like you have no idea who to go after. It's like shit. If, if you're in everything to everybody, then really, as soon as you walk out your door, you should walk up to the very first business. Yeah. And be like, Hey.

I can do something for you if that's genuinely how you feel. Mm-hmm , it's just, it's too big of a pool. Yes. So then over the years we learned how to do a [00:05:00] million and a half things. And then, um, the nice thing is then, then we, we became generalists in the sense of, we had such a broad spectrum of services, scope.

We've touched everything from print to trade shows to digital, right? Like branding, like just, it just is huge. Yeah. But then it was just too big. Yeah. Too much. It was too much. And it was tiring. Yeah. And the reality is then we made a conscious decision, you know, to go back to the B2B space, but not just a B2B space, but the tech tech B2B space.

Yes. Because we knew how things were built. Right. We liked how things were built and we were in a tech town. Right. Mm-hmm so it was just time. Yeah. I know it was like, do it because Tech's not going anywhere. Exactly. So in the end, we, we are, um, a tech specialist mm-hmm right. And our specialty is tech companies, um, you know, broadband IOT, you know, primarily, but then we also got, you know, some AI, some SaaS products, but, um, so we are specialty in our niche industry.

Mm-hmm . but we offer them a whole 20 years worth of experience. Yeah. So we can offer 'em a ton of shit in a very niche space. Right. And [00:06:00] that's a huge leg over the competition cuz a lot of the com the newer companies. Yeah. They don't have experience in some of the older sense exactly. You know, print something, a little foreign, you know, trade shows or something for 'em we're like, yo, you know what we've we can offer you end to end mm-hmm but we know your space.

Yeah. So in the end, I mean the whole reason we did that was to eliminate the competition. Yeah. We didn't, I didn't wanna have to compete with anybody's like, how am I gonna do that? Yeah. I'm gonna stop being a, generalist's gonna be a specialist. Yeah. Own that space. Yeah. Um, and then who's left to compete against us.

Right. Like other generalist companies. Yeah. yeah, no, Yeah, we do a bit of pre yeah. Oh, you know what? I know tech, I use Google. I use Google I have a computer. I have a computer I'm on a Mac. No, you don't. No, you don't know. You don't know tech tech anyway, needless to say it was, it was a good experience today to say like, but, uh, yeah.

Well, that's good. I think so's good. Yeah. Yeah. So before we get too far though, down this road, First thing, announce first [00:07:00] is there. We have an announcement. All of this. We have our first, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, here we go. I'm we have our first winner of the AirPods amazing response. And again, you know, we still have two more months of this, so, you know, we're still going strong.

Um, you know, we were running a contest every month. Anybody who, you know, drops this a review on either apple or on Spotify, or even on Google for that matter. If they offer, if they offer, um, reviews, you know, drop us a line, then. On our Instagram, let us know that you did and who you are. Mm-hmm and then you'll automatically be entered in a contest for that month for a pair of apple AirPods.

Nice. So for February, which is when we started, you know, we've had about 20 submissions, which is incredible. That's great. Great. And the shit people are saying is awesome. Yes. And I mean, and again, they're not all five stars. Yeah. Some of the 'em or four and a half 'em or four, some are three. And, but the reality is that's fine.

I don't care. I just asked it to be real. Yeah. But, but the, the thing is, it's just really cool. We're reaching people. Yes. For the right reasons. Yeah. It's not like, [00:08:00] oh, these guys are the end all and you know, I'm learning so much. And you know, granted, yes. People are saying they're learning stuff, but it's like, it's real, yeah's real talk.

We're ranting about shit that people feel and hear about. And that's kind of what we are. We're we say that we're here to help graphic designers survive and thrive those times. That's right. Right. If you ever met us. In real life we would be exactly. We, we don't, we're not any different. No, no, no, not at all.

Right. This is it. This as real as it gets, we're the people you want to go have the beer with, have a hangout, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, the winner, our very first official winner comes all the way from Scotland, man. Yeah. I can't do that accent. You can try again. I'm not even gonna try Scottish.

Scottish is not. Scottish is crap. He's an illustrator. His name is Dan Sorano. Uh, the dude, I know maybe you got a little bit of Italian. He's just gonna kind, or maybe just the way he said it. I dunno, but could be yeah, could be. But uh, no, I mean, great. Um, great report, dude dropped his couple lines. He also follow it up, you know, [00:09:00] hit up some comments and some of our posts on Instagram and yeah, I am proud to say that this is officially our very first winner.

That's awesome. It's kind of cool. Have a, can we have a drink to dance around? No, let's let's cheers to Dan. Cheers. Dan did Dan. Oh, yeah. Way to go. All right, buddy. So, um, because you're way over in Scotland, I think I'm just gonna be, um, just actually buying 'em across season, sending 'em to over there. Oh yeah.

Versus sending it from over here. It's probably a lot easier, right? Yeah. Cool. But anyway, the rest of you, you've got two more months to go. You still have two months. You've got the rest of March and you've got April. Yeah. Drop us a line, hit us up on the view and, uh, get entered into that contest. Cuz again, your chances are great.

Yeah, totally. Really. It's not like one in a thousand or one in 5,000. Exactly. We're only talking a handful. Right. And 20 people win as far and they did this and fantastic. So thank you all. Yes, this is great. Congratulations, Dan. Woohoo. Yeah. All right. So now moving back to our story. Okay. So a lot of the shit, um, literally, um, it's taken 20, 22 years to learn this stuff.

And I always say [00:10:00] that, you know, I wish I wish more than anything when I started, you know, you had this kind of stuff, you had information like the internet, like we have now with all this readily available information. Yep. You had people willing. To give, you know, kind of like our mission is to help everybody, whether they're experienced designers or even new designers.

Yes, no, we have a lot of newbies as well. Right. Mm-hmm and again, the nice thing is we are providing them information, helping 'em get inspired, helping 'em kind of get, and that's, it's cool. That's really cool. Right. And it's cool that they're finding tips and valuable and that's kind of where tonight's topic kind of came from.

Right. It's almost like a, if I knew this then type of scenario, right. But the reality is it's, it's just like over the past. I, I was just talking to somebody today seeing that, you know, over the past. Okay. 22 years. But we'll just say for the past 20 years, I feel my first 15 were just trial and error, trial and error.

Just learning, learning, like literally, because I had to make a lot of mistakes. Yeah. Right. In order to get to, and then, you know, you finally start getting it all feels like it finally comes together. Yeah. To me, it was about between the 13 and the [00:11:00] 15 year mark, but I wish I had people, you know, helping me along the way and giving the kind of advice that, you know, we're throwing out right now and people can find everyone in the internet.

So tonight's topic of course, is to provide some game changing tips for new graphic designers. Right. For newies for big beginners people just getting into the space. Yeah. Now it doesn't mean that anybody who, who knows us and, and who's been doing this for a little while, who's gonna be like, ah, not for me.

Click. Yeah. Don't no, no. Don't stick around, stick around. Don't switch over to something else. Um, you know, there's always stuff to learn. There's always stuff to remind yourself to remember and be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. You know, like really that's, that's, that's what this is all about. Totally.

