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  • InDesign Tutorial: Menus and Windows for Beginners
    Teacher Design

    InDesign Tutorial: Menus and Windows for Beginners

    Discover the basics tools of Adobe InDesign that will allow you to manipulate a document and change its design elements with Jamie Sanchez Hearn Adobe InDesign is a program that allows you to create efficient and versatile designs for countless visual formats, such as typography, editorial design, and branding projects across a variety of different media. Understanding your workspace and adjusting it accordingly will help you work efficiently. Graphic designer Jamie Sanchez Hearn (@jamiesanchezhearn) has worked for visual design firms such as Pentagram and Johnson Banks and teaches at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. InDesign is a staple of his day to day work as a designer. In this tutorial, he will give you a tour of a typical InDesign workspace, the functions of each section, and shows you how to adjust them to your needs and preferences so that you can begin confidently with the software. Watch the video below:

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  • This Digital Archive Is a Treasure Chest of Typography and Design
    Design

    This Digital Archive Is a Treasure Chest of Typography and Design

    The TM Research Archive compiles every issue of the magazine Typographische Monatsblätter, which played an important role in the history of typography If we look back on 20th-century graphic design history, the emergence of International Typographic Style–a movement of Russian, Dutch and German origin that developed mainly in Switzerland during the post-WW2 years–was a huge turning point. Looking to unify shape and content and drawn to simplicity and typographic design, International Typographic Style had such a huge influence on global design that its impact is still felt today.

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  • What Is a UX Writer?
    Design

    What Is a UX Writer?

    Mario Ferrer sheds some light on this role and how UX writers are key to creating an excellent interface UX Writing consists of creating, developing, and designing an interface’s content in an app using user experience design methodologies applied to words. UX designer Mario Ferrer (@marioferrer), the creator of the UX Writers España group, has worked on various mobile app games like Candy Crush Saga, Farm Heroes Saga, Bubble Witch 3, and is part of the product team at Skyscanner. In his own words, he ‘uses words as a design tool’ to collaborate with production teams to find solutions that deliver the best possible user experience. Yes, a person who is dedicated to UX Writing also designs. Read on as Mario defines the role of a UX writer, how it differs from other roles that also use writing as one of their main tools, and how a UX writer works within a product team.

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  • Creativity Tutorial: What a Mood Board Is and How to Create One
    Teacher Design

    Creativity Tutorial: What a Mood Board Is and How to Create One

    Learn what a mood board consists of and how to compile visual inspiration, with Linus Lohoff A mood board will provide any visual branding project with the foundational elements to become a success. In many cases, the better the mood board, the clearer the process, and the better the final result. A mood board can be comprised of anything that will inform the next steps you take in the design process: images, photos, textures, patterns, colors, text, typography, and objects. Linus Lohoff (@linus_lohoff) is an art director and photographer who has worked for creative agencies such as Saatchi&Saatchi, BOROS & Vasava Studio. In this tutorial, Linus shares his process for how to easily create a clear and effective mood board.

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  • What Is the Best Place to Sell Your Clothes Online?
    Design

    What Is the Best Place to Sell Your Clothes Online?

    What is the best platform to sell your streetwear project? Smithe presents his favorite options You’ve just created a fantastic collection of t-shirts with your designs and illustrations, and now you need your audience to see it and buy it, correct? Which online shop should you choose to advertise your products if you don’t have a way to set up your website? Smithe (@smithe)–a Mexican urban artist, illustrator, and designer–has been working on his style, perfecting his images’ narrative, and working as a creative for fashion brand, Tony Delfino. Here he shows us the difference between the two leading e-commerce platforms, Big Cartel and Shopify.

