Creative Workspace

No secret workspaces have a great impact on productivity, creativity, focus, and inspiration. And that’s also the aspect of great diversity: some of us need a clean and minimalist environment while others strive for tons of inspiring bits and kits, plants, or books. Inspired by the theme, we’ve created a set of illustrations showing the diversity of creative workspaces.

Artists’ Universe

The more you dive into art, the deeper it feels like a sort of endless and impressive universe, with each artist presenting a particular star or even galaxy full of amazing discoveries. This illustration collection aims at opening this universe a bit via the powerful and inspiring artists representing different cultures, epochs, and styles, but all having lit their own immortal stars.

The bright Mexican painter Frida Kahlo

The pioneer of impressionism Claude Monet

Maria Prymachenko, a Ukrainian village folk art painter, a famous representative of naïve art

René Magritte, a Belgian surrealist artist well-known for witty and thought-provoking artworks

Gustav Klimt, an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement

Salvador Dalí, a Spanish surrealist artist worldwide famous for his technical skill as well as striking and bizarre artworks

Vincent van Gogh, a Dutch post-impressionist painter, one of the most famous, productive, and influential figures in the history of Western art

Black and White Artworks About Design Studio Life

Here in Tubik, we know the ins and outs of different sides of the design process, the power of teamwork, and the importance of concentration. As well as the work-life balance issue, so much thought out by creative people. Here’s a collection of catchy and daring monochrome artworks devoted right to that topic.

Geometric Art of Design

Artists and designers know well that all the world around is full of geometric diversity. This collection of digital artworks also touches that theme: the illustrations are spiced with the geometry magic and reflect different aspects of the design process.

Curious Cat and Creative Process

This set of illustrations is dedicated to various stages of the research and creation process. This series has a mascot character uniting all the episodes into one line of visual storytelling: meet the curious and clever сat going all the way from a question to the solution.

Question and problem statement stage

Research stage

Systematization stage

Analysis stage

Hypothesis stage

Solution stage

Mixing Styles

Collaboration on a creative project is never a simple thing, as sometimes it has to crush together different visions and approaches to get a wow result. This set of artworks is inspired by that theme and based on the creative illustration at the crossroads of different styles and dimensions.

All designers strive to experience that moment of zen when everything in their design is harmonic, balanced, and eye-pleasing. Even if that’s just a short second before the next round of polishing, perfecting, and upgrading. Catch that feeling with the illustration below.

Don’t forget to take creative breaks to avoid creative blocks – that’s the idea behind another illustration from the set.

Design in Progress Illustrations

Here you’ll find a pack of diverse illustrations devoted to different work styles and setups: from individual work to teamwork, from working from home to office vibes, from freelancing to studio design.

Getting into work from home

Teamwork mode

Research stage in the user experience design process

Communication as an integral part of designers’ job

Backstage of freelancing from home

Teamwork uniting the superpowers of different colleagues

Starting a design day from the client’s feedback

Diving deep and focusing

Working in the quarantine mode

New illustration sets are coming soon, don’t miss them.

Illustration Collections and Digital Art Case Studies

If you want to see more collections of illustrations or discover how they work in particular design projects, here’s the set of posts for you.

Fulfill. Illustrations and Web Design for 3PLs Marketplace

Roebuck. Mobile Design and Illustrations for Educational App

8 Bright Packaging Design Projects Employing Illustration Art

Bikker. Identity Design and Illustrations for Biking Service

Animal World: 4 Beautiful Illustration Sets About Wildlife and Pets

Book Illustrations for Visual Storytelling

In Search of Illustration: Design Process for Illustration Set

ABUK. Custom Book Cover Design for Audiobook App

Moonworkers. Digital Illustrations on Film Production

MYWONY. Storytelling with Brand Intro Design

Tubik in Paris. Design Process for Narrative Illustration

Originally written for Tubik Blog, graphic content by tubik

The illustrations in the post belong to Tubik and cannot be used by other resources without a link to the source.

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• What is graphic design?
• What are the creative directions of graphic design?
• Is graphic design art?
• Why is graphic design important?
• What skills are needed to reach success in graphic design?
• Can you be a graphic designer without drawing skills?

Let’s get started with theory, practice, and a big set of examples from studio designers.

Logo design

Business cards

Truck livery design for Andre Landscape

Interface illustration for a Colony landing page

Storyboard: illustrations for Binned promo video

Title illustration for blog article

Stickers design

Badges for Pukapal app

Illustration for Opera promo video

Character design for Toonie Alarm

Book cover design

Theme poster-style illustration

Is Graphic Design Art?

In short, no, most professionals in this sphere do not position or call themselves artists.

Defining art, Merriam-Webster dictionary describes it as “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects”. The objects of art are appreciated mostly for their beauty, aesthetic value and emotional appeal. And all that is not the primary goal set for design.

Graphic designer’s job could be described as building a bridge between the art and the functional goal-centered design. They mix the power of art and functionality within the limits of particular goals and a definite audience. “Good design is a lot like clear thinking made visual,” said Edward Tufte and that is a cool definition showing what graphic designers strive to achieve.

It’s easy to see that graphic design covers various aspects of human life dealing with visual communication, from books and posters to complex mobile apps or 3D animation. Supported by research, analysis, and testing, graphics enhance usability, strengthen branding and provide a positive user experience. That is the point where art and functionality merge and meld for the sake of making people happier by solving problems and satisfying wishes.

Theme illustration for a dating app landing page

Why Is Graphic Design Important?

This question is often asked and not so easy to answer. One of the reasons why this professional field has such a broad presence in our lives lies in the fact that people are mostly visual creatures. We tend to perceive images faster than words. We are influenced by colors and shapes. We respond to characters and symbols. We need prompts and visual hierarchy. We are dependent on emotions and feelings. The list may be prolonged – and graphic design is what makes the difference.

It rarely occurs that the object of graphic design serves only one objective. Let’s look into the core goals set for graphic assets.

Identification

This aspect deals primarily with branding, first of all, logos which set the foundation for a brand strategy. Designers have to consider multiple factors regarding the target audience, laws and rules of artistic harmony, the psychology of color and shape, impact on human perception and emotions, the current conditions on the market as well as business goals of the brand or company. Moreover, visual images are memorable which enhances brand awareness.

Whizzly logo design

Beauty

Beauty means much as it works like a hook for the users or viewers dealing with visual stuff from advertising to book covers, cartoons, user interfaces of all kinds, packaging, photos and loads of other things. We tend to be emotionally and aesthetically engaged. Although content and functionality are crucial for problem-solving, people still live by the unwritten rule that a good dress is a card of invitation. Attractive appearance is highly important to engage users in trying a product, watching a video, especially regarding the modern intense competition. Graphic design also becomes a powerful tool for UI beautification from small details like icons to significant elements like illustrations and mascots.

Travel app landing page

Event branding for Behance Portfolio Reviews Dnipro

Theme and mood

Visual elements, as well as copy, not only transfer the message but also set the tone and voice of communication. It may be reached with a background, typography, composition, color palette, shapes and sizes, stylistic approaches that inform the user about the product from the first seconds of contact. Visual perception plays a big role in decision-making, especially in cases of introduction: short minutes or even seconds are vital to get the user interested. As well, following popular trends, graphic designers give the object up-to-date look which is an essential factor of trust for many users.

Illustration for a blog article on UI navigation

Explanation, information, and guiding

This aspect is presented both in print assets and digital interfaces in various tutorials, manuals, tool-tips, guides, etc. A picture is really worth a thousand words: it saves precious time and helps to avoid big copy blocks. Even more, graphics based on a thorough analysis of the target audience turn on the mechanism of empathy and emotional appeal.