I'd love to also get tips back from everybody on Instagram. See if anything we messed up or anything we missed. Yeah. Because we do wanna follow up with this in, in a few weeks on, uh, I guess, soft skills we talked about as well. Right. Cause we did get, we, we pooled everybody a giant list and, and there was a lot of, of the soft skills and even my kind yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was starting [00:12:00] that's where I was coming from. Like things that are, you know, you like, you can learn the tactile skills. Yeah. Which is what we're gonna talk about, which, which is what we're gonna talk about. But we will come around and do the kind of soft skills of exactly that you need to do this right.

Yes, and absolutely, and still geared towards beginners. Right. But I mean, you know, the one thing for sure is graphic design is, is one of those things that, especially now more than ever, it's easy to get into. Yeah. Right. It's really easy to get, but it takes a lifetime to actually get good at mm-hmm. right.

There's so much to learn with our principles and just the experience and everything. Just kind of adding on top, how to manage time, how to, how to manage clients and stuff. Mm-hmm it takes a lifetime to learn this shit. It totally does. I'm still learning it. yes, you are. Sean. Kidding. I'm kidding rock, but you know, it's, I think the problem in a lot is you start having these platforms like Canva that come out.

Right. Which make basically it makes anybody think that they're a graphic designer and I mean, no disrespect to anybody who's working on Canva, [00:13:00] who's listening to a show, but the reality is, I mean, Canva's more like a visual editor, you kind of piece stuff together. You're not learning any sort of graphic design skills.

Right. And you're kind of churning out this while it might be better quality than, you know, using comic sands in a word doc, you know, to create a flyer. The reality is it's not designed led it's not strategically led you're, you're just kind of cranking out just like templated stuff over and over and over again.

Yeah. And, um, you know, it does cheap in the space. Yeah. It's kinda like, I like it. I, I compare it to that good food thing. the good food. Wow. You get, you get. Food in a box. Oh, right. It's kind of like food, like, like the food is great, but you didn't come up with it. It's not creative. You're not becoming a better cook.

You're not gonna be a better by getting everything exactly. Right. So true. Right. So that's kind of what it is. Like, just because you made this salmon, risotto, whatever that comes to you, freight portioned with the right salts to use the right amount of this, the temperature everything's all there. Yeah. I mean, that's that doesn't [00:14:00] make you a better cook this, oh God Canva.

Doesn't make you a better designer. It's oh, geez. Totally NAS everything up all time. I sorry to tell you. So speaking of it, Better cooks. So, okay. My mom was like the best cook in the world. She was a gifted, gifted, gifted, unlike anything. Right. Italian mom, come on, man. And she, this is her gift. This was her creative skill.

Yeah. And I remember dating this girl, you know, and I was like 21, 22 years old. I was really young. Right. And she was like, you know, she was just all like, oh, you know, well, your mom's not just, you know, the best cook anybody can cook. And I'm like, I don't think anybody can cook. Right. And she's like, well, I can cook.

I know I can cook. And, and, and, you know, and, and just, this happened more than once. And she's like, you know what? I'm gonna cook you. I'm gonna cook you dinner. Well, you know, I was just like, oh, dude, first off, why didn't dumper for even saying anything about my mom. My mom sh that shouldn't even come out of her damn mouth.

Yeah. Okay. But she was hot. I was young. you? Excuse a lot of things. Now it comes out. Okay. So, so [00:15:00] here it comes Saturday night, she's gonna cook dinner for me. Right. So it's like, okay. She's like, yeah. We're when are we gonna eat? You know, she's like, oh yeah, we're gonna eat six. O'clock. Right. I'm like, okay, cool, cool.

I show up at like four 30 wine in hand. Right. And I'm like, all right. Have you started cooking? She's like, no, no, not yet. Not yet. Not let's have some wine. It's like, okay. Right. Five o'clock comes around. Right. uh, are you gonna start? No, no, no, no. We're we still got time. What the fuck is this? Right? Cause I know my mom, she would a pair for hours ahead this, so sure enough it's five.

30. I'm like, what am I in for here? She's like, okay, it's time to cook. I I'm gonna go start cooking now. Yeah. She goes in the freezer, she grabs some frozen pees. She goes in the grabs, some frozen corn. She, she needed to, instead of like buying the, the dough for the bread, she bought this pre stuff that she just had to bake already done.

Everything was pre-made. I was, and in the end it was just, yeah, she's right. It only took 15 minutes cuz you're literally microwaving and heating [00:16:00] every fucking thing. And this kind of feels like this whole can game. Yes, I totally, because she put it on the plate. Yeah. And it looked good. Yeah. But as soon as I tasted it, it came out of my needed this to say, I didn't get any that night.

And after that, I think that was pretty much the end of that relationship because honestly, I couldn't, I couldn't swallow that food, but this is the same thing as whole can crap. Right? Yeah, totally, totally. Cause it was all, it's all thin surface level thin. Right. And nobody's learning from this shit mm-hmm right.

Absolutely. You can't learn from it there's this, you can't, it can't take away the years it takes to actually work fine or skin else. Totally. Right. Totally. So, um, you know, unfortunately, while we can't help anybody with their can game, true. Good. No help there. What we can do is at least give you some of the high level tips that can, at the very least, if you are a new designer using, you know, a platform, hopefully it's Adobe, but if it's not Adobe, there's a lot of other awesome, you know, platforms out there that are more cost effective.

Yeah. [00:17:00] That, you know, will amp up your design skills. Mm-hmm is kind of the way we're looking at this, right? Yes. So these are tips, quicks, that'll just immediate elevate your game. Yeah. You know, simply easy things to just watch out for that. All of a sudden will make you change you from looking like a newbie yeah.

To somebody who's actually got their shit together and has already been in the space for 3, 4, 5 years. Exactly. Does that sound right? Yeah. That sounds great. Or at the very least pumps you up to a level. I. At a faster pace. Right. Right. You know what I mean? Keep these things in mind, moving forward. Right?

Exactly. Like these are legitimate tips that we use on a daily basis. Yes. But early on, if you can start using this, it's a game changer in a lot of ways, right? Yeah. Cause we didn't have YouTube back in the old days, we really didn't for this kind of stuff. So, so we've gotta broken down into obviously design skills.

Right. We've got layout. We've got, and then of course we finish off with everybody's favorites. Big tea. Yeah. The big tea all right. But first off, let's start off with the big D the big D . That didn't sound right. How about we just start off with design, just design. [00:18:00] All right. Damn. I'm still thinking of 21 year old MOS.

You back to that frozen peas and corn in the bread.

I wonder what she's doing.

Still a terrible cook. Oh shit. that's amazing. Okay. That's right. Design. So design skills, overall design skills, first and foremost, right? Yep. When you're coming out with a layout, when you're coming up with a design, when you're coming out with the concept first and foremost, keep it simple. Yeah. That's a good one.

Right. And what we mean seriously is don't try to do too much. Mm-hmm in a composition. Yeah. If it's, if it's a social media post, right. Single purpose. Yeah. If it's a brochure, if it's a flyer sell sheet, you know, single idea, right. Menu, right. Have a single theme, like seriously, keep this shit simple and literally have it follow a single.

And I think that's a big problem because especially early on cuz you know, you're listening to the customer. And the customer wants you to do this [00:19:00] and do that. Make sure you add this in there. Make sure you, the problem is you end up jamming so much stuff out, right? People can't remember that shit.

Exactly. Right. It ends up just cluttering. It it's like we read about, and this, I don't know this pertains to it, but the, the icon trying to do too many things, right? Like dude, like single purpose, you don't want an icon. That's trying to say five, five things, right? Absolutely. It's not gonna work. Right. So when coming up with your crap, literally like.