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  • Essential Shortcuts for Working with SketchUp
    Design

    Essential Shortcuts for Working with SketchUp

    Improve your workflow when creating and 3D modeling in SketchUp SketchUp is a 3D modeling software for different projects, from architectural and interior design to civil engineering, movies, and video games. It is an ideal software for those who are starting out and want to share their ideas in 3D, as it is quick to learn and get good results. We have put together the most useful shortcuts to improve your workflow:

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  • The 4 Best Open-Source Software to Awaken Your Creativity
    Design

    The 4 Best Open-Source Software to Awaken Your Creativity

    The Domestika community has selected the best open-source programs for getting creative Open-source software invites developers to work in collaboration. It guarantees that the program being developed is kept available to all and is, in general, free to use. These programs are great options for creatives, students, and beginners across different disciplines wanting to experiment with free versions of popular software that often ends up being expensive. We reached out to the Domestika community over Instagram and asked them what they consider to be their favorite open-source programs. These were the top-voted answers. Blender Blender is a free, open-source 3D creation suite. You can work on all types of 3D pieces: modeling, animation, simulation, rigging, rendering, video editing, and much more. This program also allows you to work on digital painting projects, 2D animations, and video games development. It’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

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  • What Are Character and Paragraph Styles in InDesign?
    Design

    What Are Character and Paragraph Styles in InDesign?

    Learn how to apply character and paragraph styles in InDesign, a key step in editorial design While, among designers, it’s not as popular as Photoshop and Illustrator, InDesign is an essential program for those working specifically in editorial design. As a layout tool, it enables users to work with large bodies of text in an agile and simple way, making it a favorite for designers working on magazines, books, newspapers, brochures, or even posters. In other words: people who work with different types of text, such as titles or pull-quotes, that are repeated throughout the document. One of the most useful tools InDesign offers is character and paragraph styles; these allow you to create shortcuts for editing similar texts with just one click. Although this is one of the program’s most notable features, often people don’t know the difference between the two and therefore don’t make the most of what they can do. To help you speed up your editing and layout processes, here we explain everything you need to know about character and paragraph styles when working in InDesign.

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  • Learn How to Analyze Color Palettes Using a Book From 1902
    Design

    Learn How to Analyze Color Palettes Using a Book From 1902

    Discover the work of artist and color theory student Emily Noyes Vanderpoel in her book, Color Problems: A Practical Manual for the Lay Student of Color Mixing colors to create specific effects, transmit feelings, and boost certain moods is what color theory has been teaching for centuries, starting with the first records from the artist Leone Battista Alberti (1435), and the studies of Leonardo da Vinci (1490). However, during the eighteenth century, Isaac Newton revolutionized this field by studying light dispersion and discovering the color spectrum as we know it today. Since then, several scholars, artists, and scientists have analyzed the visible spectrum's colors to create a knowledge base that can guide other people in combining shades and creating palettes. In 1902, the artist Emily Noyes Vanderpoel, known for her work with watercolor and oil painting, started to compile the color palette of everyday objects and elements present in nature to understand the color patterns found in the natural world.

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  • 7 Books to Inspire You When Writing Video Game Scripts
    Teacher Design

    7 Books to Inspire You When Writing Video Game Scripts

    Discover the titles every aspiring narrative designer should have in their personal library The simple video games that entertained us for hours decades ago seem downright prehistoric when compared to today's blockbusters. With a style and narrative much closer to cinema, video games have become authentic works of art in which dialogs and stories have an impressive weight. In this new reality, professionals like Víctor Ojuel (@victor_ojuel)–narrative designer for video games–are a key piece for the development of titles. Books, of course, are an inexhaustible source of inspiration for video game writers like him, so Victor is sharing with the Domestika community which books have influenced his professional career: The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, by Christopher Vogler It is, or should be, the bedside book for any professional scriptwriter. Although this book was written with Hollywood film productions in mind, Victor thinks it is an essential reference manual for those who want to start writing video game narratives because he uses the theory behind The Hero with a Thousand Faces with an efficient approach.

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  • What is Surface Pattern Design?
    Design

    What is Surface Pattern Design?

    Learn more about surface pattern design through these examples and discover the techniques used to create them Maybe you’ve heard of this term or come across it while scrolling through one of the many creative accounts you follow on Instagram. However, you’re still not 100% sure what surface pattern design consists of. And while you constantly encounter countless examples, you’ve not clocked that an object in front of you has been created by a surface pattern designer.

