LearnToDesign.com

Originally Posted by eBook

Chapter 1: Making It Right

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you can get stuff designed right the first time? I'm sure it would, unfortunately that's impossible in 99% of the cases. Unless you know exactly what you are going to be doing, you can never be certain that your final product would be great. It might look good to you, but something what YOU think is OK might not be OK for your customer. That's how people LOSE MONEY, TIME AND NERVES.

I remember this one time I couldn't go to sleep until 3 in the morning because of this one $20 client. I had to wake up at 6:50, in just under 4 hours, for an 8-hour working day. I was so worried because my client could've turned out to be a long-term partner; I spent a lot of time down the drain because any graphic I made did not please him.



So I sat there for a moment and thought about it: is it worth my nerves?



They say you can't get your brain cells back once you lose the ones you have; are mine worth $20? $200? $20,000?


* Making It Right: Tip #1

When you create banner ads, know where to put your text. One of the things that this customer of mine wanted was a cool-looking banner ad. Unfortunately, I do not have what I have done for him, so I can't go back and look at what I did wrong; here's top 5 best tips that, in my opinion, everyone must learn to perfection when making banners. The other ones (that I did not include) are the junky ones that you can look for online; this is original stuff here! I will explain later.

1. Put things where they belong!
2. Use opposite colors on each other!
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4. Don't make the ad annoying to your client!
5. Use appropriate graphics and text effects!

Number 1 is pretty obvious, but a lot of people stumble on this one. "Well, what do you mean by this?" so here's a perfect example. Say, your client from www.-calm-yourself-.com tells you to create an ad that will calm its viewer and make him want to click it, BUT there has to be an element of BLACK no matter how disturbing that color might be. It is your job to make it look good. Your customer gives you the background image, and you have to create a static, or not animated, ad for him. You come up with three concepts.

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PERFECT - or is it?..

Keeping this in mind, let's move on to the next bullet. Obviously, black is what our client wanted. "Appropriate" font would be something that looks calm. Does this qualify?

Anyone could say that these don't relax you; makes you want to jump! Which brings me to my next point.

* Making It Right: Tip #2

Every respectful designer must have a collection of fonts to use with their graphics! They don't have to be the funky ones like I showed above, unless your client asks you for them. Keep at least 15-20 not-so-standard fonts; I promise you that they will come handy when you're on to making logos.

* Making It Right: Tip #3
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Last one that you might have to work on, is making the ad annoying. Well, actually, the skill I'm talking about here is NOT making it annoying, and yes, that's a skill achieved over time. Here's the most basic example anyone could understand:

Think about if you would want to click an ad like that..