Entry-Level Visual Design Tips for Students
Irrespectively of what you major in, what college you attend and what courses you take, the ability and skill to use numerous visual tools available to students today can end up doing you a great service. Of course, knowing how to work with them is a must for students of visual arts, but even if you study something that doesn’t directly deal with drawing, photography or something else along these lines, knowing your way around the most important design tools can make dealing with certain tasks much easier.
Let’s say you have to prepare a PowerPoint presentation or handouts you are going to spread in the audience during a conference. Even when you’ve mastered the technical aspects of the relevant software tools, if you don’t have at least basic knowledge of visual design you won’t make a good job of it.
So, here are a few things knowing which can make your job on your design projects much easier.
Humans are predominantly visually oriented creatures – which means that they perceive a lot of information solely by evaluating the colors, even before they decipher the image or start reading what is written. For example, warm colors such as red, yellow or orange are associated with warmth, passion or happiness, while cool colors transfer the meaning of trust, solidity and professionalism (that is why so many law firms and governmental institutions choose them when building their websites). Other colors also have concepts associated with them, so when you choose a color gamut for your project make sure it goes along with its contents.
Using a thematically appropriate font can greatly enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of any document or project that uses them – professional designers go as far as saying that selecting a font is akin to choosing an outfit to wear. It may not change the core of your work, but people are going to unwillingly make assumptions about it based on their first impression of fonts you use. Different occasions require different fonts – the analogy can be taken a long way. What it all boils down to, you should approach the choice of font carefully. There are many top-notch free fonts that aren’t in any way inferior to the ones available commercially.
Although there are plenty of professional design tools like Photoshop and Sketch, if you deal with visual design only from time to time and don’t intend to dedicate your entire life to a career in this field, you can easily do with free software. There are many examples of publicly available tools that have more than enough functionality to do the jobs at a level you need them in college.
Students trying to make their projects look a little bit more impressive with the help of visual design are often dumbfounded by all the options and possibilities that open up in front of them, ending up using everything that even remotely fits. The result is all too often a jumbled mess of colors, effects, figures, pictures and whatnot that don’t carry any unifying idea and do nothing but confuse the viewer. So study from expert designers and keep things as simple as possible – in the long run, good taste and professionalism show themselves not in the skill to use all the options but in the ability to refuse using most of them and settling only on those that are completely right for this particular case.
Again, all too often newbie designers try hard to fill every inch of space with something. It is, however, often much more powerful to do the exact opposite, offsetting the few important elements you do have.
Even if you are not a design student, knowing a few tricks can be helpful now and then – to help you complete your project without extra help, to make it stand out from the crowd, to give your work that little bit of special quality.
David Gutierrez has worked in the field of web design since 2005. Right now he started learning Java in order to get second occupation. His professional interests defined major topics of his articles. David writes about new web design software, recently discovered professional tricks and also monitors the latest updates of the web development.
BY SYDNEY WHITMAN
A good narrative essay example will benefit you a lot. Though you can get professional assistance from homework helping websites, there is no harm in gaining more knowledge. Narrative essays are not only about summing things up for readers. You have to innovatively present your personal experience and allow readers to come up with their conclusions after evaluating the paper. In this post, we will examine creative ways to find good narrative essay examples with ease. Read on!
Whether you are in college or high school, you can get good narrative examples samples from your school. The activities going on in your school, teachers, and students can present you with tons of inspiration. Evaluate what you like and dislike about them; feelings you get from colleagues or friends in your class.
One place to find good narrative essay examples, is on websites of prominent schools; universities in particular. Most of these top-tier universities upload samples and stories of real writers to help promote their work on regular basis. So you can take advantage of that.
If you are not close to your teachers, you better have a change of mind. Your teachers have read far, so they know what writing a good narrative essay entails. Teachers are always interested to help and guide students who are willing to learn. And making an effort to seek help gives them the impression that you are a hardworking student that wants to succeed.
If you cannot lay hands on good narrative essay samples, ask your teacher to guide you. Even if he or she cannot write a sample to guide you, their instructions will.
You can get help on narrative essay writing from a fellow student. It could be a student from your class or someone ahead of you. You can even read their work to understand how to write yours. Ask for explanations if you find anything you do not understand.
Books can inspire you to draft a perfect narrative essay. Interestingly, most of these books have tons of inspiring stories and instructions on narrative essay writing. Concentrate more on books written by famous authors, not just any random book you find on the internet or school library. Learn how they picked their choice of words, grammar and writing style. Note that your essay must engage your readers or graders to earn good marks. So take note of this while reading through various samples to understand the flow of the paper.
Every home is unique, and interestingly, yours can serve as an inspiration for your essay. Find out the strengths and weaknesses, achievements and failures in your home. It could be about your siblings or close relatives.
Your neighborhood can also fetch you some good examples. Assess the traits of people living there; if the neighborhood is safe or not. Do you want things to change or like the way they are? Just take the time to analyze things and you will find a couple of inspiring stories to work with.
New channels whether online or newspaper can provide you with great examples. Watch the primetime news, for example, and you will discover different dramas and stories about things happening around the world. These stories can be about an individual or a group of people. But can help you write an engaging essay.
Find and read different newspapers to get stories, passage or an article that can provide the kind of insight you need. You can even decide to extract a piece you find interesting to serve as an inspiration to you.
A lot of drama happens around different states in your country that can serve as a good example for your essay. Some you may find in newspapers or online new channels or visit the scene yourself to get firsthand information if you are close. Stories of how your government is tackling corruption, insecurity, and economic policies can serve as an inspiring story for your essay too.
Conclusion
If you are finding it hard to draft a narrative essay, you can rely on samples for inspiration and knowledge. There are many ways to get samples for your paper; you can ask for professional help, conduct online research or draw inspiration from personal experiences. We have highlighted some of the ways to get good samples for your paper. So read and take action to draft quality essay that will captivate the grader and attract good marks.
Byline
Sydney Whitman is an academic coach and combines her daily job with content writing for a range of educational websites. She believes that educated youth is the only way to achieve peace and welfare in out world. Connect with her on Twitter or G+.
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