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  • 5 Ways to Find New Ideas
    Teacher Design

    5 Ways to Find New Ideas

    Alejandro Flores explains the methods he uses in his design studio to turn his team's ideas into workable concepts Creativity is not an exact science, and that means there is no single way to achieve it. Each person, each designer, will find their favorite method to make ideas flow. They may even want to try several of them, and choose one or the other depending on the type of project you have in hand, the team they work with, the deadlines, or the means at their disposal. Alejandro Flores, founder and creative director of the Mexican design studio Human (@human_), has 5 methods for conceptualizing ideas that his team uses to create groundbreaking designs. Mind mapping This is one of the most well-known methods. Starting from a central idea, you start making ramifications using related concepts that will help new ideas flourish. It is especially useful to discover new avenues that seemed unrelated to the original idea at first.

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  • Why did all pirates use the same flag?
    Design

    Why did all pirates use the same flag?

    Discover the history of the Jolly Roger flag, the powerful image of the pirate brand Imagine riding the ocean waves in a merchant navy ship when, on the horizon, a boat raises a flag: it's black and bears a white skull and crossbones. Just by seeing it, you know that a pirate ship is approach. The classic pirate flag is called the Jolly Roger. It was used in the 18th century and rapidly became the symbol of choice for pirates across the oceans. Why did that design go viral? The response is simultaneously simple and complicated: the power of branding and design over people. Learn its history in the video below:

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  • Whorl, The App to Awaken Your Creativity
    Design

    Whorl, The App to Awaken Your Creativity

    Discover the app that awakens your creativity by appealing to a basic exercise of the imagination: play. There is one significant difference in the way a child thinks compared to an adult. Children can think up and arrive at solutions a grown up would never imagine. Their creativity is boundless and stems from their ability for playfulness, something most of us adults have long forgotten. The Whorl app–designed with adults in mind, but suitable for children alike–aims to awaken our creativity through play.

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  • 6 Books to Inspire Graphic Designers
    Teacher Design

    6 Books to Inspire Graphic Designers

    These graphic design books will inspire you and help you learn about the history of this discipline Daniel Barba López, graphic designer and director of Monotypo Studio (@monotypo_studio)–a studio dedicated to offering graphic and communication solutions to brands, in everything from small adjustments to a logo to fresh reworks of company stationery, packaging, and other avenues for providing vision and personality–shares his favorite graphic design books. History of Graphic Design, by Philip B. Meggs Learning the history of graphic design is an excellent way to grow as a designer. This book, written by Philip B. Meggs, offers an inexhaustible source of knowledge and inspiration, as it shows us the most relevant paradigms of graphic design from its origins to the present.

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  • What Is an Art Director in a Design Studio?
    Design

    What Is an Art Director in a Design Studio?

    Understand the role of an art director and what part they play within a creative team Art directors have a significant role in the design industry. Linus Lohoff (@linus_lohoff), a freelance art director for clients like Adobe, Nike, and Comme des Garçons, helps us explore this role and tells us how an art director translates ideas into visual communication tools. In his Domestika course, he reveals a few secrets he gained from his career, working in different environments and industries.

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  • 7 Architectural Works from Around the World that Represent the 21st Century
    Design

    7 Architectural Works from Around the World that Represent the 21st Century

    Domestika teachers choose the projects that, in their opinion, best define the avant-garde and the spirit of the last two decades Like any other manifestation of human ingenuity, architecture is an art in constant transformation, intrinsically related to the historical moment in which it develops. To commemorate World Architecture Day and the Architect's Day–a day invented by the International Union of Architects (UIA) that always falls on the first Monday of October–we present seven projects that symbolize the avant-garde and the spirit of our time in the vision of different teachers of Domestika courses linked to the discipline. This is not a ranking or a definitive list, but rather a set expert opinions, based on the distinctive and innovative features they believe are reflected in these creations. 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan

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  • 5 Essential Courses for Learning Programming from Scratch
    Teacher Design

    5 Essential Courses for Learning Programming from Scratch

    Dive into the world of programming and discover these courses taught by top professionals Today, having an online presence is essential for almost any profession. For this reason, those working in programming have endless clients knocking at their doors, looking to make their digital dreams a reality. These courses serve to help you learn to code without any previous knowledge. WordPress Theme Development, a course by Ignacio Cruz Moreno WordPress is a platform offering numerous templates that can be adapted to any and every one of the user’s needs. However, sometimes things don’t always turn out exactly as you might have hoped. To ensure that you don’t encounter any design or functionality problems, Ignacio Cruz will teach you to develop your own WordPress theme to use -for your own projects or share it with other users.