You know, give it a reason, give it a purpose and stick to it. Plain and simple. Yes. Right? Yeah. Easy enough. Beautiful. Uh, number two for design. Keep it minimal. Mm. Okay. Now there is a difference, right? There is a difference. More minimal. Yes. Right. Minimal is simple, but simple. Isn't necessarily minimal.

Right? That's pretty deep. I like that. That's good. But I mean the whole idea here about keeping it minimal and what we're talking about is make sure the elements that are there actually serve a function. Right. They're not just there to be some sort of gratuitous design element that doesn't add to the design.

Right. This is what I find that comes [00:20:00] with experience. You know, new designers tend to just kind of keep adding things. Oh, let's add some flourish is here. Let's add three lines there. Let's add a spot of color here. And it's just like, They're just adding all these elements onto, onto something, you know, a piece, a design piece of composition, a website, whatever it is.

Yeah. And it's just, it's not serving any purpose other than just like fluff. Yes, exactly. It drives me nuts actually. Yeah. Yeah. It it's really, it's really bad. I remember when I was in school, I did a project sort of trained thing. Yeah. And I had look at those old timey trains with cow catcher. Yeah. I do.

Like it's, it's really heavy, detailed, right. Mm-hmm and I don't know what I was thinking, but I had three trains on the cover page. Geez. Right. And, and my teacher was like, this, this is literally a train wreck. Like this is, this is terrible. Pulled it back. Yep. And you know, like a, a further view of the train.

And it looked much better. absolutely right. But that was my inclination. My, my first kind of thought was to jam it with all these trains. yeah. It's like why [00:21:00] we, we have some, some younger designers here and I mean, they're, they're amazing. They're credible, but I mean, you know, when they would first start, it's like, you'd see like, oh, let's, let's just add a line here.

Yeah. A colored line. Yeah. It looks good. Mm-hmm and that's it just because it looks like it's just noise. It's visual noise. It, you know, it's, it's visual pollution. It's visual it's pollution. Keep it clean, pull it back and just add, you know, the, the right amount of ails to keep it minimal. Yes. Right. I think that's kind of like, right.

So it's not, it's not like you're, you're, you're making it empty and spar, so, or whatever you just, if it's not really needed, don't add that shit. It doesn't. Yeah. It doesn't work. Yes, absolutely. So that was number two. Keep it minimal. Yeah. Number three. This one is a big topic for us. Don't chase trends. Oh God.

right now, again, it's not saying that you can't follow trends, but the problem is if you're constantly chasing trends. Yeah. After another, after another, you're never actually gonna develop as a designer. This is true. You're just gonna follow all whatever's hot and trendy right now. [00:22:00] Exactly. And that's not, not gonna make you a better or anything.

No. Right? Like that's what people don't understand. Always always, always use solid design principles where you can first and foremost and just use trends to enhance the composition. Oh, right. Yes. Right. Again, sometimes people have no idea why they're doing the shit they're doing. Yeah. Which other than the fact that it's trendy, but again, after 5, 6, 7 years, like you said, you don't have your own design style.

Yeah. You're just, you're just eight. You just copy everything else. You're copying everything. It's like you sell the design principles and all your, all your compositions. Right. And then use trends to enhance the composition. Right? Yeah. So always following the rate hierarchy and white space and balance, everything that we always talk about and that you, you know, you're reading good designers, you know, profess year after year after year.

Right. Just, just fluff it up with the trends. Right. Exactly. Exactly. They're just trends and that's the thing is we've done podcasts on this before and it's like, how long do these trends last? Right. Not even a year, some of them. Right, absolutely. You're gonna be flip flop and quite a bit. How tiring would that be?

He's ly. [00:23:00] Jesus. That's so stupid. It's like every day you're gonna be visiting, like, you know, like be hands and this and trying to keep up with the trends every day and then learn it only to kick it out and try it again. And again, dude, that would drive me nuts. I know that would make me mental instead of using the classics.

God. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right. So don't chase trends. Um, and this went to round design is, um, uh, is something different that I always tell everybody here, cuz they always have the habit of doing yes, right? Yes. So when you create different concepts, mm-hmm, . Create different concepts. Yes. Don't just tweak yeah.

An existing concept. Yeah. Okay. And what I mean by this is sometimes we'll have somebody create one ad mm-hmm and in this ad they'll use, um, an icon on there. Right? Okay. Yeah. Create an ad. They put an icon. Then they show me add number two. Mm-hmm different layout, but they also throw the same icon. okay.

Then they create number three. Yeah. And Hey, guess what? Same icon, different color. I always go back to telling people the same thing. If [00:24:00] you're, if you're creating two, three concepts mm-hmm and you show a customer two, three concepts. Yeah. If you have a repeated visual will element in all three of those.

Yeah. It works against you because if the customer doesn't like that design element in concept, number one. Yeah. Well, they're not gonna like it in number two in number three, they're gonna be upset by it. they're gonna be like, wow. Oh, there it is again. Yeah, you really? Oh, shit. That I, I remember I told you in that first concept, you showed me five minutes ago.

I didn't like it. I still don't like it. Yes. You don't get that right. If, if they all look the same and they carry over some of the same elements, I mean, you're basically dead before you actually even hit. I don't hit the wa I. I don't even know what analogy I'm saying there. No, I know. I know. Yeah, you're done for, yeah.

Honestly, if you have the opportunity, create something three different variations. If you know, concept number one has an icon concept. Number two can have a photo concept. Number three could maybe be a hybrid that uses, you know, part illustration, part 3d, whatever. Yeah. Show three different variations of something.

Try not to reuse those elements across. Yes. Because again, it's gonna [00:25:00] work against your favor. It is. They're not gonna like the one, and this has happened many times. Yeah. Customers will be like, no, I don't like 'em. And then, and then you're back to the drawing board. Right. Which is even worse. You spend all this time on, on three concepts and yes.

Now one of them is even right. Is even valid. You know what I mean? Absolutely. Now I, I would point out I could in, I did this in college. Yeah. If, if there was a certain thing, I, we would have to do three concepts. There was a concept that I was really, really stoked about. I would do a good job on that one.

And then the second two, I would do a terrible job on, oh shit. And my teacher called me out and he's like, say, I know what you're doing here. You're trying to, you're trying to lead me over to this one. And he would make me flesh out the other two. So it's I know exactly. And that's like, but again, that was a rookie move.

I was trying to be clever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. As a young, 20 year old dude, you know, rules of thumb when it comes to afterwards, the customer always picks the ones you don't want. so you make sure you're happy with everyone. Yes. You have to like 'em all dude. Yeah. Murphy's log. You know what the throwaway concept that you're like, well, just throw that one [00:26:00] in.

So it looks like that we're giving him three concepts. That's the fucking one. They chew you're cursed. Yeah, I know. Shit. That's. That's sad. That's that? That that's not a, that's not a young beginner. That's a, not a rookie move. That's a senior rookie move. Okay. We know, we know do not, do not create throwaway concepts.

Cause it comes back to you and they go with that. I know. And then you, then you're having to build something you hate. You're like, oh God, that was the worst website concept. And they chose it. Now I gotta sit there and build 20 pages that look like ass. Oh, just, and by the end of it, you're just ready to cl crawl your eyes out here.