Style guide for Binned

Navigation improvement

Custom graphic elements are a great way to improve navigation and boost usability. Practice shows it has a great impact on conversions and retaining readers, providing an easy flow of journey through the website or app, map or city navigation. In addition, all this positive influence is supported by aesthetic pleasure if visual performance is consistent and keeps a harmonic composition.

Custom artistic icons for categories of Cuteen app

Characters boosting communication

Personification applied appropriately is a factor of positive user experience, it strengthens the brand image and brand awareness. That is why mascots and characters often become a part of a design concept and content strategy. And here graphic designers can show their best. Efficient mascots corresponding to expectations of the target audience provide originality and flow of communication which is closer to natural.

Toonie mascot and stickers design

Stylish copy

This is all about typography, the important branch of graphic design dealing with letters as a design object. Copy applied to various products should be not only legible and readable but also nice, attractive and emotional. In cases of lettering for branding, it also adds such vital features as originality and recognizability.

Creative lettering for theme illustration

What Skills Are Needed to Reach Success in Graphic Design?

Requirements to the specialists in graphic design often include the following:

• technical artistic skills and preferably qualification in some sort of visual art
• artistic talent and creative nature
• good artistic eye and feeling of harmony
• ability to draw well
• good skills in composition and visual analysis
• ability to work on the analysis of the target audience and possible options of communication with it
• ability to apply different techniques of drawing and painting, preferably both with manual and digital tools (Photoshop, Illustrator, Procreate, etc.)
• ability to learn and self-improve all the time as the sphere is extremely dynamic and diverse, etc.

So, if you want to build your career in this sphere, it could be helpful to think about which of the mentioned positions you feel strong in and which ones need to be improved. As well, nowadays it’s vital to be quite flexible in applying diverse design tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. So, practice and training are needed all the time to get prepared for modern design tasks.

Coming from the side of knowledge, it would be very useful to get some knowledge about color theory, psychology, strategies and design flow for branding and marketing, negotiation skills, basics of business and sales, and other stuff that gets designer closer to clients and final users. In addition, it gives a broader outlook and makes the process of sharing creative ideas more natural and productive.

You may also be interested to check the article in which the Udemy instructor explains what you need to become a graphic designer.

The creative process for App Shack logo design

Can You Be a Graphic Designer Without Drawing Skills?

Well, in short: if we are talking about graphic design without high goals for success, yes, it may happen that you can earn their living in the sphere without great skills in drawing. Still, on the ground of practice, in the cases when a graphic designer aims at professional growth, a cool career, and really interesting projects, drawing skills and knowledge of academic drawing theory are a vital condition of success.

To get a bit deeper, it’s worth mentioning that in some other spheres of design it happens that you can be a high-level professional without being skillful in drawing (still, graphic design definitely doesn’t belong to them). For example, in the current conditions of the UI design field, with a variety of tools and hundreds of stocks with graphic assets like icons, illustrations, and photos, these resources may be enough for creating some kinds of interfaces. However, those who strive for originality, functional and unique graphics for their projects will create them from scratch or delegate these tasks to graphic designers. And the great high-quality graphic assets are basically grounded in great knowledge and skills of drawing and painting. Unlike other spheres, in graphic design, it is the core to be able to draw if you aim at success.

Art school and lessons of academic drawing in its classic form give a broad and solid artistic basis of composition, coloristic, drawing and painting techniques, history of arts. Adding to them the hours of elaborate training in which you practice hand-drawing, painting, sketching, ocular estimation, ability to see and transfer the lightest shades and shadows and the like, you get much stronger, more skillful and diverse as an artist. This is actually the best basis for creating nice, stylish and high-quality graphics with the complexity of any level required.

As for real examples, graphic designers at Tubik Studio do have the remarkable basis of professional training and academic qualification starting from several years of intensive studying in art schools and then moving up with majors in architecture, visual arts, and design. With all that stuff, mastering design software like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Procreate and combining it with the knowledge of modern trends in digital design and art, they have worked out their personal artistic style and have developed it more and more in actual design projects accomplished by the studio as well as design concepts.

Creating illustrations and icons for real UI/UX designs and testing them in combination with other elements, working on logos and other branding elements, practicing hand-sketching and drawing as well as digital illustrations just for developing better and faster use of software, they get to the solutions which are original, beautiful and functional. Sure, this is a personal opinion based on long-term design research and day-by-day work with a team of designers.

Sketching for Winter Olympics illustration

Today’s brief FAQ review is over, but new answers are coming soon, stay tuned!

Useful Reading

Flat Design. History and Modern Practices

Design Glossary: Basic Color Terminology

Functional Art: 10 Big Reasons to Apply Illustrations in UI Design

State of the Art: 15 Creative Graphic Design Concepts

Illustration Case Study: Winter Olympics Illustration Step-by-Step

How to Create Catchy Flat Illustrations: Designer’s Tips

Small Item, Big Impact: Types of UI Icons

6 Creative Stages of Design for Branding

Creative Stages of Logo Design

Originally written for Tubik Blog

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These product images are great to post and share throughout online shops and social media! These are also perfect to make your product catalog and it makes it so much easier for you to keep updating regularly and here is why.

They Make It Easier to Update Your Product Images

Instead of having to hire a professional photographer every time you make new designs or want to renew your products in-store or on your website, you can simply update your images with mockups that you can make in a few seconds. No need to spend a fortune on photoshoots.

What’s the great thing about mockups? You can also use the exact same image if you want to keep a style through your website, but you can also upload different angles from the same product, different colors, and anything else you need to really show you design!

What Kind of Mockups Can You Use?

There are tons of mockups styles you can use to make your images. Let’s go over some of your options.

Studio Mockups

Studio mockups are great to point all focus on your products. Lighting is very flattering, backgrounds are neat and clear. It’s the perfect image for a product to show its features with a very close look!

Context Mockups

Context mockups are great to show your products being used in real-life situations and events to show your designs’ style. You can use for example an urban setting, you can show you products in the wild, in the city, how they look on a house, and basically any surrounding you may need to give context to your products.

Mockups with Models

Again, a great mockup style to show products being used by real-life consumers! You can choose all kinds of models depending on who your product is for. There are kids, adults and seniors, all races, shapes, colors, and sizes! Plus, you can choose your model activity if you are making a sport’s product for example, if it’s for a bridesmaids party, even for dog products! There is surely a perfect mockup for your needs.

Garment Only Mockups

These are literally “garment only mockups” which means no models, just product but they can vary from studio shots to context backgrounds. The focus is completely on your product but it may also have a few other elements to accent it’s own style or usability.

Mockup Type According to Its Use

Depending on what kind of products your designs are for, you can choose a different type of mockups, for example, apparel mockups for any apparel product. Print mockups show branding material like flyers, posters, business cards and more. Devices mockups are great to show apps or websites and how they look on different technological devices like phones, tablets, computers, kindles, smartwatches and more.

Making a Mockup Is Easy

This is certainly a task for everyone, designer or not, the time you can save on your work by using mockups is precious. Making a mockup takes only a few seconds. Basically, you start by choosing the right mockup for your design (this might be the most difficult part since there are so many options). Depending on which site you are using to make your mockups, you will be finding different filter options or even tags. Use your filtering options to get to the right mockup for you and consider all the styles we have mentioned before.

1. On Placeit, for example, to choose the right template, and you may use tons of different tags, filters, and even a search bar to find exactly what you are looking for.

2. After, you simply have to drag and drop your design or upload it from your computer. You can adjust your design as many times as you need to get a perfect product mockup.

3. When you are done you simply have to click on the download button. Now, your downloading options on Placeit are the following: you may get a PNG file with great quality to post and share anywhere or you may choose a high format image for large scale printing purposes.