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  • 6 Best Portfolio Hosting Platforms
    Design

    6 Best Portfolio Hosting Platforms

    From professional social networks to specialized website builders, these five platforms will get your work seen the way you want it to be Every visual creative wants to be seen. A wonderful creation isn’t going to change the world nor pay the rent if it doesn’t get in front of the right people. Knowing where to share your work online to make sure you’re turning the right heads can be instrumental in getting paid. With so many places to choose from, it can be hard to know where to begin, and different sites can work better for different people and different professions. While Instagram and LinkedIn might seem the best places to catch people's eye and find clients, they're not always the best sites for the job. One of the biggest problems, acccording to Laura Varsky, illustrator and designer who teaches the Domestika course Professional Illustration: Turn Your Passion into a Career is that, "They don't last. If you put all your energy into making a good profile for a particular social network, you can end up investing all that energy in something that has a short life." Here is a list of our five favorite platforms for online portfolios, including professional networking platforms and specialized website hosting and design services, so you can get the best return on your investment and see long lasting success.

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  • Logocentric vs. Flexible: Two Approaches to Branding
    Design

    Logocentric vs. Flexible: Two Approaches to Branding

    Heavy design studio explains the characteristics, advantages, and risks of each approach As you probably already know, a brand's design and identity does not end with a logo. A logo is just the door to a world of branding elements that give each company its own character, voice, and personality. The Heavy (@heavy), a design studio that specializes in branding and corporate identity strategies, explains that when creating a brand identity, the logo is only the tip of the iceberg. Below, they share two branding approaches that explain the differences between brands that focus on their logo versus those that take a more versatile approach. Get to know these two approaches to find out which one is best for your next design project.

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  • Blue Note: Where Jazz and Design Met
    Design

    Blue Note: Where Jazz and Design Met

    Learn the history of the jazz record label that has been defining jazz’s aesthetic and sound since 1939 Imagine a classic jazz record sleeve. Chances are you’re imagining a smartly cropped photo of a sharply dressed black man with his instrument. The photography gives off a sense of action; maybe there is more than one image from the same moment, giving a sense of illusion. The cover isn’t a black and white photo but two-tone, the darker parts of the image contrasting with a blue, green, or orange maybe. A compact and creatively placed typography tells you who the artists are. The final touch: the simple and elegant logo of Blue Note records, the finest in jazz since 1939. Blue Note was founded by two Jewish German immigrants who came over to America, saw this new movement that African Americans were pioneering, and realized they needed to document it. Those two men were photographer Francis Wolff and Alfred Lion. The record label would set the tone for jazz, specifically hard bop, it’s aesthetic, and it’s development, for what is now approaching eight decades. The label was one of a flurry of others, including HRS the year before and Commodore the year before that. Those behind the companies were initially hobbyists but the labels that stuck were the work of people who quickly got wise to the challenges of the record industry.

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  • 3 Essential Books for Learning to Create
    Teacher Design

    3 Essential Books for Learning to Create

    Illustrator Alfonso de Anda entrusts us with the titles of some of the books that have most inspired him Inspiration is everywhere, and although it may be waiting for you around the corner, in a café, at a meeting with friends, or in your own home, there are some books that can help you exercise your creativity and help good ideas flourish. Over the years, illustrator Alfonso de Anda (@deandaalfonso) has become a specialist in capturing good ideas and awakening creativity. These are some of his favorite books about the habit of creating: Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind, by 99u and Jocelyn K. Glei Taking as a premise the saturation of information and the long list of things to do that we all face every day, this book tries to give us an idea of how to organize our lives. It is about ensuring that our routine does not end up destroying our creativity, something we must keep on top of 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

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  • Why is the Peace Symbol Three Lines and a Circle?
    Design

    Why is the Peace Symbol Three Lines and a Circle?