Oh, jeez. Oh, all right. So for design. Okay. So design for beginners. Keep it simple. Keep it minimal. Mm-hmm don't chase trends and then create different concepts that are actually different. Right. Don't reuse those elements rehash and don't shit things up. All right. All right, so that's number one. Nice.

Number two. We're gonna quickly go some high points about layout, layout, layout layout. [00:27:00] All right. Concept number one. Yes. Right idea. Number one, tip number one for layout. Okay. Mm-hmm elevate your hierarchy game. Oh, this is, this is key. This is key. Right? So one not rookie mistake, but it takes a long time to understand hierarchy.

Exactly. And how it works, right? Yeah. Yeah. But the thing is, it's such a huge, it makes a huge difference. Yeah. In all compositions, no matter what it is, whether it's webs, social tiles, you know, brochures, whatever it is. Right. Mm-hmm you need to understand what that hierarchy it's hierarchy is about giving visual importance to certain elements.

Mm-hmm okay to catch your eye and then. Flow your eye through to the next. Right. All right. I can't stand looking at something or when somebody presents me something and everything is equal weight. Cause you don't know where to look. Yes. Right. And it drives me fucking nuts. I'm like, okay guys. And often all it is, you know, when you're looking at a design, they're like, I can't make this work or whatever.

It's just like, you know what? Start changing the hierarchy of things, make the subtitle bigger or make the, the headline bigger, make the image smaller or [00:28:00] opposite, make the image loud and proud and then bring, you know, tighten up all, all it always works out to hierarchy mm-hmm and people really underestimate the importance of hierarchy.

I mean, to me it's one of the most important things in any composition, right? Yes. You want that damn thing to tell a story, create a flow within that story and then have your eye actually kind of travel around through it. Yeah. You know, using, well obviously sizes and spacing. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You need to make these groupings through a hierarchy.

Totally. Yeah, absolutely. And, and it is kind of one of those. Learn skills, right? Like it's, I, it's always difficult. I find that getting those nuances. Yeah. You know, I mean, yeah, fair enough. But, but I mean, still it's, it's good to be aware. Absolutely. When you're starting literally think of a hierarchy mm-hmm as literally an upside down triangle, that's it?

Yeah. Thing more than just basic let's face it when you're creating something, whether it's a website, an ad or something, right. Mm-hmm, flip that triangle upside down. Right. You want the biggest item? Keep it simple right. [00:29:00] At the top. So it catches your eye. Right. And everything else gets progressively smaller and smaller until you end up at the point, which is at the bottom, in this case.

Right. Which is your logo, your call to action, everything else. Yeah. Plain and simple. Just think of it. And then once you understand, you know, this upside down triangle mm-hmm , then you can start shifting with the symmetry yes. With the balance, you get it. Right. But just plain and simple, use that as your starting point and upside down triangle, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. That's that's a great idea. Number two, that kind of goes in line with actually hierarchy mm-hmm right. Is white space is king. We, we, we love white space. You can always, you can never, ever, ever have enough white space. Okay. True enough. But again, white space, people have to remember, but she knew me is white space.

Isn't just a big and empty space for the sake of space. And it's not spacing shit out everywhere. Yes. Right. Exactly. White space serves so many, so many different purposes, right. That people need to understand. Yeah. It, it creates groups, you know, within items, you put enough space around a title and a [00:30:00] subtitle.

All of a sudden those two are grouped together. If there's enough white space, right? Yes. You got your body copy and your call to action. If you put enough white space around it, nice balance around it, it draws your eye. And it looks like it's the same element. Yeah. This kind of goes back to the hierarchy thing.

Like it drives me nuts when people show me stuff. And everything is equally spaced. Like it's fucking boring. Right. And this is, this is such a newbie thing. That's just, yeah. Like, you know, and again, you know, and I mean, Newby in the best way, but white space is something that's easy to understand. Yeah. But it's hard to get good at it.

It is. It really is. Yeah. It takes a long time to master that. Seriously do. Yeah. Like I still struggle with that a lot. To be honest. I do. It's true. Yeah. It, it is difficult, but like again, you're always kind of aware of it yeah. In your mind. And that, that, so, so it's, you know, it's, it's always there just kind of, Hey, looking over your shoulder at me a little more space there.

Yeah, yeah. Right. At a little bit, you know, who's good at white space who Angus is good white space. [00:31:00] Yes, he is. Right. He did an ebook. Yeah. And it was fucking brilliant. I was looking at it. I'm like, dude, I know. Right. I know. And I, I had to give the kid props. It's one of our new hires and it's just like, Some people, it comes natural.

And for him, yeah. He just under, he really, really, whether he understands it or it's part of his look and feel the kid gets it. He does good on him. Totally does. Yeah, I do like that. Yeah. So white space is key. Honestly, it helps with hierarchy. It helps with, you know, the flow of course. And honestly it creates balance.

Yes. Cause often, you know, if you have enough white space on one side, it can totally balance, you know, all these heavy items on the opposite side, you know? So it's kind of, you would never expect something like that to happen, but it absolutely does. Totally. Yeah. So add white space, learn white space obsess over white space.

Cuz that's something, that's it obsess. That was the word I was looking for obsess over it. Yes, honestly. Cuz it's one of those things that once you get that white space game and play, you just you've elevated your whole, you've gone from a one year designer to a five year designer, right? Totally. Yeah. Yes.

Um, number three. Okay. Under layout [00:32:00] use cohesive or complimentary elements together. How many times do, how many fucking times do we see people? I see people present me a composition or layout. They have three icons and it's like, all three icons are different, different icons. I know. It's like, okay. Um, I'm looking at them.

They look the like three different style icons. They're three different weights. you know, and it's just like, and once a fucking RA base, the, the two are vectors. What are you doing? Like, like if you're gonna put items on a page together, they have to compliment each other, right. To say like, if you're gonna copy paste icons, make sure they're all at least the same fucking line weight.

Okay. If you're gonna use images to represent something, make sure the images are all similar. Yeah. Right. You see this all the time in like you, you know, tech ads, it's like, they'll pull out like a modem mm-hmm right. And it's straight on shot of a modem, but then they'll use like a modem [00:33:00] plus something else.

Yeah. Beside it. And it's like a completely different angle top down three or three, like angled. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And another third version has got like this light shining behind it and it's just like, guys. Like, if you wanna amp up, you think apple would do this? No. Look to Apple's website and look at what they do.

Every single, every time they show a product, it's the same angle, the same shot. They have to compliment each other. Yes, exactly. It has to look like it's part of the same family. Like, absolutely. This was photographed this way. Not light source, a different style public, many times. Do you see this happen?

Honestly. It's like, you see this in pictures. You see this in icons, font weights, like, dude, it's like, it's like Homer Simpson's website. You're very, oh, remember nothing even match I jammed everything in there. Oh dude. Honestly, whatever you have in your composition, make sure it looks like it matches. Yeah.

Like it's from the same family. It's from the same collect. If you want to call it of his photos. Yeah. Look for similar photos that have the same vibe angles, you know, intensity, like make [00:34:00] sure every, and this. Goes exactly for saturation too. Like yeah, if you're using photos and one has got like this hot, you know, vivid and the next photo beside it is like, cool.