To Wrap It Up

So to recap, mockups are a great tool for any kind of designer due to how versatile they can be. You can find tons of different mockup styles that can perfectly suit your designs work to showcase them in the best way. They look professional and because it is so easy to make a mockup, you can update your content constantly with new images and with new designs as often as you need.

Save tons of hours on photoshoots and editing with pre-made templates that allow you to show your designs using fantastic looking mockups. Get as many images as you want all under a budget, this may vary greatly depending on which website you decide to use, but most places will give you mockups for a very fair price.

Placeit, for instance, gives you unlimited downloads with your subscription, yes that’s right, unlimited downloads. You can find product mockups categories like tote bag mockup, hoodie mockup, mug mockup, bag mockup, coaster mockup, apron mockup and so much more!

About the author: that’s the guest post by Valeria Santalla is a multi-disciplinary graphic designer and writer that loves to create branding images for local business, collaborating at Placeit.net one of the largest logo maker and design template library website.

Check 17 trends in graphic design and illustration, get inspired with collections of creative logos and packaging, and review 6 stages of branding design

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What is KRUPA conference?

KRUPA is the biggest interface design conference in Eastern Europe. The event is held on April 6, 2019, in Kyiv. It gathers global design stars, UX leaders, aspiring designers, and UX teams, developing networking opportunities and raising design industry in Ukraine to a new level.

• 13 fantastic speakers are coming to the event from all over the world to share their real-life experience.
• 3000 attendees. KRUPA attendees are driven and focused interface designers, product managers, and design directors. It’s the biggest interface design related gathering in Eastern Europe.
• Cool venue. The conference is held in Sports Palace—a sports and concert complex located in the center of Kyiv, within walking distance from the subway station with the same name. Its capacity will allow comfortably accommodate spectators, food courts and entertainment. Indoor sports games, concerts, major exhibitions, and fairs are held in this hall.

Here’s a quick glance at the previous conference in 2018 whose keynote speaker was famous UX design guru Alan Cooper.

Reasons to attend Krupa in 2019

Touch the legend: for the first time in Ukraine, Don Norman, a design legend and the author of the term User Experience, co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group and author of The Design of Everyday Things.

Get global insights with speakers from the USA, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Israel, and Ukraine. Join the experience of various participants in the global UX world.

Join a powerful community of specialists. Meet designers from Smashing Magazine, Airbnb, Figma, Wix, Mozilla, Soundcloud, Tubik Studio, Lun.ua, The23.design, and CloudMade.

Feel the creative drive at the largest conference on design interfaces in Eastern Europe.

Try the big platform of networking with other designers and specialists from various companies.

Speakers in 2019

Don Norman, Nielsen Norman Group Partner

Vitaly Friedman, Smashing Magazine editor-in-chief

Cole Mercer, ex-product manager at Soundcloud.com

Guillermo Torres, Airbnb Product Designer, ex-Google, Adobe

Zach Grosser, designer educator at Figma, ex-Square, Apple

Lior Pinco, Design director for Wix.com

Max Shirko, The23 creative director, curator at Projector

Alexander Ivanov, Head of Product at ЛУН and Flatfy, curator at Projector

Takeshi Horiuchi, UX Director for Age of Learning

Dmitry Starkov, senior UX designer at CloudMade

Sergey Valiukh, Tubik Studio creative director

Anna Kuntsman Rozenberg Creative Director Wix.com

Amin Al Hazwani, User Experience Designer at Mozilla Firefox

What does it feel like?

To get more insights into the atmosphere of the upcoming conference, let us share some photos from KRUPA 2018.

More information about speakers and the overall agenda can be found on the conference website. Join in!

Don’t miss the collection of inspiring TED-talks for designers and the list of handy tools for the UI/UX design process. 

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The tech world continues to evolve and provide people with problem-solving tools for different fields. UX designers are often under pressure and need to provide a high-quality outcomes within strict deadlines. That’s why it’s important to have a set of effective design tools that would advance the workflow. In this article, we have gathered a list of useful tools for UI and UX designers based on our experience and additional research. Let’s see what they are.

Illustration by Tubik

Wireframing and prototyping tools

Sketch

Sketch app is by far the most demanded tool among interface designers. The biggest advantage Sketch provides to its users is a simple and clear functionality. It can be used as a prototyping tool as well as the software to create icons and illustrations. The program is vector-based and gives the opportunity to work with layers and shapes which can be easily manipulated via the tools panel.

Moreover, the tool provides effective guidelines, for example, you can see dimensions of the components and spacing between them only by holding the alt key. Due to the concise functionality, the program is light, so it works much faster not overloading the computer which saves time (and nerve!) for designers. Yet, there is one specific feature about Sketch: it works only on Mac and there are no exceptions.

Adobe XD

New approaches in UI and UX design encouraged software developers to upgrade their products and even create new ones focused on specific tasks such as layout structuring. Adobe group wasn’t an exception so they launched their newest product Adobe XD (experience design) in 2016. It came as an alternative to Photoshop and Illustrator for UI and UX designers and managed to receive quite high ratings.

This program is specially meant for UX designers creating wireframes, interactive prototypes, and vector design. It is a good chance for Adobe fans to come back to the familiar tool with the significant upgrades focused on the user interface design. For those who are new to web design, XD interface may seem a bit difficult to figure out. Adobe XD is now available for both Mac and Windows 10 operational systems.

Figma

It is one of the most trending design tools today which brings innovative solutions and opportunities for UI designers. First of all, it is the professional design tool which is based on the web enabling design teams to collaborate in real-time working on one page. Also, designers can even export CSS right inside the program which enhances the communication with a development team. Figma allows for creating wireframes, prototypes, and vector icons for free just by signing-up but it works only for individuals while teams need to pay for it. In addition, the app is available for various operating systems.

Lunacy

Lunacy started as a Sketch files viewer for Windows users, but now it’s full-scale graphic editing software that enables Windows users to open, create and manipulate Sketch files. It is especially helpful for the teams whose members work on the computers with different operating systems. Therefore, for different stages of a process, it may be the way to make the flow more productive and friendly to all the participants – designers, developers, clients, and managers. What makes it even more attractive, it’s free for everyone.

Interactive prototyping

Marvel

Marvel is a free cloud-based tool for interactive prototyping which requires no coding skills. You can download wireframes from Sketch and Photoshop or even take a photo of a sketch made on a paper and then create realistic prototypes of a mobile app or website. Marvel offers to create unlimited projects for free with commenting on your first 3 projects. Also, you can get a paid premium plan with unlimited projects and comments along with removed Marvel branding and more additional features.

InVision

It is a free tool for creating interactive prototypes. InVision got the popularity since it enables to import files easily files from Sketch or Photoshop and build animated design. Interactive prototype in InVision looks like the real-life project because designers can link the pages simulating the usage of a real website or mobile app. Moreover, InVision helps to improve feedback process allowing to provide comments right on a prototype.

One more special feature is organizing UI components in different columns showing the status such as to-do, in progress, or approved. This way both a client and designer can control the workflow more efficiently.

Principle

This is a simple app which aims at creating animated UI design. The significant feature of Principle is that it can work even offline so your work progress doesn’t depend on the quality of the Internet connection. Interactive prototypes can be easily converted into a GIF or video and be shared in a portfolio on Dribbble or elsewhere. The interface of this tool is quite similar to Sketch app, so it would be easy to use for many designers. Also, an interesting feature is that you can preview designs on iOS devices. And here comes a pitfall. Principle software is only available for the iOS system, so Windows fans need to look for alternatives.

