Brad Colbow http://virb.com/bcolbow Virb 2.0 (@bcolbow) en Happy Haloween http://virb.com/bcolbow/photos/1453688 ]]> Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:08:47 -0700 http://virb.com/bcolbow/photos/1453688 Design Questionnaire http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/1068892 I'm not sure why, but over the last few weeks I've gotten several requests from design students to do interviews. Since it seems to be a popular topic I figured I put up some questions I received yesterday along with my answers.

1. What skills/education did you acquire to obtain your current position?
I went to Kent State university in Ohio and studied Advertising and minored in graphic design. Before going solo and starting my business I spent several years working at agencies building up my portfolio. Even as important was joining local groups and associations where I could meet other creatives and marketing folks who helped me grow as a designer and help me find work and clients over time.

2. How long have you been in the graphics career?
I graduated almost 9 years ago.

3. What was your hardest part in finding a job?
Early on it was the lack of work to show. My first full time web design position came as a result of designing my church's website. My future boss was impressed that I wanted to spend my free time designing websites even though that design I was showing was absolutely terrible.

4. How did you find out about your current position?
In Cleveland where I live the agencies don't pay much (relatively speaking). Many of the good designers in this area usually leave town after a few years. The other option is to get out from company life and start your own. With a good portfolio and some know how it's pretty easy to set yourself up as a freelancer.

5. What do you think was the most important thing that helped you obtain your current job?
Meeting people. I spent years going to work in the morning and leaving 8 hours later. Once I started networking after work and got out to meet other people in my field in my spare time a lot of opportunities opened up. It took years to build a network but it's been the most valuable thing I ever did.

6. What type of portfolio do you have?]]> Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:07:05 -0800 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/1068892 The Design Process Step by Step http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/970672 Potential clients are often taken off guard when I tell them how much a new website design will cost. When they look through a portfolio they just see the finished design and not everything that went into creating it.]]> Mon, 08 Dec 2008 06:48:50 -0800 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/970672 Seperating Cartoons from Content http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/957834 Over the last couple months my writing has gone down quite a bit as I've spent more and more time drawing The Brads, my not so weekly comic strip. I've really enjoyed working on the comic, it's a fun outlet or my illustration. I've enjoyed it so much I've been working on getting the strip it's own home online.

The site you're reading now is my businesses' website. As I added more and more comics I felt like it was sending mixed messages to new visitors who were looking for website design.]]> Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:31:26 -0800 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/957834 The Brads - @Twitter http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/930057 Twitter - the Brads

]]> Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:47:59 -0800 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/930057 The Brads - At the Conference http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/886975 An Event Apart - The Brads

]]> Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:13:18 -0700 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/886975 The Brads - Nigerian Scammers http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/878305 the Brads

]]> Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:42:39 -0700 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/878305 Tutorial: How to draw Me, Dielman and a pig http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/870613 Recently I had the privilege of writing a tutorial for VectorTuts. I walk you through how to ink and color a cartoon in Illustrator. Anyone can check out the full tutorial here, but if you have a subscription to the site you can download the fully editable final vector file.

If yo came here looking for the comics you can check them out in The Brads category of this blog.

Brad Colbow Brad Dielman

]]> Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:11:59 -0700 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/870613 The Brads - Dinosaur http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/851401 The Brads a comic about web design

]]> Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:20:20 -0700 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/851401 The Brads - In Need of Help http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/839098 The Brads 7 - a comic about web design

]]> Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:25:55 -0700 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/839098 The Brads - On Vacation http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/803289 The Brads 6

]]> Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:09:24 -0700 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/803289 The Evolution of the McCain Logo http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/802425 I was catching up with all my Internet reading after being out this weekend and I had to check out what happened in the world of politics. I went to the McCain website to see if he had Palin's name on his logo and he didn't disappoint. It was pretty much what I expected, but it looked a little off. After taking a closer look the font got bolder.

mccain logo evolution

I know the Obama logo gets a lot off attention for being so different, but I really like(d) the McCain logo. It works well on blue but the original black and yellow was quite striking. The star up top gave it a slight military feel without hitting you over the head.

I am a little disappointed in the bolder font in the new logo. The font is a slightly modified version on Optima. Below is a cleaner comparison of the bold and extra bold versions of the fonts.

Mcain logo optima font

The problem with this font is that as it grows in width the slight indents on the top and bottom of the characters appear to deeper. It's an illusion but it loses some of it's character as it gets bolder. I put an arrow in to show what I'm talking about. The more noticeable indents also makes the font look less crisp and almost blurry.

]]> Tue, 02 Sep 2008 01:42:37 -0700 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/802425 The Brads - Conference Call http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/791332 The Brads Conference call

]]> Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:19:20 -0700 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/791332 The Brads 4 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/780134 The Brads 4

]]> Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:28:35 -0700 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/780134 The Bradz #3 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/769111 The Bradz 3

]]> Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:33:43 -0700 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/769111 Designers, Just Chill Out http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/758211 A couple days ago someone looking for a graphic designer went to the local Craigslist page and posted this.

