Ruth Desseault is one of the smartest people I have ever met. I had the privilege of studying photography under her and it changed my understanding of photography and art forever. Ruth’s most well known work is her documentation of the Atlantic Steel Mill project. If you’ve lived in Atlanta for the past seven years or so you remember the enormous abandoned steel mill west of midtown. Because of the nature of the work done there, the land was polluted and could not be used for development, so the mill just sat there rusting.
Developers eventually committed to cleaning up the land and began the enormous development of the plot. Ruth was commissioned to document the land as it was transformed from a turn of the century industrial site, to the hyper trendy condos and skyscrapers that are there presently. Click on the image above to view this incredible project.
Michael R. Nelson Graphic Design Instructor
Ashworth University
I’d like to take this opportunity to summarize some points of extreme importance for you as a beginning designer. I have followed these principles throughout my career and have used them to guide me in the development of your graphic design program. I call this methodology the Michael R. Nelson “12-Point Program for Successful Designers.”
1. Be humble and ready to learn. Even after you complete your program, there is still a vast world of design out there for you to learn, experience, and absorb.
2. Always enter into a design project with clear objectives and criteria.
3. Establish a clear design process with a methodical intent of reducing possible solutions until a clear solution rises to the top.
4. Don’t be afraid to revisit parts of the design process as many times as needed to get it right.
5. Have a clear hierarchy of information in the graphics you design.
6. Respect typography.
7. Make your imagery meaningful. Don’t be overly simplistic with your imagery. Make sure it’s appropriate and communicates your core message.
8. Always push your designs for a higher level of excellence.
9. A successful designer must be willing to self-educate. Never stop learning about design and exposing yourself to creative outlets.
10. Make your own opportunities. Designers do not have the luxury of sitting back and waiting for prospective clients and employers to come to them.
11. Be discriminating in defining what good and bad design is. Whether you are critiquing yourself or work you randomly run across, or you are participating in a formal group critique, hold the work to a high standard and have the confidence to declare it successful or unsuccessful. Allow proven, high-quality work like we cover on this blog define your standards of good work.
12. Don’t let computer programs “own” your designs.
If you can excel at these 12 points, you will be well on your way to becoming a good designer. Let me know how you are progressing through your program and please reach out to me through this blog if you need any direct assistance. All you have to do is leave me a comment and I’ll follow up with you right away. I’m here to do whatever I can to make this learning experience a successful one for you!
Thanks to Carol Esther for permission to use this Photo.
One of my biggest daily struggles is creating graphics using “dummy” images or filler copy, simply because a client is late in providing me with the final art work or copy. This forces me to make blind decisions in Photoshop, because I know they will all change once I receive the real artwork and/or copy. It’s no use coming up with the perfect way to make text fit a page, if the text is going to change in size when you receive the final draft. Working with dummy text or art work is okay for making general decisions, but don’t waste your time with it. If you are already working in your computer program, you are at the stage of making final decisions. Don’t make those decisions until you can be sure that they will truly be final.
I realize that operating efficiency isn’t the sexiest topic a designer can imagine, but let’s look down the road to your future in the industry. Remember, that’s what this course is about: your future. Suppose that you are working with a design team and you are in the comp stage of a project. Let’s add to this scenario that you’re working to get a promotion or a bonus. You’ll look like a hero to your art director if you arrive at critique sessions with twice as many comps as your peers, due to your higher proficiency with the design software. Also, the quality of your work will be higher because you can successfully flesh out ideas and create a better end product. Your final comps will also have more detail and therefore look better than the less-developed submissions of other designers. This is the kind of edge every designer looks for. It’s the kind of edge you need in the very competitive world of design. I want you to have this edge.
Thanks to gregveen for permission to use this Photo.
I enrolled in Ashworth’s graphic design program in February of this year. I’m a mother of three children and it’s hard for me to travel to an actual campus due to my children and the fact I don’t drive. I’m very talented when it comes to learning things in the area of graphic arts/crafts; it’s always been somewhat difficult financially though. One night I went to sleep after making flyers and woke up telling myself: “Why don’t I just do something to prove that I really know how to do this stuff?”