UXPin

The UXPin team is known as experts in user experience design field who constantly share their knowledge in various books and articles. Their product, UXPin editor, is a web-based tool for prototyping which can be used for creating wireframes along with high-quality mockups and turning them into interactive prototypes. Also, designers can download their wireframes from Sketch or Photoshop for prototyping in UXPin. In addition, the software can automatically generate style guides and specs for developers.

Color choice tools

ColorHexa

This is a free web-based tool helping to generate effective color schemes. You just need to enter a color value into the search field and you get detailed information: tints, shade, and tones as well as the alternatives and suggested color schemes. One of the biggest privileges of this tool is that it shows how a color will be perceived by people affected by a color vision deficiency. This way designers can make sure that their design will look good for users with colorblindness too. In addition, ColorHexa provides alternatives for color in different formats.

Paletton

Paletton is a free web tool assisting to pick color harmony for user interfaces. It is the software which UI designers have been using for color choice for a long time. Paletton has a simple functionality: people need to choose a color on a color wheel or enter its value and the tool generates beautiful schemes. Also, users can choose a type of color scheme and see similar schemes in different tones.

Flat UI Color

The flat design direction keeps being popular so a tool for choosing flat colors is a must-have. Flat UI Color is a website providing sufficient flat color schemes. All colors contain the HEX codes which can be copied right into the main software like Photoshop or into a style guide. The app has a narrow focus but it’s extremely useful for those who often work with flat design.

Material Design Color Tool

Color Tool is a free web-based app which is a part of Google’s material design resource which many of you may be familiar with. The app is focused on mobile design providing material color schemes. Users can try schemes on mobile templates which are also available in Color Tool. In addition, you can find the data on the accessibility of the chosen color schemes and adapt it if needed.

Pictaculous

To find color inspiration many designers go searching for beautiful photos. Pictaculous helps to analyze colors presented on images and output similar color schemes. You just need to upload a photo from a computer and you get exact colors with the HEX codes right at your disposal. In addition, the suggested color schemes can be saved as Adobe Swatch file.

Typography tools

Google fonts

Typography is one of the basic parts influencing user experience of digital products. That’s why it’s important to have handy tools helping to create effective typography.

Google fonts is a popular free web application featuring over 600 font families. Each of them can be previewed in different size and within a custom text. Also, you can see the loading time of each font so that you could make sure it wouldn’t take too long. Google fonts provide the data on embedding specific fonts into a product. You can just copy the code generated specifically for the chosen font in the right section of HTML document.

Typekit

Typekit is a time-tested tool with a library of fonts. Here you can find the variety of fonts from the classic one to the brand new choices. To use Typekit you just need to subscribe and get the access to all fonts. The tool has a clear interface with all the essential data about fonts including weight and style. Even more, it allows for seeing each font in different sizes and some colored backgrounds.

Fontjoy

One of the biggest dilemmas in typography creation is font pairing. There are thousands of fonts and it can become an endless process of choosing a perfect match. Fontjoy is a handy tool for font pairing integrated with Google fonts library. You can just choose fonts setting the right characteristics like size and weight.

This free tool pulls a full library of fonts straight from Google Webfonts and curates them together on one page. Then you choose which font(s) you’d like to test including the size, weight, and line height on the page and wait for the match. In addition, you can regulate how contrasting or similar you want a pair to be just by using a slider on the top of the app.

Typetester

Sometimes we can’t decide which font of the two chosen suits better. Typetester is a quick solution for testing and comparing fonts. It provides previews of multiple fonts on one page with their parameters including leading and tracking. Fonts can be chosen from different sources such as Google fonts or Apple Mac defaults and tested by adjustment of their size, alignment, as well as with customized text and backgrounds.

Calligraphr

Custom fonts is an effective way to add originality to a product. Calligraphr can create fonts based on handwriting. You need to download a template with your writing and the tool will generate it into vector fonts. After they are generated you can edit the details to polish your custom font.

Icons and graphics tools

Icons8 app

Icons8 is an app for Windows and Apple containing about 90,000 icons for digital products. Even more, every day new icons are added to the library. The app guides you through the library helping to find the right pack of icons by categories. Here you can find icons for iOS, Android and Windows platforms available in various formats. The selected pack can be copied right into Sketch, Figma, and others. Moreover, all icons can be recolored and resized in your editor. Icons8 allows downloading PNG icons on 100×100 for free. If you want to get access to all the icons in different formats, you can get a paid license.

Free Icon Maker

If you don’t like any of the icons found on the Web you can make them by yourself. Icons can be created in one of the visual editors such as Sketch, Illustrator, and Figma, or you can apply some free web-based tools. Free Icon Maker allows for creating and editing icons online. When you register there, you are free to use all the features such as downloading icons from the SVG files to modify them in this tool.

IconJar

Designers often download hundreds of icon packs and then it becomes hard to find the right one. IconJar is an effective organizer providing folders for specific icons. For example, if you need to find a “home” icon, you can search for it by the name and the tool will show you the icons from all sets. IconJar is available only for MacOS but soon there may be a Windows version. The program is paid but it has a free trial.

Ouch

UX designers that aren’t skilled in drawing can face the problem of the boring content for app screens and web pages. Ouch helps creators to overcome the lack of quality graphics. At the moment, the resource presents illustrations in 14 styles for 23 typical UX screens such as “fatal error”, “message set”, “downloading”, “subscribe” and many others. You can use them free for a link to the resource or buy the license to get the access to editable files and use the graphics without credits.

Collaboration tools

Trello

Our personal preference for projects monitoring as well as in-studio information flow is Trello. This tool is simple, effective, clear, and intuitive. This tool for communication provides clear systems of boards and cards which have a gear deal of features. It makes possible to split any task into sprints and enables us to carry out the project providing constant updates and presenting images. It is easy to set deadlines (due-dates), delegate specific tasks to specific people, create checklists and mark out the most important and urgent tasks. It also has one more really precious feature. Trello has not only thoroughly thought-out website but also efficient and smart applications for iOS and Android. This gives an additional opportunity for fast feedback so it saves time, efforts and makes management of the projects very comfortable for the customers. Trello is a great option for creating the spot where designers, project managers, and customers could together make a fast and effective workflow.

Zeplin

A successful design project is built upon effective communication of the creative team and clients. Zeplin is a platform for enhancing the collaboration between designers and developers. The major feature is a detailed style guide generator which makes sure design elements are implemented appropriately. Designers can upload wireframes from Sketch adding them to project folders in Zeplin. This way developers get all the data about designs including sizes, colors, and CSS suggestions for UI components.

Presentator

Presentator is a free web-based collaboration tool enabling to share designs with team members, developers, and clients. You can download a file and decide on permissions to it. For example, some may have full access with the ability to leave comments while others may have read-only access. The biggest advantage of this tool is that it’s absolutely free for everyone.

A useful tool works effectively only for those who know what they are doing. So, don’t forget to constantly learn and improve your professional skills. Stay tuned!

Originally written for Tubik Blog
Title illustration by Ouch

Сообщение UX Design: Big List of Handy Tools for Design Process появились сначала на Design4Users.

The question is definitely great and the answer, in particular, can be important for the young specialists who are considering this career. Not only in terms of humanity, but also in terms of yourself adding something to the global progress. Whatever people tell about money as the key point, in creative spheres there is a variety of research showing that designers need the feeling of creative growth and participation in global progress not less than a good salary. One of the articles in Harvard Business Blog mentions three big reasons that are common in making people happy at work: a meaningful vision of the future, a sense of purpose, and great relationships. Specifying the sense of purpose, they state: “People want to feel as if their work matters, and that their contributions help to achieve something really important. And except for those at the tippy top, shareholder value isn’t a meaningful goal that excites and engages them. They want to know that they — and their organizations — are doing something big that matters to other people.” Being aware of the destinations and seeing themselves the part of globally important processes, people tend to make the choice of a particular career as good for them.