Looking for an in house web designer for an entertainment company. Low pay & Long hours - Some non-music related work as well. Some experience needed especially in Dreamweaver, Photoshop, creating databases, etc. - Its okay if you use other programms just be familliar with them.

One of the designers who responded and found out that the job only paid $7.00 an hour posted this.

$7.00/hr?! Seriously?!

You expect somebody to work as an in-house web designer for $7.00 an hour, when almost ANY job pays higher?]]> Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:55:34 -0700 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/758211 The Bradz #2 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/756401 The Bradz 2

]]> Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:11:04 -0700 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/756401 The Bradz #1 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/745826 The Bradz

]]> Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:31:45 -0700 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/745826 Pushing Back - Don't Make that Change http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/738556 I had the chance to spend an afternoon working at Designing Interactive (D-I) this past week. It was a good time. Not the most productive afternoon, but sometimes a little unproductivity one day can bear fruit down the road.

I was chatting with a local developer working co-working in the conference room and he was telling me about his new freelancing business. I asked him what would separate his business from others already out there. Without blinking he said he would focus on speed and quality, or basically offering better service than everyone else. Makes sense, that's pretty much what I've done and it's worked really well.

Afterwords I got to thinking about what better service means to web designer/developers. Traditionally I thought it meant when a client calls and tells you to jump you ask "How High?". When I started freelancing fulltime about a year ago I was going to be the fastest most responsive guy you could hire. My service was going to be top notch. You want a red butterfly instead of orange I'll get it to you in an hour. What I've learned is that isn't what people really want. A quick turnaround is appreciated, but what they really want is quality. Quality comes from understanding what the client needs and the client understanding how you plan on meeting those needs.

I find myself spending hours every day just explaining why I made the decisions I made. A lot of that time is spent telling them why I don't want to make the changes they sent over. I do it professionally of coarse. It's part of the dialoge that you build on successful projects.

Every design is going to have changes. If I get a list of things to change I try and understand why each one is being made. Some changes completely change the tone or structure of a layout. Usually if you talk it thought you can figure out why a change is being made and offer up a better solution.

It's natural for a client to try to solve problems they see in a design, they know their business inside and out, but I'm the profesional with years of design experience. I'm the one they hired to solve the problem. The end result is so much better when you take the time to help them solve their problems instead of just making whatever changes get sent over. That is service and that's what drives my business.

]]> Sat, 26 Jul 2008 01:50:18 -0700 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/738556 Don't Forget the Design Fundementals http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/729922 To this day I still remember the very first project I did in my intro to graphic design class. We had to take a big piece of bristol board and write down the ten principals of design. I think ten is a bit lengthy, so here are the ones I like the best:

  • Size contrast
  • Hierarchy
  • Alignment
  • Consistency

Whenever I get stuck on a design I go back to these principals to pull it all back together. I also think back to these principals when I look at other designs. Recently I came upon (what I believe is) the new Romanian site for Lipton Tea. The design has been making the rounds on inspirational blogs and galleries and I can see why, at first glance it's a great looking site. The designer(s) who worked on it are obviously talented.

Lipton 1

At the same time I also felt like this site was lacking something. There is some awesome Photoshop work going on here, but some of the basic design principals were missing.

Size Contrast and Hierarchy

There are a lot of similarly shaped sections of this page making it hard to find the focal point of your page.

Lipton 2

Overwhelm your visitor with to many messages at once and they will get lost and probably bail. The sections are also very close together in size. This would be very easy to fix by expanding the photo area to be wider, maybe the width of the page and incorporate the text to the left of it. That would change the shape and increase it's size making it the visitors focus when they land on the page. The most important message on the page should be the largest and most visible.

Alignment

This is where a lot of unconventionally designed sites have a hard time. When you have boxes it's easy to line them up, when you are using more organic shapes the alignments aren't as clear. Since there is no coherent grid structure to the page each element becomes its own floating island.

Lipton 3

A very effective design element is having a a clear structure and having elements break the borders of that structure. It looks like that's what is trying to happen here but since there is little structure the photo elements look more like an afterthought. A site that does this well is the new GoMedia redesign. The reason the organic shapes work so well is because there is a structure there to break.

GoMedia

Consistency

Going back to the grid image of the Lipton site above, you can see there is little consistency in the width of the columns. There is also little consistency in size and shape. Consistency also helps visitors to navigate. Here it's hard to tell what is a link and what is text. Using the same color or button image or syle will clear that up. A little inconsistency can make your design exciting, but too much and it becomes chaotic.

]]> Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:16:00 -0700 http://virb.com/bcolbow/posts/text/729922