And like, dude, they don't match. Yeah. It doesn't work. Yeah. If you pull all those together in the same composition, you'll, you'll amp up that whole piece, like immediately just as simple as that. Yes. Right? Yeah. Very true. Very true. Take that Canva.

damn you all right. Number, number four. Yes. Obsess over alignment. Right? Nice. This one is ridiculous. And this one is like a no brainer, but nobody like they always second. Yes. They, they don't think about it. They leave it as an afterthought and they're like, oh yeah, you're right. Like what, what looks like a total amateur newbie mistake.

Okay. Is when things don't align like this and we're talking about, you know, sometimes copy doesn't align. Yes. Left line. Copy. Doesn't align with the title or the subtitle. Yes. You [00:35:00] know, they don't follow a nice kind of symmetry line all the way down to the logo, the call to action. Yes. You know, vertically, horizontally things aren't lining up properly.

It's just kind of like, everything is kind of on a page and what's worse. Yeah. Is when they just kind of tap it and they do it by I, and it's off by a few pixels. That's actually worse. It's so hard to drag those rulers over from the margins. Oh, well, because in those cases, when they're just eyeballing it and trying to guess it, instead of like selecting all in a line left or hitting a ruler, right.

The problem is. Did, when you're looking at the piece, it looks like something's wrong, but you can't quite get it at first. Yes. And you're like, what is up with this? And people are looking at it and it's UN pleasing. Yes. And then afterwards it's like, oh shit, that's why nothing's aligned or this or that.

And you're like the alignment ninja. Oh dude. I remember that trade show that we went to, you pointed it out on the, on one of those banner stands. That was like, holy shit. And, and it was only off by like half an inch, but man, it hurt to look at it. It was, and, and I was like, I was [00:36:00] working on, on all the collateral for this stuff and I was like, Yes.

I didn't even see that dude. It's it's once you see it, like shit. Yeah. But you know, people, they don't do it, not only in compositions, but in logos. Yeah. Often it's like, you know, the copy and the logo, you know, it's like the letters don't line up properly. Yeah. Or, or they don't follow a similar alignment with like the actual logo market itself.

So the copy and the, the logo it's like, guys, like you, you gotta line this shit up. Yes, exactly. Cause honestly that just cleans something up to the point where people don't even have to think twice about it. Mm-hmm and again, and it amps up, it elevates the quality of that piece, you know, just something as simple as alignment.

So my, my opinion is obsess over alignment. Agreed. Yeah. I get obsess over white space, but obsess over alignment and that's equally. Yeah. If you have to, you know, use Vignelli used to Houston professor about the grid. Yeah. You know, he would create like a nine square grid or 12 square grid. Right. Mm-hmm and he would, you know, Treat your composition is grid and line everything up through that.

Right. It makes such a difference in a piece. Right. And, and honestly, in all fairness, if you're using the [00:37:00] Adobe products, there are plenty of tools available. Oh my God. So many stuff. Yeah. There's no, excuse. There's no excuse. But even with that being said, like, make sure there's equal spacing everywhere too.

Like if you're align, you know, remember margins, they, they gotta have there. Right. Mm-hmm , you know, make sure there's the same amount of space to the like people aren't, aren't taking enough time to just sit back and be like, where can we align something as soon as you align something? Anything. Yeah. It automatically looks better.

Totally. Right. Just plain in simple. Yes. All right. So with layout, then we've got elevate your hierarchy gate. Mm-hmm okay. White space is key. Use cohesive, complimentary design elements together, please. For God's sake. obsess, obsess over alignment. Yes. All right. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So that's good. Brilliant.

That's for layout. Yes. I think you figure out those four things. You've just improved your layout game, like 10 to one. They all the sun. Yep. Um, now we're into color color, right? It's colorful. Very, it's very colorful. Very colorful color. [00:38:00] Makes me happy. Except when it's used wrong and it makes me angry, then I'm mad.

Right. But, you know, with that being said, um, let's, let's go first and foremost. Understand color theory. Yeah. Right. If we are talking about how colors make people happy in color, that is so true. And you don't have to like upset. You don't have to. Um, I don't know. Some people like are crazy and they're like all psychotic about it.

Like, no, we can't use blue. Blue is always a cold color. No, you can't. Okay. You know what? Yeah. That's a little much. I get it. It can be cold, but there's ways to warm up blue. Yes. Right. There's ways to, to make, to make red cold. Yeah. But the thing is, um, what I'm saying is. It's important for new designers to understand color theory as a good base for everything they're doing.

Right. Right. Because often when we're putting things together and we're trying to, you know, sell it to customers, we, we, we're not just selling em, our opinion. Cause they don't want to hear our opinion. They want to hear about our expertise or skillset. And so if you understand color theory, then it gives you a good found [00:39:00] foundation.

Mm-hmm for, you know, recommending why you made the decisions you did. Right? Yeah. You know, these colors represent this, these colors are like, you know, this is trendy right now. Right. These are, you know, like cooler colors or Caribbean, tropical, whatever. Right. Yeah. But you have to understand that there is there's, you know, not just this isn't something that's just, you know, this past decade color theory has been going on for a hundred of years.

Yes. Right. If not even longer, I bet you in some cases, but I mean, this is something that's we've known about for a long time. Mm-hmm so understand color theory, know the difference between the colors and then use it as a good foundation to move forward with. Right, right. With your designs. Yeah. Number two mm-hmm create a color palette and stick to it.

Yes. Okay. So this is huge. And again, people don't understand this enough. They don't pay enough attention to it. Yeah. Right? No, I'm not saying, you know, to figure out, you know, oh, should we use monochromatic colors or complimentary colors? That's, that's a different thing altogether. Right. That's that's another podcast altogether.

But what we're saying is, you know, if you've got your brand colors, right. And you've got your color, your complimentary [00:40:00] colors, right. Mm-hmm pick a scheme. Yeah. And stick with that scheme. Right. Right. Choose four colors, choose five colors, whatever your reasons are and use those colors. Don't give yourself also these four colors plus variations of each color, because you can end up looking like a Candy's story no time.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. And it's funny too. You could use color with just like. You know, very powerfully too, like absolutely like less color sometime is more, especially if you got a really vibrant color, it kind of just a little bit, you know, with a black and white kind of theme. Wow. You know what I mean?

Like it's, you don't necessarily have to. Oh, my God, the, the client's paying for all this. You have to go, I gotta use you gotta max it out. You're right. Exactly. You have a color scheme. Yeah, but it doesn't mean number one, you have to use every single color equally, that's it? Yes. Often. You're right. Like, you know, when people are coming up with, uh, monochromatic color schemes, right?

Mm-hmm , they'll use one color. Primarily for like [00:41:00] 80%. Yeah. And then these, these tiny little tidbits of color. Yeah. It's just like tiny accents that you almost don't even know. Yes. So it's, it's very big and bold. Yeah. With just a couple highlights, right? Yes. I mean, ultimately what this comes down to is you want to create some rules mm-hmm about these colors that you're using and follow them.

Yeah. Right. Create these rules, this, this color scheme. Yeah. And stick to it, right? Don't, don't all of a sudden offer something and, and start, you know, variations of this red and this blue and this and that. Uh, you know what, you're just gonna make your piece, honestly, you'll make it look a candy story.

you're gonna make it look. Actually, I think even, even the Simpsons, the episode uses a color scheme, right? The skin colors of the same. Yeah. Right. I was like, they you're right. Everything is very, yeah. Otherwise it's and I mean, it's part of that whole style. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I think feature is the same thing.