Without getting dip into the sphere, you can see UX designers like people working out endless flows of screens. At the first sight for many people who don’t deal with all the aspects, this job looks neither interesting nor creative. And the aspect of its value for humanity also seems to be not so obvious. Here in Tubik, we’ve been lucky to see the sphere of UX design high and deep, in all its diversity, creating digital products for companies worldwide. And what we’ve seen and taken part in, makes us certain to answer: UX designers do provide considerable value for humanity.

Before starting the list of aspects for this value, let’s check the terminology. In one of the issues of UI/UX Design Glossary, we described UX in the following way: it is the general attitude and emotional feedback that the user has at different stages of using the product. In terms of digital products, such as websites or applications, UX is a comprehensive term involving all the possible stages of user engagement. UX is based on several key factors such as usability, utility, desirability, attractiveness, speed of work, etc. If all the logic and possible issues of product implementation into real life are analyzed and designed properly, it forms a positive user experience which means that users are able to satisfy their needs in a fast, easy, and pleasant way. Positive user experience remains one of the strongest factors of retaining users.

Working on the UX for a digital product such as a website or mobile app, UX designers have to concentrate on such aspects as:

• usability (the product is convenient, clear, logical, and easy to use)
• utility (the product provides useful content and solves users’ problems)
• accessibility (the product is convenient for different categories of users)
• desirability (the product is attractive and problem-solving, it retains users and creates a positive experience which they are ready to repeat).

All of the mentioned positions present the value for people in terms of particular operations done day in and day out as well as global processes in different spheres like commerce and business, education, management, housekeeping, communications, and so on, and so forth. On the ground of everything above mentioned, we could assume several points of the value which UX designers provide to humanity creating a wide variety of digital products.

What are the values brought by UX designers?

1. They support fast, easy, and productive communication worldwide via products like various messengers, social networks, etc. Communication is one of the key reasons why people turn to websites and apps, and its flow has a great impact on user’s life, from personal chats with family and friends to professional online conferences and business negotiations. To create a user experience for this purpose, designers have to study the needs of the audience and offer the appropriate solutions which will make the product helpful for getting in touch with other people.

StarDust Bikers Website

2. They support international collaboration working over successful experience for apps enabling productive work within a team scattered around. Today the world has a number of applications and tools enabling professionals to work effectively from different places. That creates new business contacts and supports a great variety of international projects. And by the way, sets the ground for creating new workplaces, raising profits, and developing welfare which, no doubt, sounds like credible value. The platforms, apps, tools, and software enabling specialists from different cities, countries, and continents to operate in a big number of professional activities, all have user experience designers behind them.

3. They support the everyday life of millions of people with digital products that solve actual problems (like to-do lists or apps for taking notes), inform (like news websites or different blogs), and entertain (like apps for listening to music and watching films as well as tons of games). Every day, using quite basic and simple things like alarms, news platforms, video apps, or music players, most users don’t even imagine the simplicity of those interfaces and navigation which makes all the flow intuitive is the result of thorough work which takes many hours. User experience designers are the ones who have to build these products helpful and pleasant-to-use on the balance of applied content, target audience, and business goals.

Upper App

4. They support and improve core spheres of human life like health care, education, commerce, and self-expression. In this aspect, UX designers are contributors to different fields of human growth and development. They create the flows of interactions and layouts for educational websites, applications used in medical treatment and health care, data analysis, technical support, and other directions. Add to it the variety of specialized platforms where people share their creative outcomes like artworks, music, or pieces of writing – all of them need experience and interactions appropriate for these needs.

Health Care App

5. They make technology more accessible which means closer to people of different ages and nationalities, levels of education and tech literacy, physical and mental abilities, or disabilities. User research is one of the core parts of UX design, and one of the objectives is finding the solutions for problems, which could make using the product hard and tricky for some categories of users. Diligent UX designers aim at creating products that will be inclusive and accessible for users of different abilities.

6. They support the concept of non-stop learning through life via educational and information resources. Motion is life, and motion through the ocean of information around is not an easy part of it. People are born with natural curiosity, the wish of getting knowledge, and being informed. UX designers contribute to this eternal human movement creating flows at which users, readers, learners will not get lost under the tons of data. They apply the techniques and methods of information architecture to make the interfaces organized and problem-solving for their readers.

Birds of Paradise Encyclopedia

7. They respond to the human need for harmony and aesthetic satisfaction finding the ways to make digital products both useful and beautiful. There are many people who support the idea that digital products of today should be minimalist and purely functional. However, life is not just like that: practice shows that people want to both solve the problems and feel aesthetic satisfaction using apps and websites. The balance of these things is included in the responsibilities of UX designers.

Calendar App

8. They support products that simplify and automate decent mechanic processes saving time for activities applying creative human energy. More and more products nowadays, including chatbots, are able to automate simple things, for example, scheduling, computing, checking grammar in writing, analyzing and organizing received data, etc. Those things allow people to accomplish some tasks faster and easier and free their time for more creative tasks which machines cannot do. This is one more side of a positive user experience.

NGIN App

9. They keep the balance between the rational and irrational parts of human life and activity. UX designers work on the crossroads of rational and emotional sides of human life: creating apps and websites, they have to consider both logical thinking and typical interaction models as well as the emotional background which can greatly influence user behavior.

Cinema App

10. They make beauty working and logical as well as they make simple operations beautified and pleasant to the human eye. No special comments are needed. UX designers know how to get an efficient combination of beauty and functionality, doing it in the way which the particular product and audience require.

Home Budget app

Surely, this list is not full as well as the issue is not so purely positive. There are many aspects of the job of UX designers, some of which are inspiring while others are challenging or confusing. Still, we suppose the given positions are a good ground to believe that the job of UX designer is the one creating real value which has plenty of shades and tones. On the other hand, this variety of values added by the representatives of the given professional field brings out the number of responsibilities for the job, which should be also considered and kept in mind.

The life of UX designers is not the life of a magician flying in silver clouds and saving the world with every move of a hand. No, it’s a flow of rigorous research and analysis, creative effort, and review of the slightest details – and many other things to mention, as well as in any other job. However, that is definitely the job that brings something precious to the humanity of today and tomorrow.

Useful reading

Creative Jobs: What Graphic Designers Do

3C of Interface Design: Color, Contrast, Content

5 Basic Types of Images in Web Design

Functional Art: 10 Big Reasons to Apply Illustrations in UI Design

UX Design: How to Make Web Interface Scannable

Negative Space in Design: Tips and Best Practices

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение How User Experience Designers Bring Value to the World появились сначала на Design4Users.

Nevertheless, effective teamwork is the foundation of a successful company, and teammates need to get along with each other to work productively and efficiently. Step by step, Tubik Studio was transformed from a small design agency to a full-service digital company so we’ve experienced the pitfalls appearing on the way of creating a cohesive team. Today’s article highlights the problems occurring in the teamwork and presents useful tips on organization of the effective teamwork in a digital agency.

Why is teamwork important for a company?

No matter how many talented workers a company has, it will be hard to build a profitable business if employees don’t work as a team. Teamwork is not only about operating together for one company, it means to collaborate so that you could achieve the company’s goals on its way to success. But what benefits can teamwork bring? Let’s see.

First of all, team members increase the efficiency of their work as well as the general productivity of the company. The amount of work is shared among employees so the tasks are done faster while nobody is overloaded with a ton of work. Moreover, it’s much easier to solve problems if there are colleagues willing to help rather than dealing with them by yourself.

