Part Three of Seven Easy Principles to Becoming a Master Designer.

Good contrast in your design goes hand-in-hand with your color
selections. Contrast is the value difference between the colors on your
design. Value is how bright or dark the color (ink) is. Ever see a
blank white canvas and as a joke someone says: Hey its a white cow
in a snow storm! This is an example of no contrast. White on white is
no contrast you cant see anything.

Elementary right? I mean what kind of stupid tutorial is this? Im explaining that the piece Im designing needs to be visible?? This is a retarded concept for a tutorial right?

Wrong.

Because unfortunately, I see lots of problems with designers
contrast all the time. Not only that, but contrast, when used properly
can be an important tool.

Here is one big mistake I see frequently: Designers use color
difference to produce contrast instead of value difference. For
instance a medium value blue sitting on top of a medium value red
produces some contrast. You CAN see the difference between the two. But
when you have two colors together of the same value it produces what
is known as vibrating. Youll notice that at the line where the blue
and red meet your eye seems to oscillate back and forth between the
two. It almost feels like the text is pulsing.

If your goal is to produce something really vibrant you can use
this technique. But its hard on the eyes and most people will find it
annoying. Here is another example of the same design using different
colors that have more contrast:

This second one is obviously much easier on the eyes.

A quick way to evaluate your design to see if there is sufficient
contrast is to convert the entire thing to grey scale momentarily and
see if the design still looks clear and easy to read. In Illustrator
you do this by selecting your design, and select: Edit>Edit
Colors>Convert to Grayscale. In Photoshop youll need to flatten
your work then you can select: Image>Adjustments>Desaturate. This
will convert it to Grayscale.

In either case, youll want to undo this action once youve had a chance to see how your design looks put to this test.

Here is a sample of the same design one with good contrast, one
with bad contrast. And just under each one is how they both look in
grayscale.

You can clearly see how much easier it is to read the text in the
design on the left, particularly when its converted to grayscale. The
design on the right uses less contrast and more color difference to
define the shapes.

One question I get all the time is: what opacity setting should I
use for a background water mark? I think a good watermark background
should be between 10%-15% opaque. Once again this is all about
maintaining contrast in your design. If the background is light then
the watermark should obviously also be fairly light and vice versa.
Here is an example of a good and bad watermark:

The last little thing I want to note about contrast is how it can be
used as a tool. If, for instance, you have a need to direct your
audiences attention to something specific on your design you can
accomplish it with contrast! You might keep the entire design
relatively light and then make the one spot you want your audience to
focus on dark. Here is an example of a well designed landing page:

This is a page on E-Harmonys tour section of their website. While
they want to give people a tour, what they REALLY want to do is get
people to actually sign-up. So, when you look at this page what is
the biggest darkest thing on the page? Its a non-clickable picture of
a girl and the Get Started Now button. Obviously they want you to
click on the Get Started Now button. Look at how much bigger and
darker the Get Started Now button is compared to the Next Step
button. The Next Step button is what someone on the tour SHOULD be
pushing to continue the tour but how tempting is that Get Started Now
button? And why? Why does it jump off the page at you? Simple
CONTRAST!

This concludes a fairly basic but fundamentally critical lesson in
design. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Four more basics to
go. After that I promise Ill teach you how to draw!

Barton Damer was kind enough to let us repost this article on the zine. What do you think? Do you need a degree to be a designer these days?

There are many potential paths you could follow in the world of design. Graphic Art is the term I gravitate towards the most for my own work. Theres often a fine line to distinguish the difference between graphic art and graphic design but it usually relies on less layout of typography and more visual development. A growing field for graphic artists is Motion Design (aka motion graphics). At its basic level, you are simply making your graphic art move. Ultimately, it helps to know a lot about all aspects of design whether its web, print or motion. Eventually, youll find your sweet spot but youll need a good base in design principles first.

School is always a good option but not necessary. Its a c****ination of motivation, knowledge and ability. If one is missing, the formula is incomplete. School will provide the knowledge to improve your ability. School not only allows you to learn great design principles and be critiqued by others, but you will always grow faster when you are surrounded and challenged by others who are doing the same. Additionally, the people you meet in school will go on to be in your industry and it always helps to have that connection 5-10 years down the road. School also helps you form discipline. Youll have to be highly motivated and naturally talented to make a career out of design without an education.

Not all design students are great designers. Motivation is the key to gaining knowledge. Not school. If you have the drive to be a designer, you will find plenty of knowledge online. You can also improve your ability and be challenged by online artist communities. Not going to school is definitely possible in this industry. I have friends that own their own businesses and write code for websites from scratch without ever having gone to college. There are designers that have made great livings for themselves without an art degree. Although skipping school is probably not the norm or the suggested method, going to school does not necessarily guarantee success either. Like any major, people often graduate and do not even find a job in that field.

I went to school for Commercial Art. I learned everything from oil painting to Photoshop. My experience, however, was that I learned principles in class; but not really the software. Learning software on your own or with the aid of tutorials, etc. is a part of the design life. The classroom was more about giving me projects and critiquing them. I learned and tried web design using Flash and Dreamweaver back in the day. I quickly gave that up. I realized that I needed to be able to write code to really have a future in web. That wasnt going to happen. Ive learned Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Illustrator, Cinema 4d, and all sorts of software on my own since school. The software is constantly changing so even if you find your classroom setting useful for learning programs; that wont help you 5 years after youve graduated school. Youll need to learn how to keep up with software on your own. There is no rest when it comes to keeping up with technology.
Overall, I would recommend a good education. That is not available to everyone though so buying a computer and software might make more sense if you are motivated enough to learn what is needed. A strong portfolio will speak louder than a resume or degree.