How To Understand Colors and Their Impact Part 2

Yesterday we had a post about colors and how they can impact people emotionally, physically, and mentally. The reason for these posts is because as a graphic designer, you will be using color in your designs and sometimes, it will matter what colors you choose simply due to how they will affect your audience.

• Orange (Orange): orange gives us a feeling of stimulation since it is a combination of yellow and red and affects us in an emotional and physical way. It allows our minds to think of things that bring us comfort, physically; it makes us think of things like food, warmth, shelter, etc. This is often seen as a fun color for our minds. 
• When positive: orange gives us thoughts of comfort, food, warmth, security, passions, fun, good times etc. 
• When negative: it can give us feelings of frustration, immaturity, and deprivation. 
• Pink (Pink): Pink is a combination of red and white, however, due to the white, this color often soothes us instead of stimulating. It does often represent femininity, like a sense of feminine power. It can bring us feelings of nurturing. 
• When positive: it brings us tranquility, nurturing, love, survival
• When negative: it can make us feel inhibited, emasculated, weak
• Grey (Grey): This color actually is pretty easy on the mind, it does not bring much to the mind in terms of emotion, mentality, or anything physical. It is a neutral color, for the most part. It is sometimes seen as suppressive and create a sense of hibernation. 

• When positive: neutral. 
• When negative: it can make us feel unconfident, damp, depressed, lethargic. 
• Black (Black): Black often brings us considerable impact on our mind and body. It can make us feel protected and takes in all the energy around us. It can be negative in terms of enshrouding our personalities when there is too much of it around. However, it can help us see clearly because there are no distractions and give us a sense of sophistication. 
• When positive: sophisticated, glamorous, secure, safe, efficient. 
• When negative: oppressed, cold, menacing, heavy. 

Next time you consider the colors for a graphic design job, consider them carefully. If you have any questions about this, contact Integraphix - a Chicago graphic design studio. 

How To Understand Colors and Their Impact

As a graphic designer, you will likely use color in your designs (I say likely because you might have a black and white design once in a while). Believe it or not, colors have an impact on people, they manipulate us without us even realizing it.

Here is how the colors have an impact on us:

• Red (Red): This color affects us physically. It often grabs our attention first among other colors because the mind perceives that object as closer to us than it really is. It can increase our heart rate and give us the impression that time is going faster. 
•  When it affects us in a positive way, it can make us feel stronger, more courageous, warm, energetic, masculine, and excited. 
• When this color affects us negatively, it can make us defiant, aggravated, and strained. 
• Blue (Blue): This color affects us intellectually/mentally. It often has that soothing effect on us because objects of this color seem more distant and encourage openness. Although, it can be perceived as unfriendly. 
• When this color affects us positively, it gives us the feeling of intelligence, communication, trust, efficiency, serenity, logic, calmness. 
• When it is negative, it has a feeling of coldness, emotionless, and unfriendliness. 
• Yellow (Yellow): This color affects us emotionally. It is a very strong color and will often give us a good feeling, like hope, confidence, and optimism. It is said to lift our spirits. 
• When this color affects us positively, it gives us feel ins of optimism, confidence, self-esteem, extraversion, friendliness, and creativity. 
• When negative, it can provoke irrationality, fear, depression, and anxiety. 
• Green (Green): This color affects our balance (not walking balance). Green is perceived to the eye as a color that creates rest/peace and creativity. It is the color of all things balance. It is a color that often represents health due to being the color of healthy vegetation. 
• When positive, this color creates harmony, balance, refreshment, love, rest, peace, and reassurance. 
• When negative, boredom, stagnation, and blandness. 

If you have questions about what colors to use in your graphic design, then contact Integraphix. 

We will have more posts discussing color. 

What You Need to Know as a Graphic Design Student

As a graphic design student, it can be stressful to think about all the things you need to know when entering the real world in your profession. Your job is to be creative and make creative things; the pressure to do that can make it hard to do that. So what are some things you should know if your course to become the world's next amazing graphic designer?

