|
|
|
|
||
        |
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Being Creative is Always a Good Start
My name is Daniel Nuñez. I majored in Graphic Design at the UNAM/UVM in Mexico City in 1992. School back then was a different story... Yes, let's admit it, school is easier, faster and less boring today! Back in those days, painting a background was faster and safer using the airbrush on the 286 that I was using. Building the courage to apply the paint bucket tool was difficult as the odds of my PC not crashing in such an instance was very slim. Of course, a lot has changed since then... Today, the equipment and specialized software are exceptional tools for graphic design. But I still believe that the most essential tools are Creativity and Conceptualization. Returning to those days of tasks done over a drawing board, I can't remember any "undoes" as an option for watercolor, airbrush illustration (and still don't!) or even better, attempting to change color schemes of logotypes with no electronic color palette! I have to say that while doing graphic design like that was very enjoyable, it was never fun having a recently painted oil wet and dripping before presenting it to the teacher! Luckily, audio and TV workshops provided me an outlook into what has become multimedia. After college, my working experience began as part of the graphics staff of a UNAM Technological Campus, developing advertisements and awareness of each career. Then, in the publishing business designing educational layouts. I did product and package design for a manufacturing firm, and commercial advertising and art direction at a magazine. I've done cultural diffusion for freelance as well. Currently I am working at a prestigious ad agency in the southwest United States. A peculiar part of this job is starting the development of sketches for advertising campaigns, ads or corporate identity design from an empty and very white sheet of paper. In fact, very often it all starts like that, from nothing in mind: a blank canvas!
Getting Creative
Again, the essential point here is Creativity. The wonderful thing about creativity is that it can be applied to anything, from an international ad campaign to creating a cover for your favorite music CD! So let's get very creative here and go forward to the next phase, which is deciding what tools you can use and how to use them in order to obtain the best results. Of course, that always depends on the complexity and goals of your creations too.
Getting Started There is a great variety of software to choose from:
Of course, I just mention here a few of them. What is important is that these are all very helpful and friendly tools, whether you are an amateur or a professional artist. They serve to make your ideas real faster, professionally, and ready to be reproduced (or live on the Internet), but never to be the only source of your ideas. In other words, graphic design is vast in applications and activities, and is very subjective to the flavor and tone of each work. But believe me, you can tell when something is or is not creative! Creative concepts, which have been developed professionally with graphic software, have contributed to the impressive advance of graphic design during the last 10 years... and this is just the beginning. We will discuss all of this in The Graphic Eye. Also, we can discuss each of the applications which can be used in design in more detail in anyone is interested. Please let me know what topics you are most interested in reading about. Send your comments to daniel@macosjournal.com. By the way, I'd love to hear from musicians doing recording stuff using Mac software.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