I ended up speaking with my husband and we decided to go for it. I love this program. I’ve learned things I would have never learned on my own and will continue to do so. When my three year old is a year older and ready to start school, I plan on pursuing even more of my goals. It is hard sometimes, but if you keep working at it, I believe that things will turn out great. Just keep faith in yourself and you’ll do great!
Thanks to thinbegin for permission to use this Photo.
David Carson spent a decade building his reputation as an underground graphic designer before gaining mainstream popularity in the early 1990’s. Some have labeled his signature style as “dirty” in the sense that it may appear unpolished, heavy, and visually dense to the common viewer. Carson was one of the first graphic designers to mash seemingly unrelated typographical and photographic elements into one composition, a practice that is so commonplace today as to almost appear cliché, but at the time,Carson’s ability to convey what were perceived to be complex (subconscious) messages through his work was considered groundbreaking. In the following video, Carson discusses how his design instincts have always guided his career from day one—and how important it is for young designers to develop their own intuitive style in order to consistently create substantive work. Click on the image above to watch this video. I think you’ll find some inspiration in the life and work of David Carson.
Whenever I get a question from a user asking me “how did you draw this?”, I often have to answer that I’ve used the Pen tool. The Pen tool is probably the hardest tool to learn in Illustrator. It just takes time to master it fluently, but once you do, you have this freedom to create. Sometimes we can get a long way using only shape tools like the ellipse, polygon, rectangle or rounded rectangle. With a bit of creative thinking and some simple aligning in combination with Pathfinder’s powerful tools you might just achieve the perfect drawing in no time. Here is another Illustrator tutorial where I show you to draw a simple icon without the use of the Pen tool…
Draw the basic shapes
Before you start you might activate Smart Guides (View > Smart Guides). Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool from the Toolbox and draw a shape as shown in the image above. You can modify the corners of the rectangle using the up or down arrow keys while dragging the shape. Make sure the radius of the rounded corners of the rectangle is big enough. Next, select the Rectangle Tool and draw a small vertical rectangle shape below as shown in the right-hand side image. Now select the Polygon Tool and draw a small hexagon below the small rectangle (see image above).Select the Selection Tool (black arrow) and select the 3 shapes. Click the Horizontal Align Center from the toolbar at the top. Select the Direct Selection Tool (white arrow) and drag a selection over the bottom 2 points of the hexagon.
Resize and align the shapes
Click in one of the points, hold down the Shift key and drag the 2 points downwards as shown in the left-hand side image above. Now select the Selection Tool (black arrow) again and select the small rectangle above the hexagon. Hover your cursor somewhere on the middle of the bottom border until you get the resize cursor icon. Drag the border of the rectangle downwards so it overlaps the hexagon shape.
As a web designer with the ability to create dynamic online business platforms, you are truly in a unique position to turn your entrepreneurial dreams into reality. This video tells the inspiring story of Theresa Rodriguez, a young entrepreneur who founded BostonNighlifeTV, an online site that keeps Bostonians in touch with everything “cool” going on in the city’s nightlife scene. Do you have a great business plan that you’ve been sitting on? What are you waiting for? Think about it. You’re a web designer. You don’t have to wait on anyone to get your idea off the ground in the online marketplace. It’s not unrealistic to think that you could be the next Theresa Rodriguez. If you have an idea that you’d like some feedback on or would like to share your own success story, feel free to email me at:
Many designers help solidify their careers by becoming experts in a specialized area. Typically, these men and women possess a broad understanding and competence in many areas of design. Their career focus revolves around being at the top of the field in one specific area of design. Even for you as a new designer, computer programs like Photoshop and Illustrator are potential areas of expertise. I can tell you from experience that almost every successful designer is generally competent in Photoshop and Illustrator, but a program expert achieves results that few others can provide. The usual response to the work of an expert is, “Wow! How did you do that?” The advanced skills displayed by a program expert are often self-taught and involve a unique way of using these programs. Illustrator presents a great opportunity for you to become such an expert. If no one else can create beautiful graphics quite like you, your resume will set off “Must hire!” bells in the minds of potential employers, and you’ll become an irreplaceable expert and invaluable asset to someone’s company.
There is no secret formula to design success. You will never find in any textbook or manual the qualities that will make your graphics special and distinctly recognizable. That quality is hidden deep inside you, waiting for you to discover and develop it. Consider a designer like Josh Davis. He uses Illustrator-like vector drawing programs in an innovative, bizarre, and brilliant manner. You can spot a Josh Davis design almost instantly, because no one’s work quite is like his.
