Have you been to one of the large bookstore chains recently and gone to the section  labeled “Graphic Design?”

If you have, or when you do go,  you may be surprised to find the section almost entirely composed of books on Photoshop and  web development (coding, Dreamweaver, etc.).

Does learning the requisite software make you a designer? Just because you know CSS and HTML, can you really call yourself a web designer?

We are definitely not making the argument that these topics aren’t extremely important, they are, but they’re sections of a larger area of discipline, the entire core of which is seemingly ignored these days.

Photoshop  is a tool by which the larger discipline is accomplished. Knowing how to use it doesn’t make you a designer any more than knowing how to paint a house makes you an artist.

You know the keyboard shortcut for kerning type, but do you knowhow to kern type? You know how to create guides, but do you understand the fundamentals of grid-based layout? You know how to apply a background fill color, but do you understand which colors will complement each other well and why?

What is design? Design is math, do you understand the golden ratio? Design is psychology, will a red or green button earn more clicks? Design is art, which color scheme is has greater visual appeal? Design is marketing, how do I sell this idea, service or product?

There are No Shortcuts if you are serious about being a  a quality , in-demand designer. Before you can  “break the rules” of design and “think outside of the box”, you must first understand the fundamentals of design.  As a designer, the more diverse you are in your skill set the more marketable you will be!  Enter this field to “be the best”, not “one of the many”. Absorb , “like a sponge” the wisdom and knowledge of experienced designer’s and strive to master the tools of design, Photoshop, Illustrator, CSS, HTML, Photography,etc.  However, it is important to understand that these tools are simply that, tools, they are a just a means to the end.

Artists and Celebrities traditionally invest in various side businesses such as clothing and restaurants. More Artists, however, have found a new and very profitable medium of expression.

From Bieber to Britney, celebrity fragrances are just part of the fame game and the packaging designs have become as expressive as the celebrity themselves.

A celebrity creation of a signature smell has taken over the fragrance business. Releasing a celebrity fragrance is as commonplace as an artist releasing an album or appearing in a film. Nowadays celebrities are taking it up a notch and really getting hands-on in the production of the product

If you’ve truly made it, people not only want to be you – they want to smell like you.

That’s the ideology behind the ever-profitable celebrity fragrance industry, and it works. Celebrity fragrances are rolling out faster than we can keep up. Music to our ears!

Country Artists, Faith Hill and Keith Urban already with a signature fragrance are joined by the newest entry ,  Taylor Swift and her fragrance “Wonderstruck” . These Country Artists join the ranks of  Kim Kardashian, Beyonce, David Beckham, Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey and a host of countless other celebrities. We expect many more artists to get into this lucrative business. For the top 10 bestselling celebrity perfumes from 2010 alone have brought in $215 million in the U.S.

We wanted to share with you some of these designs.

New stylus product from Wacom set to blur the line between traditional analogue and digital sketching…

Sketching is perhaps the most liberating part of the design process, you are completely unrestrained by design software or computers. However often translating that form into a digital environment for tweaking and refinement isn’t so streamlined. Wacom’s new product is seeking to bridge that gap between ideation sketching and digital development and editing…

“The Inkling digital sketch pen captures a digital likeness of your work while you sketch with its ballpoint tip on any sketchbook or standard piece of paper. Designed for rough concepting and creative brainstorming, Inkling is ideal for the front end of the creative process…”

The major advantage of this product is the freedom to sketch away from the computer, away from the traditional Wacom type tablet), indoors or outdoors, but still quickly generate vector paths for drawings or laser cutting. Wacom have clearly demonstrated an understanding of the ubiquitous computing needs of designers, illustrators, makers, doodlers, etc..

The Inkling receiver has been built to be very versatile and can be clipped to any sketchbook or piece of paper. It employes infrared and ultrasonic technologies to pick up your hand sketches, these can be saved as either vector lines or pixels in a number of file formats.

“In addition to capturing your sketch, stroke by stroke, Inkling allows you to create layers in digital files while you sketch on paper. Digital files are transferred to your computer…”

This product cost about $199.00

Everyone has witnessed really absurd website designs that instead of appealing, repel the visitor and force them to revert to a different page.

To design a good website, it is important that you have some knowledge about design conventions. Without knowing  about these conventions, you might  be able to create “at best” an interesting  web design. There are many “would be” designers that are doing that just – “creating interesting pretty websites”.

“In any competitive marketplace, the inability to differentiate will ultimately lead to obscurity”

• Does your website  reinforce your businesses’ or personal professional identity in a competitive marketplace?

• Does your website have the professional well established appearance that gives on-line customers confidence in your products or services?
• Does your website have a creative impact that will get customers and clients excited and enthusiastic about you or your company? Professional creative and quality design is an important part of your investment to ensure a positive return.

If the answers to the above questions are “no” then your website may be failing you. Your website design may be failing to adhere to some basic, yet important,  important website design conventions. Some of the reasons why website designs fail are given below.

1. Lack of Balance

Balance is the basic premise when designing websites. Balance allows you to connect all elements of the website and create a proper flow. The balance might be symmetrical or asymmetrical. Symmetrical balance is based on equal weight to both sides resulting in a formal and traditional website. An asymmetrical balance means that all elements comprise of different weights leading to a unique and distinguishable website.

2. Use of Bevel and Emboss

New website designers typically use bevel and emboss a lot. This is because they believe that it will bring a nice effect to their website. However, this is not true. Bevel and emboss should not be abused, rather, these should be used sparingly so as to create an effect. Many useful tutorials exist that allow you to understand how you can transform emboss into a useful and strong technique. However, if you don’t really know how to use bevel and emboss, it is best that you avoid its usage.

3. Distracting Backgrounds

At times, people use backgrounds that are otherwise very appealing to the eye; however, when used as a background for the website, they may prove to be very distracting. Therefore, if you use a busy and heavy background, it will end up distracting the user. The user would lose the focus and the message of your website will be lost on the user. Therefore, do not use backgrounds that have a higher visual impact than your website. The users would feel that your website provides no specific information and they will leave the website very quickly.

4. Lack of Detail

Sometimes, users find a website useless because it lacks detail. If you think you have finished everything and covered every aspect of website designing, think again. You might be missing the detail of some minor things. Therefore, as a rule, always check the website design for small details.

5. White Space

White space is the space that is created between elements and is important in enhancing the readability and design flow of your website. It is also used to provide a clean look to the website making the website more readable.

We always like to tell designers when approaching a new project  to “Think Outside of the Box”  – Idea generation or problem solving that is not constrained by self-imposed limits or conventional barriers.

OOB thinking will often lead to novel ideas innovations and solutions. Here are some of our examples of OOB creativity in Ad Design.