Most, most of the macro stuff, right? Yeah. It's important. Right. And um, I think even like certain cartoons, like adventure time was also a similar color scheme throat. Right. So something to be said about that, but it definitely keeps things nice and clean. Number three for color, which is huge, [00:42:00] huge, huge, huge, and people don't, they underestimate this all the time.

understand the tonal values, what the hell that means and how it interacts for colors. Okay. And what am I mean by this is, you know, tonal values is kind of like the lights, the darks, the saturations for just because something is two different colors or something is blue and something is red or blue and, and yellow.

Yeah. If you all of a sudden put this yellow text on top of blue mm-hmm , but the yellow is muted and more mustardy mm-hmm all of a sudden it disappears on blue. Yeah. So, you know, you'd think of course you should be able to see it, but the tonal values are the same. Right. So I think tonal values the easiest way for me to explain this is, um, back in the day I used to have this apple book mm-hmm right.

And it showed me what. 10% gray look all the way to what a hundred percent gray looked like. Right. Right. And it would 10, 20, 30, 40 all the way up. Right. Yeah. And, um, and then I, compared that with colors, what I did is I took colors. Mm-hmm right. And I printed them out in black and white. And all in the sudden, [00:43:00] you'd see, wow.

Blue looks just like 80% gray and you know, red, this looks like 70% gray and all in the sudden it's like, when you'd put 'em on top of each other, they didn't work. Right. You'd have to either lighten up the blue darken up the red. Right. So there was a difference in tonal value of, I found 30 to 40% was that sweet spot.

Okay. Where things could easily kind of, you know, make things more legible. Right, right. Yeah. People need to understand that tonal value. Isn't just about black and white mm-hmm but it's actually the tone of the color, you know, itself. Yeah. And this is where you have to adjust that shit. Honestly, pay attention to the tonal values of those.

Right. Right. Pick your colors, change the value of the predominant one and then, or take away the saturation or the hue or the brightness of the other color. So then they, they. Contrast better. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. Does that seem tone of values? Yeah, that's a big one. I like that.

I don't know why that one was huge for me. because with that then last but not least when it comes to colors, there you go. It accentuates the [00:44:00] readability. Right? Make sure whatever color you make copy or whatever you put the copy. Be on. Is is, is legible. It's readable. Right? So number one don't make copy yellow.

Yeah. Bright yellow. If it has to be yellow, darken it up. exactly. So the website that you're working on yep. The customer, um, was complaining, not nothing to do with you. Cause I made those changes afterwards, but um, they were saying how, um, some of the bullets mm-hmm , you know, although were, you know, they're like, well, why it doesn't look like there's bullets there?

And I'm like, well, the bullets are there. Yeah. But they're your brand color and your brand color is. Very bright. Yes. It's very light the tonal value and that's really, really high. Yes. So what I ended up doing is I went in and I actually darkened it up. Oh. So the customer could see it. Yeah. He didn't be like, oh, that's not our, that's not brain green.

That's cause you can't tell from that small. Yeah. Right. But he wanted colored bullets for some. Yes. So, um, you know, it's more important to be legible. Yes. Right then to follow certain, you know, hard criteria. Because ultimately if you're following the, if you're [00:45:00] following the brand guidelines to a team yeah.

And something doesn't work, it's not legible. Yeah. You're kind of like doing a disservice to the brain. Exactly. It's not working. Yeah. So that's when it comes to when you're, when you're using colors on, you know, fonts, make sure the colors that you choose are gonna be dark and legible enough. Yeah. Right.

That anybody can see them think of it this way. If you change that color to, to black and white mm-hmm how easy is it gonna be to read? Right. So if it's a yellow font yeah. And you all of sudden turn that black and white, how is, is that gonna read? Yeah. Nobody will be able to read that it's not good. Yeah, no.

Consider what would this look like in great. Right, right. And, and then kind of go from there. All right. So color tips, color tips for designers. So understand color theory, at least to a basic level, create a color palette and stick with it. Understand tonal values and double check everything we, you do.

Yeah. And make sure everything you do is legible, readable, you know, when you're actually changing the color of a font, right? Yes. Yeah. Okay. I think we're close. Nice, nice, [00:46:00] nice. I think we're, uh, onto our last and, and probably the, the best one, right? The best one. Typography typography is the last, but not least of, you know, these tips to amp up your game again.

So. This work on these things and it'll, it'll change your game from being a, a simple newbie one year designer all instead, get you at a three to five year overnight doing this kind of stuff right. Big time. So first and foremost, keep your fucking fonts under control. okay. Typography is an easy thing to get into, right.

But honestly it takes a lifetime to get good at, you know, choosing the right font, you know, um, putting it in for the composition, finding the one that has the right feel. Right? Yeah. So what happens is people get excited on fonts, you know, they go to Daon or they go to all these at font squirrel, right.

Because font squirrel has 10,000 fonts. Oh, doesn't mean that you have to yeah. Right. And it's true. Like, I mean, they make it so easy. Adobe's like check out our fonts. Everybody wants you to check out their damn fonts, check out our fonts. But the problem is, you [00:47:00] know, like you, you start getting intrigued by all these fancy fonts, but then that takes over mm-hmm

And just like we said before, about the grab early graphic designer who follows trends mm-hmm same person follows fonts as a font designer, right. Is like font, man. Yeah. Like they'll just grow, grab fonts literally. And they're just like, they use a font for everything. Right. And all of a sudden you're seeing 2, 3, 4 different fonts on the composition.

It's a fucking designer. Exactly. It's it's a disaster. Yeah. You're trying to, and this is the thing is you, you got a great font that you've just found this. I love the way it looks. I'm gonna put it in this particular because I really wanna use it. Yes. And it's just like, you're jamming a square peg into a rabbit dude.

Just, it's not it's it's not working and that shit's gonna suffer. Honestly, its, you know, our recommendation. Three fonts. Yes. Use three fonts at max, right? Yes. Obviously you've got your body font, right? Mm-hmm and then you've got like your, your headline font, something big, something exciting. Yeah. And, um, yeah.

And then you use everything else there. Like try to stick with three fonts, headline, [00:48:00] copy, body copy. And then, you know, sometimes, uh, call to action. You can have, if you look at our Instagram feed, mm-hmm, almost everything on there only uses fonts, fonts, font, families, right? Doesn't mean they only have three of the same styles.

Exactly. Right. Like, you know, there are one font Poppins. We use almost every single thing from extra light to, you know, extra bold. Yeah. But then we've also got this crazy ass road rage font that we're using, cuz like we use and I keep it very, very tight. Cuz as soon as you stray away from that, right. It just starts looking like a mess and you start affecting the yep.

And then every composition you make is different. You have no idea anymore. You know, who's following what, what product you're doing. It's a mess. Yes. There's no cohesive kind of dude. Not at all. Look, keep your fonts under control three fonts max. Yes. You know, give yourself that damn challenge. Yep. Okay.

Number two. font pairings. Ooh. Okay. So this one's, this is another one of those ones that it's easy to do, but it's hard to get good at. It is like when you are picking fonts, make sure they compliment each other. They don't contrast, right? Yeah. Like nothing says newbie. When you see, um, [00:49:00] like a se font for a headline.

And then another se font, a completely different one for the body copy. And it's just like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't do that shit. You can't show me. I mean, unless you're purposely intentionally going outta your way to try to mimic David Carson or something, like, you can't do it. And I, I don't think I've seen many pieces that look good when you've got two similar font.