Another benefit of teamwork is that together team members are able to generate more ideas. Brainstorming and task discussions are one of the biggest sources of fresh and unique ideas. The diversity of opinions and creative thoughts make a pleasant environment for idea generation. Furthermore, each team member can share their experience and knowledge so employees constantly learn and develop their professional skills.

In addition, teamwork enhances connections between team members. The efficient interaction within a team contributes to a better understanding of the project details and ensures the quality of the product in all aspects. Besides, informal communication between colleagues increases their effectiveness in the work since some fun and laughter help to reduce stress and fatigue.

How can different departments get along?

Effective teamwork is impossible when the departments can’t get along. Digital agencies have a difficult task – unite extremely different personalities under one roof and even more make them support each other. To achieve this aim, you need to learn deeper about possible pitfalls on the way successful teamwork in a company. Let’s discover common problems that can appear when designers, developers, and managers are working together.

Designers vs Developers

Designers and developers are often seen like cats and dogs bickering all the time which often has a bad influence on the workflow. However, now when most of the digital companies aim at providing full-cycle services, these two opponents are forced to find ways how to understand each other. To find out what causes these confrontations, we’ve distinguished the most common issues occurring in designer-developer relationships.

Developers ignore design principles. Design harmony, visual hierarchy, the balance of design elements play a significant role in a quality digital product. However, it often happens that developers miss some details or change them for some reasons crushing the harmony within the design. Obviously, designers react negatively and ask to correct errors. But the conflict starts when developers say “What’s the big deal?”. It actually is the big deal and designers need to explain why rather than arguing.

Designers don’t understand anything about HTML CSS. Of course, designers are not developers and they don’t have to know how to program but the basic knowledge of the web and how it works is essential. Design created without knowing web principles can be too difficult to actualize in a real life and it’s not about developers’ skills. To avoid such an unpleasant situation, designers are recommended to learn the basics of CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, a language that defines a layout of HTML.

Developers make the design look different than designers expect. Every designer must have been in a situation when the developer shows the coded version of the design and it looks like anything but the one that designer meant. Different colors, unnecessary white spacings, or even different fonts can make designers get angry with the developers but it’s not always their fault. Many designers do not consider the fact that colors may look different on Mac and the whole picture can be changed on the different browsers.

Designers estimate their work time wrong. Time estimation is a painful question for everyone who’s paid hourly. When you work in a team, it’s getting worse because the other departments depend on you. Sometimes, designers underestimate the time they need to accomplish their part of work and the development team is forced to push hard so that they could meet the deadlines. Certainly, it can’t be a good thing for the relationships between designers and developers. However, programmers need to take into account the fact that the design process heavily depends on creative aspects and inspiration presence, so it makes time estimation more difficult for designers.

Designers and Developers vs Managers

One thing that designers and developers undoubtedly have in common is their confrontations with managers. When it comes to the “managing time”, programmers and designers can forget about their issues and create a coalition against the manager. But what are the problems? Here they are.

Designers and developers don’t stick to the deadlines. Managers are responsible for delivering the product to the client on time. And when the product team is late and can’t meet deadlines, the blame goes to the managers. Still, in this situation, the fault lays on oth sides because managers couldn’t organize the team properly at the start while the team was too irresponsible.

Managers are too demanding. Sometimes there come clients with a project that can be done for two weeks and they say “I need it to be done in three days, no longer”. Managers take the risk of agreeing and ask the team for the impossible. This may happen when the managers don’t understand the peculiarities of the design and programming process and underestimate its complexity.

Managers can’t establish the connection between the product group and the clients. One of the biggest problems leading to bad product creation is misunderstandings between clients and the product group. If managers do not make sure this connection is established right, designers and developers can build the product that doesn’t correspond to the client’s expectations, and the blame will be put on the product team.

No one takes responsibility for the failure. People can’t live a life without failures, and of course, digital companies also have bad days. There always will be the clients who will abandon their project and pay no money to the agency. This is when the team starts to blame each other and no one takes any responsibilities. However, it’s a common problem which companies face from time to time and that it’s not a reason to fight. The team needs to accept the failure and learn from the mistakes.

Useful tips to improve teamwork between departments

Difficulties exist so that we could overcome them. Today there are many great digital agencies showing that effective teamwork is possible. Discovering their secrets, we’ve conducted the research on the efficient tips about teamwork and created a list completed with some advice from Tubik experience.

Constant communication. To collaborate and understand each other, team members need to communicate. If the team works on the project, every department should know how things are going. Designers should involve development team on the very first steps explaining their choices. And the development team needs to advise designers on the aspects of realization.

Learn the craft of the others. Misunderstandings are often the result of ignorance. Designers don’t know about CSS, developers are not aware of design principles and managers know only about management. It’s the worst scenario for the team. If each department learns the basics of the craft of the other departments, they will understand each other.

Managers can help. Both design and development teams need to understand that manager is a major link connecting them to the client. Managers know the product team as well as the customers, the reason why they can organize the work in the best way.

Respect. It may sound too obvious still many of us underestimate someone else’s job putting our job as the biggest. We need to keep in mind that all the parts of the work are vital and the proper combination of them gives the desired outcome.

Use the technology to your advance. Modern technology makes our life easier in many aspects and teamwork is not an exception. To make collaboration and communication more productive, team members can use cloud-based platforms such as Slack to communicate faster. Moreover, using tools like Sketch and Zeplin can significantly improve designer-developer relationships because they make the process of assets exchange much easier and faster.

Learn the trends. If you’re a designer, it doesn’t mean you need to follow only the design news. Read about the web and programming trends and you will find more topics to discuss with the programmers, or even you’ll together come up with the new idea. The same refers to developers.

Informal communication. If you want to know the colleague, you need to communicate not only in the office but also somewhere outside. When you learn the personalities, you may be able to collaborate at work more effectively. Besides, a friendly atmosphere reduces stress and improves the productivity of the whole team.

Today the summing will be short: working together people can move mountains. So, the effective teamwork leads straight to the success. Stay tuned!

Recommended reading

Designers And Developers: No Longer A House Divided
5 Pet Peeves Developers Have With Designers (and How to Avoid Them)
5 Pet Peeves Designers Have With Developers (and How to Avoid Them)
Designers and developers collaborate better with these 5 adjustments

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Helpful Tips on Effective Teamwork in Digital Agency появились сначала на Design4Users.

No secret, the word creativity is often associated primarily with something close to the art of any kind – visual, verbal, musical, etc. However, going back to the roots, we’ll see that the word “create” coming from Latin creare “to make, bring forth, produce” can somehow associate with anything people do for global and personal progress, so creativity goes far beyond arts and crafts. The term is applicable to any sphere of human activity whose outcome is something originally solving problems or responding to life issues. Today, for the fresh issue of the D4U Inspiration section, we have collected a new set of quotes providing some insights into the phenomenon of creativity. These are the wise and witty thoughts by creative people, successful and recognized in various spheres of life, from design and arts to writing, eloquence, and business. So, enjoy and get inspired, creatives!