    Discover the true history and meaning of the peace symbol You have seen it on banners, in demonstrations, on T-shirts, and on necklaces. It’s just three lines and a circle but there’s no doubt you know what it means: peace. Today, the peace symbol is a part of global culture. It is used to stand up for all kinds of causes, and we perfectly understand its meaning regardless of where we come from. However, did you know that it is only six decades old? Its original meaning was much more specific but why did it end up being used universally to represent peace? Find out in the following video:

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  • Web Design Tutorial: 6 Writing Tips That Designers Need to Know
    Teacher Design

    Web Design Tutorial: 6 Writing Tips That Designers Need to Know

    Learn how users read a page and why it’s important that designers understand copywriting, with James Eccleston Though you might not realize it, copywriting is an essential skill in the toolkit of a successful web designer. Understanding the basic principles of copywriting, and how it informs how people interact with a page, offers great insights that can be applied to design. This can improve SEO, increase conversion, and also make your website more aesthetically pleasing. As brand and UX specialist James Eccleston (@james80) explains, web designers don’t need to replace copywriters, but by having a greater understanding of how copywriting works they can enrich their designs and coordinate more effectively with their teams. In the video below, he explains the six writing tips that designers need to know in order to create interesting and engaging web pages.

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  • What Are Spot (or Solid) Colors?
    Design

    What Are Spot (or Solid) Colors?

    Two design professionals explain what spot colors are and when and how to use them Both Chack Robles (@chackrobles) and John Naranjo (@jonaranjo) have spent over two decades in the worlds of advertising and editorials, respectively: this means they are experts in the world of printing. Throughout their careers, they’ve been able to work with spot colors on numerous occasions and are the perfect people to clear up any doubts over what spot or Pantone colors are and when to use them. What is a spot color? As John Naranjo tells us, colors, depending on their origin, can be differentiated into light colors—which are those derived from the decomposition of light and which, in screens and devices, compose light into RGB values—and pigment colors, created from the chemical mixture of pigments to create a color. Spot colors belong to this second group. Spot colors, also known as solid colors, "are used to select special colors that can be applied in a single run without the need to combine selection or offset colors (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) or four-color process", clarifies Chack Robles. The Pantone system, made up of flat colors, has managed to interpret multiple colors by mixing basic pigments. With it, says Naranjo, "you can achieve colors that are out of range and cannot be represented digitally, such as metallic colors, pastel colors, etc."

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  • Oculus Quill: A Tool for Creating VR Universes
    Design

    Oculus Quill: A Tool for Creating VR Universes

    Get to know this design program and learn to paint within a virtual world Federico Moreno Breser (@jackmcfly) is a digital artist and animation director with more than 20 years of experience in the industry. In 2005, he founded Mcfly Studio, one of the most well-known animation studios in Argentina, where he is from. In 2012, he launched a magazine called Moushon! and, three years later, he created Luty Art Studio–an art department dedicated to developing art and concept art for the film, animation, and video game industries.

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  • These Are the Design Apps the Domestika Community Loves
    Design

    These Are the Design Apps the Domestika Community Loves

    We asked the Domestika community on Instagram what their favorite design apps are, and here are the results A good app can inspire you to start a new project, deal with those little repetitive tasks that take the fun out of your creative process, or encourage you to explore new techniques. With this in mind, we asked the Domestika community on Instagram what their favorite design apps are; what programs help them to be more productive or creative. These are your favorites. Mojo Stories have become one of the main features of Instagram and a valuable tool to share creative projects. Fast-paced, fun to watch, and highly addictive, these snippets can be used to tell stories or show a technique. But it can feel a little bit constrained sometimes. Creating attractive designs requires time and effort. Mojo solves this by giving the user hundreds of stunning templates to choose that create eye-catching animated slides, unlock new narrative avenues, and take stories to the next level. A great tool to boost engagement in all of your social posts.

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