Overview
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John McWade presents a series that touches on all areas of design, helping designers new and old sharpen their skills and create more powerful work.
Syllabus
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Introduction
- Welcome
- Design a modern cover: Think simple, clean, and angular
- Transform a product sheet: Put your words here, not there
- Design a business card: Make it look like what it says
- Double your artwork for free: Use the same picture twice
- Design a ghosted logo: A picture always goes with itself
- Design a business card using repetitive shape
- Why round letters are bigger than straight ones
- Design a powerful poster: Work with your photo, not against it
- Design stationery that’s almost a brochure: Picture your product, not your logo
- Alignment: Your ruler’s good only for regular things
- Logo design: Think simple
- Your design needs a focal point: Dramatic photo anchors a strong makeover
- Chart your data with images
- Make a beautiful logo with off-the-shelf type
- How to transfer your look to a new format
- Angles
- The (very!) versatile art of the silhouette
- Easy, functional one-line design
- Signage: Consistency makes the brand
- Elementals: How black, white, and gray make depth
- A beautiful desk calendar you can make yourself
- Lesson of the counterintuitive logo
- How to design visual instructions
- Design a beautiful CD package
- Simple brochure presents your face to the public
- Soften the edge
- Small layout packs a big punch
- Shape it: Part one
- Shape it: Part two
- A logo makeover: Part one
- A logo makeover: Part two
- Grid collage
- People in a group on a grid
- Magazine cover redesign
- Designing cards with type alone
- Designing a small-space advertisement
- Designing a business card for a photographer
- Designing names with type and basic shapes
- Review of an outdoor sign logo
- Creating a small multipage brochure
- Designing with black, white, and gray
- Gestalt techniques: Isomorphism
- Redesigning a business card
- How to put motion on a static page
- The color wheel
- Layout decision points
- Designing a tiny brochure
- Panoramic spacing
- Multi-use format for a business card
- The boring book cover challenge: Part 1
- The boring book cover challenge: Part 2
- The single space practice
- Incorporating hairlines into your design
- Close enough with color choice
- More design techniques with grids
- Lanzarote calendar assignment
- Foreground focal point
- Stop, look, observe
- Working with a rule of thumb (dynamic) grid
- The humble power of negative space
- Go with the flow
- Learning by doing
- For the love of design!
- The boring book cover challenge, part 3
- Bold moves
- Simply beautiful
- Common but versatile looks
- Audacious philanthropy
- Simple slides
- Every face has a place
- Those little extras
- Seeing sight lines
- Swiss style grids, part 1
- Swiss style grids, part 2
- Poetic type
- Visual continuity
- Find your balance
- Procrastiworking with album covers
- Looking around: Why it works
- Don't fake it
- Find the focal point
- Tooth and texture
- Small and simple
- Design challenge: Dino Water
- Looking around: Address the audience
- Experimenting with borders
- Magazine layout triple threat
- Product ad comparison
- Lanzarote calendar assignment: Revisited
- Rewind: Simply beautiful
- Rewind: Seeing sight lines
- Find your center with typefaces
- Maki poster, part 1
- Maki poster, part 2
- Quick look: Decoded wallet case
- A type of luxury
- Quick look: Saltwater restaurant
- Quick look: Nick's Cove
- Less is more: Book covers
- Less is more: Notices
- Less is more: Posters
- Movement in design
- The British Academy: Logo
- The British Academy: Type
- The British Academy: Grid
- Quick look: Teavana rock sugar
- Ask John: Authentic advice
- Blue Note: Donald Byrd album cover
- Blue Note: Caddy Daddy, Part 1
- Blue Note: Caddy Daddy, Part 2
- Blue Note: Caddy Daddy, Part 3
- Ask John: Finding your passion
- It's all in the details: Lineweights
- Paper flyer redesign
- Set a headline with Gossamer
- Ask John: New business logo
- A new type: Helvetica Now
- In detail: Line values
- Typographic silence
- Rebranded: Uber
- Capture connection with authenticity