The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about all kinds of things: ancient history, nineteenth-century mathematics, current manufacturing techniques, flower arranging, and hog futures. Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later or six months, or six years down the road. But he has faith that it will happen. (Carl Ally)

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. (Steve Jobs)

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity. (Charles Mingus)

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. (Scott Adams)

Creativity takes courage. (Henri Matisse)

Creativity is not just for artists. It’s for businesspeople looking for a new way to close a sale; it’s for engineers trying to solve a problem; it’s for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way. (Twyla Tharp)

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. (Maya Angelou)

You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out. (Steve Jobs)

Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way. (Edward de Bono)

Make an empty space in any corner of your mind, and creativity will instantly fill it. (Dee Hock)

There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun. (Pablo Picasso)

An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail. (Edwin Land)

Creativity is as important as literacy and numeracy, and I actually think people understand that creativity is important – they just don’t understand what it is. (Ken Robinson)

Creativity is a gift. It doesn’t come through if the air is cluttered. (John Lennon)

The difference between science and the arts is not that they are different sides of the same coin even, or even different parts of the same continuum, but rather, they are manifestations of the same thing. The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity. (Mae Jemison)

Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art. (Andy Warhol)

That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you. (Ray Bradbury)

Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things. (Theodore Levitt)

Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people. (Leo Burnett)

There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns. (Edward de Bono)

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will. (George Bernard Shaw)

There are no formulas in creative work. I do many variations, which is a question of curiosity. I arrive at many different configurations – some just slight variations, others more radical – of an original idea. It is a game of evolution. (Paul Rand)

Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye. (Dorothy Parker)

Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right or better. (John Updike)

Creativity is intelligence having fun. (Albert Einstein)

Creativity is a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. (Arthur Koestler)

You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. (Andre Gide)

From 30,000 feet, creating looks like art. From ground level, it’s a to-do list. (Ben Arment)

Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working. (Pablo Picasso)

Welcome to watch 10 TED-talks for creative people

Welcome to check out the set of 30 Eternal Quotes from Design Experts

Сообщение Design Inspiration: 30 Bright Quotes About Creativity появились сначала на Design4Users.

Here in Tubik, we have felt all the variety of stones in that way. Today we invite our readers to review the diverse purposes for which graphic design can be highly beneficial as we have checked in design practice.

Graphic design as a creative field

As we mentioned in one of our previous articles about the issue, graphic design can be described as the sphere of human activity that lies on the crossroads of several directions, first of all, visual arts, communication, and psychology. Basically, graphic designers do the job of communication to others by means of graphic (visual) elements such as images of different styles and complexity, types and fonts, pictograms, shapes and sizes, colors and shades, lines, and curves, etc. Graphic designer makes all those elements of visual perception transfer the message, so he makes them functional. Therefore, we could say that graphic designers are artists applying their talents mostly not in pure art, but communicating and purposeful art.

Modern graphic design broadly covers all spheres of human life which deal with visual communication, from books and posters to sophisticated mobile applications or 3D animation. Let’s look into directions in which graphic designers can express their creativity for the sake of solving problems and satisfying needs.

Graphic design directions

Nowadays, graphic design is an incredibly broad sphere for the application of artistic talents. In particular, it includes:

• editorial design
• illustration
• identity (logo and branding) design
• icons and pictograms
• typography
• interface graphics and elements
• print advertisements
• big print items such as posters and billboards
• signs
• packaging, etc.

Thus, it’s easily seen that modern designers in this sphere have multiple options to apply their talents. In all the mentioned directions, the basic purpose of graphic design is to serve a particular purpose or even a set of them by means and techniques of art.

Graphic design in modern life full of digital devices is getting more and more technological.  Famous Italian designer Massimo Vignelli said “The life of a designer is a life of fight. Fight against the ugliness. Just like a doctor fights against disease. For us, the visual disease is what we have around, and what we try to do is cure it somehow with design.” Remembering the words we have to say that the purposes of modern graphic design are pushed further and further. Not only does it beautify the physical or digital object, but also helps its users, navigates them, guides their way via which they can get both aesthetic pleasure and problem-solving benefits.

Graphic design purposes

Today, graphic design can set diverse purposes. It rarely happens that the object of graphic design serves only one objective. Looking over the most essential of them, we would mention the following.

Identifying

This purpose, first of all, serves for branding reasons. It is primarily concerned with creating logos which usually lies the foundation for the whole branding strategy. This is the task at which designers work with multiple factors combining specific features of the target audience, laws, and rules of artistic harmony, the psychology of color and shape impact on human perception and emotions, current situation on the market, business goals of the brand or company.

Numerous logos accomplished by studio designers have proved that this symbolic image plays the crucial role in all the next stages of brand strategy, including print work (like posters, business cards, corporate documentation templates, etc.), interface design (when brand or company uses digital sources and channels of reaching their clients like blogs, websites, apps, widgets, etc.), branded items (like stationery, cups, notebooks, etc.) and other directions. The efficient logo is usually based on deep analysis supported by the designer’s talent and skills and presents a balanced mixture of art and functionality. Thinking over all the details, the designer selects the type and image of a logo that will correspond to the objectives of the company or brand strategy.

Andre logo 

Lion browser logo icon

Toonie logo design

fOxygenic logo

Design4Users logo tested in print stickers

PassFold logo

Read more about types of logos and creative stages of logo design

Beautifying

This is the broadly used function of graphic design items that have found its comprehensive realization in all the spheres of users’ interaction with visual stuff, from advertising to book covers and cartoons, to user interfaces of all kinds, packaging, photos, and tons of other things. It’s not a secret that people are not only rational but also emotional creatures, and most of us are visually driven and aesthetically engaged. Although the content and functions are the most important factors of making a product problem-solving, the old classic trend hasn’t changed: people still believe that a good dress is a card of invitation. An attractive and stylish look is traditionally highly important to make your user think about trying the product, especially in conditions of modern intense competition.

Muscles Magazine

Tales of the Jazz Age Book Cover

Graphic design in all its variety becomes a powerful tool of interface beautification. It can be applied in the slightest details like icons and up to significant elements like illustrations and mascots.

Singify App Tutorial

Cafe Coupon App

Moneywise App

Timeline App

Toonie Stickers

Setting the theme

A broad variety of graphic design techniques and diversity of approaches establish a steady foundation for setting the theme of the offered product via visual elements. Like the copy is able to not only transfer the message but also set the tone and voice of communication, the visual elements, including background, typography, composition, color palette, shapes and sizes, stylistic approaches can immediately inform the user about the features and market segment of the app or website and also appeal to emotions of the target audience. Visual perception plays an incredible role in decision-making, especially in cases of the first interaction when only several short minutes and sometimes even seconds are vital to get the user interested. This funсtion also works when the graphics highlight specific trends or events.

Lowrider

Underwater explorer

Pikachu Poster

Apple Event Animated Graphics

Californication Bus

San Francisco Painted Ladies

Explaining and guiding

This function of graphic design elements is widely used both in print and in all the types of interfaces, first of all in various tutorials, manuals, tool-tips, guides, etc. No need to say that here a picture is really worth a thousand words: it saves precious time and helps to avoid big copy blocks. Moreover, graphics based on a thorough analysis of the target audience turn on the mechanism of empathy and emotional appeal which also enhances user experience and supports business goals.

Travel App Tutorial

Shauts App Tutorial

Saily App Tutorial

Ryiadh Tour Guide

Toonie Alarm Tutorial

Enhancing navigation

Custom graphic elements are a great tool enhancing the navigation and therefore boosting usability. Based on user research and testing, it can have a great impact on conversions and retaining readers, providing an easy flow of journey through the website or app. In addition, all this positive influence is supported by the aesthetic pleasure that users get from sophisticated visual elements and harmonic composition.

Weather App

Passfold App

Veggie App

Boosting communication with a character

The element of personification thoughtfully applied in the product can boost positive user experience, enhance brand image and brand awareness. That is one of the reasons why creating mascots is often a part of a general design concept and content strategy. And that is the job where graphic designers can show their best. Efficient mascots should be based on a thorough analysis of needs, wishes, and expectations of the target audience, and also an attentive study of the market environment to support the appropriate level of originality as the basis for effective design solutions.

Mascots are also very helpful in interfaces: they liven up the general process, catch up user’s attention, become the memorable element, create important support for a stylistic concept and make the illusion of direct communication with the user.