1. There are few "firsts" in todays time; this means that the likelihood that you are alone in doing something is minimal. This can be very uplifting because the times when something seems impossible or strange, you can remember that someone else has (most likely) gone through that same scenario. In areas like graphic design, web design, marketing, and advertising, most things are actually just adopted and altered, very few things are original anymore. 
2. You may be great at what you do but there is always someone better or knows something you don't. The lesson from this is to remain humble and not let success get to your head and make you feel invincible. If you get awesome at what you do, fantastic; however, if the "fame" gets to your head and you become difficult to work with, you will have no one to work with. 
3. Set goals for yourself so you have something to aim at. How do you know you have accomplished something if you do not know where the end is? Better yet, where the beginning is? 
4. It is hard work, it takes energy. You may have months that require you to create 15 logos, you will need to be energetic enough to get done what needs to get done and done well. 
5. Getting your foot in the door can be tricky but it can be easier if you remember to embody characteristics like a great work ethic, energy, great personality, and patience. Remember to have the great personality and patience. The personality also means having a good self-image; so be humble yet confident and not self-depreciating and insulting. 
6. Go for quality, not quantity, when curating your portfolio. It's better to have a few awesome examples instead of 20 mediocre. 
7. A great way to get your foot in the door with places is to do internships. Don't just do one and then quit, do a few. If you can get paid, then that's great, but realize the vast majority of places do not pay. Also, do not waste your internship; learn and remember and then implement!
8. When you are in the work force as a designer, get to know a printer and make them a close work-friend. Having a good relationship with a printer will be a lifesaver. 
9. Ask questions and for opportunities. If you do not know the answer to something, ask. If you want to have your work included in an exhibit, ask. 
10. Take criticism well. Some people do not do great at giving constructive criticism so don't beat yourself up if they don't. 

So go be confident in your efforts to become a real world graphic designer. As a Chicago graphic design firm, Integraphix loves the world of art and helping others get there. If you have any questions, contact us. 

Graphic Designer Trends Found in 2014

So 2014 is here and has been so for a few weeks. So far, so good. However, like in almost every industry, we see that there are things that are changing for graphic designers. The trends for the industry are taking a slightly new turn this year; some of these trends started taking shape in 2013 but they will really own the graphic design world this year.

As people, we tend to like change in things like art, fashion, design, web, etc. There is just something boring about these industries when they tend to become static and pump out the same concepts and designs time after time.

What are these trends? Let's find out.

• One of the biggest trends we are already seeing quite a bit of this year is that the simple designs are what people want. In the past, we saw a lot of designs for logos and graphics that included dimension, perhaps a lot of chaos and anything else you could throw at it. However, in 2014, that mindset for graphic designers is out and the simple stuff is in. Look at logos that are being created or redesigned this year and you will notice this to be true. For example, look at Google's logo; it used to have dimension but not it is flat and much more simple. Want to know what's interesting? It looks even better yet being simpler. 
• The second trend is that logos will be more creative. Yes, they will be simpler (as well as other graphic design work) but they will speak more about the company instead of being something random. 
• The third is that more natural looks are in and having a lot of photoshop is gone, baby, gone. This is particularly true for models; instead of taking photos of people with a lot of photoshop and other editing to place on websites and magazines, etc, people are opting for graphic design work that has few edits and looks much more natural. 

Bottom line, if you want to stay current in the industry this year, you'd better realize the new trends or risk being left out in the cold. If you have any questions about graphic design, then contact Integraphix - a Chicago graphic design firm. 

4 Mistakes Graphic Designers Make

The world of graphic design is great and artistic but not every graphic designer seems to have it nailed down. Just like any industry, there are certain unwritten "rules" one must obey or risk being frowned upon by fellow graphic designers. As a Chicago graphic design firm, we know all about these rules and hope to inform you of them as well.

Don't worry if this blog sounds pretentious, this little one can do to get around that. Just buckle up and enjoy the ride, my friend.

1. The first unwritten rule is to not use Publisher. Using Adobe Creative Suite can be expensive but you know what, there is a reason they are; these programs are good and perhaps the best ones used by graphic designers. Using Publisher is not the way to go to avoid the high costs of Adobe.  With these programs, your products will come out the best. 
2. The second unwritten rule is to have widows on your products. No, we don't mean women who have lost their husbands; we mean those single words that hang out on their own. Why is this bad? It just looks tacky and shows lack of creativity as well as falling to an old fad. Give the word a few friends and post something else with it. 
3. Low resolution images. Wow, this is one of the biggest and worst unwritten rules to break. Images from the internet have a dpi of 72 while images in print have a dpi of 300. When using a 72 dpi image, the gaps that exist are filled with color and the image comes out fuzzy. 
4. Not enough color. Yes, black and white whatever can look good but to do it for every stinkin' project you do is not only overkill but shows lack of design skill. Use that color! You will see more pleased consumers by using that color. 

If you are in need of graphic design work, then contact Integraphix - a Chicago graphic design firm who has 24 years of experience in the field. In addition to graphic design, Integraphix can offer web design, internet marketing, and more. Contact us for a free evaluation.