Thurs, 23rd Jan 2020

Design Trends 2020

Mon, 7th Oct 2019

Lynn Kennedy

Wed, 18th Sept 2019

Design Extra 2019

Working in design has been very diverse this year. I might have been a little cagey about the extra work I was doing in the past but right now I am unashamedly showing it all off to whoever wants to see it. Bugs have always been a great love of mine and this year they were added to my home in all sorts of ways. I gave myself a new apron and have been loving any spiders that have set up house in my space. Sorry about catching you in jars so I can photograph you guys!

Sun, 18th Aug 2019

Drawing classes

Need help to improve your drawing skills? There are lots of resources on the web. One of the most popular is:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM7XB0oUP7k

Saturday, 27th October 2018

Print your photos

Sadly lots of photos these days are lost in cyberspace so I would urge everybody who loves their photos to review them every couple of months, name them, then store them in a dedicated folder and print the best ones every 12 months. I am telling you, you’ll be glad you did. It is too easy to lose the photos that you take on your phone and other devices. You will be glad that you do not need electricity just to see your photos. So get some hard copies and enjoy them because there’s nothing like sitting down, old world style, passing photos around, laughing & remembering. It is a pleasure that cannot be replaced by looking at something on a screen. Touching the image, remembering the day, the place, the person and all the feelings that a photo evokes. This is one of our puppies, Pepper, when he was just 19 days old. He developed epilepsy when he was 2 and a half and we had to get him put to sleep. It was heart breaking for us but we have this photo printed and framed. So please, please, take my advice and print your pics.

Friday, 17th August 2018

Generosity…

Doesn’t the web renew your faith in man? I mean the amount of people who go to the trouble of making a video to show others how to do just about anything. I was thinking about making a mosaic path recently and found a little old lady in Arizona, USA who kindly made a video showing how to do it, tips and tricks and how to avoid mistakes. The web has for help for whatever you need help with and the generosity of the public knows no bounds. This takes time and effort and the good people of the World are just wonderful. Then there are the resources that are given away free of charge. Take Unsplash for example, who have a collection of magnificent photos from talented photographers who allow their photos to be used freely. One of the photos is featured here. Share the love!

Thursday, 9th August 2018

Wasting Time

When my nephew went down the web development route it just fell into place that he would work with me and get some experience in the real world, in other words, dealing with clients and learning by my mistakes. It hasn’t all been easy. I remember the first ever graphic design client I had nearly drove me crazy. When I look back on it now I can see that I was so eager to please her that I ran around in circles after her and all for nothing. She demanded that the printer I had recommended to her have her materials ready by a certain date and he left the hospital where his wife had just given birth to go back to his office to make sure everything was boxed and ready and then she didn’t show up to collect the materials for 3 days! This embarrassed me with the printer and made me very wary of certain people. Strangely enough, she went out of business after a year. She was offering walking tours of the Wicklow hills but was adamant that she wasn’t going to help her clients find accommodation, help with transport or even offer them a picnic.  So I guess she learnt the hard way that one has to be nice to succeed. Another client had a terrible version of their logo and could get a better version from the designer that had originally created it (WARNING BELLS) so I re drew the logo, spending ages finding the font and getting the colours exactly right but because this piece of work wasn’t in my original quote I got no payment for it. In fact, I added the work to the bill (only 50euro) but the client deducted it from the payment. At this stage in my career I can pretty much tell after a first encounter with someone whether I am dealing with a time waster or not and I now know that it is just not worth it to work for difficult people. I am also not embarrassed about telling people that they need to find another designer to do their work because I wouldn’t tell my mechanic how to fix my car.

Monday, 6th August 2018

The use of colour is really important.

Colour tells us things. Blue is often used to denote trust, red is used to draw attention, it can mean danger. Green is for growth, freshness and new life. There are international signs that help us communicate using colour. For example, the blue and white signs used on building sites all over the world mean that the message in the sign is compulsory. If you could imagine your business as a colour what would it be? What colour is your personality? There are various tests you can take to tell you what colour your personality is. I think that we change our colour at different times of our lives. What is your favourite colour? I often think that is is really important to children to have a favourite colour. As a kid, my favourite colour was blue. It was purple in my teens and then I went through a green period in my twenties. Now I really like white but is white even a colour?

The colour you choose for your website will say something about your business to your potential clients. You can also follow colour trends. At the moment there is a real bright, block colour trend on the web and an earthy pastel trend in decoration. I prefer the web colour trend as I am not a fan of pastels in any form.

Check out these links for colour inspiration:

https://99designs.ie/blog/trends/web-design-trends-2018/

https://webflow.com/blog/7-color-trends-making-a-splash-in-web-design

My favourite guy Philip VanDusen www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcc1VyGvaYk&t=15s