Monster Stickers and their animated versions

Spring Girl

Saily App Mascot

Toonie Alarm Mascot

Read more about the advantages of efficient mascots here

Making the copy stylish

One more important perspective of graphic design is typography. Designers are usually keen to make the copy applied in the products not only legible and readable but also nice, attractive, and emotional. In cases of lettering for branding, it also adds such vital features as originality and recognizability.

Lettering for Saily logo

Lettering for Genius Bar

Lettering for Tubik logo

Lettering for Ribbet logo

Custom decorative lettering

As we can see, there are multiple purposes that can be set as well as multiple goals that can be achieved through graphic design. Diversity of approaches enables to the creation of original and unique design solutions and with support of user research, analysis and thoughtful testing graphic design elements can efficiently enhance usability, strengthen branding and provide a positive user experience. That is the point where art and functionality merge and meld for the sake of solving problems and making people happier.

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение User-Friendly Goals Hit with Graphic Design появились сначала на Design4Users.

What is graphic design?

Being now a solidly established sphere of artistic activity, graphic design as a phenomenon and an activity has already been described and explained in many books and articles. Being based on broad practical experience in this direction, we would define graphic design as the art whose aim is communication beyond words.

Graphic design can be described as the sphere of human activity that lies on the crossroads of several directions, first of all, visual arts, communication, and psychology. Basically, graphic designers do the job of communication to others by means of graphic (visual) elements such as images of different style and complexity, types and fonts, pictograms, shapes and sizes, colors and shades, lines and curves etc.

Graphic designer makes all those elements of visual perception transfer the message, so he makes them functional. Therefore, we could say that graphic designers are artists applying their talents mostly not in pure art, but communicating and purposeful art.

Tubik designers creating characters for a new project

Fields of graphic design

Nowadays, graphic design is an incredibly broad sphere for the application of artistic talents. In particular, it includes:

• illustration
• identity (logo and branding) design
• printed publications design (general design and layout of newspapers, magazines, books, etc.)
• icons and pictograms
• typography
• interface graphics and elements
• print advertisements
• big print items such as posters and billboards
• signs
• packaging design, etc.

Thus, it’s easily seen that modern designers in this sphere have multiple options to apply their talents.

Examples

On the basis of experience in Tubik, which is a full-fledged design team, we can offer some examples of digital graphic design created here.

Toonie Alarm (flat illustration featuring a character as the helpful mascot of the application)

Girl and flowers (flat illustration featuring characters)

Free Space Wallpapers (graphic design piece setting the theme)

Monsters Stickers Set  (flat illustration featuring characters/ mascots)

Underwater Explorer  (flat illustration featuring the character and setting the theme)

Weather Icons Set  (stroke icons to be used as part of user interfaces)

Timeline App  (animated illustration providing feedback in the process of interaction with the interface)

Weather Icons Presentation  (flat illustration setting the theme and featuring location in the interface)

Lion browser logo (logo designed as part of the general brand strategy)

Saily App screen animations (flat animated illustration as an informative and stylistic part of the app interface)

Muscles Magazine (graphic design for sports periodical publication)

Pull Down — Space Ship (animated graphic design element used in the interface and enhancing microinteraction)

Travel App Tutorial (explanatory illustration for app tutorial)

Pikachu Poster (graphic design for small printed forms such as posters and cards)

Even this small set of examples shows how diverse the tasks for a graphic designer can be, from simple stroke icons (which are actually not so simple as they seem to be) to complex detailed illustrations or full development of all the elements of brand identity.

The general aim of all these efforts, though, is to make the image or another graphic element meaningful and symbolic, communicating to the customer or user in a fast and efficient way. Improving communication, making it more impressive, expressive, and diverse stands behind most samples of different graphic assets.

Qualities and skills

Some requirements for the specialists in this sphere of work and art include the following:

• technical artistic skills and preferably qualification in some sort of visual art
• artistic talent and creative nature
• good artistic eye and feeling of harmony
• ability to draw well
• good skills in composition and visual analysis
• ability to work on the analysis of the target audience and possible options for communication with it
• ability to apply different techniques of drawing and painting, preferably both with manual and digital tools
• ability to learn and self-improve all the time as the sphere is extremely dynamic and diverse etc.

Can anyone be a graphic designer?

This is one more question actively discussed on Quora and we also took part in the discussion. let’s review the thoughts.

Physically any person, with hands and eyes working properly, is able to try himself or herself in the sphere of graphic design. As well as anyone who is able to write can try writing, and anyone able to communicate can try, let’s say, management or teaching. In any sphere, there always is a chance to become successful (or not) if you have the necessary basic physical abilities. However, it can often be not enough to become professional and efficient in this field.

Being based on the diverse experience of communication with graphic designers, it is easy to see that to become a professional and bring home the bacon with the efforts in the sphere of graphic design, the person needs to have a number of characteristics. And first of them, as for any creative job, are passion, talent, ability to work hard and readiness for constant learning and self-improvement. Having all these traits, the person will be able to practice necessary skills, to master needed software, to gain the solid basis of theoretic knowledge and so on . Behind the passion we mean sheer and sincere interest to the field of design and feeling it as the source of inspiration and ambition. Without it, designers are able to solve the tasks and provide the results, but they will be technical, without any soul and heart. Book without a soul is just a set of words. Image without a soul is a set of shapes and colors. Communication without a soul is just a set of sentences. Design without a soul is just a set of features. To breathe in the life into all of them, the passion of the creator is a key factor.

However, with the words said above you can get caught into a trap. Passion which is being talked about is not something that just strikes you one day and tells you «Stand up and go to design». In most cases passion is like appetite: it comes when the process starts, when you try and feel that THIS is something you would like to do and grow in. Even more, there are many professionals who got into deep and sincere passion for their craft in the process of improving their skills or accomplishing the projects.

No doubt, it’s possible to become a graphic designer only through hard work: the person will get the technical ability and will be able to accomplish the tasks requiring, perhaps, lower level of creativity. And in this process people sometimes open great interest and particular talents needed to achieve high results and appreciation in the sphere of graphic design.

One more thing to mention is that the job of graphic designer (again, as any other creative work) sometimes looks so romantic, inspirational, bright and deeply creative that people do not see hard and thorough work with developing some small details over and over again, with tons of iterations and great effort of creating not only good-looking but also effective and meaningful design. This job is not just the firework of bright emotions, creativity, inspiration, self-realization and happiness. It is also hours of search, sketching, polishing, staring at computer screen with non-seeing eyes, communication with clients, keeping the deadlines and guidelines. The ability to combine all those sides of design reality is one more vital skill to make a successful professional.

So, summing up, we tend to answer: no, not anyone can be a graphic designer. But everyone can try if he or she wishes. This attempt in any case will be the gain as for someone, it will open the door to the diverse world of graphic design, while for others it will close that door opening the others at the same time and giving experience, which is anyway useful.

This topic is so deep that one post is, for sure, not enough to cover all the aspects. We are going to tell more in detail about all the directions of graphic design in our further articles, meanwhile welcome to read in detail about the functional potential of illustrations in UI. Stay tuned!

Useful Reading

Flat Design. History and Modern Practices

Design Glossary: Basic Color Terminology

Functional Art: 10 Big Reasons to Apply Illustrations in UI Design

State of the Art: 15 Creative Graphic Design Concepts

Illustration Case Study: Winter Olympics Illustration Step-by-Step

How to Create Catchy Flat Illustrations: Designer’s Tips

Small Item, Big Impact: Types of UI Icons

6 Creative Stages of Design for Branding

Creative Stages of Logo Design

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Graphic Design. Communication via Art появились сначала на Design4Users.