Yes. But kind of side by side. Right. Mm-hmm like, it's just, it doesn't work. Yes. You need to find, you know, pairings that actually compliment each other. Right. If one's heavy, one's semi bold and one's, you know, complex the other one's simple, right? Yeah. Like there are nice cohesive and I mean, if you can't figure it out yourself, that's fine.

There's a whole bunch of places online. Yeah. I was just gonna say, that's one of my favorite place to, to, to visit like websites that have great font parents. And it's just like, oh, because like, you know, I, I have a good sense of what goes together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, but it's nice to see different things.

Paired together with something else. [00:50:00] Absolutely. You know, you know what, and, and another funny thing, um, Google, believe it or not, if you go to Google fonts, they even have an option. What pairs? Nice with this font. Oh. So if you go to Google and you select Montserrat yeah. It'll show you good pairings automatically with Montserrat.

Really. So all of a sudden it's just like, it change makes it even easier for you. Right. So if you can't figure it out on your own yet, cuz you're too new. Yeah, no problem. Yeah. There is many resources online that will actually guide you down this road. Yes. So try to understand font Mars. Mm-hmm right.

Don't use two of the same font type font styles together. Right? Yeah. Make sure they compliment each other. Yeah. And it's great. It it's great to expect airmen with that kind of stuff. Absolutely. It is. You see something where you'd be like. I can't believe that works together, then you do it. And you're like, shit, that looks really nice.

absolutely right. It's a nice surprise. And then that gets the creative juices flowing. And then, you know, before you know it you're you're we halfway to, right? Absolutely. [00:51:00] All right. Number three, letter spacing letter spacing, nothing says I'm new at design. Then you just type in your font and you don't touch them.

You don't let it go as it is. I mean, my rule of thumb is no matter what the hell that font is right away. Minus 40. I'm pretty extreme. Yeah. You can maybe go to minus 20. I get it. But no, you can't if it's too wide, it, it it's like, it looks, it looks, you're spending too much time looking at the SPAC in between the fonts and the damn font themselves.

Yes. Right? No, you've got to work on letter spacing. Understand what curing is. Understand what letter spacing is, understand what like acing, you know, between each one of these. Right. Mm-hmm honestly, you need to understand like, you know, the spacing and that is a big game changer for almost anybody. Yes. It just amps up any design when you start, you know, playing with the curtaining just a little bit.

Yes. Yeah. Do you ever like the wide open kind of, you know, very times, very few times is at work. I haven't defined, right. I haven't done that in a, [00:52:00] in a long time. I think it works. If we're working on word marks or logos, I don't find it works really well with compositions often. Right's just gonna say I never do that.

Unless, unless some people do those for fancy word Marky type things where it's like, you know, listen, not the day, it's all like hipster fonts and then this. Okay, that's fine. But you know, maybe it works for the hipsters. I dunno. I dunno. You got a man bun. You could probably get away. You pull it up naturally, right?

All right. So that's number three, number three, number four, font ratios. This one is fucking huge. Okay. And this really, this, this is a game changer for most people, right? Often people have no idea how much bigger your titled font should be than your body copy font or how much this should be between your title and you title.

Right? Yeah. This is like this, this honest mystery mm-hmm of how big, right? Because honestly, I hate when you're seeing, you know, like a headline font and it's just like a little bigger than the body copy font, you know, but it's bold or [00:53:00] something like, dude, I just, I just, I wanna slap their heads and be like, dude, no, no, no work with this.

Like. You know, I have this rule of thumb. Okay. That, you know, if you can keep it, you know, two to two and a half times the size difference. Right, right. That's a great place to start. Right. Okay. Sometimes depending on, if you wanna be extreme, you can go bigger. You know, Tim brown from IDEO goes on about, well, you need to follow the golden ratio and you know, like the fab actually circle.

And then he starts going into percentages and this and that, honestly, dude, like it fucking makes my head spinning. right. Like the ratio is important, but you start going that crazy. Okay. That's too much. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, my rule of thumb when it comes to font ratios from like headline fonts, or like, like the big, you know, headline message to the body copy.

Yep. Two to two and a half, you know, times the font size. Right. Double it. So if your body copy, for whatever reason, you know, is 30 pixels or 30 points, then make that title minimum 60. See what it looks like at 70. Yeah. Right. See, it looks like it's 75, right? I'm big. [00:54:00] I'm bold. I like that two and a half mine, but at the very least, two times at minimum yeah.

Is what it needs to be. So the ratio there start there first and foremost, um, line spacing between, you know, lines. Okay. Yeah. That one, generally between 130 to 150% of the actual line space. Okay. 140% is the most used online. Oh, okay. But again, that ratio one 30 and 50 is good, depending on your composition.

Right. So again, we've got, you know, your, your headline to your body copy. Now we've got, you know, your line spacing. And of course weight ratio. This one is huge. Huge, huge, huge. Okay. This is kinda all about the font ratios altogether. It's all about ratios. font ratio. This is another newbie one that drives me nuts.

Yes. Okay. If you're gonna use a light font mm-hmm okay. Don't then move up one level to the next, the next. Yeah. Wait, because it looks, I mean, it could have happened that way just because of the way that it prints out. Yes. Or it looks on screen. You need to move, you need to skip always a weight [00:55:00] and go up.

That's right. So this don't go from thin to light. No, yeah. That's oh my God. That drives me nuts. or they go from semi bold and bold. They show here's the semi bold and here's the like, dude, there's no difference. There's not a much difference. There's no difference. Make sure you leave. Skip one. Always.

Always, always, always, always. Yeah. That's great advice. Honestly, that one is, it's so silly, but it kind of goes back to that whole contrast thing. Right? Totally. If they're too similar. Yeah. You can't tell the difference between them. Exactly. Ah, dude. And that one drives me nuts. Yeah. So when it comes to font ratios, okay.

Ratio of headline to body copy at the very least two times, but two and a half is totally good. If you're a little bit more in your face. Yeah. Line spacing 130 to 150%. Yeah. Okay. For the line spacing and then weight ratio always, always, always skip a weight in between always no matter what, no. Excuse.

Yeah. I don't wanna say don't even anybody ever don't even don't even think about it. Don't even think about it. Don't even. Don't make me come look for you. He he'll. He'll get you. I'll get you. I got some cement boots. Let me tell you [00:56:00] he's serious kids. and last, last, last typography, how do not look like a newbie?

Yeah. Okay. This is the tip and. We're all fucking guilty of this. Me. Yeah. Yeah. Dude. All of us. This is a designer flaw. Ready? Okay. Check your fucking spelling, spelling. You know, we always use excuses as designers, you know, when you're looking at it on a deally basis, the most obvious thing you just gonna make.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We suck at it. Like except about designers. Suck at spell. Okay. I can look today. I just saw, I saw customers spelled customers and it almost went to the customer. like, and it's like, you're looking at, I get it. We look at it on a daily basis and we're all guilty of this. I am guilty of this.

I am too so guilty. Right. I've gotten better over the years. Yeah, I have, but okay. For the newbie designers, mm-hmm for our newer designers. Okay. There's no excuse for you to have any sort of type of, because there's so [00:57:00] many type programs out there that'll automatically check your shit for you. Yeah.

There's no excuse at all. Like shit illustrator does it. Okay. I don't think Photoshop does it online. You can do it. Grammarly. Does it like. If you wanna look like an amateur, no matter how good your design is, if there's a typo. Yeah. The customer will call you on it. Mm-hmm and right away, it's like your value drops.