As a designer, you must seek out a way to differentiate your skill-set or your work. Find something that you can do—and love to do—then do it to the best of your always-increasing ability. You can accomplish this without compromising your other marketable design skills. For instance, a graphic designer who knows more about the packaging materials manufacturing process than any other designer will never be out of a job. Why? It’s because this designer offers a value-added aspect to his or her position. A packaging firm will hire someone like this, knowing that he or she brings two valuable assets to the job: knowledge of plausible, real-world manufacturing and an expertise solving difficult problems in this area.
In my career, I have always benefited from my broad knowledge base. At my current job, I have become particularly useful because of my (1) exhibit fabrication knowledge, (2) ability to create digital interactive in Flash, and (3) expertise at implementing audio-visual hardware in exhibits. And here’s the key message for you in all this: No where in my formal design education was I specifically taught any of these skills! No graphic design school will teach you “Wood Shop 101.” So, I took the initiative and went out and learned these skills on my own. This is what you’ll have to do find your niche in the design world.
The fundamental point I want you to remember is that learning Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign is an excellent starting point for your design education. However, don’t any particular design software limit the scope of your creative growth. As I’ve said before, these are great design software tools, but don’t let them “own” you, meaning don’t let them limit the horizons of your artistic creativity.
I hope I’ve convinced you that, as you progress in design, you need to look for a niche where you can stand out as one-of-a-kind, while simultaneously building additional knowledge areas that will make you a solid design employee.
Michael R. Nelson Graphic Design Instructor
Ashworth University
Joshua Davis is acknowledged as one of the most innovative multimedia-digital designers the world has ever seen. Creator of such seminal web sites as Praystation, whose’ radical use of open source flash applications was almost unheard of at the time; Davis has redefined the very concept of “interactivity” for a generation of web designers. His relentlessly creative work defies classification and incorporates elements of physics, mathematics, code, architecture, etc. Are you getting the picture? This guy is a monster. I decided to post this video chronicling his work on what is now considered a legendary campaign for BMW’s Z4 automobile. It doesn’t matter if you’re a web designer, graphic designer, or just someone who appreciates brilliance in any form; you should take a few minutes to learn from Joshua Davis. Let me know your thoughts. Who are some of your favorite designers? If you’re not sure, simply share some of your favorite web sites with the Ashworth student community. Talk to you later.
I sure am glad that I enrolled in Ashworth University’s Web Site Design program. First of all, I wanted to put my home based scrapbooking business on the Web. I got involved doing the site with sitecreatorplus and created a Web site for my business. It was awesome, but I wanted more…so I signed up for Web site design here and I love it. I have been put a little behind because of my business, but I am catching up now. If you want to view my website, you can check it out at
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Ruth Desseault is one of the smartest people I have ever met. I had the privilege of studying photography under her and it changed my understanding of photography and art forever. Ruth’s most well known work is her documentation of the Atlantic Steel Mill project. If you’ve lived in Atlanta for the past seven years or so you remember the enormous abandoned steel mill west of midtown. Because of the nature of the work done there, the land was polluted and could not be used for development, so the mill just sat there rusting.
Before you start you might activate Smart Guides (View > Smart Guides). Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool from the Toolbox and draw a shape as shown in the image above. You can modify the corners of the rectangle using the up or down arrow keys while dragging the shape. Make sure the radius of the rounded corners of the rectangle is big enough. Next, select the Rectangle Tool and draw a small vertical rectangle shape below as shown in the right-hand side image. Now select the Polygon Tool and draw a small hexagon below the small rectangle (see image above).
Select the Selection Tool (black arrow) and select the 3 shapes. Click the Horizontal Align Center from the toolbar at the top. Select the Direct Selection Tool (white arrow) and drag a selection over the bottom 2 points of the hexagon.
Click in one of the points, hold down the Shift key and drag the 2 points downwards as shown in the left-hand side image above. Now select the Selection Tool (black arrow) again and select the small rectangle above the hexagon. Hover your cursor somewhere on the middle of the bottom border until you get the resize cursor icon. Drag the border of the rectangle downwards so it overlaps the hexagon shape.