Yes. Immediately. Yes. They're like, wow, you fucking hit the market. You hit the target on everything. But that typo was so stupid. And, and they'll get you for something like that, dude. Like that'll, that'll demean you on the totally. Totally. You gotta be almost perfect in this business. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when it comes and I mean, yeah, we also, I don't know if it's just designers, just we, we love type.

Yeah. We love fonts. Yes. We hate spelling. spelling is something that you have to focus on. I think. And, and as you're thinking of some thing, like, I, I don't know about you, but I'm typing something. I'm I'm like, Ooh, I should go over here. This I'm thinking the next step. You know what I mean? So I'm [00:58:00] getting it, it , I'll get to it later.

I'll fix that word later. I'll fix that later. Shit. Uh, when I, when I was at the newspaper, oh shit, this was, this was awesome. It was like a section we were running and it was on like backpacks. Right. And I'd literally spell back back and it was in like, it was like 200 point . You didn't go to print. Nobody missed it.

Went to print. Oh my God. Exactly. It was just like, holy shit. It went by everybody, all the, the, the spell checkers and everything. And it was just like, good Lord. But, but it's something like that. It's just like, copy paste, copy paste. Move on the next. That's a big mistake, literally a big mistake. So, so I remember, and this wasn't me, there was another agency and they were, um, into the medical space.

Right. And, um, and they were trying to do a cheeky ad, right. About like, you know, those, like the blood things that pricks your finger [00:59:00] and does the blood, right. Yeah. And, you know, the tagline was like, nobody, the likes, um, a hard prick right. And they thought they were being Chicky. Right. And they were like, oh wait, you know, we're gonna say a hard prick.

And everybody's gonna be like, Ooh, you're gonna know innuendo. They're gonna know what prick means. well, I guess the person who's typing it. Wrote in Dick. Oh, okay. Hard Dick, because they're talking about pricks the whole time. Oh. And they thought, oh, it's like, it's clever. It's good. Well then nobody caught it because they're looking at Dick , but they're in their mind reading prick and it went to print and the medical magazine, nobody like a hard Peck.

Nobody likes a hardened Dick. yeah. Needless to say that, that didn't go over so well for, um, to say that that re was, oh my God. Yeah, that, that went soft very fast.[01:00:00] 

Cause it was, it was the brick thing, right? It was cause it was like this awesome new that, that doesn't hurt when you prick your finger. Well, apparently it's a Dick. Your finger. need this to say, holy check your fucking spelling, your spelling. It's not. It's not glamorous. It's so important and it's such a rookie move, right?

It is. It really, really is. So keep your typography under control, you know, make sure you've got good font pairings. Keep your, you understand ladder spacing. Understand all the font ratios. All right. From headlines to line spacing to weight ratio and last but not least. Check your fucking spelling. All right.

So yes, this whole list is just how to amp up just your design game. Yeah. You follow this shit and add this and actually concentrate on this small list. There's only 16 things here. Yeah. That's it. 16 fucking things. Do this shit. Yeah. Okay. Follow this, add this to your every day. And honestly, you'll, it'll [01:01:00] change game.

It'll, it'll take you from being, you know, like a one year designer to like a three or five year almost overnight. Yes. If you can look the quicker you learn this shit Jing honestly, that's exactly it. Yeah. You know, one year design or five year designer makes how long more is than you. This is, you know, whether you're a freelance, whether you're working in the company, right.

Yeah. But just your design skills just, but these are the things too that I, you know, not, it's not just about money. It's like this, this is stuff I wish I'd known well, and that's true right earlier on, you know, cause is like, exactly. Right. And again, even like, like I said, I'm still learning about white space.

Yeah, totally. You know, hands down. That's something I struggle with more than some of the other things on here. Right. And that's the beauty of this. This space that we're into, you're always learning, which is, which is good, fucking awesome. It is always refining things and, you know, and pushing boundaries and stuff like that.

And yeah. Always keeping the fundamentals in the back of your mind at all times. That's it too, right? Yeah. So these are really good. Okay. Well, I mean, hopefully we're gonna, if this one goes over, well, we're gonna follow up with the soft skills. Yes. That, you know, newbie designers can also learn with, maybe follow up that in the [01:02:00] next, you know, few episodes of course.

And, uh, not, not to cry in, in not to cry, not to present your feet when you don't get your way. Wait, you're not allowed to do that. Yeah. I feel like I have some seniors here that still do that. I did that yesterday. and that wasn't so bad, but then you fell on the floor and started of kicking your beat around, dude.

I know, I know what happened. It's like, yeah. It was terrible. I don't know. I didn't have my bottle I didn't mind it. But you took it too far when you wet your pants. dude, you shouldn't have done that. So this diaper wasn't too much. Okay, good. Well, you forgot that yesterday. I forgot it. That's what it was.

Oh, no. Okay. Well, on that ending note, Guys, please, by all means, remember our contest hit us up on our website or, or just do it cuz you love us. But yeah, by all means, um, go leave us a review on, on, uh, either apple on Spotify, on yeah, Google, you know, wherever and then hit us up on [01:03:00] Instagram. Let us know you did, and you'll be entered in this month's um, you know, running contest right for winning, you know, we've got our first winner, you know, for last month.

Yeah. Dan, the ham Dan big Dan, Dan, the ham but by all means, guys, we've given out our first pair. We've got two more pairs to go. So please, you know, hit us up and review your chances are awesome. Really, really good in this one. Right. Really good. Do that. Follow us recommend us to your friends by all means.

I know that we've got some teams listening to us now. Mm-hmm , they're kinda spreading the love. Yeah. Um, honestly fucking love you guys. Yeah. You guys are awesome. Like seriously, you, this started out as this started out as just something to get us through some COVID times mm-hmm and has literally like grown into this, you know, like we, we genuinely want to share what we've learned.

Yeah. And helped designers survive and thrive. Right. We've all got some tough times. We've all get this shit on a regular basis. Mm-hmm , we're here to just help, like, let us be your voice. If something pisses you off and, and you need someone obnoxious like us to hit it. to put it out there in the world.

We'll do it. We'll do it. I mean, we know we're not scared. It's okay. We're good. That's right. [01:04:00] We'll we'll talk about anything. I swear. Yeah. Right. Really? Anything really? We just, we just talked about Sean ping himself. so there's nothing. That's right. There's nothing is off limits here. sorry, man. That was a, your, that was a, your expense.

I feel bad. That's fine. I'm okay with that. I'm I'm I'm I'm okay with my shame only, cuz it's true. That's right. He's not lying. He's not lying. Oh, God, we may get outta here before we can take your firm. Mm-hmm okay, good enough. Yes, guys, please. We love you. Thank you for listening. And please, we look forward to ranting on you for next week.

All right. Yeah. And stay tuned for the soft skills on this. Uh, if you like this, we'll hit you guys up with some other kind. Yeah, absolutely. Other angle to this stuff. Not, not necessarily the technical side, if you yeah, yeah. More the, but if there is stuff we missed, let us know. Oh yeah. And that's true.

True too. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Do that too. Okay. Fine. Okay. Whatever we're done. We're we're done. We're done. We're done. We're done. We're done here. We're done. My name is Moi Mo. [01:05:00] Yeah. My name is haw. Stay creative and stay angry. Hey, go.